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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27017	The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is shewed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Herbert, George, 1593-1633.	1650 (1650)	Wing B1383; ESTC R17757	797,603	962

clay to totter Look on thy glass and see how it runs Look on thy watch how fast it getteth what a short moment is between us and our Rest what a step is it from hence to Everlastingness While I am thinking and writing of it it hasteth neer and I am even entring into it before I am aware While thou art reading this it p●steth on and thy life will be gone as a tale that is told Mayst thou not easily foresee thy dying time and look upon thy self as ready to depart It s but a few dayes till thy friends shall lay thee in the grave and others do the like for them If you verily believed you should dye to morrow how seriously would you think of Heaven to night The condemned prisoner knew before that he 〈◊〉 dye and yet he was then as Jovial as any but when he hears the sentence and knows he hath not a week to live then how it sinkes his heart within him So that the true apprehensions of the neerness of Eternity doth make mens thoughts of it to be quick and piercing and put life into their fears and sorrowes if they are unfitted and into their desires and Joyes if they have assurance of its glory When the Witches Samuel had told Saul By to morrow this time thou shalt be with me this quickly worked to his very heart and laid him down as dead on the earth And if Christ should say to a believing soul By to morrow this time thou shalt be with me this would be a working word indeed and would bring him in spirit to Heaven before As Melanchton was wont to say of his uncertain station because of the persecution of his enemies Ego jam sum hic Dei beneficio 40. annos et nunquam potui dicere aut certus esse me per unam septimanam mansurum esse i. e. I have now been here this fourty yeers and yet could never say or be sure that I shall tarry here for one week so may we all say of our abode on earth As long as thou hast continued out of heaven thou canst not say thou shalt be out of it one week longer Do but suppose that you are still entring in it and you shall finde it will much help you more seriously to minde it SECT IV. 4. ANother help to this Heavenly Life is To be much in serious discoursing of it especially with those that can speak from their hearts and are seasoned themselves with an heavenly nature It s pitty saith Mr. Bolton that Christians should ever meet together without some talk of their meeting in Heaven or the way to it before they part Its pitty so much pretious time is spent among Christians in vain discourses foolish janglings and useless disputes and not a sober word of Heaven among them Methinks we should meet together of purpose to warm our spirits with discoursing of our Rest. To hear a Minister or private Christian set forth that blessed Glorious State with power and life from the Promises of the Gospel Methinks should make us say as the two Disciples Did not our hearts burn within us while he was opening to us the Scripture while he was opening to us the windows of Heaven If a Felix or wicked wretch will tremble when he hears his judgment powerfully denounced why should not the believing soul be revived when he hears his Eternal Rest revealed Get then together fellow Christians and talk of the affairs of your Country and Kingdom and comfort one another with such words 1 Thess. 4.18 If Worldlings get together they will be talking of the World when Wantons are together they will be talking of their Lusts and wicked men can be delighted in talking of wickedness and should not Christians then delight themselves in talking of Christ and the heirs of heaven in talking of their Inheritance This may make our hearts revive within us as it did Jacobs to hear the Message that called him to Goshen and to see the Chariots that should bring him to Joseph O that we were furnished with skil and resolution to turn the stream of mens common discourse to these more sublime and pretious things And when men begin to talk of things unprofitable that we could tell how to put in a word for heaven and say as Peter of his bodily food Not so for I eat not that which is common and unclean this is nothing to my eternal Rest O the good that we might both do and receive by this course If it had not been needful to deter us from unfruitful conference Christ would not have talked of giving an account of every idle word at judgment say then as David when you are in conference Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chiefest mirth And then you shall finde the truth of that Prov. 15.4 A wholsom tongue is a Tree of Life SECT V. 5. ANother help to this Heavenly Life is this Make it thy business in every duty to winde up thy affections neerer Heaven A mans attainments and receivings from God are answerable to his own desires and ends that which he sincerely seeks he findes Gods end in the institution of his Ordinances was that they be as so many stepping stones to our Rest and as the staires by which in subordination to Christ we may daily ascend unto it in our affections Let this be thy end in using them as it was Gods end in ordaining them and doubtless they will not be unsuccessful though men be personally far asunder yet they may even by Letters have a great deal of entercourse How have men been rejoyced by a few lines from a friend though they could not see him face to face what gladness have we when we do but read the expressions of his Love or if we read of our friends prosperity and welfare Many a one that never saw the fight hath triumphed and shouted made Bonefires and rung Bels when he hath but heard and read of the Victory and may not we have entercourse with God in his Ordinances though our persons be yet so far remote May not our spirits rejoyce in the reading those lines which contain our Legacy and Charter for heaven with what Gladness may we read the expressions of Love and hear of the state of our Celestial Country with what triumphant shoutings may we applaud our Inheritance though yet we have not the happiness to behold it Men that are separated by sea and land can yet by the meer entercourse of Letters carry on both great and gainful trades even to the value of their whole estate and may not a Christian in the wise improvement of duties drive on this happy trade for Rest Come not therefore with any lower ends to duties Renounce Formality Customariness and Applause When thou kneelest down in secret or publike prayer let it be in hope to get thy heart neerer God before

living is not contemptible As every one of them now knows his own sore and his own grief so shall every one then feel his own Joy and if they can now call Christ their own and call God their own God how much more then upon their full possession of him For as he takes his people for his inheritance so will he himself be the inheritance of his people of ever SECT IV. A Fourth comfortable adjunct of this Rest is that it is in the fellowship of the Blessed Saints and Angels of God Not so singular will the Christian be as to be solitary Though it be proper to the Saints only yet is it common to all the Saints For what is it but an Association of Blessed spirits in God A corporation of perfected Saints whereof Christ is the head the communion of Saints compleated Nor doth this make those joyes to be therefore mediate derived by creatures to us as here For all the lines may be drawn from the center and not from each other and yet their collocation make them more comely then one alone could be Though the strings receive not their sound and sweetnes from each other yet their concurrence causeth that harmony which could not be by one alone For those that have prayed and fasted and wept and watcht and waited together now to joy and enjoy and praise together methinks should much advance their pleasure Whatsoever it will be upon the great change that will be wrought in our natures perfected sure I am according to the present temperature of the most sanctified humane affections it would affect exceedingly And he who mentioneth the qualifications of our happiness of purpose that our joy may be full and maketh so oft mention of our consociation and conjunction in his praises sure doth hereby intimate to us that this will be some advantage to our joyes Certain I am of this Fellow-Christians that as we have been together in the labour duty danger and distress so shall we be in the great recompence and deliverance and as we have been scorned and despised so shall we be crowned and honored together and we who have gone through the day of sadness shall enjoy together that day of Gladness and those who have been with us in persecution and prison shall be with us also in that palace of consolation Can the willful world say If our forefathers and friends be all in Hell why we will venture there too and may not the Christian say on better grounds seeing my faithful friends are gone before me to Heaven I am much the more willing to be there too Oh the Blessed day Dear friends when we that were wont to enquire together and hear of heaven and talk of heaven together shall then live in Heaven together When we who are wont to complain to one another and open our doubts to one another and our feares whether ever we should come there or no shall then rejoyce with one another and triumph over those doubts and feares when we who were wont formerly in private to meet together for mutual edification shall now most publikely be conioyned in the same consolation Those same disciples who were wont to meet in a private house for fear of the Jews are now met in the Celestial habitations without fear and as their fear then did cause them to shut the door against their enemies so will Gods Justice shut it now Oh when I look in the faces of the pretious people of God and believingly think of this day what a refreshing thought is it shall we not there remember think you the pikes which we passed together here our fellowship in duty and in sufferings how oft our groanes made as it were one sound our conjunct teares but one stream and our conjunct desires but one prayer and now all our prayses shall make up one melody and all our Churches one Church and all our selves but one body for we shall be one in Christ even as he and the father are one It s true we must be very carefull in this case that in our thoughts we look not for that in the Saints which is alone in Christ and that we give them not his own prerogative nor expect too great a part of our comfort in the fruition of them we are prone enough to this kinde of Idolatry But yet he who Commands us so to love them now will give us leave in the same subordination to himself to love them then when himself hath made them much more lovely And if we may love them we shall surely reioyce in them for love and enjoyment cannot stand without an answerable Joy If the forethoughts of sitting down with Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God may be our lawful Joy then how much more that real fight and actual possession It cannot chuse but be comfortable to me to think of that day when I shall joyn with Moses in his song with David in his Psalms of praise and with all the redeemed in the song of the Lamb for ever When we shall see Henoch walking with God Noah enjoying the end of his singularity Joseph of his Integrity Job of his patience Hezekiah of his uprightness and all the Saints the end of their faith Will it be nothing conducible to the compleating of our comforts to live eternally with Peter Paul Austin Chrysostom Jerome Wickliffe Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Bullinger Zanchius Pareus Piscator with Hooper Bradford Latimer Glover Saunders Philpot with Reignolds Whitaker Cartwright Brightman Bayne Bradshaw Bolton Ball Hildersham Pemble Twisse Ames Preston Sibbes O faelicem diem said old Grynoeus quum ad illud animorum concilium proficiscar ex hac turba Colluione discedam O happy day when I shall depart out of this crown and sink and go to that same counsell of soules I know that Christ is all in all and that it is the presence of God that maketh Heaven to be Heaven But yet it much sweeteneth the thoughts of that place to me to remember that there are such a multitude of my most dear and pretious friends in Christ with whom I took sweet counsell and with whom I went up to the house of God who walked with me in the fear of God and in integrity of their hearts in the face of whose conversations there was written the name of Christ whose sweet and sensible mention of his Excellencies hath made my heart to burn within me To think of such a friend died at such a time and such a one at another time such a pretious Christian slain at such a fight and such a one at such a fight oh what a number of them could I name and that all these are entered into rest and we shall surely go to them but they shall not return to us It s a Question with some Whether we shall know each other in Heaven or no Surely there shall no knowledg cease which now

Kingdom of his Father To have necessities but no supply is the case of them in Hell to have necessity supplied by the means of Creatures is the case of us on Earth to have necessity supplied immediately from God is the case of the Saints in Heaven to have no necessity at all is the prerogative of God himself The more of God is seen and received with and by the means and Creature here the neerer is our state like that in glory In a word We have now our Mercies as Benjamin had Josephs cup we finde them at a distance from God and scarcely know from whence they come and understand not the good will intended in them but are oft ready to fear they come in wrath and think they will but work our ruine But when we shall feed at Josephs own house yea receive our portion from his own hand when he shall fully unbowel his love unto us and take us to dwell in Goshen by him when we shall live in our Fathers house and presence and God shall be All and in All then are we indeed at home in Rest. SECT VI. SIxthly Again a further excellency is this It will be unto us a seasonable Rest. He that expecteth the fruit of his Vineyard in season and maketh his people as Trees planted by the waters fruitful in their season he will also give them the Crown in season He that will have the words of Joy spoken to the weary in season will sure cause that time of Joy to appear in the meetest season And they who knew the season of Grace and did repent and believe in season shall also if they faint not reap in season If God will not miss the season of common Mercies even to his enemies but will give both the former and latter rain in their season and the appointed weeks of the Harvest in its season and by an inviolable Covenant hath established day and night in their seasons Then sure the Harvest of the Saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season Doubtless he that would not stay a day longer then his promise but brought Israel out of Egypt that self same day that the 430 yeers were expired neither will he fail of one day or hour of the fittest season for his peoples glory And as Christ failed not to come in the fulness of time even then when Daniel and others had foretold his coming so in the fulness and fitness of time will his second coming be He that hath given the Stork the Crane the Swallow to know their appointed time will surely keep his time appointed When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness will not the day-breaking and the arising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable When we have endured a hard Winter in this cold Climate will not the reviving Spring be then seasonable When we have as Paul sailed slowly many days and much time spent and sailing now grown more dangerous and when neither Sun nor Stars in many days appear and no small tempest lieth on us and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away do you think the Haven of Rest is not then seasonable When we have passed a long and tedious Journey and that through no small dangers is not Home then seasonable When we have had a long and perilous War and have lived in the midst of furious Enemies and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch and received from them many a wound would not a Peace with Victory be now seasonable When we have been captivated in many yeers imprisonment and insulted over by scornful foes and suffered many pinching wants and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful State even from this prison to a Throne be now seasonable Surely a man would think who looks upon the face of the World that Rest should to all men seem seasonable Some of us are languishing under continual weakness and groaning under most grievous pains crying in the morning Would God it were evening and in the evening Would God it were morning weary of going weary of sitting weary of standing weary of lying weary of eating of speaking of waking weary of our very friends weary of our selves O how oft hath this been mine own case and is not Rest yet seasonable Some are complaining under the pressures of the times weary of their Taxes weary of their Quartering weary of Plunderings weary of their fears and dangers weary of their poverty and wants and is not Rest yet seasonable Whither can you go or into what company can you come where the voyce of complaining doth not shew that men live in a continual weariness but especially the Saints who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel What godly society almost can you fall into but you shall hear by their moans that somewhat aileth them some weary of a blinde minde doubting concerning the way they walk in unsetled in almost all their thoughts some weary of a hard heart some of a proud some of a passionate and some of all these and much more some weary of their daly doubtings and feares concerning their spiritual estate and some of the want of spiritual Joyes and some of the sense of Gods wrath and is not Rest now seasonable when a poor Christian hath desired and prayed and waited for deliverance many a year is it not then seasonable When he is ready almost to give up and saith I am afraid I shall not reach the end and that my faith and patience will scarce hold out is not this a fit season for Rest If it were to Joseph a seasonable message which called him from the Prison to Pharohs Court Or if the return of his Benjamin the tidings that Joseph was yet alive and the sight of the Chariots which should convoy him to Egypt were seasonable for the Reviving of Jacobs Spirits then me thinks the message for a release from the flesh and our convoy to Christ should be a seasonable and welcome message If the voice of the King were seasonable to Daniel early in the morning calling him from his Den that he might advance him to more then former dignity then me thinks that morning voice of Christ our King calling us from our terrors among Lyons to possesse his Rest among his Saints should be to us a very seasonable voice Will not Canaan be seasonable after so many years travel and that through a hazardous and grievous Wilderness Indeed to the world its never in season they are already at their own home and have what they most desire they are not weary of their present State the Saints sorrow is their Joy and the Saints weariness is their Rest Their weary day is coming where there is no more expectation of Rest But for the thirsty soul to enjoy the fountain and the hungry to be filled with the bread

be to be Catechized but be ashamed that you had not learned soone● God forbid you should be so mad as to say I am now too old to learn Except you be too old to serve God and be saved how can you be too old to learn to be saved Why not rather I am too old to serve the Devil and the world I have tryed them too long to trust them any more What if your parents had not taught you any trade to live by or what if they had never taught you to speak would not you have set your selves to learn when you had come to age Remember that you have souls to care for as well as your children and therefore first begin with your selves 4. In the mean time while you are learn●ng your selves teach your children what do you know and what you cannot teach them your selves put them on to learn it of others that can perswade them into the company of the godly who will be glad to instruct them If French men or Welsh men lived in the Town among us that could not understand our language would they not converse with those that do understand it and would they not daily send their children to learn it by being in the company of those that speak it so do you that you may learn the heavenly language Get among those that use it and encourage your children to do so to Have you no godly neighbours that will be helpful to you herein O do not keep your selves strange to them but go among them and desire their help and be thankful to them that they will entertain you into their company God forbid you should be like those that Christ speakes of Luke 11.52 that would neither enter into the Kingdom of God themselves nor suffer those that would to enter God forbid you should be such cruel barbarous wretches as to hinder your children from being godly and to teach them to to be wicked And yet alas how many such are there swarming every where among us If God do but touch the hearts of their children or servants and cause them to heare and read the Word and call upon him and accompany with the godly who will sooner scorn them and revile them and discourage them then an ungodly parent What say they you will now be one of the holy brethren You will be wiser then your parents c. Just such as Pharaoh was to the Israelites such are these wicked wretches to their own children Exod. 5.3 8 9. When Moses said Let us go sacrif●ce to the Lord lest ●e fall upon us with pestilence or sword c Pharaoh answers They are idle therefore they say let us go sacrifice lay more work upon them c. Just so do these people say to their children You know Pharaoh was the representer of the divel and yet let me tell you These ungodly parents are far worse then Pharaoh For the children of Israel were many thousands and were to go three dayes journey out of the land but these men hinder their children from serving God at home Pharaoh was not their father but their King but these men are enemies to the children of their bodies Nay more let me te●l you I know none on earth that play the part of the divel himself more truly then these men And if any thing that walks in flesh may be called a divel I think it is a parent that thus hinderech his children from salvation I solemnly professe I do not speak one jot worse of these men then I do think and verily believe in my soul Nay take it how you will I will say thus much more I verily think that in this they are far worse then the divel God is a righteous Judg and will not make the Divel himself worse then he is I pray you ●e patient while you consider it and then judg your selves They are the parents of their children and so is not the divel Do you think then that it is as great a fault in him to seek their destruction as in them Is it as great a fault for the VVoolf to kill the Lambs as for their own dams to do it Is it so horrid a fault for an enemy in war to kill a childe Or for a bear or a mad dog to kill it as for the mother to dash i● b●ains against the wall You know it is not Do not you think then that it is so hateful a thing in Satan to entice your children to sin and hell and to discourage and disswade them from holiness and from heaven as it is in you You are bound to love them by nature more then Satan is O then what people are those that will teach their children in stead of holiness to curse and swear and raile and backbite to be proud and revengeful to break the Lords day and to despise his wayes to speak wantonly and filthily to scorn at holiness and glory in sin O when God shall ask these children Where learned you this language and practice and they shall say I learned it of my father or mother I would not be in the case of those parents for all the world Alas is it a work that 's worth the teaching to undo themselves for ever Or can they not without teaching learn it too easily of themselves Do you need to teach a Serpent to sting or a Lyon to be fierce Do you need to sow weeds in your garden will they not grow of themselves To build a house requires skill and teaching but a little may serve to set a town on fire To heal the wounded or the sick requireth skill but to make a man sick or to kill him requireth but little You may sooner teach your children to swear then to pray and to mock at godliness then to be true godly If these parents were sworn enemies to their children and should study seven yeers how to do them the greatest mischief they could not possibly finde out a surer way then by drawing them to sin and withdrawing them from God SECT XVI I Shall therefore conclude with this earnest request to all Christian parents that read these lines that they would have compassion on the souls of their poor children and be faithful to the great trust that God hath put on them O Sirs if you cannot do what you would do for them yet do what you can Both Church and State Cities and Countrey do groan under the neglect of this weighty duty your children know not God nor his Laws but take his name in vain and slieght his worship and you do neither instruct them nor correct them and therefore doth God correct both them and you You are so tender of them that God is the le●● tender both of them and you Wonder not if God make you smart for your childrens sins for you are guilty of all they commit by your neglect of doing your duty to reform them even as he that maketh a man drunk is

Glory VVhy think then with thy self If this grain of Mustard seed be so precious what is the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God If a spark of life which will but strive against corruptions and flame out a few desires and groans be so much worth how glorious then is the Fountain and End of this life If we be said to be like God and to bear his Image and to be holy as he is holy when alas we are pressed down with a body of sin Sure we shall then be much liker God when we are perfectly holy and without blemish and have no such thing as sin within us Is the desire after Heaven so precious a thing what then is the thing it self which is desired Is the love so excellent what then is the beloved Is our joy in foreseeing and believing so sweet what will be the joy in the full possessing O the delight that a Christian hath in the lively exercise of some of these affections VVhat good do's it to his very heart when he can feelingly say He loves his Lord what sweetness is there in the very act of loving yea even those troubling Passions of Sorrow and Fear are yet delightful when they are rightly exercised How glad is a poor Christian when he feeleth his heart begin to melt and when the thoughts of sinful unkindness will dissolve it Even this Sorrow doth yield him matter of Joy O what will it then be when we shall do nothing but know God and love and rejoyce and praise and all this in the highest perfection what a comfort is it to my doubting soul when I have a little assurance of the sincerity of my graces when upon examination I can but trace the Spirit in his sanctifying works How much more will it comfort me to finde that this Spirit hath safely conducted me and left me in the arms of Jesus Christ what a change was it that the Spirit made upon my soul when he first turned me from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God To be taken from that horrid state of nature wherein my self and my actions were loathsom to God and the sentence of death was past upon me and the Almighty took me for his utter enemy and to be presently numbred among his Saints and called his Friend his Servant his Son and the sentence revoked which was gone forth O what a change was this To be taken from that state wherein I was born and had lived delightfully so many yeers and was rivetted in it by custom and engagements when thousands of sins did lie upon my score and if I had so died I had been damned for ever and to be justified from all these enormous crimes and freed from all these fearful plagues and put into the title of an Heir of Heaven O what an astonishing change was this Why then consider how much greater will that glorious change then be Beyond expressing beyond conceiving How oft when I have thought of this change in my Regeneration have I cryed out O blessed day and blessed be the Lord that I ever saw it why how then shall I cry out in Heaven O blessed Eternity and blessed be the Lord that brought me to it Was the mercy of my conversion so exceeding great that the Angels of God did rejoyce to see it Sure then the mercy of my salvation will be so great that the same Angels will congratulate my felicity This Grace is but a spark that is raked up in the ashes it is covered with flesh from the sight of the world and covered with corruption sometime from mine-own sight But my Everlasting glory will not so be clouded nor my light be under a bushel but upon a hill even upon Sion the Mount of God SECT XIIII 12. LAstly compare the joyes which thou shalt have above with those foretastes of it which the Spirit hath given thee here Judg of the Lyon by the Paw and of the Ocean of Joy by that drop which thou hast tasted Thou hast here thy strongest refreshing comforts but as that man in Hell would have had the water to cool him a little upon the tip of the finger for thy tongue to taste yet by this little thou maist conjecture at the quality of the whole Hath not God sometime revealed himself extraordinarily to thy soul and let a drop of glory fall upon it Hast thou not been ready to say O that it might be thus with my soul continually and that I might always feel what I feel sometimes Didst thou never cry out with the Martyr after thy long and doleful expectations He is come he is come Didst thou never in a lively Sermon of Heaven nor in thy retired contemplations on that blessed State perceive thy drooping spirits revive and thy dejected heart to lift up the head and the light of Heaven to break forth to thy soul as a morning Star or as the dawning of the day Didst thou never perceive thy heart in these duties to be as the childe that Elisha revived to wax warm within thee and to recover life VVhy think with thy self then what is this earnest to the full Inheritance Alas all this light that so amazeth and rejoyceth me is but a Candle lighted from Heaven to lead me thither through this world of darkness If the light of a Star in the night be such or the little glimmering at the break of the day what then is the light of the Sun at noontide If some godly men that we read of have been overwhelmed with joy till they have cryed out Hold Lord stay thy hand I can bear no more like weak eyes that cannot endure too great a light O what will then be my joyes in Heaven when as the object of my joy shall be the most glorious God so my soul shall be made capable of seeing and enjoying him and though the light be ten thousand times greater then the Suns yet my eyes shall be able for ever to behold it Or if thou be one that hast not felt yet these sweet foretastes for every beleever hath not felt them then make use of the former delights which thou hast felt that thou maist the better discern what hereafter thou shalt feel And thus I have done with the fifth part of this Directory and shewed you on what grounds to advance your Meditations and how to get them to quicken your affections by comparing the unseen delights of Heaven with those smaller which you have seen and felt in the flesh CHAP. XII How to manage and watch over the Heart through the whole Work SECT 1. SIxthly The sixt and last part of this Directory is To guide you in the managing of your hearts through this work and to shew you wherein you have need to be exceeding watchful I have shewed before what must be done with your hearts in your preparations to the work and in your setting upon it I shall now shew