03.12.2018 Views

The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

after day." Give not God cause thus to expostulate with us. Rather let our<br />

souls get up to God, and visit him every morning, and our hearts be towards<br />

him every moment.<br />

11. Our interest in heaven, and our relation to it, should continually keep<br />

our hearts upon it. <strong>The</strong>re our Father keeps his court. We call him "Our<br />

Father, who art in heaven." Unworthy children, that can be so taken up in<br />

their play as to be mindless of such a Father. <strong>The</strong>re also is Christ, our head,<br />

our husband, our life; and shall we not look towards him, and send to him as<br />

oft as we can, till we come to see him face to face? Since "the heavens must<br />

receive him until the times of the restitution of all things," let them also<br />

receive our hearts with him. <strong>The</strong>re also is the "New Jerusalem, which is the<br />

mother of us all." And there are multitudes of our elder brethren. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />

our friends and old acquaintance, whose society in the flesh we so much<br />

delighted in, and whose departure hence we so much lamented; and is this<br />

not attractive to thy thoughts? If they were within thy reach on earth, thou<br />

wouldst go and visit them; and why not oftener visit them in spirit, and<br />

rejoice beforehand to think of meeting them there? "Socrates rejoiced that he<br />

should die, because he believed he should see Homer, Hesiod, and other<br />

eminent persons. How much more do I rejoice," said a pious old minister,<br />

"who am sure to see Christ my Savior, the eternal Son of God, in his<br />

assumed flesh; besides so many wise, holy and renowned patriarchs,<br />

prophets, and apostles." A believer should look to heaven, and contemplate<br />

the blessed state of the saints, and think with himself, "Though I am not yet<br />

so happy as to be with you, yet this is my daily comfort,--you are my<br />

brethren and fellow-members in Christ, and therefore your joys are my joys,<br />

and your glory, by this near relation, is my glory; especially while I believe<br />

in the same Christ, and hold fast the same faith and obedience by which you<br />

were thus dignified, and rejoice in spirit with you, and congratulate your<br />

happiness in my daily meditations."<br />

Moreover, our house and home is above, "For we know that if our<br />

189

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!