The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

world, while they are swallowed up in the love of God. They have none of
my cares and fears; they weep not in secret; they languish not in sorrows;
these ‘tears are wiped away from their eyes.' O happy, a thousand times
happy souls! Alas, that I must dwell in sinful flesh, when my brethren and
companions dwell with God! How far out of sight and reach of their high
enjoyment do I here live! What poor feeble thoughts have I of God! What
cold affections toward him! How little have I of that life, that love, that joy,
in which they continually live! How soon doth that little depart, and leave me
in thicker darkness! Now and then a spark falls upon my heart, and, while I
gaze upon it, it dies, or rather, my cold heart quenches it. But they have their
‘light in his light,' and drink continually at the spring of joy. Here we are
vexing each other with quarrels, when they are of one heart and voice, and
daily sound forth the hallelujahs of heaven with perfect harmony. O what a
feast hath my faith beheld, and what a famine is yet in my spirit! O blessed
souls! I may not, I dare not envy your happiness; I rather rejoice in my
brethren's prosperity, and am glad to think of the day when I shall be
admitted into your fellowship. I wish not to displace you, but to be so happy
as to be with you. Why must I stay, and weep, and wait? My Lord is gone;
He hath left this earth, and is entered into his glory: my brethren are gone;
my friends are there; my house, my hope, my all is there. When I am so far
distant from my God, wonder not what aileth me if I now complain: an
ignorant Micah will do so for his idol, and shall not my soul do so for the
living God? Had I no hope of enjoyment, I would go and hide myself in the
deserts, and lie and howl in some obscure wilderness, and spend my days in
fruitless wishes; but since it is the land of my promised rest, and the state I
must myself be advanced to, and my soul draws near, and is almost there, I
will love and long, I will look and desire, I will be breathing, ‘How long,
Lord! how long wilt thou suffer this soul to pant and groan, and not open to
him who waits, and longs to be with thee!'" Thus, Christian reader, let thy
thoughts aspire, till thy soul longs, as David, "O that one would give me to
drink of the wells of salvation!" And till thou canst say, as he did, "I have
longed for thy salvation, O Lord!" And as the mother and brethren of Christ,
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