The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

Shall fire and fagot, prisons and banishment, cruel mockings and scourgings,
be more welcome to others than Christ and glory to me? God forbid!'"
Compare the glory of the heavenly kingdom with the glory of the church
on earth, and of Christ in his state of humiliation. If Christ's suffering in the
room of sinners had such excellency, what is Christ at his Father's right
hand! If the church under her sins and enemies have so much beauty, what
will she have at the marriage of the Lamb! How wonderful was the Son of
God in the form of a servant! When he is born, a new star must appear, and
conduct the strangers to worship him in a manger, heavenly hosts with their
songs must celebrate his nativity; while a child, he must dispute with
doctors; when he enters upon his office, he turns water into wine, feeds
thousands with a few loaves and fishes, cleanses the lepers, heals the sick,
restores the lame, gives sight to the blind, and raises the dead. How
wonderful, then, is his celestial glory! If there be such cutting down of
boughs, and spreading of garments, and crying Hosanna, for one that comes
into Jerusalem riding on an ass; what will there be when he comes with his
angels in his glory! If they had heard him "preach the Gospel of the
kingdom," confess, "Never man spake like this man;" they, then, that behold
his majesty in his kingdom will say, "There was never glory like this glory."
If, when his enemies came to apprehend him, they fell to the ground; if,
when he is dying, the earth quakes, the veil of the temple is rent, the sun is
eclipsed, the dead bodies of the saints arise, and the standers-by
acknowledge, "truly this was the Son of God;" O what a day will it be when
the dead must all arise and stand before him! when he "will once shake, not
the earth only, but the heavens also!: when this sun shall be taken out of the
firmament, and be everlastingly darkened with his glory! and when every
tongue shall confess him to be the Lord and King! If, when he rose again,
death and the grave lost their power; if angels must "roll away the stone,"
terrify the keepers till they are "as dead men," and send the tidings to his
disciples; if he ascend to heaven in their sight; of what power, dominion and
glory is he now possessed, and which we must for ever possess with him!
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