The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

all our praises shall make up one melody; all our churches, one church; and
all ourselves, one body; for we shall be all one in Christ, even as he and the
Father are one. It is true, we must be careful not to look for that in the saints
which is alone in Christ. But if the forethought of sitting down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, may be our lawful
joy; how much more the real sight and actual possession! It cannot but be
comfortable to think of that day, when we shall join 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 Enoch 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.
Not only our old acquaintance, but all the saints of all ages, whose faces in
the flesh we never saw, we shall there both know and comfortably enjoy.
Yea, angels as well as saints will be our blessed acquaintance. Those who
now are willingly our ministering spirits, will willingly then be our
companions in joy. They who had such joy in heaven for our conversion,
will gladly rejoice with us in our glorification. Then we shall truly say, as
David, I am a companion of all them that fear thee; when "we are come unto
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and
to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of
the first-born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new
covenant." It is a singular excellence of heavenly rest, that we are "fellowcitizens
with the saints, and of the household of God."
5. As another property of our rest, we shall derive its joys immediately
from God. Now we have nothing at all immediately, but at the second or
third hand; or how many, who knows? From the earth, from man, from sun
and moon, from the ministration of angels, and from the Spirit, and Christ.
Though, in the hand of angels, the stream savors not of the imperfection of
sinners, yet it does of the imperfection of creatures; and as it comes from
man, it savors of both. How quick and piercing is the word in itself! yet
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