A Brief Book Notice from Books At a Glance
Editor’s Note: Edward Pearse (sometimes spelled Pierce, 1630?–1694) was a Welsh Anglican minister of Puritan sympathies, seldom remembered today. In those days books were not published with a fly-leaf to provide descriptive information about the work, and so book titles could often be quite long. This is Pearse’s most famous work, which consists of two monographs and was originally entitled A Beam of Divine Glory: Or, The Unchangeableness of God Opened, Vindicated, and Improved. Whereunto is added The Soul’s Rest in God. Very Useful to Quiet the Minds of Christians, when Discomposed on the Account of Man’s Mortality, and the Mutability of Humane Affairs. His Beam of Divine Glory especially expounds an area of rising theological interest today. A Books At a Glance summary of this book is forthcoming.
Table of Contents
A Note to the Reader
A Beam of Divine Glory
The Soul’s Rest in God
Selected Quotes
- “Here is a display or representation of God in one ray or beam of His divine glory, and that is His unchangeableness.” (2)
- “The unchangeableness of God is built upon, or springs from, the infinite purity and simplicity of His nature.” (29)
- “From God’s unchangeableness we conclude and infer the infinite sweetness of His love, and so the happiness of those who are interested in it.” (59)
- “But God, as you have heard, and all that good that is in Him, is always and forever the same, which speak Him to be infinitely sweet and desirable, and so infinitely worthy to be embraced by us for our God and portion. This indeed crowns and perfects all that is good that is in God.” (90)
- “Has He promised to pardon you, to cleanse you, to give you a new heart and a new spirit, and to write His law in your heart? Has He promised to save you and lodge you at last in His own bosom? Then know it shall be accomplished!” (116)
- “It is the great happiness of the saints that, though they meet with many sore troubles and afflictions here in this world, yes, though they meet with little else but trouble and affliction here, yet there is a rest to come for them—a sweet rest, a blessed rest, a glorious rest, a rest not liable to decay or disturbance forever.” (125)
- “Now whatever condition He calls to, the soul that is at rest in Him is ready for it. Does God call him to sufferings, to take up and bear the cross? He is ready for this call of God, for he can rejoice, yea, glory in the cross (see Romans 5:3). He can sing in a prison, as did Paul and Silas (Acts 16:25).” (150)
- “To conclude all, live at rest all that ever you can in God here, but withal look for, long for, and hasten to that rest which remains for saints with God in the other world. True rest in God is sweet, but we shall never be fully and perfectly happy until we enter that future rest. That, indeed, carries complete happiness in it.” (184)
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A BEAM OF DIVINE GLORY, by Edward Pearse