A truly wonderful artifact. We have handled but three or four Richard Baxter autographs or inscriptions over the years. All of them, as I recall, were deaccessioned from the same source, Zion Research Library. This is by far the most significant we have handled. The others included volumes that were the gift of the author, and so inscribed by Baxter, and one partial letter.
The Zion Research Library opened in 1922. The collection began as the private collection of Mary Beecher Longyear. She had a daughter healed through the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, and in 1910 received a gift of Eddy’s original spinning wheel. Well, it sent the wheels spinning alright, and set Mary Beecher Longyear on a 12-year buying spree of important documents, artifacts, and theology from all of Church history. She then opened her collection to the public under the name Zion Research Library in 1922. It was at the time perhaps the finest private collection of Bibles, religious manuscripts, and theological works in America, and remained so for many years, even hosting the first ever American exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In 1976, focusing the collection more narrowly, the name was changed to the Endowment for Biblical Research and some of the many treasures not directly related to Biblical Studies were deaccessioned.
The present is a completely unpublished hymn entirely in Richard Baxter's hand; apparently complete in six stanzas, common meter [8/6] as was Baxter's poetic norm.
In the hymn, we find phrases almost idiomatic of Baxter's writings, i.e. "slanderous tongues," which appears in A Treatise on Self-Denial, The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ, The Life of Faith, and elsewhere; "glorious majesty," which appears in his Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live, The Saints Everlasting Rest, his Paraphrase on the Psalms, and elsewhere; "perfect light" in his Christian Directory, his published poem entitled Man, Two Treatises on Death and Judgment; etc.
It is a fitting anthem, perhaps the last poem he composed, written as one longing to enter his rest, and as appended to a work on the same subject. Baxter would enter the land where "men and angels live by love" in 1691.
The text:
An Hymne
O Thou whose glorious Majesty!
We can so little praise
And but a few unwearied hours
upon this best of Dayes
If Heaven by the land of Praise
Lord, why must we keepe thence?
What folly is it makes us lothe
To dye and get us hence?
Reach downe, reach downe thy arme of Grace
Lord fit us to ascend
Where congregations ner'e breake up
And sabbaths have no end.
Where neither word or sacrament
Or prayer shell needed be
But perfect light, and love and life
Shall still be praising thee.
Where there's no sleepe or weariness
To make our praises cease
Nor envious thoughts or slanderous tounges
To breake thy servants peace.
Where there's no fall but all is spring
Where day lives without night.
Where men and Angels live by love
And in thy Lovely sight.
Neatly repaired and reinforced in a rather crisp, tidy 1688 edition of Baxter's Saints Rest. Ex libris from the Zion Research Library, 1922 [Part of the establishing collection of 3,500 choicely chosen artifacts]. Likely deaccessioned in 1976, and from there by descent in a private collection.
Baxter, Richard. The Saints Everlasting Rest: Or, a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory. Wherein is Shewed its Excellency and Certainty; the Misery of those that lose it; the way to attain it, assurance of it; and how to live in the continual delightful Fore-tasts of it, by the help of Meditation. Written by the Author for his own use, in the time of his Languishing, when God took him off from all Publick Employment, and afterwards preached in his Weekly Lecture. London. Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three Crown in Cheap-side: Ric. Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard: And Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms in the Poultrey. 1688. 796pp + table.
A very finely preserved edition in original speckled calf boards, respined probably shortly after deaccessioning. Textually as crisp and clean a copy as we have handled with very fine, untrimmed wide margins. Repair and rebuild to the lower right corner of the MSs sheet, not infringing on the manuscript in any way. Expertly accomplished.