While the Puritans are often remembered for preaching about the horrors of hell, they gave far more attention to the glories of heaven. They sought, as Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) put it, to keep “their hearts raised up to heaven.”[1] Richard Baxter (1615–1691) exhorted his readers to “bathe thy soul in heaven’s delights” and offered twelve reasons why such contemplation is beneficial.[2] To that end, the Puritans preached and wrote often on the subject, exploring the glorious heights of the heavenly realms and considering key questions about the future state.
One of the Puritans’ favorite descriptions of heaven was “Immanuel’s Land,” a phrase rooted in Isaiah 8:8 and famously associated with the dying words of the Scottish Puritan Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661). Rutherford’s deathbed confession—“Glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s Land”—inspired the poet Anne Ross Cousin (1824–1906) to pen the hymn “The Sands of Time are Sinking” (alternatively titled “Immanuel’s Land”).[3]
Among all the splendors of Immanuel’s Land, the Puritans often focused on the presence of God in Christ as the height of future glory. Baxter defined the saints’ everlasting rest as “the perfect endless fruition [enjoyment] of God by the perfected saints.”[4] Goodwin noted, “He doth not only promise us
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