The Saints' Everlasting Rest

Thou mayest many other ways exercise thy parts, but this is the way to exercise thy Graces: They all come from God as their Fountain, and lead to God as their ultimate End, and are exercised on God as their chiefest Object; so that God is their All in All. From Heaven they come, and heavenly their nature is, and to Heaven they will direct and move thee. And as exercise maintaineth appetite, strength, and liveliness to the body, so doth it also to the soul. Use limbs, and have limbs, is the known Proverb. And use Grace and Spiritual Life in these heavenly exercises, and you shall find it quickly cause their increase. The exercise of your mere abilities of Speech will not much advantage your graces; but the exercise of these heavenly soul exalting gifts, will unconceivably help to the growth of both. For as the Moon is then most full and glorious, when it doth most directly face the Sun; so will your souls be both in gifts and graces, when you do most nearly view the face of God. This will feed your tongue with matter, and make you abound and overflow, both in Preaching, Praying, and Conferring. Besides, the fire which you fetch from Heaven for your Sacrifices, is no false or strange fire: As your liveliness will be much more, so will it be also more sincere. A man may have a great deal of fervour in Affections and Duties, and all prove but common and unsound, when it is raised upon common Grounds, ⟨p. 621⟩and motives; your zeal will partake of the nature of those things by which it is acted; The zeal therefore which is kindled by your meditations on Heaven, is most like to prove a heavenly zeal, and the liveliness of the Spirit which you fetch from the face of God, must needs be the Divinest and sincerest life: Some mens fervency is drawn only from their Books, and some from the pricks of some stinging affliction, and some from the mouth of a moving Minister, and some from the encouragement of an attentive Auditory; but he that knows this way to heaven, and it derives it daily from the pure Fountain, shall have his soul revived with the water of Life, and enjoy that quickening which is the Saints peculiar: By this Faith thou mayest offer Abel's Sacrifice, more excellent then that of common men, and by it obtain witness that thou art righteous, God testifying of thy gifts, (that they are sincere,) Heb. 11.4.

Thou maist many other ways exercise thy parts, but this is the way to exercise thy Graces: They all come from God as their Fountain, and lead to God as their ultimate End, and are exercised on God as their chiefest Object; so that God is their All in All. From Heaven they come, and heavenly their nature is, and to Heaven they will direct and move thee. And as exercise maintaineth appetite, strength, and liveliness to the body, so doth it also to the soul. Vse limbs, and have limbs, is the known Proverb. And use Grace and Spiritual Life in these heavenly exercises, and you shall finde it quickly cause their increase. The exercise of your meer abilities of Speech will not much advantage your graces; but the exercise of these heavenly soul exalting gifts, will unconceivably help to the growth of both. For as the Moon is then most full and glorious, when it doth most directly face the Sun; so will your souls be both in gifts and graces, when you do most neerly view the face of God. This will feed your tongue with matter, and make you abound and overflow, both in Preaching, Praying, and Conferring. Besides, the fire which you fetch from Heaven for your Sacrifices, is no false or strange fire: As your liveliness will be much more, so will it be also more sincere. A man may have a great deal of fervor in Affections and Duties, and all prove but common and unsound, when it is raised upon common Grounds,