The Saints' Everlasting Rest

Thou knowest I am not weary of thy work, but of sorrow and sin I must needs be weary: I am willing to stay while thou wilt here employ me, and to dispatch the work which thou hast put into my hands: till these strange thoughts of thee be somewhat more familiar, and thou ⟨p. 834⟩hast raised me into some degree of acquaintance with thy self; But I beseech thee, stay no longer when this is done. Stay not till sin shall get advantage, and my soul grow earthly by dwelling on this earth, and my desires and delights in thee grow dead; But while I must be here, let me be still amending and ascending, make me still better, and take me at the best. I dare not be so impatient of living, as to importune thee to cut off my time, and urge thee to snatch me hence unready; because I know my everlasting state doth so much depend on the improvement of this life. Nor yet would I stay when my work is done; and remain here sinning when my brethren are triumphing: I am drowning in tears while they swim in joys: I am weeping, while they are singing; I am under thy feet, while they are in thy bosom: Thy footsteps bruise and break this worm, while those Stars do shine in the Firmament of glory: Thy frowns do kill me, while they are quickened by thy smiles: They are ever living, and I am daily dying; Their joys are raised by the knowledge of their endlessness, my griefs are enlarged by still expecting more; while they possess but one continued pleasure; I bear the successive assaults of fresh calamities; One billow falls in the neck of another, and when I am rising up from under one, another comes and strikes we down. Yet I am thy child as well as they; Christ is my head as well as theirs: why is there then so great a distance? How differently dost thou use us when thou art Father to us all? They sit at thy table, whilst I must stand without the doors. But I acknowledge the equity of thy ways: Though we all are children, yet I am the Prodigal; and therefore meeter in this remote country to feed on husks, while they are always with thee and possess thy glory. Though we all are members, yet not the same: they are the tongue and fitter to praise thee; They are the hands and fitter for thy service, I am the feet and therefore meeter to tread on earth, and move in dirt; but unfit to stand so near the head as they. They were once themselves in my condition; and I shall shortly be in theirs.

Thou knowest I am not weary of thy work, but of sorrow and sin I must needs be weary: I am willing to stay while thou wilt here imploy me, and to dispatch the work which thou hast put into my hands: till these strange thoughts of thee be somewhat more familiar, and thou