N17286:132
The saints everlasting rest
The saints everlasting rest: or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory: extracted from the works of Mr. Richard Baxter, by John Wesley, M.A. late fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.
Philadelphia: printed by Prichard & Hall, 1790
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The last blessed attribute of this rest is, that it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown; without which all were comparatively nothing. The very thought of leaving it would embitter all our joys; and the more, because of the singular excellencies we must forsake. It would be a hell in heaven to think of once losing heaven: as it would be a kind of heaven to the damned, had they but hopes of once escaping.
It makes our present life of little value (were it not for the reference it hath to eternity) to think that we must shortly lay it down. How can we take delight in any thing, when we remember how short that delight will be? But, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears! O, what do I say when I talk of eternity? Can my shallow thoughts conceive it? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Surely this, if any thing, is the resemblance of GOD: eternity is a piece of infiniteness. Then, O death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory? ⟨p. 70⟩Days, and nights, and years, time and end, and death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity; as the mention of hell, to extol heaven: all the years of our LORD, and the years of our life, are swallowed up and lost;t in this eternity.
It makes our present life of little value (were it not for the reference it hath to eternity) to think that we must shortly lay it down. How can we take delight in any thing, when we remember how short that delight will be? But, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears! O, what do I say when I talk of eternity? Can my shallow thoughts conceive it? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Surely this, if any thing, is the resemblance of GOD: eternity is a piece of infiniteness. Then, O death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory? ⟨p. 70⟩Days, and nights, and years, time and end, and death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity; as the mention of hell, to extol heaven: all the years of our LORD, and the years of our life, are swallowed up and los;t in this eternity.