N17286:282
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.
4. And even good men themselves deserve this reproof, for being too lazy seekers of everlasting rest. Alas, what a disproportion is there between our light and our heat! our professions and prosecution! Who makes that haste, as if it were for heaven? How still we stand! How idly we work! How we talk, and ⟨p. 134⟩jest, and trifle away our time! How deceitfully we do the work of GOD! How we hear, as if we heard not; and pray, as if we prayed not; and confer, and examine, and meditate, and reprove sin, as if we did it not; and use the ordinances, as if we used them not; and enjoy Christ, as if we enjoyed him not; as if we had learned to use the things of heaven, as the apostle teacheth us to use the world! Who would think that stood by us, and heard us pray in private or public, that we were praying for no less than everlasting glory? Should heaven be sought no more earnestly than thus? Methinks we are none of us all in good sadness for our souls. We do but dally with the work of GOD, and play with Christ, as children play with their meat when they should eat it; we hang upon ordinances from day to day, but we stir not ourselves to seek the LORD.
I see a great many very constant in hearing and praying, but they do not hear and pray as if it were for their lives. Oh, what a frozen stupidity hath benumbed us! The plague of Lot's wife is upon us, as if we were changed into lifeless and immovable pillars: we are dying, and we know it, and yet we stir not; we are at the door of eternal happiness or misery, and yet we perceive it not: death knocks, and we hear it not: Christ calls and knocks, and we hear not: GOD cries to us, to-day if you will hear my voice, harden not your hearts. Work while it is day, for the night cometh when none can work. Now ply your business, now labour for your lives; now lay out all your strength. Now or never; and yet we stir no more than if we were half asleep. What haste do death and judgment make! How fast do they come on! They are almost at us, and yet what little haste make we! The spur of GOD is in our side, we bleed, we groan, and yet we do not mend our pace. LORD, what a senseless, sottish, earthly, hellish thing is a hard heart!