N17286:313
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
Part 2 › Chapter 6: An Exhortation to Seriousness in seeking Rest.
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.
10. Consider, they that trifle in the way to heaven, lose all their labour. If two be running in a race, he that runs slowest, had as good never run at all: for he loseth the prize, and his labour both. Many, who like Agrippa, are but almost christians, will find in the end they shall be but almost saved. GOD hath set the rate at which the pearl must be bought; if you bid a penny less, you had as good bid nothing. As a man that is lifting up some weighty thing, if he put to almost strength enough, it is as good he put to none at all, for he doth but lose all his labour.
O how many professors of christianity will find this true to their sorrow, who have had a mind to the ways of GOD, and have kept up a dull task of duty, but never came to serious christianity? How many a duty have they lost, for want of doing them throughly. Many shall seek to enter and not be able: who, if they had striven might have been able. O therefore put to ⟨p. 147⟩a little more diligence and strength, that all be not in vain that you have done already!
11. Furthermore, we have lost a great deal of time already, and therefore it is reason that we labour so much the harder. If a traveller sleep, or trifle out most of the day, he must travel so much the faster in the evening, or fall short of his journey's end. With some of us our childhood and youth is gone; with some also their middle age, and the time before us is very uncertain. What a deal of time have we slept away, and talked away, and played away? What a deal have we spent in worldly thoughts and labours, or in mere idleness? Though in likelihood the most of our time is spent, yet how little of our work is done? And is it not time to bestir ourselves in the evening of our days? The time which we ha•• lost can never be recalled; should we not then redeem it by improving the little which remaineth? You may receive indeed an equal recompense with those that have borne the burden and heat of the day, though you came not in till the last hour; but then you must be sure to labour diligently that hour. It is enough sure that we have lost so much of our lives. Let us not now be so foolish as to lose the rest.