N17286:337
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.
4. Quest. If you had seen the general dissolution of the world, and all the pomp and glory of it consumed to ashes; if you saw all on fire about you, sumptuous buildings, cities, kingdoms, land, water, earth, heaven, all flaming about your ears: if you had seen all that men laboured for, and sold their souls for, •one; friends gone; the place of your former abode ⟨p. 156⟩gone; the history ended, and all come down; what would such a sight as this persuade you to do? Why, such a sight thou shalt certainly see. I put my question to thee in the words of the apostle, 2 Pet. iii. Seeing all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? As if he should say, we cannot possibly conceive or express what manner of persons we should be in all holiness and godliness, when we do but think of the sudden, and certain, and terrible dissolution of all things below.
4. Quest. If you had seen the general dissolution of the world, and all the pomp and glory of it consumed to ashes; if you saw all on fire about you, sumptuous buildings, cities, kingdoms, land, water, earth, heaven, all flaming about your ears: if you had seen all that men laboured for, and sold their souls for, •one; friends gone; the place of your former abode ⟨p. 156⟩gone; the history ended, and all come down; what would such a sight as this persuade you to do? Why, such a sight thou shalt certainly see. I put my question to thee in the words of the apostle, 2 Pet. iii. Seeing all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliwess, looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? As if he should say, we cannot possibly conceive or express what manner of persons we should be in all holiness and godliness, when we do but think of the sudden, and certain, and terrible dissolution of all things below.