N17286:698
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 3 › Chapter 5: A Description of heavenly Contemplation.
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.
This is it that hath deceived christians in this business: they have thought meditation is nothing but the bare thinking on truths, and the rolling of them in the understanding and memory, when every schoolboy can do this.
Therefore this is the great task in hand, and this is the work that I would set thee on; to get these truths from thy head to thy heart; that all the sermons which thou hast heard of heaven, and all the ⟨p. 324⟩notions thou hast conceived of this rest, may be turned into the blood and spirit of affection, and thou mayst feel them revive thee, and warm thee at the heart, and mayst so think of heaven, as heaven should be thought on.
If thou shouldst study nothing but heaven while thou livest, and shouldst have thy thoughts at command, to turn them hither on every occasion, and yet shouldst proceed no further than this; this were not the meditation that I intended: as it is thy whole soul that must possess GOD hereafter, so must the whole in a lower manner, possess him here. I have shown you in the beginning of this treatise, how the soul must enjoy the LORD in glory, to wit, by knowing, by loving, by joying in him: why, the very same way must thou begin thy enjoyment here.
If thou shouldst study nothing but heaven while thou livest, and shouldst have thy thoughts at command, to turn them hither on every occasion, and yet shouldst proceed no further than this; this were not the meditation that I intended: as it is thy whole soul that must possess GOD hereafter, so must the whole in a lower manner, possess him here. I have shewn you in the beginning of this treatise, how the soul must enjoy the LORD in glory, to wit, by knowing, by loving, by joying in him: why, the very same way must thou begin thy enjoyment here.