N17286:702
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.
As the whole was filled with sin before, so the whole must be filled with GOD now: as St. Paul saith of knowledge, and gifts, and faith to remove mountains, that if thou hast all these without love, thou art but as a sounding brass, or as a tinkling cym••l, so I may say of the exercise of these, if in this work of meditation, thou exercise knowledge, and gifts, and faith of miracles, and not love and joy, thou dost nothing; if thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions and good sayings concerning GOD, and not thy heart with longings after him, and delight in ⟨p. 325⟩him, for aught I know thy book is as much a christian as thou.
I call this meditation set and solemn, to difference it from that which is occasional. As there is prayer which is solemn, when we set ourselves wholly to the duty; and prayer which is sudden and short, commonly called ejaculations, when a man in the midst of other business, doth send up some brief request to GOD: so also there is meditation solemn, when we apply ourselves only to that work; and there is meditation which is short and cursory, when in the midst of our business we have some good thoughts of GOD in our minds. And as solemn prayer is either first set, when a christian observing it as a standing duty, doth resolvedly practise it in a constant course; or secondly, occasional, when some unusual occasion doth put us upon it at a season extraordinary: so also meditation.
Now, though I would persuade you to that meditation which is mixed with your common labours, and to that which special occasions direct you to; yet these are not the main things which I here intend: but that you would make it a constant standing duty, as you do hearing, and praying, and reading the scripture, and that you would solemnly set yourselves about it, and make it for that time your whole work, and intermix other matters no more with it, than you would do with praying, or other duties. Thus you see, what kind of meditation it is that we speak of, wiz. the set and solemn acting of all the powers of the soul.