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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 10: An Example of this heavenly Contemplation, for the Help of the Unskilful.
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.
LORD, what a sum of love am I indebted to thee, and how doth my debt continually increase! How should I love again for so much love! But what! shall I dare to think of making thee requital, or of recompensing all thy love with mine? Will my mite requite thee for thy golden mines? or mine, which is nothing, or not mine, for thine which is infinite and thine own? Shall I dare to contend in love with thee? or set my borrowed spark, against the sun of love? Can I love as high, as deep, as broad, as long as love itself; as much as he that made me, and that made me live, that gave me all that little which I have? Both the heart, the fire, the fuel, and all were his: as I cannot match thee in the works of thy power, nor make, nor preserve, nor guide the world; so why should I think any more of matching thee in love? no, LORD, I yield, I am overcome; O blessed conquest! go on victoriously, and still prevail, and triumph in thy love; the captive of love shall proclaim thy victory, when thou leadest me in triumph from earth to heaven, from death to life, from the tribunal to the throne, myself, and all that see it, shall acknowledge that thou hast prevailed, and all shall say, Behold, how he loved him!—Yet let me love thee, in subjection to thy love as thy redeemed captive, though I cannot reach thy measure.
O, my soul, begin it here; be sick of love now, that thou mayst be well with love there; Keep thyself now in the love of God, and let neither life nor death. nor any thing separate thee from it, and thou shalt be ⟨p. 387⟩kept in the fullness of love for-ever; for the LORD hath prepared a city of love, a place for the communicating of love to his chosen, and those that love his name shall dwell there.
O, my soul, begin it here; be sick of love now, that thou mayst be well with love there; Keep thyself now in the love of God, and let neither life nor death. nor any thing separate thee from it, and thou shalt be ⟨p. 387⟩kept in the fulness of love for-ever; for the LORD hath prepared a city of love, a place for the communicating of love to his chosen, and those that love his name shall dwell there.