The saints everlasting rest

But for you whose hearts GOD hath weaned from all things here below, I hope you will fetch one walk daily in the new Jerusalem! GOD is your love, and ⟨p. 399⟩your desire; and I know you would fain be more acquainted with your Saviour, and I know it is your grief that your hearts are not more near him; and that they do no more passionately love and delight in him. As ever you would enjoy your desires, try this life of meditation on your everlasting rest.

O thou, the merciful Father of spirits, the attractive of love, and ocean of delights, draw up these drossy hearts unto thyself, and keep them there till they are spiritualized and refined, and second these thy servant's weak endeavours, and persuade those that read these lines, to the practice of this delightful, heavenly work. O suffer not the soul of thy most unworthy servant to be a stranger to those joys which he unfoldeth to thy people, or to be seldom in that way which he hath marked out to others; but O keep me while I tarry on this earth, in daily, serious breathings after thee, and in a believing, affectionate walking with thee; and when thou comest, O let me be found so doing, not hiding my talent, nor serving my flesh, nor yet asleep with my lamp unfurnished, but waiting and longing for my LORD'S return: that those who shall read these directions, may not reap only the fruit of my studies, but the breathings of my active hope and love: that if my heart were open to their view, they might there read the same most deeply engraven with a beam from the face of the Son of GOD; and not find vanity or lust, or pride within, where the words of life appear without; that so these lines may not witness against me; but proceeding from the heart of the writer, may be effectual through thy grace upon the heart of the reader, and so be the savour of life to both.

GLORY be to GOD in the highest: on earth peace: good-will towards men.