The Saint's Everlasting Rest: A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in HeavenBaxter, Richard
Religion
The Saint's Everlasting Rest: A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Heaven
Baxter, Richard
Devotional literature
§ 18. (12.) Once more consider, there is nothing, but heaven, worth
setting our hearts upon. If God have them not, who shall? If thou mind
not thy rest, what wilt thou mind? Hast thou found out some other god?
Or something that will serve thee instead of rest? Hast thou found on
earth an eternal happiness? Where is it? What is it made of? Who was the
man that found it out? Who was he that last enjoyed it? Where dwelt he?
What was his name? Or art thou the first that ever discovered heaven on
earth? Ah wretch! trust not to thy discoveries, boast not of thy gain,
till experience bid thee boast. Disquiet not thyself, in looking for
that which is not on earth; lest thou learn thy experience with the loss
of thy soul, which thou mightest have learned on easier terms; even by
the warnings of God in his Word, and the loss of thousands of souls
before thee. If Satan should _take thee up to the mountain_ of
temptation, _and shew thee all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory
of them_; he could shew thee nothing that is worthy thy thoughts, much
less to be preferred before thy rest. Indeed, so far as duty and
necessity require it, we must be content to mind the things below; but
who is he that contains himself within the compass of those limits? And
yet if we ever so diligently contract our cares and thoughts, we shall
find the least to be bitter and burdensome. Christian, see the emptiness
of all these things, and the preciousness of the things above. If thy
thoughts should, like the laborious bee, go over the world from flower
to flower, from creature to creature, they would bring no honey or
sweetness home, save what they gathered from their relations to
eternity. Though every truth of God is precious, and ought to be
defended; yet even all our study of truth should be still in reference
to our rest: For the observation is too true, "that the lovers of
controversies in religion, have never been warmed with one spark of the
love of God. And as for minding the affairs of church and state;" so far
as they illustrate the providence of God, and tend to the settling of
the gospel, and the government of Christ, and consequently to the saving
our own souls, and those of our posterity, they are well worth our
diligent observation; but these are only their relations to eternity.
Even all our dealings in the world, our buying and selling, our eating
and drinking, our building and marrying, our peace and war, so far as
they relate not to the life to come, but tend only to the pleasing of
the flesh, are not worthy the frequent thoughts of a Christian. And now
doth not thy conscience say, that there is nothing but heaven, and the
way to it, that is worth thy minding?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Saint's Everlasting Rest: A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Heaven — John Shaqi
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