The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God."
"Without me," says Christ, "ye can do nothing."
It is next supposed, that they who seek this rest have an inward principle
of spiritual life. God does not move men like stones, but he endows them
with life, not to enable them to move without him, but in subordination to
himself, the first mover.
And further, this rest supposes such an actual tendency of soul toward it
as is regular and constant, earnest and laborious. He that hides his talent shall
receive the wages of a slothful servant. Christ is the door, the only way to
this rest. "But strait is the gate and narrow is the way;" and we must strive, if
we will enter; for "many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able; which
implies, "that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence." Nor will it bring us
to the end of the saints, if we begin in the spirit and end in the flesh. He only
"that endureth to the end shall be saved." And never did a soul obtain rest
with God whose desire was not set upon him above all things else in the
world. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart he also." The remainder
of our old nature will much weaken and interrupt these desires, but never
overcome them. And, considering the opposition to our desires, from the
contrary principles in our nature, and from the weakness of our graces,
together with our continued distance from the end, our tendency to that end
must be laborious, and with all our might. All these things are pre-supposed,
in order to a Christian's obtaining an interest in heavenly rest.
Now we have ascended these steps into the outward court, may we look
within the veil? May we show what this rest contains, as well as what it presupposes?
Alas! how little know I of that glory! The glimpse which Paul had,
contained what could not, or must not, be uttered. Had he spoken the things
of heaven in the language of heaven, and none understood that language,
what the better? The Lord reveal to me what I may reveal to you! The Lord
open some light, and show both you and me our inheritance! Not as to
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