The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

not our hearts burn within us while he opened to us the Scriptures?" If a
Felix will tremble when he hears his judgment powerfully represented, why
should not the believer be revived when he hears his eternal rest described?
Wicked men can be delighted in talking together of their wickedness; and
should not Christians then be delighted in talking of Christ, and the heirs of
heaven in talking of their inheritance? This may make our hearts revive, as
did Jacob's to hear the message that called him to Goshen, and to see the
chariots that should bring him to Joseph. O that we were furnished with skill
and resolution to turn the stream of men's common discourse to these more
sublime and precious things! and, when men begin to talk of things
unprofitable, that we could tell how to put in a word for heaven, and say, as
Peter of his bodily food, "Not so, for I have never eaten any thing that is
common or unclean!" O the good that we might both do and receive by this
course! Had it not been to deter us from unprofitable conversation, Christ
would not have talked of our "giving an account of every idle word in the
day of judgment." Say, then, as the Psalmist, when you are in company, "Let
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above
my chief joy." then you shall find it true, that a "wholesome tongue is a tree
of life."
5. Endeavor, in every duty, to raise thy affections nearer to heaven.
God's end in the institution of his ordinances was that they should be as so
many steps to advance us to our rest, and by which, in subordination to
Christ, we might daily ascend in our affections. Let this be thy end in using
them, and doubtless they will not be unsuccessful. How have you been
rejoiced by a few lines from a friend, when you could not see him face to
face! And may we not have intercourse with God in his ordinances, though
our persons be yet so far remote? May not our spirits rejoice in reading those
lines which contain our legacy and charter for heaven? With what gladness
and triumph may we read the expressions of divine love, and hear of our
celestial country, though we have not yet the happiness to behold it! Men
that are separated by sea and land can by letters carry on great and gainful
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