Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/164

160 purpose is formed above the earthly mind, be it in ever so small a degree, we begin to be spiritual. But in the celestial state there is no more regenerative work to labor over, because the work of regeneration is already accomplished. We are not, however, inactive. Rest does not mean idleness. Peace does not require us to sit with folded hands. We will not retire to caves, away from the companionship of man, to contemplate the glory of God. Indeed, the celestial man is the most enquiring, the most active, the most zealous, the most persevering of all. But he labors for good. He loves his neighbor as himself; but in the other world where he need not labor for his own food and raiment, he loves his neighbor better than himself. True, work he does. But that which he once called work is pleasure now. This is because his delight is in being useful; and all labor which has its end in use is no longer labor in the sense of toil, but is rest. So, with the celestial man, his rest is activity, his peace is energy, his work is pleasure, his love of use the very happiness of life, and his love of God the ceaseless affection of his heart for all that, light of truth and impulse of good, which flows from the Divine Being into his receptive nature.

Thus it is that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. As the