THE THE SAINT'S EVERLASTING REST. Heb. iv. 9. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. CHAPTER I. The Introduction to the work, with some account of the nature of the Saint's Rest. § I. The important design of the apostle in the text, to which the author earnestly bespeaks the attention of the reader. § 2. The Saint's Rest defined, with a general plan of the work. § 3. What this rest presupposes. § 4. The author's humble sense of his inability fully to show what that rest contains. § 5. It contains, (1.) A ceasing from means of grace: § 6. (2.) A perfeet freedom from all evils: § 7. (3.) The highest degree of the saint's personal perfections, both in body and soul. § 8. (4.) The nearest enjoyment of God the chief good. § 9-14. (5.) A sweet and constant action of all the powers of soul and body in this enjoyment of God; as, for instance, bodily senses, knowledge, memory, love, joy, together with a mutual love and joy. § 15. The author's humble reflection on the deficiency of this account. § 1. It was not only our interest in God, and actual enjoyment of him, which was lost in Adam's fall, but all spiritual knowledge of him, and true disposition towards such a felicity. When the Son of God comes with recovering grace, and discoveries of a spiritual and eternal happiness and glory, he finds not faith in man to believe it. As the poor man that would not believe any one had such a sum as an hundred pounds, it was so far above what himself possessed: So men will hardly now believe there is such a happiness as once they had, much less as Christ hath now procured. When God would give the Israelites his Sabbaths of rest, in a land of rest, he had more ado to make them believe it, than to overcome their enemies, and procure it for them. And when they had it only as a small intimation aad an earnest of an incomparably more glorious rest through Christ, they yet believe no more than they possess, but say, with the glutton at the feast, Sure there is no other heaven but this! Or, if they expect more by the Messiah, it is only the increase of their earthly felicity. The apostle bestows most of this epistle against this distemper, and clearly and largely proves, that the end of all ceremonies and shadows, is to direct them to Jesus Christ the substance, and that the rest of Sabbaths and Canaan, should teach them to look for a farther rest, which indeed is their happiness. My text is his conclusion after divers argumeuts; a conclusion, which contains the ground of all the believer's comfort, the end of all his duty and sufferings, the life and sum of all gospel promises and Christian privileges. What more welcome to men under personal affliction, tiring duties, successions of sufferings, than rest? It is not our comfort only, but our stability. Our liveliness in all duties, our enduring tribulation, our honouring of God, the vigour of our love, thankfulness, and all our graces; yea, the very being of our religion and Christianity, depend on the believing serious thoughts of our rest. And now, reader, whatever thou art, young or old, rich or poor, I entreat thee, and charge thee, in the name of thy Lord, who will shortly call thee to a reckoning, and judge thee to thy everlasting and unchangeable state, that thou give not these things the reading only, and so dismiss them with a bare approbation; but that thou set upon this work, and take God in Christ for thy only rest, and fix thy heart upon him above all. May the living God, who is the portion and rest of his saints, make these our carnal minds so spiritual, and our earthly hearts so heavenly, that loving him, and delighting in him, may be the work of our lives; and that neither I that write, nor you that read this book, may ever be turned from this path of life; "lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, we should come short of it," through our own unbelief or negligence. §2. The Saint's Rest is the most happy state of a Christian; or it is, the perfect endless enjoyment of God, by the perfected saints according to the measure of their capacity, to which their souls arrive at death, and both soul and body most fully after the resurrection and final judgment. According to this definition of the saint's rest, a larger account of its nature will be given in this chapter; of its preparatives, chap. ii.; its excellencies, chap. iii.; and chap. iv. the persons for whom it is designed. Farther to illustrate the subject, some description will be given, chap. v. of their misery who lose this rest; and, chap. vi. who also lose the enjoyments of time, and suffer the torments of hell; next will be showed, chap, vii. the necessity of diligently seeking this rest; chap. viii. how our title to it may be discerned; chap. ix. that they who discern their title to it should help those that cannot; and chap. x. that this rest is not to be expected on earth. It will then be proper to consider, chap. xi. the importance of a heavenly life upen earth; chap. xii. how to live a heavenly life upon earth; chap. xiii. the nature of heavenly contemplation, with the time, place, and temper fittest for it; chap. xiv. what use heavenly contemplation makes of consideration, affections, soliloquy and prayer; and likewise, chap. xv. how heavenly contemplation may be assisted by sensible objects, and guarded against a treacherous heart. Heavenly contemplation will be exemplified, chap. xvi. and the whole work concluded. § 3. There are some things necessarily presupposed in the nature of this rest; as, for instance, that mortal men are the persons seeking it. For angels and glorified spirits have it already, and the devils and the damned are past hope:-That they choose God only for their end and happiness? He that takes any thing else for his happiness, is out of the way the first step. -That they are distant from this end. This is the woful case of all mankind since the fall. When Christ comes with regenerating grace, he finds no man sitting still, but all posting to eternal ruin, and making haste towards hell; till, by conviction, he first brings them to a stand, and then by conversion turns their hearts and lives sincerely to himself.-This end, and its excellency, is supposed to be known and seriously intended. An unknown good, moves not to desire or endeavour. And not only a distance from this rest, but the true knowledge of this distance, is also supposed. They that never yet knew they were without God, and in the way to hell, did never yet know the way, to heaven. Can a man find he hath lost his God, and his soul, and not cry out, "I am undone!" The reason why so few obtain this rest, is, they will not be convinced, that they are, in point of title, distant from it; and in point of practice contrary to it. Who ever sought for that, which he knew not he had lost? "They that be whole need not a Physician, but they that are sick." The influence of a superior moving cause is also supposed, else we shall stand still, and not move towards our rest. If God move us not, we cannot move. It is a most necessary part of our Christian wisdom to keep our subordination to God; and dependence on him. "We are not sufficient of 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 llfe, not to enable them to move without him, but in subordination to himself the first mover. And farther, this rest supposes such an actual tendency of soul towards it, as is regular and sonstant, 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, Bnt "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way;" and we must strive if we willen. ter, "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 obiain rest with God, whose desire was not set upon him above all things else in the world. "Where your treusure is, there |