sweetness comes. Are not the comforts you de sire, neglected or resisted? Have your afflictions wrought kindly with you, and fitted you for comfort? It is not mere suffering that prepares you for comfort, but the success and fruit of sufferings upon your hearts. § 10. (II.) To shew the unreasonableness of resting in present enjoyments, consider, it is idolizing them; it contradicts God's end in giving them; it is the way to have them refused, withdrawn, or imbittered; to be suffered to take up our rest here, is the greatest curse; it is seeking rest where it is not to be found; the creaturés, without God, would aggravate our misery; and to confirm all this, we may consult our own and others' experience. § 11. (1) It is gross idolatry to make any creature or means our rest. To be the rest of the soul, is God's own prerogative. As it is apparent idolatry to place our rest in riches or honours; so it is but a more refined idolatry to take up our rest in excellent means of grace. How ill must our dear Lord take it, when we give him cause to complain as he did of our fellow idolaters, My people have been lost sheep, they have forgotten their resting place?* My people can find rest in any thing, rather than in me. They can delight in one another, but not in me. They can rejoice in my creatures and ordinances, but not in me. Yea, in their very labours and duties they seek for rest, but not in me. They had rather be any where, than be with me. Are these their gods? Have these redeemed them? Will these be better to them, than I have been, or than I would be ?" If * Numb. X. 33. yourselves have a wife, a husband, a son, that had rather be any where than in your company, and be never so merry as when furthest from you, would you not take it ill? So must our God needs do. § 12. (2) You contradict the end of God in giving these enjoyments. He gave them to help thee to him, and dost thou take up with them in his stead? He gave them to be refreshments in thy journey, and wouldst thou dwell in thy inn, and go no further? It may be said of all our comforts and ordinances, as it is said of the Israelites, The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them, to search out a resting place for them.* So do all God's mercies here. They are not that rest; as John professed he was not the Christ; but they are voices crying in this wilderness, to bid us prepare, for the kingdom of God, our true rest, is at hand. Therefore, to rest here, were to turn all mercies contrary to their own ends, and to our own advantages, and to destroy ourselves with that which should help us. § 13. (3) It is the way to cause God, either to deny the mercies we ask, or to take from us those we enjoy, or at least imbitter them to us. God is no where so jealous as here. If you had a servant, whom your wife loved better than yourself, would you not take it ill of such a wife, and rid your house of such a servant? So, if the Lord see you begin to settle in the world, and say, "Here I will rest," no wonder if he soon in his jealousy unsettle you. If he love you, no wonder if he take that from you with which he sees you are destroying yourselves. It hath been my long observation of many, that when they have attempted great works, and have just finished them; or have aimed at great things in the world, and have just obtained them; or have lived in much trouble, and have just overcome it; and begin to look on their condition with content, and rest in it; they are then usually near to death or ruin. When a man is once at this language, Soul, take thy ease; the next news usually is, Thou fool, this night, or this month, or this year, thy soul shall be required, and then whose shall these things be? What house is there, where this fool dwelleth not? Let you and I consider, whether it be not our own case. Many a servant of God hath been destroyed from the earth, by being over valued, and over loved. am persuaded, our discontents, and murmurings are not so provoking to God, nor so destructive to the sinner, as our too sweet enjoying, and resting in, a pleasing state. If God hath crossed you in wife, children, goods, friends, either by taking them away, or the comfort of them; try whether this be not the cause: For wheresoever your de sires stop, and you say, "Now I am well;" that condition you make your god, and engage the jealousy of God against it. Whether you be friends to God or enemies, you can never expect that God should suffer you quietly to enjoy your idols. I 14. (4) Should God suffer you to take up your rest here, it is one of the greatest curses that could befal you. It were better never to have a day of ease in the world; for then weariness might make you seek after the true rest. But if you are. suffered to sit down and rest here, a restless wretch you will be through all eternity. To have their portion in this life, is the lot of the most miserable perishing sinners. Doth it become Christians then to expect so much here? Our rest is our heaven; and where we take our rest, there we make our heaven. And wouldst thou have but such a heaven as this? 15. (5) It is seeking rest where it is not to be found. Your labour will be lost, and, if you proceed, your soul's eternal rest too. Our rest is only in the full obtaining of our ultimate end. But that is not to be expected in this life; neither is rest therefore to be expected here. Is God to be enjoyed in the best church here, as he is in heaven? How little of God the saints enjoy under the best means, let their own complainings testify. Poor comforters are the best ordinances, without God. Should a traveller take up his rest in the way? No, because his home is his journey's end. When you have all that creatures and means can afford, have you that you believed, prayed, suffered for? I think you dare not say so. We are like little children strayed from home, and God is now fetching us home, and we are ready to turn into any house, stay and play with every thing in our way, and sit down on every green bank, and much ado there is to get us home. We are also in the midst of our labours and dangers; and is there any resting here? What painful work doth lie upon our hands? Look to our brethren, to our souls, and to God; and what a deal of work, in respect of each of these, doth lie before us? And can we rest in the midst of all our labours? Indeed we may rest on earth, as the ark is said to have rested in the midst of Jordan; a short and small rest: Or as Abraham desired the angels to turn in, and rest themselves in his tent, where they would have been loath to have taken up their dwelling. Should Israel have fixed their rest in the wilderness, among serpents, and enemies, and weariness, and famine? Should Noah have made the ark his home, and have been loath to come forth when the waters were assuaged? Should the mariner choose his dwelling on the sea, and settle his rest in the midst of rocks, and sands, and raging tempests? Should a soldier rest in the thickest of his enemies? And are not Christians such travellers, such mariners, such soldiers? Have you not fears within, and troubles without? Are we not in continual dangers? We cannot eat, drink, sleep, labour, pray, hear, converse, but in the midst of snares; and shall we sit down and rest here? O Christian, follow thy work, look to thy dangers, hold on to the end, win the field, and come off the ground, before thou think of a settled rest. Whenever thou talkest of rest on earth, it is like Peter on the mount, thou knowest not what thou sayest. If, instead of telling the converted thief, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise, Christ had said, he should rest there on the cross; would he not have taken it for a derision? Methinks it should be ill resting in the midst of sickness and pains, persecutions and distresses. But if nothing else will convince us, yet sure the remainders of sin, which do so easily beset us, should quickly satisfy a believer, that here is not his rest. I say therefore to every one that thinkest of rest on earth, Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted.* These things cannot in their nature be a true Christian's rest. They are too poor, to make us *Micah, ii. 10. |