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 loth 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, and hold on to the end; win the field, and come off the ground, before thou think of a settled rest. Whenever thou talkest of a 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 upon the cross; would he not have taken it for a derision? Methinks it would 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 thinketh of rest on earth, Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted.(b)—These things cannot in their nature be a true Christian's rest. They are too poor to make us rich, too low to raise us to happiness, too empty to fill our souls, and of too short a continuance to be our eternal content. If prosperity, and whatsoever we here desire, he too base to make gods of, they are too base to be our rest. The soul's rest must be sufficient to afford it perpetual satisfaction. But the content which crea

(b) Micah ii. 10.
A a

tures afford, waxes old, and abates after a short enJoyment. If God should rain down angels' food, we should soon loathe the manna. If novelty support not, our delights on earth grow dull. All creatures are to us, as the flowers to the bee; there is but little honey on any one, and therefore there must be a superficial taste, and so to the next.-The more the creature is known, the less it satisfieth. Those only are taken with it, who see no further than its outward beauty, without discerning its inward vanity. When we thoroughly know the condition of other men, and have discovered the evil as well as the good, and the defects as well as the perfections, we then cease our admiration.

§ 16. (6) To have creatures and means without God, is an aggravation of our misery. If God should say, "Take my creatures, my word, my servants, my ordinances, but not myself;" would you take this for happiness? If you had the word of God, and not the Word which is God; or the bread of the Lord, and not the Lord, which is the true bread; or could cry with the Jews, The temple of the Lord, and had not the Lord of the temple; this were a poor happiness. Was Capernaum the more happy, or the more miserable, for seeing the mighty works which they had seen, and hearing the works of Christ which they did hear? Surely that which aggravates our sin and misery cannot be our rest.

§ 17. (7) To confirm all this, let us consult our own and others' experience.-Millions have made trial; but did any ever find a sufficient rest for his soul on earth? Delights I deny not but they have found, but rest and satisfaction they never found. And shall we think to find that which never man could find before us? Ahab's kingdom is nothing to him without Naboth's vineyard; and did that satisfy him when he obtained it? Were you, like Noah's dove, to look through the earth for a resting place, you would return confessing that you could fine none. Go ask honour, is there rest here?

You may as well rest on the top of tempestuous mountains, or in Etna's flames. Ask riches, is there rest here? Even such as is in a bed of thorns. If you inquire for rest of worldly pleasure, it is such as the fish hath in swallowing the bait: when the pleasure is sweetest, death is nearest. Go to learning, and even to divine ordinances, and inquire whether there your souls may rest? You might indeed receive from these an olive branch of hope, as they are means to your rest, and have relation to eternity; but in regard of any satisfaction in themselves, you would remain as restless as ever. How well might all these answer us, as Jacob did Rachel, Am I in God's stead, that you come to me for soulrest? Not all the states of men in the world; neither court nor country, towns nor cities, shops nor fields, treasures, libraries, solitude, society, studies, nor pulpits, can afford any such thing as this rest. If you would inquire of the dead of all generations, or of the living through all dominions, they would all tell you, "Here is no rest."-Or if other men's experience move you not, take a view of your own. Can you remember the state that did fully satisfy you? or, if you could, will it prove lasting? I believe we may all say of our earthly rest, as Paul of our hope, If it were in this life only, we are of all men the most miserable.

§ 18. If then either scripture or reason, or the experience of ourselves, and all the world, will satisfy us, we may see there is no resting here. And yet how guilty are the generality of us of this sin? How many halts and stops do we make, before we will make the Lord our rest! How must God even drive us, and fire us out of every condition, lest we should sit down and rest there! If he gives us prosperity, riches, or honour, we do in our hearts dance before them, as the Israelites before their calf, and say, These are thy gods; and conclude it is good to be here. If he imbitter all these to us, how restless are we till our condition be sweetened, that we may

sit down again, and rest where we were! If we proceed in the cure, and take the creature quite away, then how do we labour, and cry, and pray, that God would restore it, that we may make it our rest again! And while we are deprived of our former idol, yet rather than come to God, we delight ourselves in the hope of recovering it, and make that very hope our rest: or search about from creature to creature, to find out something to supply the room; yea, if we can find no supply, yet we will rather settle in this misery, and make a rest of a wretched being, than leave all and come to God. O the cursed averseness of our souls from God! If any place in hell were tolerable, the soul would rather take up its rest there, than come to God. Yea, when he is bringing us over to him, and hath convinced us of the worth of his ways and service, the last deceit of all is here, we will rather settle upon those ways that lead to him, and those ordinances that speak of him, and those gifts which flow from him, than we will come entirely over to himself. Christians, marvel not that I speak so much of resting in these; beware lest it prove thy own case. I suppose thou art so far convinced of the vanity of riches, honour, and pleasure, that thou canst more easily disclaim these; and it is well if it be so: but the means of grace thou lookest on with less suspicion, and thinkest thou canst not delight in them too much, especially seeing most of the world despise them, or delight in them too little. I know they must be loved and valued, and he that delighteth in any worldly thing more than in them, is not a Christian. But when we are content with ordinances without God, and had rather be at a sermon than in heaven, and a member of the church here than of the perfect church above, this is a sad mistake. So far let thy soul take comfort in ordinances, as God doth accompany them; remembering, this is not heaven, but the first-fruits. While we are present in the body, we are absent from the Lord; and while we are absent from him, we are absent from

our rest. If God were as willing to be absent from us, as we from him, and as loth to be our rest, as we to rest in him, we should be left to an eternal restless separation. In a word, as you are sensible of the sinfulness of your earthly discontents, so be you also of your irregular satisfaction, and pray God to pardon them much more. And above all the plagues on this side hell, see that you watch and pray against settling any-where short of heaven, or reposing your souls on any thing below God.

§ 19. (III.) The next thing to be considered is, our unreasonable unwillingness to die, that we may possess the saint's rest. We linger, like Lot in Sodom, till the Lord, being merciful unto us, doth pluck us away against our will. I confess that death of itself is not desirable; but the soul's rest with God is, to which death is the common passage. Because we are apt to make light of this sin, let me set before you its nature and remedy in a variety of considerations. As for instance:-It has in it much infidelity. If we did but verily believe, that the promise of this glory is the word of God, and that God doth truly mean as he speaks, and is fully resolved to make it good; if we did verily believe, that there is indeed such blessedness prepared for believers; surely we should be as impatient of living, as we are now fearful of dying, and should think every day a year till our last day should come. Is it possible that we can truly believe, that death will remove us from misery to such glory, and yet be loth to die? If the doubts of our own interest in that glory make us fear, yet a true belief of the certainty and excellency of this rest would make us restless till our title to it be cleared. Though there is much faith and christianity in our mouths, yet there is much infidelity and paganism in our hearts, which is the chief cause that we are so loth to die.-It is also much owing to the coldness of our love. If we love our friend, we love his company; his presence is comfortable, his absence is painful: when