in God and takes him for his Rest and exceeding great reward waiting on him as his all-sufficient shield with resignation for life or death Contented to live but willing to die and to be with Christ he is the only fixt Star in this lower firmament His feet stand fast be the pavement never so slippery In the term of Mans life there is a vicissitude of good and evil a mixture of labour and rest joy and sorrow there is a seed-time and an harvest a sowing in tears and reaping in joy He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall doubless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him But we may not expect Summer in the Winter season an harbour in the main Ocean our portion before we are of Age a reaping in joy 'till we have sown in tears The Traveller cannot think to find home in his Inn nor Heaven upon Earth The Children of Israel had the Wilderness and the Red-Sea to pass through before they could arrive at the Land of Canaan the place of their Rest They were all labourers that were sent into the Vineyard and could not expect their Peny 'till the day and their work was done let us therefore pray the Lord of the Harvest that our Labour and Travel may happily be turned at last into ease and Rest that when the six days of our life are at an end we may cease from our works as God did from his and enjoy with him an everlasting Sabboth of eternal Rest And the rather is this Rest hereafter to be laboured for now because whilst we are here upon Earth we have nothing pure and unmixt our very joys are mingled with sorrow and Solomon tells us even in laughter the heart is sad Expences here wait upon honour care of Education goes along with the blessing of Children and our most comfortable hopes are mixt with perplexing fears But when we come to Rest in the holy City that City which is above we shall have a perpetual day without night light without the Sun Our hunger shall be satisfied without food No need of Clothing there to cover our shame for shame and sin shall cease together then all sad doubtings what shall be our condition and state hereafter shall vanish away and we shall agree together with one heart and mind to sing Halelujahs and perpetual Prayers to God in the highest There will be no dissenters there no seperatists to break or interrupt that harmonious everlasting concord What wise Man then will set his heart upon the World when all things in it are but for so short an abode so unstable and so unsatisfactory and not rather on that abiding City above where the joys and pleasures are durable and eternal Christians of all others ought to remember what St. Paul saith Heb. 13.14 Here we have no abiding City but we seek one to come Our very profession exposeth us to all affliction and obliges us to live as strangers and pilgrims upon Earth What is Canaan or Jerusalem below to that above whereof the other was but a Type Things that are seen and perceptible by any bodily Eye are temporal transitory subject to changes every day and sure to be abolisht at length they will be taken from us or we from them when death comes which may come every day and therefore not worthy to be looked upon by such an immortal Soul or Spirit as constitutes Man which being made for eternity cannot be satisfied with ought that is temporal how long soever it may abide much less when 't is sure to continue no longer as to us than this uncertain short life and therefore in respect of our own and the Worlds end we may be truly said to have no abiding City here and are therefore the more carefully to seek and expect our eternal Rest and habitation from above While the World continues and we in it we have no continuing City here because neither habitation nor goods health nor wealth honours nor pleasures or any contentment is or can he assured us for our lives How many Villages Towns and Cities have Fires and Earthquakes and Wars destroyed How many Kingdoms and Common-wealths have civil disorders and foreign invasions overthrown Or rather what one in any Nation have they not The Histories or Records of all Ages all places besides the infallible Oracles of God which we have in our hands will give us a full induction and proof of this truth This Island wherein we live hath given us not only many Historical but experimental sensible proofs that from the King to the meanest Subject we have no continuing City here nor setled Rest and true happiness But besides these publick revolutions vicissitudes and changes every Family every private Person lies continually exposed to casualities to variety of sickness invading their health variety of molestations from those above them from those below them from those about them and also from their own follies lusts and passions from within them in so much that whatsoever Men fix their hearts upon in this World to take their greatest contentment in they cannot be sure on reasonable grounds that it shall continue with them one year longer The felicity and satisfactory happiness of this City above in which this eternal Rest is to be found ought to be valued so much the more because St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 2.9 That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entered into the heart of Man to conceive the fulness of those good things which God hath prepared for those that love him A grateful and pleasant taste of these good things God affords the Souls of the faithful here in this life how transcendently then unutterable and unconceivable will be the full fruition of all that which the Gospel reveals to us but as in a glass when enjoy'd to the height in the highest Heavens through all eternity when we shall see God as he is with everlasting overflowing satisfaction to all the faculties of the Soul The Eye of Mart hath seen here admirable things in Art and Nature the Ear hath heard and the Tongue hath tasted delicious things and Mans heart can conceive much more than Art or Nature could ever present our senses with The very pleasure of natural knowledge in the judgment of Persons exercised therein exceeds whatsoever sensuality vain glory or covetousness pursues or enjoys and yet the knowledge and love of God in Christ incomparably surpass St. Paul tells us whatsoever the heart of the natural Man advanced to the height can conceive as pleasant or delightful to it How much more doth this City to come and its endless unconceivable pleasures where this everlasting Rest is to be had exceed even our expressions and conceptions when they are at the highest If God hath provided such good things for Mankind here below in this World which was not made for the place of our happiness but only to give us a transitory glimpse of his
Rest in the Kingdom prepared for the blessed of his Father Despise not then the goodness of God who made you at first after his own Image Despise not the mercies of Christ the Son of God who came to take your nature and die for you Despise not the Spirit of God who waits and longs for your Sanctification Despise not those precious promises which yet are offer'd to all that cleanse and purify themselves nor those endless intolerable woes and miseries which are threatned to all despisers He that seeks not this Rest but walks in the ways of his own heart 'till he can walk no longer and thinks to delay from time to time his faithful conversion and reformation 'till he must take Sanctuary at last in the sighs and groans sorrows and purposes of sickness and his death-bed he that 'till then retained his sins and now when he knows or fears at least that he must die is sorrowful for haveing walked contrary to God and a good conscience he is in all probability sorrowful only for his danger which may possibly consist with as great an affection to sinful ways as in perfect health for even then in some circumstances he would have withstood the greatest temptation the boldest lust would refuse to be satisfied in the Market such restraint is no abatement of the affection He that grieved not 'till death and hell pressed him hard and doom was ready to seize upon him grieved for the sad consequences of sin not for its baseness and disorder For a remedy herein all such Persons had need to cure themselves of these tormenting fears of death and hell by a timely and early repentance because a late repentance is seldom sound and never save And this repentance which necessarily foregoes remission of sins can no ways better be obtained than by constant and fervent prayer Ask and ye shall have said our Saviour The prayer of Faith availeth much said St. James God is nigh unto all them that call upon him faithfully Seek and ask and beg and sue for what you will by fervent and faithful prayer by prayer that goes not out of feigned lips and it shall be given you Prayer is the very breath of Gods Spirit whereby our Soul draws in and sends forth Gods grace and it s own gracious desires Prayer it is our very scaling Ladder and Engin of battery whereby heaven is beseiged and suffers violence 'T is our arrow by which we pierce the Clouds and having gotten audience above 't is our weapon by which we wound our enemies below 'T is the Rudder and Anchor which keeps our Souls steddy in many waters when many winds and billows beat upon us 'T is the Compass by which we Sail when all is clouded 'T is our Key by which we open Heaven and wrestle with God resolving with Jacob not to part without a blessing But 't is not every lazy Prayer born in the lips or at most in the phansy uttered only for fashion sake or to quiet for a while a galled conscience No it is the Prayer of a righteous Man though a Man of infirmities with others when fervent that availeth much so much that it hath shut and opened Heaven made the Sun stand still and go back Though the Person be righteous if the Prayer be not fervent God hath no regard to it no reason to hear and consider that Prayer which he himself that makes it scarce hears and considers Great reason then have all to watch and to pray to make our calling and election sure and wisely in time to provide whilst the day of Salvation lasts that our labours here may terminate and end in eternal Rest because we know not how short our time is All flesh is grass said the Prophet Isaiah 40.6 And all the goodliness thereof is as the flowers of the field The grass withereth the flowers fadeth away because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is as grass for as the grass how green and flourishing soever it seems yet it sprang from the Earth and shortly after beasts devour it or winds blast it and if it come to last out its full time even then the Sythe comes to cut it down So is Mans life with all its fresh seeming contentments at the mercy even of every Creature Fire and Water Air and Sickness Famin and the Sword and what not almost And though he escape all sad accidents and casualties to the utmost length of Mans Age yet there is a natural Syth of Gods decree and Mans inward corruption that will not fail to cut him down No Age no condition can be exempted by any art by any means from the stroak of death Every Age hath proper to it self some posterns some out-lets of death besides those numberless open gates through which thousands yearly pass The bud is blasted as soon as the blown Rose the Lamb comes to the shambles as well as the grown Sheep Death looks not at Mens Estates or Degree or Age it comes not to the Church book to summon them by that the Womb the Cradle protects not many Infants die in both we know And the Jews Proverb is daily fulfilled in Golgotha are skulls of all sizes Childhood is so tender and yet so unwary of running into harms-way that Parents Eyes and Nurses Arms are scarce sufficient to keep one Child from strange and early calamities and death it self unless a guardian Angel be granted it to watch its very playings and sleepings eatings and drinkings The more uncertainty and instability we find here in things below the less ought we to rely and trust in any Creature and so much the more ought we to put our trust in God The very unfaithfulness of all things else should renue and confirm our faithfulness and to God who makes sickness and death become life and health by removing the vail of flesh which intercepts the light and sight of the fountain of life and gives an immediate access to him in whom alone this eternal Rest is to be found It is the honour and triumph of true Religion that having chosen God for its Rest it cannot be bereaved or defeated of its choise by any calamities whatsoever of this life It lifts up the Soul above all the winds and storms of this uncertain transitory world and fixes the heart upon that eternal fountain of joy and rest and happiness where there is no variableness nor shadow of turning Wish and desire and love whatsoever you please besides God Put your trust in any thing less or lower than him and you are not only sure that your love will be turned into hatred your liking into loathing your trust into despair when death comes but even while life and health lasts you are at uncertainties tossed perpetually betwixt the ebbs and flows of chance 'twixt hopes and fears like an unstable wave of the Sea or hanging like a doubtful Meteor in the Air whilst the humble patient Christian that trusts
THE WEARY TRAVELLER HIS Eternal Rest BEING A DISCOURSE of that Blessed Rest here which leads to endless Rest hereafter By H. H. D. D. Rector of Snaylwell and Canon of Ely Matt. 11.29 Take my Yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find Rest unto your Souls There remains therefore a Rest to the People of God Heb. 4.9 LONDON Printed by A. G. and J. P. for R. Clavell at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard 1681. TO THE Right Reverend Father in God And my ever honoured Lord PETER Lord Bishop of Ely MY LORD MANY have laboured and wearied themselves in a restless enquiry after a perpetual Motion whose thoughts might have been employed to better purpose in finding out perpetual Rest There is no Man living but would have Rest all our labours all endeavours tend that way Your Lordships unwearied Active Motion in the high place and calling in which Divine Providence hath set Your Lordship leads undoubtedly in a direct line to this desired Rest and as all natural Motions make more hast as they come nearer their Center so Your Lordships more vigorous and cheerful moving in this holy Function makes us jealous lest Your Lordship should make more hast to an Eternal Rest in the Church Triumphant than stands with the interest of the present Church Militant in which Your Lordships Care and Government have been so eminent and are still so necessary To no other therefore could I more advisedly address these Meditations of Rest than to the blessed hand of a Patron whose indefatigable labours have so fairly entituled him to all the promises of this most glorious and blessed Rest Nor comes this under Your Lordships Protection without design for having once taken Sanctuary there and past the dread it hath of Your Lordships view I shall not need for ever after be sollicitous what Eye it may be exposed unto for its censure But if it be asked why I after so many pious devout excelling discourses of this nature should cast my Mite at last into this Sacred Treasury the poor Widow in the Gospel shall answer for me who at the same time when she beheld the richer Offerings of the wealthy thrown frankly in before her Eyes yet held she not her self thereby excused And that this though the meanest of all oblations that have gone before it may yet contribute something towards the safe conducting some drooping Travellers that are weary and heavy laden to their long home their last and happy Eternal Rest hath been sincerely in the desires and shall for ever be in the Prayers of MY LORD Your Lordships most devoted obedient Son and most obliged humble Servant HEN. HARRISON ERRATA PAge 25. Line 26. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 45. l. 22. f. satisfied r. falsified p. 77. l. 11. Comma at sees and l. 13. the sense to go on without any new Paragraph p. 87. l. 15. f. watchful r. wrathful p. 114. l. 20. f. modesty r. in modesty p. 143. l. 7. f. up r. it up p. 144. l. 5. f. dwell r. duel p. 152. l. 24. f. descend r. descended p. 153. l. 20. f. cease r. to cease p. 180. l. 13. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 184. l. 25. f. easily r. easy p. 213. l. 17. f. natural r. mutual p. 218. l. 17. f. Wifes r. Wives ADVERTISEMENT THE general Catalogue of Books Printed in England since the Year 1666. And a Catalogue of School-books As also a Catalogue of Latin Books Printed in Foreign Parts and in England since the Year 1670. Brutum Fulmen or the Bull of Pope Pius V. concerning the Damnation Excommunication and Deposition of Q. Elizabeth as also the Absolution of her Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance with a Peremptory Injunction upon pain of an Anathema never to obey any of her Laws or Commands c. Both Printed for R. Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard THE WEARY TRAVELLER HIS ETERNAL REST. MAN goeth forth to his Work and to his Labour until the Evening saith the Royal Prophet Psal 104.23 The day of his Life is spent in a painful and weary Travel 'till the Evening come 'till his declining Sun be fully set and he fitted to lie down in Peace and enjoy the happy Rest of a long ensuing night But that Man in this his day might not disquiet himself in vain that he might not bear the heat and burthen of the day and yet miss of this Rest at night the holy Apostle St. Paul writing to the Hebrews and in them to all Christians begins his fourth Chapter with an Exhortation to Fear lest a Promise being left them of entering into God's Rest any of them should seem to come short of it Wherein he layes down the Ground and Motive of Hope plainly implied in the same words A promise being left them of entring into his Rest concluding the whole Chapter with a most cogent endearing invitation to come boldly to the Throne of Grace to obtain Mercy and to find Grace to help in time of need That so he that went on his way weeping and bearing forth good seed might doubtless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him That he that went sighing and groaning under the weight and burthen of his heavy load might have no cause to faint or despond in the way nor start aside through the sad affrightments of hopeless fear Hope and Fear well temper'd together are the two preservatives of our Safety or Spiritual Life they are that which keep our Faith and Love from despair on the one side and from presumption on the other from slothful security on this hand and tormenting distrustful anxiety on the other Fear as the Rudder of the Ship diverts our Souls in their sailings to Heaven the Haven of their eternal Rest from the Quick-sands and Rocks that are in the way while Hope as the Sails filled with the breathings of God's Spirit his faithful promises carries us forward against the tide or stream of the World our earthly desires and carnal inclinations Wherefore the wise Apostle here as every where else throughout this and his other Epistles seeks to temper and mix these two in the Souls of Christians And having exemplified the possibility both of attaining and also of losing God's Rest in the ancient Israelites ch 3. v. 7. to the end now repeats and presseth the motives of Fear and Hope upon the Hebrews and in them on all Christians Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his Rest any of you should seem to come short of it Were the promise of Rest unconditional and absolute unto some and not at all propounded to others with any feazibleness of attaining it by a true possibility of performing its conditions the former should have no reason to fear nor the latter to hope But the promise being conditional and general excluding none
what and why they believe then they are clearlier convinced and condemned by their own conscience for not persevering and increasing that faith by living sincerely according to it but contradicting their very faith as well as profession untill the custom of sin hath darkned if not extinguisht their former evidences is it not high time then for any that finde it thus with them to cast away all longer delays of self abhorrence and repentance to return to God and their own hearts with shame and grief for their former backslidings and for ever from henceforth to be the more humble for what is past watchful and zealous for the future in reviewing their faith and living by it in Holiness and Righteousness Purity and Peaceableness Obedience and Patience lest that faith which hath been deadned and contradicted so long and often turn to a total and final apostacy in the end There 's nothing more clear in Holy Scripture than that they whom God vouchsafes to call by his loudest voice and powerfullest means to Repentance and Faith and Obedience are rendred thereby so much the more hainously guilty of willful ingratitude unbelief and disobedience and therefore liable to so much the sorer Condemnation unless they repent believe and obey according to that light and grace which was afforded them You have I known of all Nations therefore you will I punish the sooner and more severely This is the condemnation that light is come into the World and ye have loved darkness rather than light Woe unto thee Corazin woe unto thee Bethsaida for if the mighty works c. they had repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes How shall we of all others escape if we neglect so great salvation It is indeed a great favour and mercy of God to send us his Gospel to prevent us with all the means of grace but favours and mercies abused and perverted increase the guilt of those that receive them but would not use them to God's glory and their own Salvation And yet what more common and general for Men and Women of all sorts to suppose themselves safe enough and entituled sufficiently to God's Rest because they are of the visible Church professing that Truth which should purify and sanctify them but doth not because it is not aright considered and laid to heart in its grounds and reasons terms and conditions as well as its promises The greatest part of the Jews you see though brought out of Egypt with many Miracles made the peculiar People of God the lively Oracles committed to them and what not that could be desired to make them holy or happy yet for want of considering and believing the word of God forfeited and lost their Title to Canaan And the greatest part I fear of Christians yea of the purest professors of Christianity will forfeit and lose their Title to Heaven unless they consider believe and obey the Gospel of Christ more sincerely impartially constantly than hitherto they seem to have done And if they miss of Gods Rest for want of considering and performing its conditions their anguish and pain will be so much the heavier to all eternity They that have the Oracles of God the word and Sacraments Pastors and Teachers granted to them and yet are never the better and holier are so much worse because they disgrace and bring a reproach on the greatest and weightiest Truth in the World as if it had no evidence or power in it The Israelites once were like Gideons Fleece full of heavenly Dew in a drought endued with those high and happy priviledges of which we read Rom. 2.3 and Rom. 9.4 But yet because they lived not answerably to their vocation but made their privileges occasions of Pride and vain presumption of Gods favour till at last they rejected their very Messias of whom they boasted as their peculiar they are at this day like the Mountains of Gilboa barren and dry while the Dew of Heaven hath fallen abundantly upon the Nations The favours shewn to the Christian Church are greater than theirs because the Truth is clearlier revealed the means of grace more powerfull and less burthensom But yet these favours if trusted to and yet neglected will prove aggravations of God's displeasure To be surrounded with such helps of God from above of Men below ready to further us towards Heaven of precepts to guide promises to encourage us and yet to fall short of Gods Rest is a double and treble shame and sorrow Wherefore if not in gratitude to God for all his mercies yet for fear lest these mercies prove by our own willful neglect and contempt of them the aggravations of our misery let us while it is called to day excite our selves and exhort one another to repentance and faith holiness and righteousness obedience and patience against whatever temptations arise We have a promise infallibly sure incomparably pretious of entring Gods Rest his word to quicken us his Sacraments to confirm us his Grace to prevent assist and follow us If we hearken to his word and resist not his grace neither Prophane nor Idolize his Sacraments but receive them with faith and reverence as they were instituted in love If we hear the Church and watch over our selves and one another Sin shall have no dominion over us we shall be built up from one degree of faith and holiness to another until we enter Gods Rest without any fear or possibility of falling from it But if we neglect the conditions of it and trust to the promise as if it were absolute to the means of grace as if they were even grace it self our sloth and confidence will end in despair and find for ever so much the greater trouble and anguish for having missed of God's Rest offered unto us on such conditions Let us awake then and excite our selves and one another by all the arguments of hope and fear love and gratitude that so God may have the honour of all his favours bestowed upon us and we the everlasting comfort of being thankful and hearing that beatifical voice Well done good and faithful Servant enter thy Masters Joy and Rest Now this Rest of Gods is not the Rest of the Sabboth or Canaan in this life but that eternal Rest with God in Heaven implied indeed and preparation made for it by the Sabboth Typified by Canaan begun here by believers to be injoy'd in its first fruits through faith and hope but not to be had in its full harvest its perfect peace and joy in God 'till we come to Heaven We which have believed saith Saint Paul do enter into Rest that is shall if we persevere in faith and holiness enter into it perfectly without possibility of forfeiting or losing it do enter into it now by faith and hope in God's promises by love and obedience of his precepts which gives us a real Title to it yea a true though initial imperfect defeasible admission into it by that Rest from the guilt of Sin which
faith and the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus receives and imbraces with peace and joy by that Rest from the power disorder and tyranny of Sin which faith procuring Gods Spirit and looking upon the certainty and weight of his promises and threats the beauty and excellency of his precepts together with the great obligation of God's mercy in sending his Son to die for our sins and rise again for our justification effects and enjoys Thus believers if such believers as rely on the promises of God's Rest with faithful resolutions and endeavours to perform its conditions do enter into it initially and shall enter into it eternally But how proves the Apostle this the proof of it is in these words He said I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter my Rest who shew themselves obstinately unbelieving and disobedient The Argument is taken à contrario from the nature of contrary things If infidelity and disobedience be that alone which excludes from the promise of God's Rest then faith and obedience or such a faith as produceth obedience is that which entitles us to enter into it for God's promise cannot be satisfied nor wholly norutterly disappointed or made to become of none effect And therefore though they who would not believe it nor keep its conditions fell short of it yet they who believe and perform its conconditions must enter into it Yea his very wrath and oath against the one for their unbelief and disobedience implies and inferrs his complacency and love towards the other his undefeasible decree and oath that they persevering in faith and obedience shall enter and fully enjoy his Rest And this Rest was not the Rest of Canaan For if Joshua or Jesus the Son of Nun had given them Rest then would not David afterwards have spoken of another Rest from whence the Apostle inferrs what he began with there Remains therefore a Rest to the People of God another manner of Rest than that of Canaan eternal and perfect with God in Heaven to which the true Joshua or Jesus the Son of God must give us entrance by faith in him of whom Joshua the Son of Nun was but an imperfect transitory Type as that Rest of Canaan and of the Sabboth was of the perfect eternal Rest which still remains for Gods People the whole Church of true persevering obedient believers From what the Apostle hath said we may make this observation That Man hath no true and perfect Rest in ought but God His Rest is Mans Rest because he is the Rest and happiness of Man the ultimate compleate satisfactory object of reasonable creatures To Rest in any thing but in him as our happiness without dependance on him as the Author and reference to him as the end thereof is sinful vanity and vexation sure to end in eternal trouble without repentance Canaan it self was not to be the final Rest and happiness of the Israelites nor must any thing in this World any thing less than God be ours What God hath said to the Jews of old he much more clearly hath said and proved to us Christians Arise and depart for this is not your Resting place The Heavenly Rest and eternal life of seeing God as he is was but obscurely and imperfectly revealed to them who lived before or under the law till Christ came in whom the promise of it was made when man had lost all hope of it It was till then wrapt up as it were in the seed and bloome of Types and Prophesies implied and intimated in the Sabboth and Canaan and Temporal blessings attending Piety in this life rather than manifested and brought to light in its clearest evidences and strongest assurances as now our Lord Jesus hath done who hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel and therefore if they were obliged only in God through Christ Jesus to place their happiness in nothing below but to look on him through the vaile of Types and Temporal blessings how much more are we obliged as well as enabled to do so to whom Christ hath been exhibited with all the fulness of Truth and grace revealing the whole counsel of God our Rest in him and the way to attain it without obscurity and beyond dispute If David foresaw and foretold this Rest to be remaining when he not only enjoy'd Canaan and its blessings as the other Israelites did but the very height thereof as a prosperous King If he could say Deliver me O Lord from the Men of this World whose portion is in this life I am a stranger and sojourner here as all my Fathers were How much more are we obliged to think and say so who have not such Types and Temporal blessings to vaile the Object of our Rest and interrupt our sight of it to whom the Son and Lord of David hath been exhibited exemplifying and teaching us our only Rest to be in God the Father through him the Son by his holy Spirit dying to purchase an entrance to it rising and ascending and sitting down in a Glorious Rest at Gods Right Hand to assure us of it It is no less than the sin of Idolatry to place our Rest confidence or happiness in pleasures or honours possessions or riches or any thing else that this World can gratifie us with it is the bitter spring or Root of all sins It contradicts the design of God in giving us any Temporal blessings he gave them to help us unto him that reflecting upon him as their Author and end we might be perswaded to love him incomparably above all if we fall in love with them instead of raising our love to him we quite pervert the intent of his favours and turn them into hinderances to his dishonour and our own ruine He gave them to comfort us in our journy and shall we so mistake his meaning as to set up our dwelling in the Inn and Travaile no farther towards our Country but forget the giver because of that gift which was sent us on purpose to mind us of him This were to bring that curse on our selves which the Prophet foretold rather than prayed might fall on Gods enemies Let their Table be made a snare and that which should have been for their wealth be an occasion of falling to them This were indeed to provoke God either to withdraw those favours which thus he sees rested in instead of him or else to embitter and curse them from yeilding any content and if he should suffer us still to rest in them to his dishonour 't would prove the greatest surest curse of all others to live and die in this false deceitful transitory Rest which leads to and ends in eternal trouble and sorrow of body and soul That which is Mans true Rest must be able to give him full and perpetual satisfaction But all things below do neither satisfie us while we have them nor can continue with us longer to yield us that Rest or Pleasure which we fancy We
spend much time and care to get them and when we have gotten them as we think they die in the mid'st of our embraces and leave little or nothing behind them but shame and loathing Taedet adeptos quod adepturos torsit we pine for them as Ammon for Thamar and then repine at our selves and them that we were such fools as to seek our Rest where 't was not Therefore all carnal worldly Persons whether the sensual or voluptuous the covetous or ambitious are fain to wander from one purstui and design to another till having run the whole circle they are weary and giddy perplext and tired and cry out Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation no Rest to be had below and how shall we hope for that above who never sought till 't was too late Ahabs Kingdom seem'd as nothing unless he might have Naboths Vineyard and having obtained it by Perjury and Murther it pressed him to death and Hell Alexander had no Rest till he Conquered he thought one World and then had as little or rather less suspecting and killing his nearest Friends untill he drank himself to Death and found that Poison in Intemperance which he feared to find from his Cup-bearer Let 's consult our own experience and hearts hath any of us who have run through several states of life with Hopes of Rest when this or that were attained found the Rest which we hoped for and not either quite miss'd what we sought or miss'd of that Rest and satisfaction which we sought and hoped to have found Or if any of us have been so happy and yet so miserable so happy as to obtain our desires and yet so miserable as to desire no more no Rest in Heaven no Peace and Joy of life eternal with God can any of us without stupifying our very Reason common sense as well as faith take Rest in that which we know we must leave e're many years and which for ought we know may leave us e're many days Thus we see what an hainous sin indeed the Spring of all sins is to seek or desire to Rest in ought but God and withall what a folly and madness it is against our selves as well as a sin against God And yet how guilty of this ingratitude and this folly are most Christians if we reckon them so who carry the name and profession of Christianity If God send Men health and wealth peace and plenty possessions and honours how ready are they to set up their Rest on this side Jordan whereas all this was given them to raise their gratitude towards its Donor and make them thereby long after him that they might at length Rest in him But if God send them afflictions and troubles to wean them and drive them from this their folly they are troubled and grieved as if they had lost their God and Saviour in losing that which they had not lost if they would but have used it moderately and thankfully as coming from God and leading to him But woe and restless trouble and anguish for ever more must and will be their portion whom neither prosperity can invite nor adversity drive to Rest in God Secondly They who believe with such a Faith in Christ Jesus as works by Love the Love of God above all as their perfect eternal Rest and happiness their All-sufficient shield here and exceeding great reward hereafter they alone do enter God's Rest Here by Faith Hope and Love hereafter by full immediate inseparable sight and fruition Here they enter God's Rest inchoitivè by having a Title to it as adopted Sons and Heirs of God through Christ Jesus by having a true though imperfect prospect or foresight of it through Faith in Gods word and the merits of Christ Now this is a blessed Rest to the Soul compared with that miserable toile and drudgery fears and troubles which all unbelieving and disobedient wicked Persons lie under how prosperous soever their outward condition in this World seems The Rest of a Traveller is far short of one that is come to his Country and Home and yet it is a true Rest compared with one that wanders through desarts boggs and precipices into ruine He that now knows he is in the right way to his final Rest his Fathers House where he shall be sure of a glorious inheritance and satisfactory eternal peace and joy that through the way he goes also he shall be directed in all turnings protected from all dangers refreshed and relieved at every Stage with competent food and comfortable Rest this Mans heart is calm and quiet from those anxieties which the other suffers and though he must look to his way as he goes be thrifty and temperate in his Inn and Travel forward with watchful diligence and painful industry yet his labours and cares have the Rest of Hope and chearful expectance and as he draws nearer his Country and home so his Rest and joy increaseth This is the Rest of holy Travellers towards Heaven their Country their God and Father To which Christ Matt. 11.28 Invites the weary and heavy laden and into which when they come unto him they enter by Faith if such a Faith as takes up his Yoke and wears his burthen with meekness and lowliness as easy and gracious Faith laies hold on the merits of Christ and rests on him that takes away the sins of the World by the propitiation of his obedience for Pardon and Peace as knowing nothing else can procure it but that That most certainly and fully shall procure it for all that come unto God by him for mercy and grace God was in Christ saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 5.19 21. Reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their Trespasses to them for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him He might have declared his mercy to us some other way but this was the only best way to declare his Righteousness as well as Mercy that he might be just as well as gracious in justifying the sinner and punishing the sin Therefore being justifyed by Faith we enter into Gods Rest having Peace with God through Christ Jesus saith St. Paul He that relies his weary Soul on this Rock and sure foundation shall never be ashamed of his Hope if he rely with such a Faith and Hope on it as accepts of the Yoke as well as the Rest but shall by degrees as he grows in Holiness and Righteousness find the Rest of his Soul increased and assured unto him more and more till he attain that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fulness of Peace and Joy in believing which St. Paul expresseth Rom. 8.38 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect 't is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth 'T is Christ that died or rather is risen again to God's right hand and there makes intercession for us As for afflictions that often may and do follow
dissembling false hearted flatterer to his pride and ambition a slanderous sycophant detractor and whisperer to his envy a brawling railing reviler to his wrath or anger a bloody assassinate to his revenge a griping extortioner or theevish cheater to his covetousness a seducer and tempter that is an assistant to Satan in ruining his own and other Mens Souls And when all this is done see what wearisom restless toyle remains for the sinner He would live for ever in this World but sees he must die and be call'd to account and seeing that he would die for ever and turn to nothing but that he sees he cannot neither He would have Gods favour but dares not come near him He would live in peace and approbation with himself but a civil War and contrary desires lusts and passions contrary each to one another and all to reason tear and divide him from himself He would live at Rest and Peace with other Men but his covetousness and pride makes him injurious his wrath and revenge his malice and envy makes him impatient and quite bereave him of this Peace He would be rich but either his sloth will not gather or his lusts and vain glory scatters as fast as his industry gets He would live in safety and ease but his haughty ambition makes him endure labour and danger day and night He would be in honour and high repute but his sordid lusts and cowardly fears griping covetousness or wrathfull revenge makes him hateful and contemptible His pride and ambition would command all Men but it makes him first fawn and flatter bow and cringe to those whom he secretly hates and scorns He would be true to his own principles and religion not give himself the lie by professing what he doth not believe but his love of the World and fear of poverty or of death doth so disturb the Rest of his Soul that he coucheth under every load complies and conforms to any profession of faith or worship which those who prevail would have him subscribe to till he lay down his faith hope and conscience at the feet of a Man whose breath is in his nostrils who threatens and strikes and is no more Thus he that serves is restless indeed opprest and tired with contrary Tyrants crossing and thwarting one another till they wrack and tear the Man in pieces and drag him to everlasting trouble anguish and sorrow How sweet then and highly pretious is that Rest which faith in God through Jesus Christ enters into when under the light and worth of that truth which it hath received it guides and subdues all its appetites affections and passions from a right principle by a right rule to a right end which is nothing but God and his word God as its author governour and happiness or perfect Rest For though the Rest be yet imperfect because the World the Flesh and the Devil do yet oppose it yet Christ hath promised that no opposition shall overthrow it unless we willfully and obstinately grieve that Spirit of truth holiness and comfort which was given us as the Seal of our faith and peace with God the preserver and finisher of this Rest the assurance of our present adoption and future inheritance if we will but wisely and thankfully value that Rest into which we are enter'd humbly and watchfully pray unto Christ to confirm and increase it all oppositions shall prove advantages all dangers travails and labours so many evidences of Gods faithfulness to us and ours to him of his being our all sufficient shield and supporter here our exceeding reward and satisfactory Rest for evermore Now see what a blessed Rest there is in faith and holiness and all those graces which wait on them Faith in God gives the mind a Sabboth of Rest from all those anxious perplexing enquiries and self contradicting resolutions which humane reason left to it self is vexed with and settles the heart on that divine Wisdom and truth which can neither deceive nor be deceived humbling at once the understanding and advancing it because it is its greatest advancement to be humbled under God who never fails to honour those who honour him and makes the conscience arise and rejoyce to see that it hath submitted it self to such a guide Take faith in its meanest Offices of trusting God in our temporal affairs resigning our selves to his wisdom power and goodness as one that can and will chuse better for us than we our selves what peace and rest is this to our Souls from all those servile fears and cares those base submissions and baser oppressions which the covetous worldling or cowardly trembling unbeliever undergoes Though the Waters rage and the Earth shake yet he whose heart trusts in the Lord that all things shall work together for good he is the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a squar'd Man whom no change can make a changeling because his heart stands fast and believes in the faithful God he is gotten above this region of meteors clouds and winds because the Lord is his sun and shield which no cloud can intercept no wind shake But then in the higher Offices of faith whereby it considers and embraces the glorious truth of God our Redeemer and Saviour and sees that they are as certainly true as gloriously great That former sins confessed and forsaken are blotted out for the merits of Christ the Law satisfied by such a surety Satans accusations silenced by such an Advocat That afflictions and death have lost their sting and are turned into benefits That he who hath begun a good work will also finish it and never leave us in life and death untill he hath brought us to perfect Rest and full happiness both of soul and body what fruit can this produce but peace and joy in the holy Ghost cheerful constancy and perseverance in doing and suffering the will of God It rescues us from all those trembling fears and sorrowful agonies which else must seize upon our hearts from the weakness of the flesh and the strength of our enemies from the curse of the Law and the horrors of conscience from the malice and subtilty of the World and the Devil How well then might St. Paul say we that believe enter Gods Rest do already in good degree shall compleatly and unchangeably if we persevere Hope the second Christian grace is so near of kin to Faith that 't is lineally derived from it and born of it nor can that heart but find a comfortable blessed Rest which hopes in the fountain of all blessedness hopes to see and enjoy him for ever and in that hope purifies himself All other hopes are dead or dying sure to leave him void of Rest full of anxiety that builds on them This is the only lively hope as Saint Peter calls it because placed in the fountain of life and joy it self This is that grace which applies to our selves the general promises the Souls Anchor which makes it ride safe and triumphant in
ornament of a quiet Spirit very pretious in Gods sight and therefore ought to be so in ours I appeal to the reason and experience of any Man whether it be not rest and ease to forgive an injury rather than be provoked to revenge and to lay aside the consideration of other Mens malice envy and peevishness rather than imitate it and suffer the vexing remembrance of it to boil and ferment in our watchful minds until it hath conquered and transform'd us into the same troublesom evil Is it not Peace and a blessed Rest to sit still and lift up no hands but those of Charity and Charitable prayer rather than labour in fighting and wounding one another To hold ones peace than to rail and revile Which hath more Rest in it to study to be quiet and do ones own business or to be prying and intermedling with other Mens office faults or secrets To speak evil of no Man or to be always finding fault and speaking the worst we can of any who differ from us in any respect Which is the greatest trouble and burthen meekly to obey our Lawfull Governours in Church and State where God hath not commanded the contrary or be allways disputing against a few harmless indifferent ceremonies untill we have quarre'ld our selves and others into a causeless scandalous pernitious separation Then for humble contented patience that precept of the Old Testament but wisdom and mystery of the New Thou shalt not covet but be content patiently with thy own portion what is it but a Rest rather than burthen a purchase or priviledge rather than duty when once learnt Let the Carnal or Worldly Man with his bored tub of insatiable desires cry as the Horseleach give give and seek after wealth as he should after God without bounds Yet the Heathen Philosopher could resolve it the only way to true Rest not to seek to raise our fortunes to our desires but to bring down our desires to our fortunes and present condition The one is not onely uncertain because not in any Mans power but impossible because his desires increase with his purchases as fire with fewel whereas the other is possible and certain Contentment and patience glorifies God by placing its wealth in his favours who having promised him necessaries here and a Kingdom hereafter hath taught and obliged him to be contented with any fare upon the way because he sees his being so confirms and increaseth his future happiness Nullo egere Dei est quà m paucissimis Deo proximum As for sobriety temperance chastity reason secondded by experience assures any Man that to drink to the quenching of ones thirst or at most to the moderate cheering one Spirits to eat to the satisfying ones hunger or at most to the gratifying of festival joy hospitality friendship and thankful delight in what God hath bountifully given is all the good that is to be had from Meat and Drink that 't is a trouble as well as a sin to swill as if one were in a Feaver or till one brings himself to a Feaver or Dropsy to Eat and Drink till reason is drowned smothered and buried under the load and till the Phantastick forced pleasure of two or three mispent hours end in the pain of head and stomach for whole days after if not in some villainous lust or passion and bloudy quarrel in sickness and death both of Soul and Body The conscience finds all trouble in it and the Body it self for gratifying of which God and Conscience was despised find no Rest within some hours And what comparison between the rest safety health and honour of either virginal or conjugal chastity which keeps the desires of the flesh under the power of reason and faith lives in the hope of seeing God preserves the bond of love in Families inviolated and the unclean shameful excesses of wandring lust which are conceived with fear and anxiety brought forth and finisht with shame and sorrow begin in disorder of Soul and Body end in loathing begin in trouble end in worse burn at first and consume at last the peace of the mind if not the health of the Body also besides the confusions tumults quarrels it breeds in Families and all for the sneaking brutish delight of a few minutes There is indeed one grace which seems to have little Rest in it The suffering persecutions to death rather than disown the Truth or violate duty But God hath made so many promises to mitigate and temper all temptations to the strength which we either now have or shall receive upon our prayers of his turning to good whatsoever seems most evil And of his rewarding our courage and patience with so much the greater weight of glory that these promises being believed we are enabled as well as obliged not only to be contented but joyful also in tribulations for truth and righteousness sake and therefore no wonder if suffering miseries for the honour of God and our Lord Jesus for the furtherance of our own salvation and other Mens hath more rest than trouble in it without this Rest a flow of all other good things which this world can give will leave a Man but a miserable wearied Traveller under a heavy load and burthen of discontents and sorrows and with this Rest all labour and sorrow is inconsistent and though we may not expect to have this promised eternal Rest endless felicity as our deserved wages yet we may and ought to hope for it as our promised reward Angels and Saints departed this life they have it allready the Devils and damned are past all Hope Great pains and labour do the Men of this World take but not in order to this Rest and therefore a Multitude of mistaken sinners lay out the chief of their days and time in pursuance of pleasures and honours and profits of this World as if Heaven and Salvation were easy atchievments as if they might with a wish only at the last come to die the death of the righteous who had so notoriously lived the life of the wicked 'T is not only the doing of evil but the not doing of good which shall be punished at the last day the judge shall then condemn for not feedings for not clothing Go ye cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry and ye fed me not for I was naked and ye clothed me not Not doing of good is none of the least evils He that sits still and moves not one step towards this Rest by wearing Christs Yoak and bearing his burthen shall lose Heaven as infallibly as he that runs from it who so hides his Talent shall receive no other wages save that of the slothful Servant The way to Heaven is narrow the Gate straight it must be striving that gives us entrance not only the hopes of Heaven but the escaping of Hell makes it our duty to be doing of good and by so doing we express our fear lest a promise of Rest being left any of us should seem
ought appears for though he thought himself better than the Publican yet he acknowledged both his abstinence from sinful works and his perseverance in good ones to be from God God I thank thee for this and for that he saith not as they God I thank thee thou hast given me the first grace only to restrain me from such sins as the Publican walks in whereas my proficiency in doing of good is from my own meritorious choice but I thank thee for one and the other Yet because he so glories in Gods graces as if they had not been received from free mercy because he is not truly humbled by that grace which in words he confesseth to have received from God alone therefore is he less justified than the Publican for the use of all the graces which God bestows in this life is to teach us true humility not to glory in our selves but in him to whom all grace and glory belongs And if we make not this use of it if we say not with Jacob Lord I am less than the least of thy mercies towards me If when we have done justice and loved mercy we walk not humbly with our God and say not as our Lord hath taught us forgive us our trespasses we have been but unprofitable servants in respect of what we might and should have been we turn his grace into pride and vain glory and are worthy to lose the acceptance and reward which was promised for Christs merits not ours though not without sincere performance of those conditions to which his mercy and grace enableth us Our good works are acceptable to God a sweet Sacrifice but still it is through Jesus Christ Better is it for us to hear one Saint from Heaven one of those Spirits made perfect than thousands of daring sinful Disputants here below For what are all the Chairs and Schools of Men on Earth to the suffrage of Heaven where not only one but all the Saints and perfected Spirits cast down their Crowns before him that sits on the Throne at the feet of the Lamb. Rev. 7.5 Saying aloud To him that hath loved us and washt us from our sins in his blood and made us Kings and Priests to God and his Father be glory and power for evermore Thus have we seen that 't is not merit that will bring us to this promised eternal Rest and yet they that will attain to it must imploy their Talent well they must come unto Christ as Christ came unto us by charity and by humility To obtain this Rest will cost some care and pains and therefore we must expect it but this care and pains will be highly rewarded and therefore 't will be our wisdom to undergo it The Men of this world are apt to think Christianity and coming to Christ a joyless thing because it speaks so much of holy living of presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice of mortifying and Sacrificing its lusts and affections as if they were no longer to enjoy themselves who voluntarily deny themselves in all these but they are but false hearted Spies that would bring this bad report upon a good land for the mortifying the lusts of the flesh the presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice is not the destruction of our joys but the increase of them and gives assurances of this eternal Rest For let the body be never so backward to be presented unto God and offer'd up in Sacrifice to him though it shrinke at the sight of the Altar and tremble to see the Sacrificing Knife yet are we not to hearken to its foolish tenderness no cruelty like such indulgence the life and safety and Rest of the Soul depends upon this disciplining this mortifying the body For he that mortifies and kills and slayes his lusts doth but Sacrifice that which would hurt destroy and ruine himself 't is but a carnal worldly Man that is killed at most nay 't is but a beast 't is but the unreasonable appetite that is slain reasonable Man is saved alive and made more reasonable by so doing and exalted thereby to a Spiritual life He that leaves this beast alive and is led by his unruly passions is hurried even in this life to more sorrows cares and vexations than any Saint or Martyr endures in his passage to Heaven when he offers himself up unto God by an holy life and patient death Therefore who so desires in good earnest not to fail of this promised eternal Rest must crucify the whole body of sin must subdue and bring into subjecton every vnruly member thereof The lustful covetous disdainful evil Eye which hath made thee blind or ill sighted to all that is good must be closed up and put out and the charitable peaceable contented good Eye set open and then God will one day ravish that Eye with Objects of eternal joy and Rest and delight in Heaven Our Ears must be closed up and deaf to all ungodly prophane discourses and unsavoury communication but open to all that is harmless and good sober and wise rational or Christian If the ungodly wanton cruel Ear that itches after falseshood and wrong be cut off and the religious believing chast merciful Ear remain then thou hast made thine Ears the gates of Heaven and Life and Rest for the Spirit of truth to enter in being thus opened thou shalt hear the joys of Heaven sounding in thy Ears such joys as God hath prepared for them that love him The Lips also must be closed and the Tongue tied up from Oaths and Curses prophane allusions to holy Scripture bitter revilings strife and clamour open slanders and secret detractions but they must be opened and the Tongue loosed to all holy duties of Prayers and Prayses towards God wholsom counsel admonition and instruction towards Men. If the prophane seducing contentious provoking bitter Tongue be tied up and silenced and the wise pure and peaceable and faithful Tongue be loosened and set on work thou art no loser by this change because thou hast exchanged folly for wisdom shame for honour strife for peace the discord of infernal Spirits for the musick of Angels thou hast exchanged the Tongue of an Atheist for the Tongue of a Prophet or a Saint Next the hand must be withheld from violence and oppression from theft and sacriledge fraud and deceit but open to all the works of Piety and Charity If the injurious griping bloody hand be cut off and the innocent holy pure hand be lifted up to God in Prayer and stretcht out to Man in Charity what hast thou lost but the hand of a Murtherer a Thief an Usurer or Adulterer and hast for it the holy hand of a Priest the Royal hand of a Benefactor Holy and acceptable unto God pleasing and beneficial unto Men The feet also must be restrained from wandering into the ways of wickedness where we meet with temptations and vanity snares and dangers they are to carry us from the seducing assemblies of Schismaticks the bloody Conspiraces
their disordered appetites Ask if they find not themselves uneasy when they consider how short and low their pleasure is compared with the irksom diseased shamefulness of their sin See how heavily the Ambitious proud person walks between his eager desires and doubtful expectations under his false hopes and true fears and then judge whether his wearisom days and restless nights can bring him any true content Should I instance in the idle Gallant whose time like a burthen lies upon his hands or in the contentious wrangler or unpeaceable brawler the secret whisperer or the open detractor I should tire your patience sooner than want a proof that sin is a wearisom uneasy heavy restless burthen and that it is necessary by the way of virtue to come unto Christ for ease and Rest The Angel in Tobit bids Tobias take out the gall of the fish to cure his blindness if we rip the bowels of worldly sinful lusts and pleasures and take out the gall of them that is to say seriously look upon the bitterness they bring with them and the gall and wormwood they leave behind them it may prove a remedy of our Spiritual blindness yet such is our short-sightedness that we think we are at ease under our load and at Rest in our sore Travel Sin turns all things up side down it sets Earth above and Heaven below Reason at the footstool and brutish appetite on the Throne and having thus lookt downward for our Rest and happiness we are ashamed to look Heaven in the face and having lost Heaven for Earth by sin we look downward still as fearing that Hell which we have so well deserved and this is it which makes Men suffer all sorts of diseases the Gout the Stone Tooth-aches and all kind of Tortures rather than die because ill led lives leave Men under anxious fears and sad doubtings what shall be their future state When Tamberlin commanded all Leprous persons to be put to death lest they should lead a miserable life the poor Lepers thought his mercy cruel and would have endured more willingly two Leprosies than one death not because of any great comfort they took in their lives but because they knew not what might follow after death To lose this life without assurance or hopeful probability of a better is doleful and bitter but to lose it with assurance from Gods own Mouth of a far worse of incurring an eternal death anguish and pain without mitigation this makes death deadly indeed when the sinner must die again for the sin he dies in when the first death leads to a second and when all the terrors and sorrows and pains of the first death are but the evidences of more or worse to follow when the fire that 's now begun to be kindled will burn down to the lowest hell Deut. 32.22 If we believe this in good earnest why do we not hate sin worse than death Because sin is the cause of all this the cause of death and all that is deadly It makes us liable to a dreadful account at the day of Judgment and makes our whole life restless and uneasy This being so how dare we trifle away one day or hour more of that term or time of Trial upon which though so short and so uncertain depends such a life and such a death such joys and such sorrows such rest and such disquiet to all eternity Methinks if Heaven cannot allure us with all the joys and blessed eternal Rest there to be had Hell might affright us with its dreadful sufferings into our duty and compel us to make God at least our last refuge if not our first choice No loss so great as the loss of God and the Kingdom of Heaven and that Rest we are there invited to No Prison so loathsom as the bottomless pit of horror and darkness No sight so ghastly as that of frightful fiends No shriekings so terrible as those of damned Ghosts No stench so noisom as that of the lake of fire and brimston No fire so hot as of the wrath of God which puts the sinner into chains never to be loosed into darkness never to be enlightened and gives him gnashing of teeth never to be remedied gnawing vipers never to be pulled off and this makes up such a mass of woes such a deadly death as exceeds all humane eloquence to express much more all patience to endure Now to avoid all this St. Paul tells us Heb. 12.1 what we must do we must lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us running the way of Gods Commandements which St. Paul calls here a race is the way to this everlasting Rest therefore let us so run that we may obtain it and then our recompence is a Crown of life if we slothfully neglect it our punishment is Tribulation and anguish endless and intolerable the worm of conscience that never dies the fire of hell that never goes out Were we left to the glimmering suspicious light of natural reason as most Nations were of old and many are still to guess at the way that leads to this everlasting Rest or to find it out by a painful enquiry through many difficulties and impediments of a contrary erroneous Education we were by far the more excusable but when by the mercy of God we have the Gospel sounding in our Ears and the way to this Rest chalkt out before our Eyes in holy Scripture and lively Oracles with all the powerful perswasive motives of hope and love inviting us to it on the one hand and all the cogent constraining motives of threats and fear to drive us to it hearten'd on with promises assistances and instructions on the other hand what pretence of excuse can we have that we should fall short of this Rest But some are often enquiring what is the lowest degree of holiness faith and obedience that is consistent with the escaping of hell or hope of Heaven They would know what is the lowest rate that Heaven and eternal Rest will come at The greatest part of those that would be resolved in this enquiry are of a most disingenuous unworthy disposition for when God hath obliged us by so many mercies assistances encouragements and rewards thus to beat down as low as they can the price of all his kindness and bounty 't is a dangerous sign that he that seeks heaven and happiness so faintly will not seek it long for we Sail against Tide in our Voyage to Heaven and earnest diligence is required in the passage thither but if we begin to lay aside our Sails and Oares we shall by the very stream of our nature the world and the flesh be carried backward to perdition The way to Heaven is upward but the ground is falling that we tread on and the heaviness of our nature doth perpetually expose us to relapses 'T is very probable that he that is so jealous and wary
it shew this eternal Rest to be very desirable but the contrariety shews that this Rest hath so much of difficulty in it that all that lay claim to it cannot justifie their claim And though they cry with the Mathematician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found and I have found it yet they are so much to seek that their confidence without evidence hath brought many to put it to the question Whether there be any such Rest to be found We must not be so foolish or so slothful as those Scepticks who question or deride the possibility of searching and finding out this eternal Rest but with humility and diligence humbly apply our selves to those Rules which are given us for its discovery Some there are that lay claim to no other nor higher felicity than that which either natural Philosophy or civil Policy can help them to And these though they have gone far discovered and publisht many truths pleasant and profitable for the World yet their aims are too low to give the soul of Man satisfaction or acquiescense here The light and rules they walk by too weak and too uncertain to reach those very aims which themselves own much more must they needs fall short of Mans great eternal end this endless Rest The pursuit whereof is our wisdom here the attaining whereof is our happiness hereafter There are in the World Men and those not a few who seek after wealth and honour and great power and weary themselves day and night to attain their ambitious desires and think themselves still in the way towards this eternal Rest But our Saviour's appearing in the World as he did in much humility demonstrates unto us the contrary The innocency righteousness charity and holiness of his life were so conspicuous that the Scribes and Pharisees nay the Devil himself could not find any true accusation against him and he that betrayed him went and hanged himself because he had betrayed so innocent so good and holy a Person Because he came not to gratifie the wordly and carnal expectations of the Jews with any outward pomp or splendor suitable to their desires they vilify his Person revile his doctrine persecute his followers contrive his ruine Yet what was a temporal advancement or deliverance to an eternal redemption from sin death and hell to an eternal advancement above all enemies to those honours and joys at Gods right hand And how contrary had it been to the design of his incarnation which was to satisfie for Mankind's former Pride and Ambition intemperate voluptuousness insatiable covetousness To exemplify as well as teach them the grace of piety and contentedness with the meanest condition here below by setting their hearts on things above How contrary had it been to such a purpose for our Lord to have appeared in the plenty of wealth or the splendor or pomp of worldly honour in the power of Armies to conquer Nations by Sword or Force all which would have but enraged the sinful distempers of Mans Soul which he came to cure He had given the Jews abundant evidence both at his birth and throughout his life yea at his very death that 't was not weakness or any necessity that made him appear in such mean condition but his voluntary choice and love to Mankind to draw them off from the love of this World to that of God and a better life For surely he that could command a Star to attend him at his birth and an Heavenly Host to sing an Anthem of Glory to God at his Nativity might more easily had it pleased him been born in another place than a Stable with other manner of attendants than a poor Virgin and a Carpenter He that could feed five Thousand with a few Loaves and Fishes might have maintained as numerous an Army as he pleased He that could cure the Blind and Lame and Deaf at a word heal all manner of Diseases command the Waters and the Wind raise the Dead cast out Devils might quickly have had an invincible force of Men and Angels to quell the Romans and other Nations He that could strike his apprehender to the ground at the beck of his will make the Sun withdraw his light at Noon day and full Moon the Earth tremble the Rocks rend the Graves open at his death could easily have saved himself from death but then he should have by his Example renowned that love of worldly riches pleasures and honours which by his Doctrine of humility self denial and contempt of the World he sought to mortify and disgrace High and lofty thoughts do much hinder our progress towards our eternal Rest and hide from us the true knowledge of our selves whose first Element is but dust Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return Dust is our native soyl and last home to which we must by a firm decree repair ere long By soring aloft after worldly honours we do but make our wearisom way the longer and more crooked our fall more grievous especially if suddain and our final account after death more heavy Aspiring ambition overthrew the Tempter Lucifer himself What Spirit is it then think we which moves such young and tender Plants as scarce thrive under the walls of Gods house such Vines as hardly bear fruits in the warm and well fenced vale I mean the retirements and vacations of a low and private condition to affect the cold and open Mountains exposed to blasts of noysom winds Is it their glory to be above others of their own rank and education This might be purchased with less danger to themselves and more good to Church and State if they sought to overtop them more by their own proper height or true growth in all graces and good works than by meer advantage of ground For when every Valley shall be exalted and every Mountain made low that is when all worldly differences of States shall be laid aside as at the last day they will be the fruit which hath grown in the vale of humility and contentedness will appear both higher and better far than the ordinary off-spring of the Mountains or highest places of preferment Were Men so wise in heart as to consider that the lower their place or condition is so it be not exposed to flouds of violence the apter it is to suck in the dew of Heaven and bring forth fruit in its season There are in the way to this eternal Rest great variety of Travellers furnisht with various and different abilities whose faces differ not more than their minds and manners and these though they run contrary ways yet all pretend they are in pursuit of the same end and are upon their march to this eternal Rest even then when their backs are turned upon it The bloudy restless Traytor would be thought to be in search after this eternal Rest and Life though he seek for it in the paths of death and works like the Mole under ground and thinks that no Man shall see him