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14
THE NATURE
OF
hath
now procured.
When
God would
give the
Israel-
ites 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
and 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
apos-
tle
bestows most
of
this epistle against this
distemper,
and
clearly and
largely proves,
that
the end
of
all
ce-
remonies 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
is
indeed
their
happiness.
My
text
is
his
conclusion
after divers arguments
;
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 privile-
ges.
What
more welcome to men
under
personal
afflictions,
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,
thank-
fulness, 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, what-
ever 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 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
lie
the
work of
our lives; and
that
neither