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
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