TO BE EXPECTED ON EARTH. 189 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 sin- fulness 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 :lt 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 re- solved 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 shall 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 Christianityy 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 pre- sence is comfortable, his absence is painful: when
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