Heaven Collection BV4831 .B4 1765

THE SAINT'S REST. 49 have enlightened understandings without scripture, and be governed without a written law ; for the Lord will perfect his law in our hearts, and we shall be all perfectly taught of God. We shall have joy, which we drew not from the promises, nor fetched home by faith or hope. We shall have communion with - out sacraments; without this fruit of the vine, when Christ shall drink it new with us in his Father's king - dom,(y) and refresh us with the comforting wine of immediate enjoyment. To have necessities, but no supply, is the case with them in hell. To have neces- sities supplied by means of the creatures, is the case of us on earth. To have necessity supplied imme- diately from God, is the case of the saints in heaven. To have no necessity .at all, is the prerogative of God himself. 8. (6) A further excellence of this rest is, that it will be seasonable. He that expects the fruit of his vineyard at the season,(z) and makes his people "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season,"(a) will also give them the crown in his season. He that will have a word of joy spoken in season to him that is weary,(b) will surely cause the time of joy to appear in the fittest season. They who "are not weary in well doing, shall, if they faint not, reap in due season. "(c) If God "giveth rain" even to his enemies, " both the former and the latter, in his sea- son, and reserveth the appointed weeks of harvest, and covenants that there shall be day and night in their season ; "(d) then surely the glorious harvest of the saints shall not miss its season. Doubtless he that would not stay a day longer than his promise, but brought Israel out of Egypt on the self=same day when the lbw- hundred and thirty years were expired,(e) neither will he fail of one day or hour of the fittest season for his people's glory. When we have had in this world a long night of darkness, will not the day of breaking, and the rising of the Sun of righteousness, be then seasonable? When we have passed a long and tedious (y) Matt. xxvi 29. (z) Mark xii. 2. (a) Ps. i. 3. (b) Isa. i. 4. (c) Gal. vi, 9. (d) Jer. v. 24. xxxiii, 20. (e) Exod. xit..40, 41. 2 G

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