WHO SHALL ENJOY THIS REST. 73 § 15. It is the will of God that this rest should yet remain for his people, and not be enjoyed till they come to another world. Who should dispose of the creatures, but he that made them ? You may as well ask, why have we not spring and harvest without winter? or why is the earth below, and the heavens above ? as, why we have not rest on earth ? All things must come to their perfection by degrees. The strongest man must first be a child. The greatest scholar must first begin in his alphabet. The tallest oak was once an acorn. This life is our infancy : and would we be perfect in the womb, or born at full stature? If our rest was here, most of God's provi- dences must be useless. Should God lose the glory of his church's miraculous deliverances, and the fall of his enemies, that men may have their happiness here ? If we were all happy, innocent, and perfect, what use was there for the glorious works of our sanctifi- cation, justification, and future salvation ? If we wanted nothing, we should not depend on God so closely, nor call upon him so earnestly. How little should he hear from us, if we had what we would have ? God would never have had such songs of praise from Moses at the Red Sea and in the wilderness, from Deborah and Hannah, from David and FIeze- kiah, if they had been the chusers of their con- dition. Have not thy own highest praises to God, Reader, been occasioned by thy dangers or miseries ? The greatest glory and praise God has through the world, is. for redemption, reconciliation, and salva- tion by Christ : and was not man's misery the occa- sion of that ? And where God loses the opportunity of exercising his mercies, man must needs lose the happiness of enjoying them. Where God loses his praise, man will certainly lose his comforts. Oh the sweet comforts the saints have had in return to their prayers ! How should we know what a tender hearted Father we have, if we had not, as the prodigal, been denied the husks of earthly pleasure and profit ? We should never have felt Christ's tender heart, if we had not felt ourselves weary and heavy laden, hungry and 3 K
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