THE CHARACTER OF THE PERSONS FOR WHOM THIS REST IS DESIGNED
7. I add, that the people of God persevere in this covenant to the end
couldst not weep, yet couldst thou heartily groan under the insupportable weight of both? Hast thou renounced all thy own righteousness? Hast thou turned thy idols out of thy heart, so that the creature hath no more the sovereignty, but is now a servant to God and Christ? Dost thou accept of Christ as thy only Savior, and expect thy justification, recovery and glory from him alone? Are his laws the most powerful commanders of thy life and soul? Do they ordinarily prevail against the commands of the flesh, and against the greatest interest of thy credit, profit, pleasure or life? Has Christ the highest room in thy heart and affections, so that, though thou canst not love him as thou wouldst, yet nothing else is loved so much? Hast thou, to this end, made a hearty covenant with him, and delivered up thyself to him?
Is it thy uttermost care and watchful endeavor that thou mayest be found faithful in this covenant and though thou fall into sin, yet wouldst not renounce thy bargain, nor change thy Lord, nor give up thyself to any other government, for all the world? If this be truly thy case, thou art one of “the people of God” in my text and as sure as the promise of God is true, this blessed rest remains for thee. Only see thou “abide in Christ,” and “endure to the end;” for “if any man draw back, his soul shall have no pleasure in him.” But if no such work be found within thee, whatever thy deceived heart may think, or how strong soever thy false hopes may be, thou wilt find to thy cost, except thorough conversion prevent it, that the rest of the saints belongs not to thee. “O that thou wert wise, that thou wouldst understand this, that thou wouldst consider thy latter end!” that yet, while thy soul is in thy body, and “a price is in thy hand,” and opportunity and hope before thee, thine ears may be open, and thy heart yield to the persuasions of God, that so thou mayest rest among his people, and enjoy
“the inheritance of the saints in light!”
That this rest shall be enjoyed by the people of God, is a truth which the Scripture, if its testimony be further needed, clearly asserts in a variety of ways; as, for instance, that they are “foreordained to it, and it for them.
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.” They are styled “vessels of mercy, afore prepared unto glory.” “In Christ they have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” And “whom he did predestinate, them he also glorified.” Who can deprive his people of that rest which is designed for them by God’s eternal purpose? Scripture tells us, they are redeemed to this rest. “By the blood of Jesus, we have boldness to enter into the holiest;” whether that entrance
means by faith and prayer here, or by full possession hereafter. Therefore the saints in heaven sing a new song unto Him who has “redeemed them to God by his blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them kings and priests unto God.” Either Christ, then, must lose his blood and sufferings, and never “see of the travail of his soul,” or else “there remaineth a rest to the people of God.” In Scripture this rest is promised to them. As the firmament with stars, so are the sacred pages bespangled with these divine engagements. Christ says, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
“I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.” All the means of grace, the operations of the Spirit upon the soul, and gracious actings of the saints, every command to repent and believe, to fast and pray, to knock and seek, to strive and labor, to run and fight, prove that there remains a rest for the people of God. The Spirit would never kindle in us such strong desires after heaven, such love to Jesus Christ, if we should not receive what we desire and love. He that “guides our feet into the way of peace,”
will undoubtedly bring us to the end of peace. How nearly are the means and end conjoined! “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” They that “follow Christ in the regeneration, shall sit upon thrones of glory.” Scripture assures us, that the saints have the
“beginnings, foretastes, earnests, and seals” of this rest here. “Though they have not seen Christ, yet loving him, and believing in him, they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; receiving the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls.” They “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And does God seal them with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of their inheritance,” and will he deny the full possession? The Scripture also mentions, by name, those who have entered into this rest; as Enoch, Abraham, Lazarus, and the thief that was crucified with Christ. And if there be a rest for these, surely there is a rest for all believers. But it is in vain to bring together Scripture proofs, seeing it is the very end of Scripture to be a guide to lead us to this blessed state, and to be the charter and grant by which we hold all our title to it.
Scripture not only proves that this rest remains for the people of God, but also that it remains for none but them; so that the rest of the world shall have no part in it. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. No
whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. They all shall be damned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.
The Lord Jesus shall come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” Had the ungodly returned before their life was expired, and been heartily willing to accept of Christ for their Savior and their King, and to be saved by him in his way, and upon his most reasonable terms, they might have been saved. God freely offered them life, and they would not accept it. The pleasures of the flesh seemed more desirable to them than the glory of the saints. Satan offered them the one, and God offered them the other; and they had free liberty to choose which they would, and they chose “the pleasures of sin for a season,”
before the everlasting rest with Christ. And is it not a righteous thing that they should be denied that which they would not accept? When God pressed them so earnestly, and persuaded them so importunately, to come in, and yet they would not, where should they be but among the dogs without? Though man be so wicked that he will not yield till the mighty power of grace prevail with him, yet still we may truly say that he may be saved, if he will, on God’s terms. His inability being moral, and lying in willful wickedness, is no more excuse to him than it is to an adulterer that he cannot love his own wife, or to a malicious person that he cannot but hate his own brother: is he not so much the worse, and deserving of so much the sorer punishment? Sinners shall lay all the blame on their own wills in hell for ever. Hell is a rational torment by conscience, according to the nature of the rational subject. If sinners could but then say, It was God’s fault, and not ours, it would quiet their consciences and ease their torments, and make hell, to them, to be no hell. But to remember their willfulness, will feed the fire, and cause the worm of conscience “never to die.”
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 with the 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 providences must be useless. Should God lose the glory of his church’s miraculous deliverances, and of 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 work of our sanctification, justification, and future salvation? — If we wanted nothing, we should not depend on God so closely, nor call upon him so earnestly. How little would 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 Hezekiah, if they had been the choosers of their own condition. 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 salvation by Christ; and was not man’s misery the occasion 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. O the sweet comforts the saints have had in return for 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 thirsty, poor and
contrite.” It is a delight to a soldier or traveler, to look back on his escapes when they are over; and for a saint in heaven to look back on his sins and sorrows upon earth; his fears and tears, his enemies and dangers, his wants and calamities must make his joy more joyful. Therefore the blessed, in praising the Lamb, mention his “redeeming them out of every nation, and kindred, and tongue;” and so out of their misery, and wants, and sins, “and making them kings and priests to God.” But if they had had nothing but content and rest on earth, what room would there have been for these rejoicings hereafter?
Besides, we are not capable of rest upon earth. Can a soul that is so weak in grace, so prone to sin, so nearly joined to such a neighbor as this flesh, have full content and rest in such a case? What is soul-rest, but our freedom from sin, and imperfections, and enemies? And can the soul have rest that is molested with all these, and that continually? Why do Christians so often cry out, in the language of Paul, “O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me?” What makes them “press toward the mark, and run that they may obtain, and strive to enter in,” if they are capable of rest in their present condition? And our bodies are incapable as well as our souls. They are not now those sun-like bodies which they shall be, when this
“corruptible hath put on incorruption, and this mortal hath put on immortality.” They are our prisons and our burdens; so full of infirmities and defects, that we spend most of our time in repairing them and
supplying their continual wants. Is it possible that an immortal soul should have rest in such a disordered habitation? Surely these sickly, weary, loathsome bodies must be refined before they can be capable of enjoying rest. The objects which we here enjoy are insufficient to afford us rest.
Alas! what is there in all the world to give us rest? They that have most of it have the greatest burden. They that set most by it, and rejoice most in it, do all cry out at last of its vanity and vexation. Men promise themselves a heaven upon earth; but when they come to enjoy it, it flies from them. He that has any regard to the works of the Lord, may easily see that the very end of them is to take down our idols, to make us weary of the world, and seek our rest in him. Where does he cross us most, but where we promise ourselves most content? If you have a child you dote upon, it becomes your sorrow. If you have a friend you trust in, and judge unchangeable, he becomes your scourge. Is this a place, or state of rest? And as the objects we here enjoy are insufficient for our rest, so God, who is sufficient, is here little enjoyed. It is not here that he had prepared the presence-chamber of his glory. He hath drawn the curtain between us and him. We are far from him as creatures, and farther as frail mortals, and farthest as sinners. We hear now and then a word of comfort from him, and receive his
love-tokens to keep up our hearts and hopes; but this is not our full
enjoyment. And can any soul that hath made God his portion, as every one hath that shall be saved by him, find rest in so vast a distance from him, and so seldom and small enjoyment of him?
Nor are we now capable of rest, as there is a worthiness must go before it.
Christ will give the crown to none but the worthy. Are we fit for the crown before we have overcome? or for the prize before we have run the race? or to receive our penny before we have wrought in the vineyard? or to be rulers of ten cities before we have improved our ten talents? or to enter into the joy of our Lord before we have well done as good and faithful servants? God will not alter the course of justice, to give you rest before you have labored, nor the crown of glory till you have overcome. There is
reason enough why our rest should remain till the life to come. Take heed, then, Christian reader, how thou darest to contrive and care for a rest on earth; or to murmur at God for thy trouble, and toil, and wants in the flesh.
Doth thy poverty weary thee? thy sickness, thy bitter enemies and unkind friends? It should be so here. Do the abominations of the times, the sins of professors, the hardening of the wicked, all weary thee? It must be so while thou art absent from thy rest. Do thy sins and thy naughty, distempered heart weary thee? Be thus wearied more and more. But, under all is weariness, art thou willing to go to God, thy rest; and to have thy warfare accomplished, and thy race and labor ended? If not, complain more of thy own heart, and get it more weary, till rest seem more desirable.
I have but one thing more to add, for the close of this chapter — that the souls of believers do enjoy inconceivable blessedness and glory, even while they remain separated from their bodies. What can be more plain than these words of Paul: “We are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home,” or rather sojourning, “in the body, we are absent from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” Or these: “I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better.” If Paul had not expected to enjoy Christ till the
resurrection, why should he be in a strait, or desire to depart? Nay, should he not have been loth to depart upon the very same grounds? for while he was in the flesh he enjoyed something of Christ. Plain enough are the words of Christ to the thief — “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, it seems unlikely Christ would so evidently intimate and suppose the soul’s happiness or misery presently after death, if there were no such thing. Our Lord’s argument for the resurrection supposes, that, “God being not the God of the dead, but of the living,” therefore Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were then living in the soul. If the “blessedness of the dead that die in the Lord” were only in resting in the grave, then a beast or a stone were as blessed; nay, it were evidently a curse, and not a blessing. For was not life a great mercy? Was it not a greater mercy to serve God and to do good; to enjoy all the comforts of life, the fellowship of saints, the comfort of ordinances, and much of Christ in all, than to lie rotting in the grave? Therefore some further blessedness is there promised. How else is it said, “We are come to the spirits of just men made perfect?” Surely, at the resurrection, the body will be made perfect as well as the spirit. The Scriptures tell us, that Enoch and Elias are taken up