Use 1. You that are engaged in the work of God, seek for a reward of your service in the service itself. Few of you may live to see that beauty and glory which perhaps you aim at as the end of all your great undertakings for God whereunto you have been engaged. God will proceed at his own. pace, and calls on us to go along with him ; and in the meantime, until the detenninate end come, to wait in faith, and not make haste. Those whose minds are so fixed on, and swal- lowed up with, some end (though good) which they have proposed to themselves, do seldom see good days and serene in their own souls. They have bitterness, wrath, and trouble all their days, — are still pressing to the end proposed, and commonly are dismissed from their station before it be atta^ined. There is a sweetness, there is wages to be found in the work of God itself Men who have learned to hold commimion with God in every Avork he calls them out unto, though they never see the main harvest they aim at in general, yet such will rest satisfied, and submit to the Lord's hmitation of their time : — they bear their own sheaves in their bosoms. Seeing God oftentimes dis- misses his choicest servants before they see or taste of the main fruits of their endeavours, I see not upon what account consolation can be had in following the Lord in difficult dispensations, but only in that reward which every duty bringeth along with it, by communion with God in its performance. Make, then, this your aim, that in sincerity of heart you do the work of God in your generation. Find his pre- sence with you, his Spirit gidding you, his love accepting you in the Lord Christ; and, whenever you receive your dismission, it Avillbe rest and peace, — in the meantime, you will not make haste.
Use 2. See a bottom and ground of consolation when such eminent instruments as this departed worthy are called off from their station, when ready to enter upon the harvest of all their labours, watchings, toilings, and expense of blood. God hath better things for them in store, abiding things, that they shall not enjoy for a day or two, — Avhich is the best of what they could hope for here, had they lived to see all their desires accomplished, — but such as in the fulness whereof
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they may lie down in peace to eternity. Why do we complain ? — ■ for our own loss ? is not the residue and fulness of the Spirit with Him who gave him his dismission ? — for his loss ? he lived not to see Ireland in peace, but enjoys the glory of that eternal kingdom that was prepared for him before the foundation of the world; which is the condition held out in the third observation.
Observation III. The condition of a dismissed saint is a condition of rest: " Go thy way until the end be; for thou shalt rest."
The apostle gives it in as the issue of a discourse from a passage in the Psalms, " There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God," Heb. iv. 9 ; — it remains and is reserved for them ; this the Lord hath solemnly proclaimed from heaven, Eev. xiv. 13, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." They go into a blessed condition of rest. There is not any notion under which the state of a dismissed saint is so frequently described as this of " rest," — which, indeed, is the proper end and ten- dency of all things. Their happiness is their rest ; their rest is all the happiness they can be partakers of : " Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nosti'um, donee veniat ad te."^
Now, " rest" holds out two things unto us : — A freedom from wha,t is opposite thereunto, wherein those that are at rest have been exer- cised, in reference whereunto they are said to be at rest ; and some- thing which suits them and satisfies their nature in the condition wherein they are ; and, therefore, they are at rest : which they coidd not be were it not so with them ; for nothing can rest but in the full fruition and enjoyment of that which satiates the whole nature of it in all its extent and capacity. We must briefly inquire, — 1. What it is that the saints are at rest from ; and, 2. What it is that they are at rest in. Which I shall do very speedily.
1. The many particulars which they are at rest from may be re- fei-red unto two general heads : — (1.) Sin; (2.) Labour and travail.
(1.) Sin. This, on all considerations whatever, is the main disquiet- ness of the soul. Temptations to it, actings in it, troubles for it, — they are the ver)' Egypt of the soul, its house and place of bondage and vexation; — either the power of it indwelling, or the guilt of it press- ing, are here still disquieting the soul. For the first, how doth Paul complain, lament, yea, cry out concerning it, Rom. vii. 24, " O wretched man that I am ! " and what a sad, restless, and tumultuat- ing condition upon this account doth he describe in the verses fore- going ! IVie best, the tuisest, the holiest of the saints on this account are in a restless condition. Suppose a man a conqueror in every battle, in every combat that he is engaged in ; yet whilst he hath any