§ 15. (5.) It is seeking rest where it is not to be found. Your labor will be lost, and, if you proceed, your soul's eternal rest too. Our rest is only in the full obtaining of our ultimate end. But that is not to be expected in this life; neither is rest therefore to be expected here. Is God to be enjoyed in the best church here, as he is in heaven? How little of God the saints enjoy under the best means, let their own complainings testify. Poor comforters are the best ordinances, without God. Should a traveller take up his rest in the way? No, because his home is his journey's end. When you have all that creatures and means can afford, have you that which you believed, prayed, suffered for? I think you dare not say so. We are like little children strayed from home, and God is now fetching us home, and we are ready to turn into any house, stay and play with every thing in our way, and sit down on every green bank, and much ado there is to get us home. We are also in the midst of our labors and dangers; and is there any resting here? What painful work doth lie upon our hands? Look to our brethren, to our souls, and to God; and what a deal of work, in respect to each of these, doth lie before us? And can we rest in the midst of all our labors? Indeed we may rest on earth, as _the ark_ is said to have _rested in the midst of Jordan_; a short and small rest. Or as Abraham desired the _Angels to turn in, and rest themselves_ in his tent, where they would have been loth to have taken up their dwelling. Should Israel have fixed their rest in the wilderness, among serpents, and enemies, and weariness, and famine? Should Noah have made the ark his home, and have been loth to come forth when _the waters were assuaged_? Should the mariner choose his dwelling on the sea, and settle his rest in the midst of rocks, and sands, and raging tempests? Should a soldier rest in the thickest of his enemies? And are not Christians such travellers, such mariners, such soldiers? Have you not fears within, and troubles without? Are we not in continual dangers? We cannot eat, drink, sleep, labor, pray, hear, converse, but in the midst of snares; and shall we sit down and rest here? O Christian, follow thy work, look to thy dangers, and hold on to the end, win the field, and come off the ground, before thou think of a settled rest. Whenever thou talkest of rest on earth, it is like _Peter on the mount_, thou _knowest not what thou sayest_. If, instead of telling the converted thief, _this day shalt thou be with me in paradise_, Christ had said, he should rest there on the cross; would he not have taken it for a derision? Methinks it should be ill resting in the midst of sickness and pains, persecutions and distresses. But if nothing else will convince us, yet sure the remainders of sin, which do so easily beset us, should quickly satisfy a believer, that here is not his rest. I say therefore to every one that thinketh of rest on earth, _Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest, because it is polluted_.[303] These things cannot in their nature be a true Christian's rest. They are too poor, to make us rich; too low, to raise us to happiness; too empty, to fill our souls; and of too short continuance to be our eternal content. If prosperity, or whatsoever we here desire, be too base to make gods of, they are too base to be our rest. The soul's rest must be sufficient to afford it perpetual satisfaction. But the content which creatures afford, waxes old, and, abates after a short enjoyment. If God should rain down _Angel's food_, we should soon _loathe the manna_. If novelty support not, our delights on earth grow dull. All creatures are to us, as the flowers to the bee; there is but little honey on any one, and therefore there must be a superficial taste, and so to the next. The more the creature is known, the less it satisfieth. Those only are taken with it, who see no further than its outward beauty, without discerning its inward vanity. When we thoroughly know the condition of other men, and have discovered the evil as well as the good, and the defects as well as the perfections, we then cease our admiration.
[Footnote 303] Micah ii, 10
§ 16. (6.) To have creatures and means without God, is an aggravation of our misery. If God should say, "Take my creatures, my word, my servants, my ordinances, but not myself;" would you take this for happiness? If you had the word of God, and not the word, which is God; or the bread of the Lord, and not the Lord, which _is the true bread_; or could cry with the Jews, _The temple of the Lord_, and had not the Lord of the temple; this were a poor happiness. Was Capernaum the more happy or the more miserable, for _seeing the mighty works which they had seen, and hearing the words of Christ which they did hear_? Surely that, which aggravates our sin and misery, cannot be our rest.