"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God."
--Heb. iv, 9.


It was not only our interest in God and actual fruition of Him which was
lost in Adam's covenant-breaking fall, but all spiritual knowledge of
Him, and true disposition towards such a felicity. Man hath now a heart
too suitable to his low estate--a low state, and a low spirit. And when
the Son of God comes with tenders of a spiritual and eternal happiness
and glory, He finds not faith in man to believe it; but, as the poor man
would not believe that any one man had such a sum as a hundred
pounds--it was so far above what he possessed--so no man will hardly now
believe that there is such a happiness as once he had, much less as
Christ hath now procured.

The Apostle bestows most of his epistle against this distemper, and
clearly and largely proves that the rest of Sabbaths and Canaan should
teach men to look for further rest, which indeed is their happiness.
What more welcome to men under personal afflictions, tiring duty,
successions of sufferings, than rest? What more welcome news to men
under public calamities, unpleasing employment, plundering losses, sad
tidings, than this of rest?

Now let us see what this rest is. Though the sense of the text includes
in the word "rest" all that ease and safety which a soul hath with
Christ in _this life_--the rest of grace--yet because it chiefly intends
the rest of eternal glory I shall confine my discourse to this last.

Rest is the end and perfection of motion. The saints' rest, here in
question, is _the most happy estate of a Christian having obtained the