CHAPTER I.
The important design of the apostle in the text, to which the author earnestly bespeaks the attention of the reader. The saints’ rest defined, with a general plan of the work that this rest presupposes. The author’s humble sense of his inability fully to show what this rest contains. It contains, 1. A ceasing from means of grace; 2. A perfect freedom from all evils; 3. The highest degree of the saints’ personal perfection, both in body and soul; 4. The nearest enjoyment of God, the chief good; 5. A sweet and constant action of all the powers of soul and body in this enjoyment of God.
It was not only our interest in God, and actual enjoyment of him, which was lost in Adam’s fall, but all spiritual knowledge of him, and true disposition towards such a felicity. When the Son of God comes with recovering grace, and discoveries of a spiritual and eternal happiness and glory, he finds not faith in man to believe it. As the poor man, that would not believe any one had such a sum as a hundred pounds, it was so far above what he himself possessed, so men will hardly now believe there is such a happiness as once they had, much less as Christ hath now procured. When God would give the Israelites his Sabbaths of rest, in a land of rest, it was harder to make them believe it, than to overcome their enemies, and procure it for them. And when they had it, only as a small intimation and earnest of an incomparably more glorious rest through Christ, they yet believe no more than they possess, but say, with the epicure at the feast, Sure there is no other heaven but this! or, if they expect more by the Messiah, it is only the increase of their earthly felicity. The apostle aims most of this Epistle against this obduracy, and clearly and largely proves that the end of all ceremonies and shadows is to direct them to Jesus Christ, the substance; and that the rest of Sabbaths, and Canaan, should teach them to look for a further rest, which indeed is their happiness. My text is his conclusion after divers arguments; a conclusion which contains the ground of all the believer’s comfort, the end of all his duty and sufferings, the life and sum of all gospel promises and Christian privileges.
What more welcome to men under personal afflictions, tiring duties, disappointments, or sufferings, than rest? It is not our comfort only, but our stability. Our liveliness in all duties, our enduring of tribulation, our honoring of God, the vigor of our love, thankfulness, and all our graces; yea, the very being of our religion and Christianity depend on the believing, serious thoughts of our rest. And now, reader, whoever thou art, young or old, rich or poor, I entreat thee, and charge thee, in the name of thy Lord, who will shortly call thee to a reckoning, and judge thee to thy everlasting, unchangeable state, that thou give not these things the reading only, and so dismiss them with a bare approbation; but that thou set upon this work, and take God in Christ for thy only rest, and fix thy heart upon him above all. May the living God, who is the portion and rest of his saints, make these our carnal minds so spiritual, and our earthly hearts so heavenly that loving him, and delighting in him, may be the work of our lives; and that neither I that write, nor you that read this book, may ever be turned from this path of life; “lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest,” we should “come short of it,” through our own unbelief or negligence.
The saints’ rest is the most happy state of a Christian; or, it is the perfect endless enjoyment of God by the perfected saints, according to the measure of their capacity, to which their souls arrive at death, and both soul and body most fully after the resurrection and final judgment. According to this definition of the saints’ rest, a larger account of its nature will be given in this chapter; of its preparatives, chap. 2; its excellencies, chap. 3 and chap. 4, the persons for whom it is designed. Further to illustrate the subject, some description will be given, chap. 5, of their misery who lose this rest; and chap. 6, who also lose the enjoyments of time, and suffer the torments of hell. Next will be shown, chap. 7, the necessity of diligently seeking this rest; chap. 8, how our title to it may he discerned; chap. 9, that they who discern their title to it should help those that cannot; and chap. 10, that this rest is not to be expected on earth. It will then be proper to consider, chap. 11, the importance of a heavenly life upon earth; chap. 12, how to live a heavenly life upon earth; chap. 13, the nature of heavenly contemplation, with the time, place and temper most fit for it; chap. 14, what use heavenly contemplation makes of consideration, affections, soliloquy and prayer: and likewise, chap. 15, how heavenly contemplation may be assisted by sensible objects, and guarded against a treacherous heart. Heavenly contemplation will be exemplified, chap. 16, and the whole work concluded.