§ 15. If 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 in his 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 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 works 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 should 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 to 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 traveller, 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?
§ 16. 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 pestered with all these, and that continually? Why do Christians so oft cry out in the language of Paul, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?[230] What makes them press towards 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 put on immortality. They are our prisons, and our burdens; so full of infirmities and defects, that we are fain to 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 distempered, noisome habitation? Surely these sickly, weary, loathsome bodies must be refined, before they can be capable of enjoying rest. The objects 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 hath 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. And 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 for 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. Doth 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. Doth thy sins, and thy naughty distempered heart weary thee? Be thus wearied more and more. But under all this 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.
[230] Romans vii, 24.
§ 17. 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 those 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.[231] Or those? I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better.[232]—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 is that of Christ to the thief, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.[233] 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 matter.[234]—Our Lord's argument for the resurrection supposes, that, God being not the God of the dead, but of the living,[235] therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were then living in soul.—If the blessedness of the dead that die in the Lord,[236] 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 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 farther blessedness is there promised.—How else is it said, We are come to the spirits of just men made perfect?[237] Sure, at the resurrection, the body will be made perfect as well as the spirit.—Does not Scripture tell us, that Enoch and Elias are taken up already? And shall we think they possess that glory alone?—Did not Peter, James, and John, see Moses also with Christ on the mount? Yet the Scripture saith, Moses died. And is it likely that Christ deluded their senses in shewing them Moses, if he should not partake of that glory till the resurrection?—And is not that of Stephen as plain as we can desire? Lord Jesus receive my spirit.[238] Surely, if the Lord receive it, it is neither asleep, nor dead, nor annihilated; but it is where he is, and beholds his glory.—That of the wise man is of the same import: The spirit shall return unto God who gave it.[239] Why are we said to have eternal life, and that to know God is life eternal; and that a believer on the Son hath everlasting life? Or how is the kingdom of God within us? If there be as great an interruption of our life, as till the resurrection, this is no eternal life, nor everlasting kingdom. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are spoken of as suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.[240] And if the wicked already suffer eternal fire, then no doubt, but the godly enjoy eternal blessedness.—When John saw his glorious revelations, he is said to be in the Spirit, and to be carried away in the Spirit. And when Paul was caught up to the third heaven, he knew not, whether in the body, or out of the body.[241] This implies, that spirits are capable of these glorious things, without the help of their bodies.—Is not so much implied when John says, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God![242]—When Christ says, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,[243] does it not plainly imply, that when wicked men have killed our bodies, that is, have separated the souls from them, yet the souls are still alive?—The soul of Christ was alive when his body was dead, and therefore so shall ours too. This appears by his words to the thief, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise; and also by his voice on the cross, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.[244] If the spirits of those that were disobedient in the days of Noah, were in prison,[245] that is, in a living and suffering state; then certainly the separate spirits of the just are in an opposite condition of happiness.—Therefore, faithful souls shall no sooner leave their prisons of flesh, but angels will be their convoy; Christ, with all the perfected spirits of the just, will be their companions; heaven will be their residence, and God their happiness. When such die, they may boldly and believingly say, as Stephen, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and commend it, as Christ did, into a Father's hands.
[231] 2 Corinthians v, 6-8.
[232] Philippians i, 23.
[233] Luke xxiii, 43.
[234] Luke xvi, 19-31.
[235] Matthew xxii, 32.
[236] Revelation xiv, 13.