Or if you should go to Learning, to purest, plentifullest, powerfullest Ordinances, or compass sea and land to find out the perfectest Church, and holiest Saints, and enquire whether there your soul may rest: You might haply receive from these indeed an Olive-branch of Hope, as they are means to your Rest, and have relation to eternity; but in regard of any satisfaction in themselves, you would remain as restless as ever before. O how well might all these answer many of us,1 with that indignation, as Jacob did Rachel, Am ⟨p. 570⟩I instead of God? Or as the King of Israel said of the Messengers of the King of Assyria, 2when he required him to restore Naaman to health, Am I God, to kill, and to make alive, that this man sends to me to recover a man of his Leprosy? So may the highest perfections on earth say, Are we God, or in stead of God, that this man comes to us to give a soul Rest? Go take a view of all estates of men in the world, and see whether any of them have found this Rest. Go to the Husbandman, and demand of him, behold his circular endless labours, his continual care and toil, and weariness, and you will easily see, that there is no Rest; Go to the Tradesman, and you shall find the like: If I should send you lower, you would judg your labour lost: Or go to the conscionable painful Minister, and there you will yet more easily be satisfied, for though his spending, killing, endless labours are exceeding sweet, yet is it not because they are his Rest, but in reference to his peoples, and his own eternal Rest, at which he aims, and to which they may conduce. If you should ascend to Magistracy, and enquire at the Throne, you would find there's no condition so restless, and your hearts would even pity poor Princes and Kings. Doubtless, neither Court, nor Country, Towns, or Cities, Shops, or Fields, Treasuries, Libraries, Solitariness, Society, Studies, or Pulpits can afford any such thing as this Rest: If you could enquire of the dead of all Generations; or if you could ask the living through all Dominions, they would all tell you, here's no Rest; and all Mankind may say, All our days are sorrow, and our labour is grief, and our hearts take not rest, Eccles. 2.23. Go to Geneva, go to New England, find out the Church which you think most happy, and we may say of it, as lamenting Jeremiah of the Church of the Jews, Lam. 1.3.
Or if you should go to Learning, to purest, plentifullest, powerfullest Ordinances, or compass sea and land to finde out the perfectest Church, and holiest Saints, and enquire whether there your soul may rest: You might haply receive from these indeed an Olive-branch of Hope, as they are means to your Rest, and have relation to eternity; but in regard of any satisfaction in themselves, you would remain as restless as ever before. O how well might all these answer many of us,1 with that indignation, as Jacob did Rachel, Am ⟨p. 570⟩I instead of God? Or as the King of Israel said of the Messengers of the King of Assyria, 2when he required him to restore Naaman to health, Am I God, to kill, and to make alive, that this man sends to me to recover a man of his Leprosy? So may the highest perfections on earth say, Are we God, or in stead of God, that this man comes to us to give a soul Rest? Go take a view of all estates of men in the world, and see whether any of them have found this Rest. Go to the Husbandman, and demand of him, behold his circular endless labours, his continual care and toyl, and weariness, and you will easily see, that there is no Rest; Go to the Tradesman, and you shall finde the like: If I should send you lower, you would judg your labor lost: Or go to the conscionable painful Minister, and there you will yet more easily be satisfied, for though his spending, killing, endless labors are exceeding sweet, yet is it not because they are his Rest, but in reference to his peoples, and his own eternal Rest, at which he aims, and to which they may conduce. If you should ascend to Magistracy, and enquire at the Throne, you would finde ther's no condition so restless, and your hearts would even pitty poor Princes and Kings. Doubtless, neither Court, nor Countrey, Towns, or Cities, Shops, or Fields, Treasuries, Libraries, Soli•a•iness, Society, Studies, or Pulpits can afford any such thing as this Rest: If you could enquire of the dead of all Generations; or if you could ask the living through all Dominions, they would all tell you, here's no Rest; and all Mankinde may say, All our days are sorrow, and our labor is grief, and our hearts take not rest, Eccles. 2.23. Go to Genevah, go to New England, finde out the Church which you think most hapyy, and we may say of it, as lamenting Jeremy of the Church of the Jews, Lam. 1.3
- 1Gen. 30.2.
- 22 Kings 5.7.
