A supplement to the several discourses upon various divine subjects

There had not then been any ground of rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, Prov. 8.31. if he had not designed something else. But he provided in his counsel another rest, and in order to that suffered this first rest in the bare creation to be spoiled; Zion he chose; and Zion he desired as his rest for ever wherein he would dwell, Psa. 132.13, 14. The end of God in creation was not certainly only to make a Sun or Stars, an earth bedecked with plants, and man a rational creature, only to contemplate these works, but to render him the acknowledgements of his power and wisdom^*: As a Limner lays his chief design in the midst of the cloth, and fills the void places with many other fancies to beautify and set off his work, but those were not in his first intention, but his main design was the draught, in the middle, surrounded with the rest. Now when man by sin had made himself uncapable of performing the work he had to do, God orders things so as to have a rest, to have a people to acknowledge him. Hence perhaps the forming of such a people is called by the term of a new creation, not only as it is an act of creative power, but as it was the chief design of the exerting his power in the creation of the world. And shall the chief of his counsel be the conquest & triumph of Satan? Shall he at the closing up of the world be defeated of his main contrivance? Surely if there were a greater opposition to Zion than ever there was, he would exert a greater strength than ever he did, not to be crossed in his principal aim.

There had not then been any ground of rejoycing in the habitable parts of the earth, Prov. 8.31. if he had not designed something else. But he provided in his counsel another rest, and in order to that suffered this first rest in the bare creation to be spoyl'd; Sion he chose; and Sion he desired as his rest for ever wherein he would dwell, Psa. 132.13, 14. The end of God in creation was not certainly only to make a Sun or Stars, an earth bedeckt with plants, and man a rational creature, only to contemplate these works, but to render him the acknowledgments of his power and wisdom