Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…

§. 20 The foundation of the whole is laid down v. 10. For he that is entered into his Rest, is ceased from his works, as God from his own. Expositors generally apply these words unto Believers, and their entering into the Rest of God; whether satisfactorily to themselves and others, as to their design, coherence, scope, or signification of particular expressions, I know not. The contrary appears with good evidence to me; For what are the works that Believers should be said here to Rest from? Their sins, say some; their labours, sorrows and sufferings, say others. But how can they be said to Rest ⟨p. 378⟩from these works, as God rested from his own? For God so rested from his, as to take the greatest delight and satisfaction in them, to be refreshed by them. In six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed, Exod. 31. 17. He so rested from them, as that he rested in them, and blessed them, and blessed and sanctified the Time wherein they were finished. We have showed before, that the Rest of God was not only a cessation from working, nor principally; but the satisfaction and complacency that he had in his works. But now if those mentioned be the works here intended, men cannot so Rest from them, as God did from his. But they cease from them, with a detestation of them, so far as they are sinful; and joy for their deliverance from them, so far as they are sorrowful. This is not to Rest, as God rested. Again; when are Believers supposed to Rest from these works? it cannot be in this World: For here we Rest not at all from Temptations, sufferings, and sorrows; and in that mortification of sin which we attain unto, yet the conflict is still continued, and that with severity unto death, Rom 7. 24. It must therefore be in Heaven that they thus Rest; and so it is affirmed accordingly. But this excludes the Rest in and of the Gospel, from the Apostles discourse, which renders it altogether unsuitable to his purpose. This I have so fully demonstrated in the Exposition of the Chapter, as that I hope it will not be gainsaid. Thirdly, there is no comparison in the whole discourse between the works of God, and the works of Men, but between the works of God in the Creation, and under the Law on the one side, and those in and under the ⟨p. 379⟩Gospel on the other. And the whole comparison is summed up and closed in this Verse.