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

§. 22 The Works that the Rest mentioned respects have been sufficiently intimated; and I have so fully insisted on them in the Exposition of the third and fourth Verses of the third Chapter of this Epistle, that I shall not here again repeat them. In brief, all that he did and suffered in and from his Incarnation to his Resurrection, as the Mediator of the Covenant, with all the fruits, effects, and consequences of what he so did and suffered, whereby the Church was built, and the new Creation finished, belongs unto these works. His Rest that ensued on these works hath two parts; (1) A Cessation from his works, which was eminent, and answered Gods Rest from his own. (2) Satisfaction in his works, and the glorious product of them, as those which had an impression on them, of his Love and Grace, Psal. 16. 7.

§. 23 It remains only that we enquire into his Entrance into his Rest, both how and when he did so, even as God entered into his on the seventh day; for this must limit and determine a Day of Rest to the Gospel-Church. Now this was not his lying down in the Grave. His Body indeed there rested for a while; but that was no part of his mediatory Rest, as be was the founder and builder of the Church. For, (1) It was a part of his Humiliation: Not only his Death, but his abode and continuance in the state of Death, was so; and that a principal part of it. For after the whole Humane Nature was personally united unto the Son of God, to have it brought into a state ⟨p. 383⟩of Dissolution, to have the Body and Soul separated from each other, was a great Humiliation. And every thing of this nature belonged unto his Works, and not his Rest. (2) This separation of Body and Soul under the power of Death, was penal, a part of the sentence of the Law which he underwent. And therefore Peter declares, that the pains of Death were not loosed but in his Resurrection, Act. 2. 24. Whom God, saith he, hath raised up, loosing the pains of Death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. Whilst he was held of it, he was under it penally. This therefore could not be his Rest, nor any part of it. Nor did he in it enter into his Rest, but continued in his Work. Nor 2dly. did he first enter into his Rest at his Ascension: Then indeed he took actual possession of his Glory, as to the full public manifestation of it. But to enter into Rest is one thing, and to take possession of Glory another. And it is placed by our Apostle as a consequent of his being justified in the Spirit, when he entered into Rest,