in the first instance to preach against them. I should never make a man give up the enjoyment that he has, whatever it be, until I have shown him, and made to bear upon him, a brighter enjoyment than he knows of. The only way to dislodge a bad preference is, to bring to bear upon it a good or a better preference. It is the brighter light that puts out the dim one; it is the sunbeams shining on the grate that put out the fire; it is bringing the heavenly inheritance nearer, that will make your earthly preferences grow feebler. It is just in proportion as we interest the heart in the glorious beings of an age to come, that we withdraw it from the fleeting and frail pomps and vanities of the present life.

"There remaineth a rest for the people of God.”. HEB. iv. 9.

HAVING proved, I trust to the reader's satisfaction, that there is no spot in this world, from the lowest to the very loftiest pinnacle of human greatness, on which one can repose, and there enjoy a perfect and a permanent rest; it now devolves upon me to show what is the nature of that rest which is said to remain for the people of God, and who they are who are declared to have a right and title to it.

Certainly, the whole course of human history seems to indicate man's ceaseless search for a rest; to find, as it were, some quiet spot of sunshine and verdure on which he can repose, and say "Now, here I could wish to live for ever." The point, in short, to which all the countless currents that run in the channels of social intercourse continually flow, is rest. It has been sought during five thousand years, in sunshine and in cloud, in lowliness and in greatness; and it has only been found upon the earth in Christ, and realized in its fulness in eternity, at God's right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore.

This search for a rest explains all the phenomena of the

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world. What is the meaning of the advertisement in the the complaint in the court of justice - the petition to parliament? Humanity seeking for rest. What is the interpretation of the school, the academy, the college, the Royal Exchange, the market-place; what explains them all? Man in pursuit of rest. In none of them has he found it, because this is not our rest; it remaineth far beyond for the people of God.

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Other efforts have been made to find it. Intellect in Sir Isaac Newton swept the sky, counted the stars, weighed them, as it were, in scales, in search of some rest for the soles of his feet; and he found but an apology for a rest, when he pronounced gravitation to be the solvent of all. Imagination in him that saw all life like a drama, or in him who soared from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained, found no rest; for, ere long it faltered and folded its wing, and was dissatisfied still. Illustrious captains and generals have fought hard fields, wreathed round their brows the greenest laurels, expecting they had achieved a rest for their country; but instead they found it a respite only for a little. Great statesmen have tasked their souls, and died in the mid-time of life, worn out and wasted by their toils; and have acknowledged that they only found a dry spot amid the waste of waters, soon again to be engulfed and covered by the all-encompassing and surrounding sea. Great nations, as only a short time ago, have risen in some dread paroxysms of restlessness, seeking to assert by force that which cannot be attained by force or secured by fraud - rest; and they have found, to their bitter experience, that they might as well have clutched the volleyed lightnings, or tried to monopolize the sun. There is no rest upon earth; it is polluted. Every anticipation of a rest, as soon as the anticipated rest is reached, is found to be only an adjournment of the rest; at each stage a spirit

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midst of the din and noise of the pursuit, a still small voice sounds in the depths of the deadest heart "Why spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" On wealth, on fame, on science, on literature, on poor men's huts, on great men's homes, on all that man covets, toils for, strives for, aspires to, this inscription has been read, for five thousand years, and it will be read to the end, amid the tears of many a reader "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again." In other words, "This is not your rest; it remaineth, it is beyond, for the people of God."

Now, the reason of this is partly in the world, and partly in the soul of the inhabitant. This world was made originally holy, beautiful, and good; but sin infected it; and the instant that sin infected the world, paralysis, ague, fever, seized upon it, and it has been convulsed and restless since. Man's soul, too, by its very nature explains why he cannot find rest here. Man's soul is greater than sun, and moon, and stars, and all created things; it was made for something greater than what it sees. There is nothing greater than man's soul, but God himself. It is the evidence of that soul's ruin, that it seeks for rest upon the earth; it is the evidence of that soul's aboriginal grandeur, and an augury of its future destiny, that nothing upon earth can fill it. It has capacities which earth cannot satisfy, yearnings and desires which stretch beyond the stars; and it gives evidence, even now, that its rest can only be found in that which is higher and greater than itself— that is, in God.

To all earnest spirits, weary, way worn, and tired, having often sought rest and found it but restlessness, — having appealed to what they thought a fountain, and having found it but a broken cistern, these words must sound like the angel-accents at Bethlehem, or like home music echoing

from the sky"There remaineth a rest." You shall not be disappointed for ever; your large capacities shall not be left unfilled for ever; there is a rest for you. Atheism gives you a grave; Deism points you to a blank; Superstition, to purgatorial torment; but Christianity, in its own grand tones, tells you, what none besides can tell, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God."

But while this rest remaineth for the people of God, an earnest of it is to be enjoyed here, as a pledge of its attainment hereafter. Let me first, then, show you where the earnest of it is to be enjoyed here, and in whom.

The apostle leads us, in this very epistle, to expect that some anticipation or earnest of it, may be tasted here. He says, in the third verse of this chapter "For we which have believed do enter into rest," as a present possession; and yet he says, in the next verse, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." It is explained by this, that every man who is going to heaven, has the first fruits of heaven already. God gives him a few flowers from that glorious land, not only to cheer him in his pilgrimage, but to be a pledge that he shall ultimately be admitted into its full enjoyment. To show and prove that we shall find the lasting and the immutable rest, he gives us now a partial and anticipatory rest. He gives it in those blessed words which we have often read, but the full meaning of which we never can exhaust "Come unto me, all

ye

that

"To

are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." John could say, -"Behold the Lamb;" Peter could say, whom can we go but unto thee?" Apostles, and evangelists, and ministers can say,- "Go to Jesus;" but Jesus could stand, with no beauty upon him that men should desire him, and say, with all the softness of human sympathy, but with all the grandeur of a present Deity,"Come unto ME, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."