CHRIST the only Rest for the Weary and Heavy-Laden.
MATTHEW xi. 28.
_Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will
give you rest._
NOTHING is more generally known than the duties which belong to
christianity; and yet, how amazing is it, nothing is less practised?
There is much of it in name and shew, but little of it in the heart and
conversation; indeed, if going to church, and to the sacrament, or, if
our being called after the name of CHRIST, and being baptized into that
name; if that will make us christians, I believe all of us would have
a claim thereto: but if it consists in the heart, that there must be an
inward principle wrought in us by faith; that there must be a change of
the whole nature, a putting off the old man with his deeds, a turning
from sin unto GOD, a cleaving only unto the Son of Righteousness; and
that there must be a new birth, and we experience the pangs thereof;
and that you must feel yourselves weary and heavy laden with your sins,
before you will seek for deliverance from them; if this is to be the
case, if there is so much in being children of GOD, alas! how many who
please themselves with an outside shew, a name to live whilst they are
dead; and how few that have any share in this spiritual state, in this
true and living name? How few are they who are weary and heavy laden
with their sins, and seek to CHRIST for rest? They say, in a formal
customary manner, we are sinners, and there is no health in us; but how
few feel themselves sinners, and are so opprest in their own spirits,
that they have no quiet nor rest in them, because of the burden of
their sins, and the weight that is fallen and lays on their minds?
Under these burdens, these heavy burdens, they are at a loss what to
do whereby they may obtain rest; they fly to their works, they go to
a minister, and he tells them to read, to pray, and meditate, and take
the sacrament: thus they go away, and read, and pray, and meditate
almost without ceasing, and never neglect the sacrament whenever there
is an opportunity for the taking of it. Well, when the poor soul has
done all this, it still finds no ease, there is yet no relief: Well,
what must you do then? To lie still under the burden they cannot, and
to get rid of it they cannot: O what must the burdened soul do! Why,
goes to the clergyman again, and tells him the case, and what it has
done, and that it is no better. Well, he asks, have you given alms to
the poor? Why no. Then go and do that, and you will find rest. Thus the
poor sinner is hurried from duty to duty, and still finds no rest: all
things are uneasy and disquiet within, and there remains no rest in
the soul. And if it was to go through all the duties of religion, and
read over a thousand manuals of prayers, none would ever give the soul
any rest; nothing will, until it goes to the LORD JESUS CHRIST, for
there is the only true rest; that is the rest which abideth, and will
continue for ever. It is not in your own works, nor in your endeavours:
no; when CHRIST comes into your souls, he pardons you, without any
respect to your works, either past, present, or to come.