Edward Fisher & Thomas Boston
The Marrow of Modern Divinity I.iv.3
OF THE HEART’S HAPPINESS, OR SOUL’S REST.

God in Christ is the only true rest for the soul.

Neonomian: Then, sir, it seems to me, that God in Christ, apprehended by faith, is the only true rest for man’s soul.

Minister: Therein is the true rest indeed! Therein is the rest which David invites his soul unto when he says, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee” (Psa 116:7). “For we which have believed,” says the author to the Hebrews, “have entered into his rest” [even now we enter into that rest by faith, compare verse 10] (Heb 4:3). And “Come unto me,” says Christ, “all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). [1] And truly, my neighbours and friends, believe it, we shall never find a heart’s happiness, and true soul’s rest, until we find it here in Christ alone.

For howsoever a man may think, if he had this man’s wit, and that man’s wealth, this man’s honour and that man’s pleasure, this wife, or that husband, such children, and such servants, his heart would be satisfied, and his soul would be contented. Yet which of us hath not, by our own experience, found the contrary? For, not long after that we have obtained the thing we did so much desire, and wherein we promised ourselves so much happiness, rest, and content, we have found nothing but vanity and emptiness in it.

Let a man but deal plainly with his own heart, and he shall find, that, notwithstanding he hath many things, yet there is ever one thing wanting. For indeed man’s soul cannot be satisfied with any creature, no, not with a world of creatures. And the reason is because the desires of man’s soul are infinite, according to that infinite goodness which it once lost in losing God. Yea, and man’s soul is a spirit, and therefore cannot communicate with any corporal thing. So that all creatures, not being that infinite and spiritual fullness which our hearts have lost, and towards the which they do still re-aspire, they cannot give it full contentment.

Nay, let me say more. Howsoever a man may, in the midst of his sensual fullness, be convinced in his conscience that he is at enmity with God, and therefore in danger of his wrath and eternal damnation; and be thereupon moved to reform his life and amend his ways, and endeavour to seek peace and rest to his soul—yet this being in the way of works, it is impossible that he should find it. For his conscience will ever be accusing him, that this good duty he ought to have done, and has not done it. And this evil he ought to have forborne, and yet he has done it. And in the performance of this duty he was remiss, and in that duty very defective—and many such ways will his soul be disquieted.

But when a man once comes to believe, that all his sins both past, present, and to come, are freely and fully pardoned [in respect of the guilt of eternal wrath], and God in Christ graciously reconciled unto him, the Lord doth thereupon so reveal his fatherly face unto him in Christ, and so make known that incredible union betwixt him and the believing soul, that his heart becomes quietly contented in God, who is the proper element of its being. For hereupon there comes into the soul such peace, flowing from the God of peace, that it fills the emptiness of his soul with true fullness, in the fullness of God, so that now the heart ceases to molest the understanding and reason, in seeking either variety of objects, or augmentation of degrees, in any comprehensible thing. And that because the restless longing of the mind which did before cause unquietness and disorder, both in the variety of mental projects, and also in the sensual and beastly exercises of the corporal and external members, is satisfied and truly quieted.

For when a man’s heart is at peace in God, and is become truly full in that peace and joy passing understanding, then the devil hath not that hope to prevail against his soul as he had before. He knows right well that it is in vain to bait his hook with profits, pleasures, honour, or any other such like seeming good, to catch such a soul that is thus at quiet in God—for he hath all fullness in God, and what can be added to fullness but it runneth over? Indeed, empty hearts, like empty hogsheads, are fit to receive any matter which shall be put into them. But the heart of the believer being filled with joy and peace in believing, doth abhor all such base allurements, for that it hath no room in itself to receive any such seeming contentments.

So that, to speak as the truth is, there is nothing that doth truly and unfeignedly root wickedness out of the heart of man, but only the true tranquility of the mind, or the rest of the soul in God. And, to say as the thing is, this is such a peace and rest to the creature in the Creator, that, according to the measure of its establishment by faith, no created comprehensible thing can either add to it, or detract from it.

The increase of a kingdom cannot augment it, the greatest losses and crosses in worldly things cannot diminish it. A believer’s good works do all flow from it, and ought not to return to it [i.e. to be any part of the fountain of it, for the time to come: as the rivers return unto the sea, whence they came, making a part of the store for their own fresh supply. Nay, it is the Lord alone that gives and maintains it]. Neither ought human frailties to molest it. [For these we are never free from in this life. And true repentance, and gospel mourning for sin, are so consistent with it, that they flow from it, according to the measure thereof. (Psa 65:3), “Iniquities prevail against me; as for our transgression, thou shalt purge them away.” (Zech 12:10), “They shall look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn.”]

However, this is most certain, neither sin nor Satan, law nor conscience, hell nor grave, can quite extinguish it—for it is the Lord alone that gives and maintains it. “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” says David, “and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee” (Psa 73:25). It is the pleasant face of God in Christ that puts gladness into his heart, (Psa 4:7). And when that face is hid, then he is troubled, (Psa 30:7). But, to speak more plainly, though the peace and joy of true believers may be extenuated or diminished, yet doth the testimony of their being in nature [2] remain so strong, that they could skill to say, yea, even when they have felt God to be withdrawing himself from them, “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psa 22:1). Yea, and in the night of God’s absence to remain confident, that though sorrow be over night, yet joy will come in the morning, (Psa 30:5). Nay, though the Lord should seem to kill them with unkindness, “yet they will put their trust in him” (Job 13:15); knowing that for all this “their Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25); so strong is “the joy of their Lord” (Neh 8:10). These are the people that are kept in perfect peace, because their minds are stayed in the Lord (Isa 26:3).

Wherefore, my dear friends and loving neighbours, I beseech you to take heed of deeming any estate happy, until you come to find this true peace and rest to your souls in God. Oh, beware, lest any of you do content yourselves with a peace rather of speculation than of power! Oh, be not satisfied with such a peace as consists either in the act of oblivion or neglect of examination! nor yet in any brain-sick supposition of knowledge, theological or divine; and so frame rational conclusions, to protract time and still the cries of an accusing conscience. But let your hearts take their last farewell of false felicities, wherewith they have been, all of them, more or less, detained and kept from their true rest. Oh, be strong in resolution and bid them all farewell! For what have your souls to do any longer among these gross, thick, and bodily things here below, that you should set your love upon them, or see happiness in them? Your souls are of a higher and purer nature, and therefore their well-being must be sought in something that is higher and purer than they—even in God himself.

True it is, that we are all of us, indeed, too unclean to touch God in immediate unity. But yet there is a pure counterpart of our natures [namely, the pure and spotless human nature of Christ], and that pure humanity is immediately knit to the purest Deity—and by that immediate union you may come to a mediate union. For the Deity and that humanity being united, make one Saviour, head, and husband of souls. And so you being married to him, that is, God in him, you come also to be one with God—he one by a personal union, and you one by a mystical. Clear up then your eye, and fix it on him, as on the fairest of men, the perfection of a spiritual beauty, the treasure heavenly joy, the true object of most fervent love. Let your spirits look, and long, and seek after this Lord—let your souls cleave to him, let them hang about him, and never leave him, till he be brought into the chambers of your souls. Yea, tell him resolutely, you will not leave him, till you hear his voice in your souls, saying, “My well-beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16), yea and tell him you are “sick of love” (Song 5:8). Let your souls go, as it were, out of your bodies and out of the world, by heavenly contemplations; and treading upon the earth with the bottom of your feet, stretch your souls up, to look over the world, into that upper world, where her [your soul’s] treasure is, and where her beloved dwelleth.

And when any of your souls shall thus forget her own people, her father’s house, Christ her King shall so desire her beauty (Psa 45:10-11), and be so much in love with her, that, like a loadstone, this love of his shall draw the soul in pure desire to him again. And then, “as the hart panteth after the rivers of waters, so will your soul pant after God” (Psa 42:1). And then, according to the measure of your faith, your souls shall come to have a real rest in God, and be filled with joy unspeakable and glorious.

Wherefore, I beseech you, set your mouths to this fountain Christ, and so shall your souls be filled with the water of life, with the oil of gladness, and with the new wine of the kingdom of God. From him you shall have weighty joys, sweet embracements, and ravishing consolations. And how can it be otherwise, when your souls shall really communicate with God, and by faith have a true taste, and by the spirit have a sure earnest of all heavenly preferments—having, as it were, one foot in heaven, whilst you live upon earth? Oh then, what an eucharistical love [a love of thanksgiving, bearing thankfulness in its nature] will arise from your thankful hearts, extending itself first towards God, and then towards man for God’s sake! And then, according to the measure of your faith, will be your willing obedience to God, and also to man for God’s sake. For obedience being the kindly fruit of love, a loving soul bringeth forth this fruit as kindly as a good tree bringeth forth her fruit. For the soul, having tasted Christ in a heavenly communion, so loves him, that to please him is a pleasure and delight to herself. And the more Christ Jesus comes into the soul by his Spirit, the more spiritual he makes her, and turns her will into his will, making her of one heart, mind, and will, with him.

So that, for a conclusion, this I say, that if the everlasting love of God in Jesus Christ be truly made known to your souls, according to the measure thereof, you shall have no need to frame and force yourselves to love and do good works, for your souls will ever stand bound [or constrained by the force of that love] to love God, and to keep his commandments, and it will be your meat and drink to do his will. And truly this love of God will cut down self-love and love of the world, for the sweetness of Christ’s Spirit will turn the sweetness of the flesh into bitterness, and the sweetness of the world into contempt. And if you can behold Christ with open face, you shall see and feel things unutterable, and be changed from beauty to beauty, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of this Lord, and so be happy in this life, in your union with happiness, and happy hereafter in the full fruition of happiness [that is, of God himself in Christ]: whither the Lord Jesus Christ bring us all in his due time. Amen.

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[1]  This is one of the most solemn gospel offers to be found in all the New Testament; and our author seems here to point at what I conceive to be the true and genuine sense of it. The words “labour and heavy laden,” do not restrict the invitation and offer to such as are sensible of their sins, and longing to be rid of them, though indeed none but such will really accept—but they denote the restlessness of the sinful soul of man—a qualification (if it is so called) to be found in all that are out of Christ, whether they have, or have not, any notable law work on their consciences.

I say notable, to distinguish it from that which is common to all men, even to heathens, (Rom 11:15). Our father Adam led his whole family away out of their rest in God, and so left them with a conscience full of guilt, and a heart full of unsatisfied desires. Hence his children soon find themselves like the horse-leech, having “two daughters, crying, Give, give,” namely, a restless conscience, and a restless heart. And to each of these the poor soul must needs say, as Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee?” so the blinded soul falls a labouring for rest to them. And it labours in the barren region of the fiery law for a rest to the conscience, and in the empty creation, for a rest to the heart: but, after all, the conscience is still heavy laden with guilt, whether it has any lively feeling thereof, or not—and the heart is still under a load of unsatisfied desires—so neither the one nor the other can find rest indeed. This is the natural case of all men. And to souls thus labouring, and laden, Jesus Christ here calls, that they may “come to him, and he will give them rest”—namely, a rest for their consciences, under the covert of his blood, and a rest to their hearts, in the enjoyment of God through him.

This is most agreeable to the Scripture phraseology, “The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knows not how to go to the city” (Eccl 10:15). “The people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity” (Hab 2:13). “Wherefore do ye spend your labour for that which satisfieth not?” (Isa 55:2). The prophet laments over a people more insensible than the ox or the ass, saying, “Ah, sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity” (Isa 1:3-4). And the apostle speaks of “silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:6-7).

[2]  That is, the evidence, that they (viz: the peace and joy of believers) are still in being (in rerum natura) and not quite extinct.