" There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God." - Hebrews 4:9.

This portion of Scripture is an exposition of the ninety-fifth Psalm. The word rendered " rest'' in this verse, is different from the word so rendered in many other verses of the context. It does not, however, signify anything different: it is intended to elucidate. There is in it a reference to the Sabbath, and it indicates a Sabbatical rest - a great and glorious rest of which the Sabbath is an emblem. And Paul exhorts the Hebrew Christians to labor to enter into that rest. To labor now, that they may rest hereafter.

The following are elements in that future rest: - Deliverance from our own vain, unhallowed imaginations; from self-confidence and the spirit of self-aggrandizement; from unworthy conceptions of God; from the vacillations of our love to Christ; from worldly desires; from liability to fall; from misunderstandings with our brethren, in a word, from all the remnants of a carnal mind: - deliverance from indisposition to the service of God, and incompetency for the same; from the assaults of Satan; from the companionship of sinners; from a sin-injured body.

Take not your rest too soon, else you will never enter into your real rest. It is not here, on this plank, amid the billows; but yonder on that shore.