HAPPINESS AND GLORY OF HEAVEN.
HEAVEN! It is called the paradise of God—a paradise, to show how quiet, harmless, sweet, and beautiful heaven shall be to them that possess it.
"The street of the city was pure gold." All the visions were rich, but this the richest, that the floor of the house should be covered with gold. The floor and street are walking-places, and how rich will our steps be then! Alas, here we sometimes step into the mire, and then again stumble upon blocks and stones. Here we sometimes fall into the holes, and have our heel often catched in a snare; but there will be none of these. Gold! gold! all will be gold, and golden perfections, when we come into the holy place.
If a sight of sin and the love of God will make such work in that soul where yet there is unbelief, blindness, mistrust, and forgetfulness; what will a sight of sin do in that soul which is swallowed up of love, which is sinless and temptationless, which hath all faculties of soul and body strained by love and grace to the highest pin of perfection that is possible to be in glory enjoyed and possessed?
O the wisdom and goodness of God, that he at the day of judgment should so cast about the worst of our things, even those that naturally tend to sink us and damn us, for our great advantage. All things shall work together for good, indeed, to them that love God. Those sins that brought a curse upon the whole world, that spilt the heart-blood of our dearest Saviour, and that laid his tender soul under the flaming wrath of God, shall, by his wisdom and love, tend to the exaltation of his grace, and the inflaming of our affections to him for ever and ever.
These visions, that the saved in heaven shall have of the love of Christ, will far transcend our utmost knowledge here; even as far as the light of the sun at noon goes beyond the light of a blinking candle at midnight.
As there are great saints and small ones in the church on earth, so there are angels of divers degrees in heaven; some greater than some; but the smallest saint, when he gets to heaven, shall have an angel's dignity, an angel's place.
What goodly mansions He for them provides,
Though here they meet rough winds and swelling tides;
How brave a calm they will enjoy at last,
Who to the Lord and to his ways hold fast.
EMPLOYMENTS OF HEAVEN.
This love of Christ, if I may so say, will keep the saints in an employ, even when they are in heaven; though not an employ, that is laborsome, tiresome, burdensome, yet an employ that is dutiful, delightful, and profitable; for although the work and worship of saints in heaven is not particularly revealed as yet, and so it doth not yet appear what we shall be, yet in the general we may say, there will be that for them to do that has not yet by them been done; and by that work which they shall do there, their delight will be unto them. Nor will this at all derogate from their glory. The angels now wait upon God, and serve him; the Son of God is now a minister, and waiteth upon his service in heaven. Some saints have been employed about service for God after they have been in heaven; and why we should be idle spectators when we come thither, I see not reason to believe. It may be said, They there rest from their labors. True, but not from their delights. All things then that once were burdensome, whether in suffering or service, shall be done away, and that which is delightful and pleasurable shall remain.