Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"

§ 5. Further, the saints enter those peaceful mansions, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Job, 3: 17. They are freed from the noise of this malignant world, where the voice of scoffing Ishmaelites, cursing Shimeis, and railing, blasphemous Rabshakchs, is heard no more; where there is no terrible inquisitorial tribunal, no treacherous and bloody massacres, no fire and faggot, no prison or gallies to be dreaded any more; they are landed safe on the shore of eternity, from whence they can behold, with a fearless eye, the storms of this tempestuous sea whereon they have so long been tossed, and from which they have now happily escaped.

§ 6. The saints in heaven are freed from evils and suf ferings; hence heaven is called a place of rest; they are freed from all bodily and outward sufferings, from disease and pain: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Rev. 21: 4; Isaiah, 25: 8, 23, 24. There will be no more complaint of poverty or want; they will have a glorious inheritance, and be as rich as heaven can make them. He who has a promise of an estate after the expiration of a few years, though at present he is poor, comforts himself with this, that he will shortly have his estate. " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes." Rev. 7: 16, 17. They shall be freed also from toil and hard labor; "all things," says the wise man, "are full of labor." Eccl. 1:8. God has made a law, "in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread." But death gives the believer a discharge from all his labor. Rev. 14: 13. Nor shall they any more sustain the loss of comforts and enjoyments. In

this present life, many things occasion sorrow, law-suits, treachery of friends, disappointment of hopes, and the loss of property. The world is a "Bochim," i. e. a place of weeping: Rachel wept for her children. Some grieve that they have no children, others because they are undutiful. Thus we spend our years in sighing; but in heaven all tears will be wiped away. Then Christ's spouse will put off her mourning; for how can the children of the bridegroom mourn when he is with them? Thus, my dear Benjamin, you will easily perceive that even the negative part of the happiness of the righteous, the happiness that flows from the absence of the evils of sin and corruption, exceeds all the pleasures this world can afford. As none feel more the pleasures of health than those just recovering from long and painful maladies; as none prize more highly the sweets of liberty than those that are rescued from the miseries and hardships of captivity; so the fresh remembrance of all the afflictions that we have passed through during this short scene of mortality and misery will greatly enhance the joys of our happy deliverance from them, and give a sweeter relish to the positive part of the future blessedness.

§ 7. I will therefore proceed to the consideration of the positive part of the happiness of the righteous. This is called by the Lord Jesus Christ, "Eternal Life." Matt. 25: 46. And in many other parts of the Scripture the future happiness is called Life, by way of eminence, as opposed to this present state of mortality, and denotes the affluence of all that can render our being and state truly desirable. Matt. 7: 14. 19: 17. John, 3: 36. 10: 10. The blessedness of their heavenly and happy life results partly From the perfection of our nature, and the most vigorous exercise of our perfected powers upon the noblest and most agreeable objects. How great will be the change with respect to the soul and all its rational powers! The per

fection of our knowledge is by the Apostle Paul plainly in

timated to be the noble and peculiar privilege of our hea venly state. 1 Cor. 13: 10, 12. Our knowledge will then be large in its compass and extent, and conversant about the most glorious objects, the contemplation and discovery whereof is capable of yielding the highest satisfaction to our minds. We shall then fully "know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent," whom to know fully, is indeed "life eternal." John, 17: 3.

8. Next to the understanding, is the perfection of the will, as another source of happiness. Our will will be entirely moulded into a sinless conformity to the nature and will of God; this being the happy and necessary result of our perfect vision of him. 1 John, 3: 2. 2 Cor. 3: 18. Oh! happy souls, whose wills are thus entirely moulded into the perfect will of God! If the perfect fulfilling of our wills can make us happy, those must needs be so who have no will different from his; for his will shall always stand.

As the philosophers say, the reason that iron cleaves to the load-stone so constantly, is because the pores of both are alike, and there are affluxes and emanations that slide through and unite them together; so will be this magnetism; our wills shall perfectly fall in with the divine will, and nothing will appear good to us but what is good in God's esteem; so that we shall then need no threatenings to drive us, no promises to draw us; but divine goodness will so attract us, that we shall be naturalized to God and goodness; and be no more able to turn off from that ineffable sweetness than the loadstone to point to the west.

Here grace is very imperfect. We cannot write a copy of holiness without blotting it. Believers are said to receive but the first fruits of the Spirit. Rom. 8:23. But in heaven the saints shall arrive at perfection. Their life clear, their sanctity perfect, their sun shall be in his meridian splendor; they need not then pray for an increase of grace; they will then love Christ as much as they would love him,

and as much as he desires them to love him. They shall be then, in respect of holiness, as the angels of God.

§ 9. As the understanding will be light without darkness, and the will conformed to that knowledge, so all the powers of the soul will be engaged in cheerful exercise. Here our souls are miserably impotent, weak and sluggish, being imprisoned in a frail and feeble body, and clogged with an unwieldy lump of clay. But how great will be the vigor and activity of the soul, when disencumbered from this load of flesh and re-united to a body whose agility is suited to the quickness of its motions! We shall then be like the angels, those swift messengers of the heavenly King; we shall then, indeed, in the highest sense, "mount up with wings as eagles; we shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint." Isaiah, 40: 13.

§ 10. The perfection of our nature relates to our body as well as our souls. At death the happiness of the righteous is merely begun; but, after the general resurrection and judgment, it will be completed. One part of the righteous still remains the spoils of death and the prey of the grave; till then, that last enemy continues his seeming victory and triumph, our bodies being detained as captives in his dark prison and ignominious chains; and it is not till this last enemy is conquered, and our bodies rescued from his dominion and power, that "mortality is entirely swallowed up of life," and the happiness of a glorified saint fully consummated. The glory and nature of this change, as far as revealed to us in Scripture, I have already considered in a former letter on the general resurrection; and therefore proceed to mention another part of the happiness of the righteous, arising from

11. The society of the heavenly inhabitants. Man is a social creature, framed for converse, and capable of relishing all the entertaining pleasures of it. 'cellent and communicative those are with

The more exwhom we con

verse, the greater are the advantages of it; now there is every thing in the heavenly state that can conspire to render the converse of it beneficial and pleasurable to us. There we shall be admitted to the most intimate and endeared communion with the blessed God, the fountain of all light and life, love and joy. We shall then satiate our souls with the "fullness of joy" that is in his beatific "presence," and let them run adrift in that "ocean of pleasure that is at his right hand for evermore." All the influences and effects of the felicitating love of God which we now partake of, are but like the glimmering light of the sun that pierces through some crevices of the closed windows. But there, all obstruction shall be removed, our own capacities enlarged, and we shall with open eyes behold the face of glorifying love for ever. Oh! what a life of inconceivable and unknown delight we shall live for ever, in the presence and bosom, and under the incessant influence of his diffusive, eternal love, the true source of all perfection and blessedness! Besides, my dear Benjamin, how great will be the joy and felicity of the righteous, when admitted to the presence and converse of the exalted Redeemer, as clothed in our nature. If good old Simeon. was so transported at the sight of our blessed Lord in the flesh, that he was willing to close his eyes on this world when he had "beheld the salvation of God," Luke, 2: 28, 30, how much more ravishing then will it be to behold him enthroned in heaven, when he has completed that great work of the salvation of his Israel which he here came to lay the foundation of! If Peter, when he beheld but a transient glimpse of the glory of Christ in the transfiguration on the mount, felt such an astonishing transport as made him forget the world and himself, and speak he knew not what; how much more surprising and ravishing will his glory appear, when we see it in its brightest lustre, and we ourselves shall feel the transforming efficacy of that glorious sight, to render us like to him ĺ 1 John, 3 : 2.

« AnteriorContinuar »