CHAP. 1.]

Heaven is a place.

(HEAVEN.

he divine presence is gloriously revealed.-Secondly, show that the enjoyment of the divine presence is the supreme felicity of the saints.-Thirdly, prove that the felicity shall be everlasting.

First, The place where the divine presence is revealed. It is consistent with the divine immensity to be differently present in some places. The essential presence of God is the same everywhere; the influxive declarative presence of God is special, and otherwise in one place than in another. He is more excellently present in the living temples, his saints on earth, by the gracious and eminent operations of his Spirit, than he is in the rest of the world. He is most excellently present in heaven, by the clearest manifestation, and the express characters and effects of the divine perfections.

This inferior world is framed with exquisite order; the earth is full of the glory of the Lord ;' yet it is but the sediment of the creation, the habitation of birds and beasts, and of rebellious sinners. By this we may raise our thoughts to conceive something of the glorious sanctuary of life, and blessedness above. It is called the heaven of heavens, which is the highest comparison, to instruct and astonish us with the amplitude and glory of the place. It is a place becoming the majesty of God, the image of his immensity. Our Saviour assures us, that in his Father's house are many mansions, to receive the innumerable company

The shining firmament, with all the luminaries that adorn it, are but the frontispiece to the highest heaven. All the lustre of diamonds, the fire of carbuncles and rubies, the brightness of pearls are dead in comparison of its glory. It is the throne of the God of glory, wherein his majesty is revealed in the most illustrious manner. For pleasantness it is called paradise, in aliusion to the delightful garden planted by the hands of God himself for Adam, his favorite, while innocent. There is the tree of life. There are rivers of pleasure springing from the divine presence. It is called the inheritance of the saints in light, to signify the glory and joy of the place; for light has a splendour which imparts cheerfulness, and is a fit emblem of both. As on the contrary, hell is described by the blackness of darkness for ever,' to signify, the sadness and despair of the lost; and because in that centre of misery, a perpetual night and invincible darkness increases the horror of lost souls.

Heaven for stability is called a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' The present world is like a tent or tabernacle set up for a time, while the church is passing through the wilderness; but heaven is the city of the living God,' the place of his happy residence, the seat of his eternal empire. The visible world with all its perishing idols shall shortly fall, this beautiful scene shall be abolished; but the supreme heaven is above this

[HEAVEN.

sphere of mutability, wherein all bodies compounded of the jarring elements are continually changing and dissolving. It is truly called a kingdom that cannot be shaken.' The wise Maker has framed it correspondently to the end for which it was designed; it is the seat of his Majesty, his sacred temple in which he diffuses the richest beams of his goodness and glory, and his chosen servants see and praise his adorable excellencies for ever.

Secondly, I will endeavour to show, that the enjoyment of the divine presence in heaven is the supreme felicity of the saints.

To make this supernatural blessedness more easy and intelligible to us, the scripture describes it by sensible representations. For while the soul is clothed with flesh, fancy has such a dominion that we conceive of nothing but by comparisons and images taken from material things. It is thereforo set forth by a marriage feast, Rev. xvii. 7; to signify the joy and glory of the saints above. But to prevent all gross conceits, we are instructed that the bodies of the saints shall be spiritual, not capable of hunger or thirst, nor consequently of any refreshment that is caused by the satisfaction of those appetites.. The objects of the most noble senses, seeing and hearing, the pleasure of which is mixed with reason, and not common to the brutes, are more frequently made use of to reconcile the blessed and heavenly state to the proportion of our minds. Thus some

HEAVEN.]

Felicity of Heaven;

[CHAP. I.

times the saints above are represented on thrones, and with crowns on their heads; sometimes as clothed in white, with palms in their hands; sometimes singing songs of triumph to Him that sits on the throne. But the real felicity of the saints infinitely exceeds all those faint metaphors. The apostle, to whom the admirable revelation was exhibited, of the sufferings of the church, and the victorious issue out of them in the successive ages of the world, tells us that it does not yet appear what the saints shall be in heaven.' The things that God has prepared for those that love him are far more above the highest ascent of our thoughts, than the marriage feast of a king exceeds in splendour and magnificence the imagination of one that has always lived in an obscure village, and who never saw any ornaments of state, nor tasted wine in his life. We can think of those

things only according to the

poverty of our under

standing. But so much we know as is able to sweeten all the bitterness, aud render insipid all the sweetness of this world.

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CHAP. II.

Whatever is requisite to our complete blessedness is enjoyed in heaven-An exemption from sin, and all its penal consequences—The concurrence of all positive good; the body revived to a glorious life, and the soul to communion with God.

HATEVER is requistite to constitute the complete blessedness of man, is fully enjoyed in the divine presence.

1. An exemption from all evils is the first condition of perfect blessedness. No man can be called happy while in this valley of tears. There are so many natural calamites, so many casualties which no human mind can foresee or prevent, that one may be less miserable than another, but none perfectly happy here. But upon an entrance into heaven, all those evils which by their number, variety or weight, disquiet and oppress us here, are at an end.

(1) Sin, of all evils the worst and most hateful, shall be abolished; and all temptations that surround us and endanger our innocence shall cease. Here the best men lament the weakness of the flesh, and sometimes the violent assaults of spiritual enemies. St. Paul himself breaks forth into a mournful complaint, Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And when