DISCOURSE V1I. No Night in Heaven. Rev. xxi. 25.For ' there shall be no night there. LENGTH of night and over - spreading darkness in the Winter-season, carries so many inconveniences with it that it is generally esteemed a most uncomfortable part of our time. Though night anff day necessarily succeed each other all the .year, by the wise appointment of God in the course of nature, by means of the revolution of the heavenly bodies, or rather of this earthly globe, yet the night -season is neither so delightful nor so useful a part of life as the duration of day- light. it- is the voice of all nature as well as the word of Solomon, Light is 'sweet, and a pleasant thing to enjoy the sun -beams ; Ecc. xi. 7. Light gives glory and beauty to every thing that is visible, and shews the face of nature in its most .agreeable colours ; but night, as it covers all the visible world with one. dark and 'undistinguishing veil, is less pleasing to all the animal parts of the creation. Therefore ai hell, and the place of punish- ment is called utter darkness in scripture, so heaven is represent- ed as a mansion of glory, as the inheritance of the saints in light; Col. i. 12. And this light is constant, without interrup- tion, and everlasting, or without end. So my text expresses it, there shall be no night there. Let it be observed, that in the language of the holy writers, 'light is often ascribed to intellectual beings, and is used as .a metaphor to imply knowledge and holiness and joy. Knowledge, as the beauty and'excellenc of the mind, holiness as the best regulation of the will and joy as the harmony of our best affec- 'tions in the possession of what we love'; And in opposition to these, ignorance, iniquity, and sorrow, are represented by the metaphor of darkness. Then we are in darkness in a spiritual 'sense, when the understanding is beclouded or led into mistake, or when the will is perverted or turned away from God aid holi- ness, or when the most uncomfortable affections prevail in the soul. I might cite particular texts of scripture to exemplify all this. And when it is said, there shall be no night in heaven, it may be very well applied in the spiritual sense ; there shall be ni errors or mistakes amongst the blessed, no such ignorance as to lead them astray, or to make them uneasy; the will shall Stever be turned aside from its pursuit of holiness and obedience to God : nor shall the affections ever be ruffled with any thing that may administer grief and pain.' Clear and unerring know- ledge, unspotted holiness, and everlasting joy shall be the pòr-
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