DT's c. YlI.3 NO NIGHT IN HEAVEN. 449 throne of God, and serve him day and night in his tem- ple :" that is, they constantly serve or worship him in his holy temple in heaven. Perhaps, the different orders and ranks of them, in a continual succession, are ever doing some honours to God. As there is no night there, so there is no cessation of their services, their worship, -and their holy exercises, inone forai or another, through- out the duration of their being. Our pleasures here on earth are short-lived : If they are intense, nature cannot bear them long, any more than constant business and labour : And if our labours and our pleasures should happily join, and mingle here on earth, which is not always the case, yet night compels us to break off the pleasing labour, and we must rest from the most delightful business. Happy is that region on high, where business and pleasure are for ever the same among all the inhabitants of it, and there is no pause, or entire cessation of the one or the other.. " Tell me, ye warm and lively christians, when your hearts are sweetly and joyfully engaged in the worship of God, ii holy conversation, or in any pious services here on earth, how often you have been forced to break off these celes- tial entertainments by the returning night. But in the heavenly state there is everlasting active service with everlasting delight and satisfaction." In that blessed world there can be no idleness, no in- activity, no trifling intervals to pass away time, no vacant or empty spaces in eternal life. Who can be idle under the immediate eye of God? Who can trifle in the pre- sence of Christ? Who can neglect the pleasurable work of heaven under the sweet influences of the present Deity, and under the smiles of his countenance, who approves all their work and worship. 3. As in our present world, the hours of night are in active, if we sleep, so they seem long and tedious, when our eyes are wakeful, and sleep flies from us. Perhaps we hear the clock strike one hour after another, with wearisomelongings for the next succeeding hour: We wish the dark season at an end, andwe long for the ap- proach of morning, we grow impatient for the dawning of the day. But in heaven, " ye spirits who have dwelt longest there, can ye remember one tiresome or tedioyrs hour, through all the years of your residence in that VOL. is. á e
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