492 NO NIClrT I r IIEAVLN. DsISC. Vrr. sins can be committed there, nor can they hope for any screen to defend them from the eye of God, and the Lamb, whose eyes are like a flame of fire. The light of God shines round every creature in that country, and there is not a saint or angel there, that desires a cover- ing from the sight of God, nor would accept of a veil or screen to interpose between him and the lovely glories of divine holiness and grace. To behold God, and to live under theblessings of his eye is their everlasting and cho- sen joy. O that our world were more like it ! 7. When the night returns upon us here on earth, the pleasures of sight vanish and are lost. Knowledge is shut out at one entrance, in a great degree, and one of our senses is withheld from the spreading beauties and glories of this lower creation, almost as though we were deprived of it, and were grown blind for a season. It is true, the God of nature has appointed the moon and stars to relieve the darkness, at some seasons, that when the sun is withdrawn, half the world, at those hours may not be in confusion : And, by the inventions of men, we are furnished with lamps and candles to relieve our darkness within doors : But ifwe stir abroad in the black and dark night, instead of the various and delightful scenes of the creation of God, in the skies and the fields, we are presented with an universal blank of nature, and one of the great entertainmentsand satisfactions, of this life, is quite taken away from us. But, in heaven, the glories of that world are for ever in view : The beauteous scenes and prospects of the hills of paradise are never hidden : We shall there continually behold a rich variety of " things which eye hath not seen on earth, which ear bath not heard, and which the heart of man bath not conceived," 1 Cor. ii. 9. Say, ye souls in paradise, ye inhabitants of that glorious world, is there any loss of pleasure by your absence from those works of God, which are visible here on earth, while you are for ever entertained with those brighter works of God in the upper world ? While every corner of that country is en- lightened by the glory of God himself, and while the Son of God, with all his beams of grace, shines for ever upon it ? 8. It is another unpleasing circumstance of the night season, that it is the coldest part of time. When the sun 5
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=