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DISC.
VII.
NO
NIGHT IN HEAVEN.
452
is
sunk
below
the
earth,
and its beams are
hidden from
us, its
kindly
and vital
heat
as well as its light,
are
re-
moved from one side
of
the
globe
;
and
this
gives a sen-
sible uneasiness
in
the hours
of
midnight
to
those, who
are not
well
provided
with
warm accommodations.
And,
I
might add
also,
it
is
too often night with
us in
a
spiritual
sense, while
we
dwell
here
on
earth
:
Our hearts
are
cold as well
as
dark
:
How seldom do
we feel
that
fervency
of spirit
in
religious duties
which
God requires?
How
cool
is
our
love to
the
greatest and
the
best
of
be-
ings?
How languid and
indiffèrent are
our
affections to
the
Son
of
God, " the chiefest
of
ten thousand and
alto-
gether
lovely?" And
how
much doth the devotion
of
our
souls
want
its
proper ardour
and
vivacity.
But, when
the
soul
is
arrived
at
heaven,
we
shall
be all
warm and fervent
in
our
divine and delightful work. As
there
shall
be
nothing painful
to
the senses
in
that
blessed
climate,
so
there
shall
not
be one cold
heart
there,
nor
so
much
as
one
Juke
-warm
worshipper;
for
we
shall
live
under
the immediate
rays
of
God,
who
formed the light,
and under
the kindest influences
of
Jesus, the sun
of
righteousness.
We
shall be made like
his angels,
who
are
most
active spirits, and
his
ministers, who
are
flames
of
fire,
Ps.
civ.
4.
Nor
shall
any dullness or indifferency
hang upon our
sanctified powers and passions
:
They
shall
be all
warm
and
vigorous
in
their
exercise,
amidst
the
holy enjoyments
of
that
country.
In
the
ninth
and last place,
as
night
is
the season
ap-
pointed
for
sleep, so
it
becomes a
constant periodical
emblem
of
death, as it returns every
evening.
Sleep
and
midnight,
as
I
have shewn before,
are
no seasons
of
labour
or
activity,
nor
of
delight
in
the
visible
things
of
this
world:
It
is
a
dark and stupid
scene, wherein we
behold
nothing
with
truth, though
we
are sometimes
de-
ceived and
deluded
by
dreaming
visions and
vanities:
Night
and the slumbers
of
it are a
sort of shorter death
and
burial,
interposed between
the several daily scenes
and
transactions
of
human
life.
But, in
heaven, as
there
is
no sleeping,
there
is
no dying,
nor
is
there
any
thing there,
that
looks like death.
Sleep,
the
image
or
emblem
of
death,
is
for
ever banished from
that
world.
All
is
vital activity
there:
Every power
is
immortal, and
every
thing
that
dwells
there
is
for ever
alive.
There
can
2
G
3