No Night in Heaven
Ret. xxii. 25. And there shall be no Night there.
Length of night and overspreading 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 and 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.” Light gives a 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 as hell and the place of punishment is called ’ utter darkness’ in Scripture; so heaven is represented as a mansion of ’ glory,’ as the inheritance of the saints in light.’ And this light is constant without interruption, 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 excellency of the ‘mind,’ ‘holiness’ as the best regulation of the ‘will,’ and ‘joy’ as the harmony of our best affections 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 or holiness, 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 no errors or mistakes among the blessed, no such ignorance as to lead them astray, or to make them uneasy; the will shall never 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 or pain. Clear and unerring knowledge, unspotted holiness, and everlasting joy, shall be the portion of all the inhabitants of the upper world. These are more common subjects of discourse.
But I chuse rather at present to consider this word night, in its literal sense, and shall endeavour to represent part of the blessedness of the heavenly state, under this special description of it. l There is no night there.’
Now in order to pursue this design, let us take a brief survey of the several evils or inconveniences which attend the night, or the season of darkness here on earth, and shew how far the heavenly world is removed, and free from all manner of inconvenience of this kind.
1. Though night be the season of sleep for the relief of nature, and for our refreshment after the labours of the day; yet ’ it is a certain sign of the weakness and weariness of nature, when it wants such refreshments, and such dark seasons of relief.’ But there is no night in heaven. Say, 0 ye inhabitants of that vital world, are ye ever weary? Do your natures know any such weakness? Or are your holy labours of such a kind, as to expose you to fatigue, or to tire your spirits? The blessed above ‘mount up towards God as on eagles’ wings, they run at the command of God and are not weary, they walk on the hills of paradise and never faint,’ as the Prophet Isaiah expresses a vigorous and pleasurable state. Chap. xl. ver. last.
There are no such animal bodies in heaven, whose natural springs of action can be exhausted or weakened by the business of the day: there is no flesh and blood there, to complain of weariness, and to want rest.* 0 blessed state,
* When the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 50, says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” the meaning is that moral pravity, a fallen and corrupt nature, cannot. We have no precise instruction concerning the nature where our faculties shall be sohappily suited to our work, that we shall never feel ourselves weary of it, nor fatigued by it.
And, as there is no weariness, so there is no sleeping there. Sleep was not made for the heavenly state. Can the spirits of the just ever sleep, under the full blaze of divine glory, under the incessant communications of divine love, under the perpetual influences of the grace of God the Father, and of Jesus the Saviour, and amidst the inviting confluence of every spring of blessedness?
2. Another inconvenience of night, near akin to the former, is that i business is interrupted by it, partly for want of light to perform it, as well as for want of strength and spirits to pursue it.’ This is constantly visible in the successions of labour and repose here on earth; and the darkness of the night is appointed to interrupt the course of labour, and the business of the day, that nature may be recruited. But the business of heaven is never interrupted; there is everlasting light and everlasting strength. Say, ye blessed spirits on high, who join in the services which are performed for God and the Lamb there, ye who unite all your powers in the worship and homage that is paid to the Father and to the Son, ye that mingle in all the joyful conversation of that divine and holy Assembly, say, is there found any useless hour there? Do your devotions, your duties and your joys, ever suffer such an entire interrupof our bodies after the resurrection. Our Lord’s body after his resurrection had still the same physical constitution apparently, which it always had. When his disciples were terrified, supposing that they saw an apparition, he shewed them his body, and feet, told them to feel or handle him, and added, “For a spirit hath not Jesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Luke ixiv. 39. Now, we arc told, that Jesus will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,” Phil. iii. 21. If then he still possess the same body in glory with which he rose, and if it be of the same materials as then; it will follow, that “flesh and blood,” in the physical sense of the phrase, may enter into the heavenly state; but it will be flesh and blood purified from all its present infirmities, and endued with every quality to render it a delightful habitation for the blessed soul in the worship and enjoyments of heaven. God can as easily render a body of flesh and blood immortal as any other kind of body. Still we have no assurance of what kind it will be; for we are not certain that no change passed upon our Lord’s body, when he ascended to heaven. It would therefore seem wise not to attempt to define or deny what the holy Scriptures do not define or deny. Whatever the bodies of glorified saints may be, they will not be subject to weariness, or any other painful sensation. They will be instruments of utility and pleasure, not clogs and hindrances; and to know this, seems sufficient for us in our present state. — ed.
tion of rest and silence, as the season of darkness on earth necessarily creates among the inhabitants of our world?
The living creatures * which are represented by John the Apostle, in Rev. iv. whether they signify saints or angels, yet they were ‘full of eyes’ that never slumber; ‘they rest not day nor night;’ this is spoken in the language of mortals, to signify, that they are never interrupted by any change of seasons, or intervening darkness in the honours they pay to God. They are described as ever saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” And the same sort of expression is used concerning the saints in heaven, Rev. vii. 15. — “They who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, tshey are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple,” i. e. 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, in one form or another, throughout 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 iegion 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, in holy conversation, or in any pious services here on earth, how often you have been forced to break off these celestial 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-
* The word ZZz, which is translated beasts, signifies only animals or living creatures, and does not carry with it so mean and so disagreeable an idea as the word beasts in English — Watts.
M 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 presence 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 unactive 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 wearisome longings for the next succeeding hour: we wish the dark season at an end, and we long for the approach of mor< ning, we grow impatient for the dawning of the day. But in heaven, ye spirits who have dweltlongest there, can ye remember one tiresome or tedious hour, through all the years of your residence in that country? Is there not eternal wakefulness among all the blessed? Can any of you ever indulge a slumber? Can you sleep in heaven? Can you want it, or wish for it? No, for that world is all vital and sprightly for ever. When we leave this flesh and blood, farewell to all the tedious measures of time, farewell tiresome darkness; our whole remaining duration is life and light, vital activity and vigour, attended with everlasting holiness and joy.
4. While we are here on earth, the darkness of the night often exposes us to the danger of losing our way, of wandering into confusion, or falling into mischief.’ When the sun-beams have withdrawn their light, and midnight clouds overspread the heaven, we cannot see our path before us, we cannot pursue our proper course, nor secure ourselves from stumbling. How many travellers have been betrayed by the thick shadows of the night, into mistaken ways or pathless deserts, into endless mazes among thorns and briars, into bogs, and pits, and precipices, into sudden destruction and death? But there are no dangers of this kind in the heavenly world. All the regions of paradise are for ever illuminated by the glory of God: the light of his countenance shines upon every step that we shall take, and brightens all our way. We shall walk in the light of God, and under the blessed beams of the Sun of righteousness, and we are secured for ever against wandering, and against every danger of tripping or falling in our course. ‘Our feet may stumble on the dark mountains here below,’ but there is no stumbling-block on the hills of paradise, nor can we go astray from our God or our duty. The paths of that country are all pleasure, and ever-living day -light shines upon them without end. Happy beings who dwell or travel there!
5. ‘In the night we are exposed here on earth, to the violence and plunder of wicked men, whether we are abroad or at home.’ There is scarce any safety now a-days to those who travel in the night, and even in our own habitations there is frequent fear and surprise. At that season, the sons of mischief ’ dig through houses in the dark, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time: they lurk in corners to seize the innocent, and to rob him’ of his possessions. But in the heavenly world there is no dark hour; there is nothing that can encourage such mischievous designs; nor are any of the sons of violence, or the malicious powers of darkness, suffered to have an abode or refuge in that country. No surprise nor fear belongs to the inhabitants of those regions. Happy souls, who spend all their life in the light of the countenance of God, and are for ever secure from the plots and mischievous devices of the wicked!
While we dwell here below, amongst the changing seasons of light and darkness, what daily care is taken to shut the doors of our dwellings against the men of mischief? What solicitude in a time of war to keep the gates of our towns and cities well secured against all invasion of enemies! ‘Every man with his sword upon his thigh, because of fear in the night’ But in that blessed world there is no need of such defences; no such guardian cares to secure the inhabitants. ‘The gates of that city shall not he shut by day, and there is no night there.’ There shines perpetual day-light, and the gates are ever open to receive new-comers from our world, or for the conveyance of orders and messages to and fro from the throne through all the dominions of God and of the Lamb. Blessed are the inhabitants of that country, where there are no dangers arising from any of the wicked powers of darkness, nor any dark minute to favour their plots of mischief.
6. The ctime of night and darkness is the time of the concealment of secret sins.’ Shameful iniquities are then practised amongst men, because the darkness is a cover to them. “The eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight, saying, no eye shall see me.” Job xxiv. 15. ‘In the black and dark night’ he hopes for concealment as well as the thief and the murderer, “and they that are drunken, are drunken in the night,” Thes. v. 7. The hours of darkness are a temptation to these iniquities, and the shadows of the evening are a veil to cover them from the sight of men: they find a screen behind the curtains of the night, and a refuge in thick darkness. But in the heavenly world there is no temptation to such iniquities, no defilement can gain an entrance there, nor could it find any veil or covering. The regions of light, and peace, and holy love, are never violated with such scenes of villany and guilt. No secret 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 covering 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 the blessings of his eye, is their everlasting and chosen joy. 0 that our world were more like it I
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 ot 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 if we 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 entertainments and 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 hath not heard, and which the heart of man hath not conceived.’ 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 enlightened 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 is sunk below the earth, and its beams are hidden from us, its kindly and vital heat, as well as its light, are removed from one side of the globe; and this gives a sensible 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 beings? How languid and indifferent are our affections to the Son of God, the chiefest of ten thousand, and altogether 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 lukewarm 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.” Psal. civ. 3. Nor shall any dulness 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 9th and last place, as njght is the season appointed 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. 18 M 2
It is a dark and stupid scene wherein we behold nothing with truth, though we are sometimes deceived 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 be no death, nor the image of it, where the ever-living God dwells and shines with his kindest beams; his presence maintains perpetual vitality in every soul, and keeps the new creature in its youth and vigour for ever. The saints shall never have reason to mourn over their withering graces, languid virtues, or dying comforts; nor shall they ever complain of drowsy faculties, or unactive powers, where God and the Lamb are forever present in the midst of them. Shall I invite your thoughts to dwell a little upon this subject?
Shall we make a more particular ’ enquiry, whence it comes to pass that there is no night nor darkness in the heavenly city?’ We are told a little before the words of my text, that ‘the glory of God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. There is no need of the sun by day, or of the moon by night;’ there is no need of any such change of seasons as day and night in the upper regions, nor any such alternate enlighteners of a dark world, as God has placed in our firmanent, or in this visible sky. The inheritance of the saints in light is sufficiently irradiated by God himself, who at his first call made the light spring up out of darkness over a wide chaos of confusion, before the sun and moon appeared; and the beams of divine light, grace and glory, are communicated from God, the original foundation of it, by the Lamb, to all the inhabitants of the heavenly country. It was by Jesus his Son that God made the light at first, and by him he conveys it to all the happy worlds.
There is no doubt of this in the present heaven of saints departed from flesh, who are ascended ’ to the spirits of the just made perfect.’ It is one of their privileges that they go to dwell, not only where they see the face of God, but where they behold the glory of Christ, and converse with ‘Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant,’ and are ‘for ever present with the Lord’ who redeemed them. Heb. xii. 23, 24. 2 Cor. v. 8. Since his mediatorial kingdom and offices are not yet finished in the present heaven of separate souls, we may depend on this blessedness to be communicated through Christ the Lamb of God, and all the spiritual enjoyments and felicities which are represented under the metaphor of ‘light, are conveyed to them through Jesus the Mediator.
The sun, in the natural world, is a bright emblem of divinity, or the Godhead, for it is the spring of all light, and heat, and life, to the creation. It is by the influences of the sun, that herbs, plants, and animals, are produced in their proper seasons, and in all their various beauties, and they are all refreshed and supported by it. Now if we should suppose this vast globe of fire which we call ’ the sun,’ to be inclosed in a huge hollow sphere of crystal, which should attemper its rays like a transparent veil, and give milder and gentler influences to the burning beams of it, and yet transmit every desirable and useful portion of light or heat, this would be an happy emblem of the man ‘Christ Jesus, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’ It is the Lamb of God who, in a mild and gracious manner, conveys the blessings originally derived from God his Father to all the saints. We partake of them in our measure in this lower world among his churches here on earth; but it is with a nobler influence, and in a more sublime degree, the blessings of paradise are diffused through all the mansions of glory, by this illustrious medium of conveyance, Jesus the Son of God; and there can be no night nor coldness, death nor darkness, in this happy state of separate souls.
When the bodies of the saints shall be raised again, and re-united to their proper spirits, when they shall ascend to the place of their final heaven and supreme happiness, we know not what manner of bodies they shall be, what sort of senses they shall be furnished with, nor how many powers of conversing with the corporeal world shall be bestowed upon them. Whether they shall have such organs of sensation as eyes and ears, and stand in need of such light as we derive from the sun or moon, is not absolutely certain. The Scriptures tell us it shall not be a body of flesh and blood.* These are not materials refined enough for the heavenly state; “that which is corruptible cannot inherit incorruption.” 1 Cor. xv. 50. But this we may be assured of, that whatsoever inlets of knowledge, whatever avenues of pleasure, whatever delightful sensations are necessaiy to make the inhabitants of that world happy, they shall be all united in that spiritual body which God will prepare for the new-raised saints. If eyes and ears shall belong to that glorified body, those sensitive powers shall be nobly enlarged, and made more delightfully susceptive of richer shares of knowledge and joy.
Or what if we shall have that body furnished with such unknown mediums, or organs of sensation, as shall make light and sound, such as we here partake of, unnecessary to us? These organs shall certainly be such, as shall transcend all the advantages that we receive in this present state from sounds or sunbeams. There shall be no disconsolate darkness, nor any tiresome silence there. There shall be no night to interrupt the business or pleasures of that everlasting day.
Or what if the whole body shall be endued all over with the senses of seeing and hearing? What if these sorts of sensations shall be diffused throughout all that immortal body, as feeling is diffused through all our present mortal flesh? What if God himself shall in a more illustrious manner irradiate all the powers of the body and spirit, and communicate the light of knowledge, holiness, and joy, in a superior manner to what we can now conceive or imagine? This is certain, that darkness in every sense, with all the inconveniences and unhappy consequences of it, is and must be for ever banished from the heavenly state. ‘There is no night there.’
When our Lord Jesus Christ shall have “given up his” mediatorial kingdom to the Father, “and have” presented all his saints spotless and without blemish before his throne, it is hard for us mortals in the present state, to say how far he shall be the everlasting medium of the communication of divine blessings to the happy inhabitants on high.
* See note on page 131. Flesh and blood, or in other words, our bodies, ire corruptible in this state of sin and death. But the bodies of our first parents, before the fall, were not subject to corruption. It does not follow, therefore, that a body of flesh and blood must necessarily be corruptible. — Ed.
Yet when we consider that the saints and angels, and the whole happy creation, are gathered together in him as their head* it is certain they shall all be accounted in some sense ‘his members;’ and it is highly probable that he, as their head, shall be for ever active in communicating and diffusing the unknown blessings of that world, amongst all the inhabitants of it who are gathered and united in him.
I come in the last place, to make a few remarks upon the foregoing discourse, and in order to render them more effectual for our spiritual advantage, I shall consider the words of my text, ’ there shall be no night there,’ in their metaphorical or spiritual meaning, as well as in their literal sense. There is no night of ignorance or error in the mind, no night of guilt or of sorrow in the soul: but the blessed above shall dwell surrounded with the light of divine knowledge, they shall walk in the light of holiness, and they shall be for ever filled with the light of consolation and joy, as I have explained it at the beginning of this discourse.
The 1st remark then is this, ‘When heaven, earth and hell, are compared together, with relation to light and darkness, or night and day,’ we then see them in their proper distinctions and aspects. Every thing is set in its most distinguishing situation and appearance, when it is compared with things which are most opposite.
The earth on which we dwell during this state of trial, has neither all day nor all night belonging to it, but sometimes light appears, and again darkness, whether in a natural or a spiritual sense.
Though there be long seasons of darkness in the winter, and darkness in the summer also, in its constant returns, divides one day from another; yet the God of nature has given us a larger portion of light than there is of darkness, throughout the whole globe of the earth. And this benefit we receive by the remaining beams of the sun after its setting, and by the assistance of the moon and the stars of heaven. Blessed be God for the moon and stars, as well as for the sun-beams and the brightness of noon. Blessed be God for all the lights of nature: but we still bless him
* The Greek word dvax«$*X5uca>, used in Eph. i. 10. favours this meaning, and perhaps Col. i. 10. includes the same thing.
more for the light of the gospel, and for any rays from heaven, any beams of the Sun of righteousness, which diffuse in lower measures knowledge, and holiness, and comfort, among the inhabitants of this our world. God is here manifesting his love and grace in such proportions as he thinks proper. Some beams of the heavenly world break out upon us here in this dark region. God the spring of all our light, and the Lamb of God by his Spirit communicates sufficient light to us, to guide us on in our way to that heavenly country.
In hell there is all night and darkness, thick darkness in every sense, for the God of glory is absent there as to any manifestations of his face and favour. And therefore it is often called “outer darkness, where there is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” There, is no holiness; there, is no comfort; there, are no benefits of the creation, no blessings of grace; all are forfeited and gone for ever. It is everlasting night and blackness of darkness in that world: horror of soul, without a beam of refreshment from the face of God or the Lamb forever. The devils are now “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day,” Jude 6. But then their confinement shall be closer, and their darkness, guilt, and sorrow, shall be more overwhelming. Is it lawful for me in this place, to mention the description which Milton our English poet gives of their wretched habitation?
‘A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flam’d; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d only to discover sights of woe;
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes,
That comes to all: but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed
With ever burning sulphur unconsum’d.
Such place eternal justice had prepar’d
For rebel-angels; here their pris’n ordain’d
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far remov’d from God and light of heaven
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.’
To this the poet adds,
’ 0 how unlike the place from whence they fell!’
How unlike to that heaven which I have been describing, in which there is no night; and all the evils of darkness in every sense are for ever excluded from that happy region, where knowledge, holiness, and joy, are all inseparable and immortal.
2. Remark. ‘What light of every kind we are made partakers of here on earth, let us use it with holy thankfulness, with zeal and religious improvement.’ Hereby we may be assisted and animated to travel on, through the mingled stages and scenes of light and darkness, in this world till we arrive at the inheritance of the saints in perfect light. It is a glorious blessing to this dark world, that the light of Christianity is added to the light of Judaism, and the light of nature; and that the law of Moses, and the gospel of Christ, are set before us in this nation in their distinct views, on purpose to make our way to happiness more evident and easy. May the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, be sung in our land! But let us never rest satisfied, till the light that is let into our minds become a spring of divine life within us, a life of knowledge, holiness, and comfort. Let us not be found among the number of those, who, when light is come into the world, love darkness rather than light,’ lest we fall under their condemnation. John iii. 19. Let us never rest till we see the evidences of the children of Cod wrought in us with power; till the ’ day-spring that has visited us from on high’ has entered into our spirits, and refined and moulded them into the divine image; till we who are by nature all ’ darkness are made light in the Lord. ’
0 what a blessed change does the converting grace of Christ make in the soul of a son or daughter of Adam? It is like the beauty and pleasure which the rising morning diffuses over the face of the earth, after a night of storm and darkness: it is so much of heaven let into all the chambers of the soul. It is then only that we begin to know ourselves aright, and know God in his most awful and most lovely manifestations: it is in this light we see the hateful evil of every sin, the beauty of holiness, the worth of the gospel of Christ, and of his salvation. It is a light that carries divine heat and life with it; it renews all the powers of the spirit, and introduces holiness, hope and joy, in the room of folly and guilt, sin, darkness and sorrow.
3. Remark. If God has wrought this sacred and divine change in our souls, if we are made the children of light, or if we profess to have felt this change, and hope for an interest in this bright inheritance of the saints, ‘let us put away all the works of darkness with hatred and detestation.’ “Let us walk in the light” of truth and holiness, Eph. v. 8. “Ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” And the apostle repeats his exhortation to the Thessalonians in 1 Epist. 5th chapter and the 5th verse. ‘Ye are all children of the light and of the day, and not the sons of night or darkness; therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober; putting on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation; for God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.’
To animate every Christian to this holy care and watchfulness, let us think what a terrible disappointment it will be, after we have made a bright profession of Christianity in our lives, to lie down in death in a state of sin and guilt, and to awake in the world of spirits, in the midst of the groans and agonies of hell, surrounded and covered with everlasting darkness. Let our public profession be as illustrious and bright as it will, yet if we indulge works of darkness in secret, night and darkness will be our eternal portion, with the anguish of conscience and the terrors of the Almighty, without one glimpse of hope or relief. It is only those who walk in the light of holiness here, who can be fit to dwell in the presence of a God of holiness hereafter. ‘Light is sown only for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart;’ and it shall break out one day from among the clods, a glorious harvest; but only the sons and the daughters of light shall taste of the blessed fruits of it.
Think again with yourselves when you are tempted to sin and folly. What if I should be cut off on a sudden, practising the works of darkness, and my soul be summoned into the eternal world, covered with guilt and defilement? Shall I then be fit for the world of light? Will the God of light ever receive me to his dwelling? Do I not hereby render myself unfit company for the angels of light? and what if I should be sent down to dwell among the spirits of darkness, since I have imitated their sinful manners, and obeyed their cursed influence?
0 may such thoughts as these dwell upon our spirits with an awful solemnity, and be a perpetual guard against defiling our garments with any iniquity, lest our Lord should come and find us thus polluted. Let us walk onwards in the paths of light, which are discovered to us in the word of God, and which are illustrated by his holy ordinances, to guide us through the clouds and shades which attend us in this wilderness, till our Lord Jesus shall come with all his surrounding glories, and take us to the full possession of the inheritance in light.
4. Remark. ‘Under our darkest nights, our most inactive and heavy hours, our most uncomfortable seasons here on earth, let us remember we are travelling to a world of light and joy.’ If we happen to lie awake in midnight darkness, and count the tedious hours one after another, in a mournful succession, under any of the maladies of nature, or the sorrows of this life, let us comfort ourselves that we are not shut up in eternal night and darkness without hope, but we are still making our way towards that country where there is no night, where there is neither sin nor pain, malady nor sorrow.
What if the blessed God is pleased to try us, oy the with-holding of light from our eyes for a season? What if we are called to seek our duty in dark providences, or are perplexed in deep and difficult controversies wherein we cannot find the light of truth? What if we ’ sit in darkness’ and mourning, ’ and see no light,’ and the beams of divine consolation are cut off? let us still ’ trust in the name of the Lord, and stay ourselves upon our God,’ especially as he manifests himself in the Lamb that was slain, the blessed medium of his mercy, Isa. 1. 10. Let us learn to say with the prophet Micah in the spirit of faith, Micah vii. S, 9. “When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light unto me; he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.”
Blessed be God that the night of ignorance, grief, or affliction, which attends us in this world, is not everlasting night. Heaven and glory are at hand; wait and watch for the morning star, for Jesus and the resurrection. Roll on apace in your appointed course ye suns and moons, and all ye twinkling enlighteners of the sky, carry on the changing seasons of light and darkness in this lower world with your utmost speed, till you have finished all my appointed months of continuance here. The light of faith shews me 19 N the dawning of that glorious day, which shall finish all my nights and darknesses for ever. Make haste, 0 delightful morning, and delay not my hopes. Let me hasten, let me arrive at that blessed inheritance, those mansions of paradise, where night is never known, but one eternal day shall make our knowledge, our holiness, and our joy, eter nal. J2men.