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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, farewel to all the tedious measures of time, farewel tiresome darkness; our whole remaining duration is life and light, vital activity and vigour, attended with everlasting holiness and joy.

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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 When the sun-beams have withdrawn their light, and midnight clouds over-spread the heaven, we cannot see our path before us, we cannot pursue our proper course, nor secure ourselves from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 Son 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 stumblingblock 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!

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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

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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 be 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 time 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," 1 Thes. v. 7. The hours of darkness are a temptation to these iniquities, and the shadows of the evening are a vail 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 vail 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 vail 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. 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 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 glo

ries of that world are for ever in view: The beau

teous 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 God, the chiefest of ten thousand, and altogether lovely? And how much doth the devotion of our souls want its proper ardour and vivacity?

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