190 SERMONS UPON TITUS IL 11-14. [feER. XIV.
can there be an influence of grace but we are apt to be proud of it ; there is a worm in manna ; but then we are most high and most humble, because most holy. 0 christians 1 is not this a blessed hope that telleth you of a sinless state, of being like Christ in purity and holiness? 1 John iii. % ' Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' What is it that you have struggled with, and groaned under all your lives, but sin ? Now that is blotted out when the days of refreshing shall come. And as there is no sin, so there are no temptations. In paradise there Avas a tempter, but none in heaven •, Satan was long since cast out thence, and the saints fill up the vacant rooms of the apostate angels. The world is a place of snares, a valley of temptations ; it is the devil's cir- cuit, where did he walk but to and fro in the earth ? but in heaven ' nothing eutereth that defileth/ Kev. xxi. 27. No serpent can creep in there, though he could into paradise. 0 christians ! lift up your heads, you will get rid of sin, and displease God. no more. Here we cry, Lord deliver us from evil ; and then our cries are heard to the full. Grace weakeneth sin, but glory abolisheth it, and the old Adam is left in the grave never to rise more.
2. The next evil is the evil of affliction. Whatever is painful and burdensome to nature is a fruit of the fall, a brand and mark of our rebellion against God ; therefore affliction must be done away as well as sin if we be completely happy. As in hell there is evil, and only evil, a cup of wrath unmixed, without the least temperament of mercy, so in heaven there is happiness, and only happiness ; sorrow is done away as well as sin. It is said, Kev, xxi. 4, ' God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.' The afflictions of the soul are gone, there are no more doubts of God's love, nor sense of his displeasure ; here though we are pardoned, and the wound be cured, yet the scars remain. Absalom could not see the king's face when he was restored. In wise dispensation God sometimes hideth his face from us here upon earth. We need to be dieted, and to taste the vine- gar and the gall sometimes, as well as the honey and sweetness, that •we may the better relish our christian comforts. The world is a middle place, standing between hell and heaven, and therefore hatli something of both. The saints have their mixture of pleasure and sorrow : Job ii. 10, ' Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil ? ' But there is fulness of joy, and plea- sures for evermore : Ps. xvi. 11, ' Thou wilt show me the path of lifes in thy presence there is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are plea- sures for evermore ; ' there is no mixture of sorrow. Here we complain that the candle of the Lord doth not shine with a like brightness as in the months that are past ; there our sun remaineth in an eternal high noon, without clouds and overcasting ; Nox nulla secuta est, no night follows. The afflictions of the body are done away. Heaven is a happy au', where none are sick ; there is no such thing there as gouts and aches and the grinding pains of the stone. Hero it is called ' a vile body,' Phil. iii. 21, as it is the instrument of sin and the subject of diseases. We have the root of diseases in the soul, and that is sin ;
VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. 191