[1.] In this rest there is a freedom from all troublesome evils. In this estate there is neither sin nor misery. Sin grieveth the saints most, Bom. vii. 24. If any had cause to complain of afflictions, Paul much more ; he was whipped, imprisoned, stoned ; but lusts troubled him more than scourges, and his captivity to the law of sin was the worst bondage. To be sinning here whilst others are glorifying God is grievous to the saints. A beast will forsake the place where he findeth neither meat nor rest. The saints do live with manifold fail-
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ings, but in heaven there is no sin, Eph. v. 27 ; no spot nor wrinkle upon the face of the glorified saints. Their faces were once as black as ours, but now they are fully cleansed, made fair as the sun, bright as the moon. Christ will present them as such to God, as rejoicing in the fruits of his purchase. Alas ! what a trouble is it now to mortify one lust, or to prevent it from breaking out into some scandalous practice ! We cannot do anything but sin will mingle with it, or enjoy anything but we grow proud and sensual. A worm may breed in manna, 2 Cor. xii. 7. But then we are most high and most humble and holy. What is it we struggled under and groaned under all our lives but sin ? But now there is no sin, and no temptations to sin. In paradise there was a tempter, but not in heaven. Satan was long since cast out thence, and the saints come to fill up the vacant rooms of the apostate angels. The world is a place of snares, a valley of temptations, the devil's circuit wherein he walketh to and fro ; but no serpent can creep into the upper paradise. Here we cry, ' Lord, lead us not into tempta- tion, but deliver us from evil.' There our cries are heard to the full ; we are neither tempted, nor shall we displease God any more ; sin is not only mortified but nullified.
[2.] There is no more misery nor affliction. Whatever is painful and burdensome is a fruit of the fall, a brand and mark of our rebel- lion against God ; but there affliction is done away as well as sin. Both recompenses are without mixture. In hell there is an evil and only evil, without any temperament of good ; and in heaven there is happiness and only happiness, without any allay of evil : ' God will wipe all tears from our eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any pain,' Rev. xxii. 4. No more doubts of God's love, no sense of his displeasure. Here, when the wounds are healed the scars remain ; we have many suspicions thoughts still ; we need to be dieted ; the honey of God's love would grow too luscious if we did not taste something of the vinegar and the gall ; but there is full and uninterrupted joy. Here the candle of the Lord doth not always shine upon us alike brightly, but there our sun remaineth in an eternal high noon, without clouds or overcasting. If our souls be at ease, yet the body hath its afflictions. We make it too often the instru- ment of sin, therefore God justly maketh it the subject of diseases. But there are no gouts, and agues and fevers, nor stone, nor cholic, but the body for ever remaineth in an eternal spring of youth. And for violence from without and oppressions, there is no cry of destruc- tion upon destruction, no tumult to discompose that blessed region wherein God will place his faithful ones ; no company of the wicked to vex these righteous souls, much less have they any power to molest them, but they are bound hand and foot, and cast into utter darkness, as unruly men that trouble the faithful subjects are put into prison. Again, then we are freed from the inconveniencies of hunger, and nakedness, and want ; for these are bodily necessities incident to the present state ; but there wholly freed from the necessities of nature, 1 Cor. vi. 12. There is no need of meat, drink, or apparel. The body now is a kind of prison to the soul, but then it is a temple.
[3.] An enjoyment of all good; for God is all in all, whom we know and love. We love what we see, and enjoy what we love. The
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blessedness of the soul is the heaven of heavens. It is called the inheri- tance of the saints in light, Col. i. 12. It is not for their turn that know no other happiness but to eat, drink, and sleep, and wallow in brutish pleasures. It is an inheritance in light, that consists in the vision and fruition of God ; and it is for saints, that are clarified from the dregs of sense, and know how to value and prize these things. To our feli- city three things are necessary — (1.) A prepared faculty ; (2.) A suit- able object ; (3.) The conjunction of both these. In the state of glory all these things concur ; the faculty is more capacious, the object is more fully represented, and the fruition is more intimate than possibly it can be here. The faculty is more prepared, as we are purged from sin, and freed from the delusions of the flesh. The object is more manifested, for there we see God ' face to face,' 1 Cor. xiii. 12. The conjunction is more intimate; for here it is by faith, and that is an imperfect sight, there by vision ; here by an imperfect love, there by perfect love. Now he that is joined to the Lord is made one spirit, 1 Cor. vi. 17- But oh, what a conjunction will it be when we shall be joined to the Lord by sight and perfect love ! Vision shall succeed to faith, and possession to hope, and the soul adhereth to him without possibility of diversion. It is hard to speak of heaven till the great voice of his providence call upon us to come up and see what God hath provided for us. But, in short, vision maketh way for assimilation, and assimilation for full satisfaction. See 1 John iii. 2, ' We shall see him as he is, and be like him ; ' as iron by lying in the fire seemeth all fire. This for full satisfaction : ' I shall be satisfied with thy likeness,' Ps. xvii. 15. The soul is then at rest ; it hath enough in God, in seeing God, and loving God, and being made like God.