think that there must be something more blessed than the mere wanderings of gaiety in which you now are found? You are trying the world some of you; speak then! Do you not find it to be empty? Might it not be said of the world, as an old philosopher said about it, when he represented a man with it in his hands striking it and listening to its ringing? Touch it, touch it! make it ring again; it is empty. So it is with the world. You know it is so; and if you do not know it yet, the day is coming when after you have plucked the sweets you shall be pricked with the thorn, and when you shall find that all is unsatisfactory that does not begin and end with God. Not so the Christian in heaven. For him there are no nights; and if there are times of solitude and rest, he is always filled with ecstatic joy. His river overflows with bliss, without one pebble of sorrow over which it ripples; he has no aching conscience, no “aching void the world can never fill.” He is supremely blessed, satisfied with favour, and full with the goodness of the Lord. And you know, you worldlings, that your best estates often bring you great anxiety, lest they should depart from you. You are not so foolish yet as to conceive that riches endure for ever. You men of business are frequently led to see that riches take to themselves wings and fly away. You have accumulated a fortune; but you find it is harder to retain than it is to get. You are seeking after a competence; but you find that you grasp at shadows that flit away — that the everlasting vicissitudes of business and the constant changes of mankind are causes of prudent alarm to you, for you fear that you shall lose your gods, and that your gourd shall be eaten by the worm, and fall down, and your shadow shall be taken away. Not so the Christian. He lives in a house that can never hasten to decay; he wears a crown, the lustre of which shall never be dim; he has a garment which shall never wax old; he has bliss that never can depart from him, nor he from it. He is now firmly set, like a pillar of marble in the temple of God. The world may rock, the tempest may sway it like the cradle of a child; but there, above the world, above the perpetual revolution of the stars, the Christian stands secure and immovable; his rest infinitely surpasses yours. Ah! you shall go to all the fabled luxuries of eastern monarchs, and see their dainty couches and their luscious wines. Behold the riches of their pleasantry! How charming is the music that lulls them to their sleep! How gently moves the fan that wafts them to their slumber! But ah!
I would not change my blest estate
For all the world calls good or great;
And while my faith can keep her hold
I envy not the sinner’s gold —
I consider that the richest, highest, noblest condition of a worldly man is not worthy to be compared with the joy that is to be revealed hereafter in the hearts of those who are sanctified. Oh you spendthrift mortals, that for one merry dance and a giddy life will lose a world of joys! Oh fools that catch at bubbles and lose realities! Oh ten thousand times mad men, that grasp at shadows and lose the substance! What! sirs, do you think a little round of pleasure, a few years of gaiety and merriment, just a little time of the tossing about, to and fro, of worldly business, is a compensation for eternal ages of unfading bliss! Oh! how foolish will you conceive yourselves to be, when you are in the next state, when cast away from heaven you will see the saints blessed! I think I hear your mournful soliloquy, “Oh! how cheaply did I sell my soul! What a poor price did I get for all I have now lost! I have lost the palace and the crown, and the joy and bliss for ever, and am shut up in hell! And for what did I lose it? I lost it for the lascivious wanton kiss; I lost it for the merry drunken song; I lost it for just a few short years of pleasures, which, after all, were only painted pleasures!” Oh! I think I see you in your lost estates, cursing yourselves, tearing your hair out, that you should have sold heaven for worthless coins and have changed away eternal life for pitiful farthings, which were spent quickly, and which burned your hand in the spending of them! Oh! that you would be wise, that you would weigh those things, and reckon that a life of the greatest happiness here is nothing compared with the glorious hereafter: “There remains a rest for the people of God.”
7. Now let me put it in more pleasing contrast. I shall contrast the rest of the believer above with the miserable estate of the believer sometimes here below. Christians have their sorrows. Suns have their spots, skies have their clouds, and Christians have their sorrows too. But oh! how different will the state of the righteous be up there, from the state of the believer here! Here the Christian has to suffer anxiety. He is anxious to serve his Master, to do his best in his day and generation. His constant cry is — “Help me to serve you, oh my God,” and he looks out, day after day, with a strong desire for opportunities for doing good. Ah! if he is an active Christian, he will have much labour, much toil, in endeavouring to serve his Master; and there will be times when he will say, “My soul is in haste to be gone; I am not wearied of the labour, I am wearied in it. To toil thus in the sun, though for a good Master, is not the thing that just now I desire.” Ah! Christian, the day shall soon be over, and you shall no longer have to toil; the sun is nearing the horizon; it shall rise again with a brighter day than you have ever seen before. There, up in heaven, Luther has no more to face a thundering Vatican; Paul has no more to run from city to city, and continent to continent; there Baxter has no more to toil in his pulpit, to preach with a broken heart to hard hearted sinners; there no longer has Knox to “cry aloud and spare not” against the immoralities of the false church; there no more shall be the strained lung, and the tired throat, and the aching eye; no more shall the Sunday School teacher feel that his Sunday is a day of joyful weariness; no more shall the tract distributor meet with rebuffs. No, there, those who have served their country and their God, those who have toiled for man’s welfare, with all their might, shall enter into everlasting rest. Sheathed is the sword, the banner is furled, the fight is over, the victory won; and they rest from their labours.
8. Here, too, the Christian is always sailing onward, he is always in motion; he feels that he has not yet attained. Like Paul he can say “Forgetting the things that are behind, I press forward to that which is before.” But there his weary head shall be crowned with unfading light. There the ship that has been speeding onward shall furl its sails in the port of eternal bliss. There he who, like an arrow, has sped his way shall be fixed for ever into the target. There we who like fleeting clouds were driven by every wind, shall gently distil in one perennial shower of everlasting joy. There is no progress, no motion there; they are at rest, they have attained the summit of the mountain, they have ascended to their God and our God. Higher they cannot go; they have reached the Ultima Thule there are no Fortunate Islands beyond; {a} this is life’s utmost end of happiness; and they furl their sails, rest from their labours, and enjoy themselves for ever. There is a difference between the progress of earth and the perfect unchanging rest of heaven.
9. Here, too, the believer is often the subject of doubt and fear. “Am I his, or am I not?” is often the cry. He trembles lest he should be deceived; at times he almost despairs, and is inclined not to put his name down as one of the children of God. Dark insinuations are whispered into his ears; he thinks that God’s mercy is completely gone for ever, and that he will not be mindful of him any more. Again, his sins some times upbraid him, and he thinks God will not have mercy on him. He has a poor fainting heart; he is like Ready-to-halt, he has to go all his way on crutches; he has a poor feeble mind, always tumbling down over a straw, and fearing one day he shall be drowned in a cart rut. Though the lions are chained he is as much afraid of them as if they were loose. Hill Difficulty often frightens him; going down into the valley of humiliation is often troublesome work to him; but there, there are no hills to climb, no dragons to fight, no foes to conquer, no dangers to dread. Ready-to-halt, when he dies, will bury his crutches, and Feeble-mind will leave his feebleness behind him; Fearing will never fear again; poor Doubting-heart will learn confidently to believe. Oh, joy above all joys! The day is coming when I shall “know as I am known,” when I shall not need to ask whether I am his or not, for in his arms encircled, there shall be no room for doubt. Oh! Christian, you think there are slips between your lips and that cup of joy; but when you grasp the handle of that cup with your hand, and are drinking draughts of ineffable delight, then you will have no doubt or fear.
There you shall see his face,
