HEAVEN! It is called the paradise of God--a paradise, to show how
quiet, harmless, sweet, and beautiful heaven shall be to them that
possess it.
"The street of the city was pure gold." All the visions were rich,
but this the richest, that the floor of the house should be covered
with gold. The floor and street are walking-places, and how rich
will our steps be then! Alas, here we sometimes step into the mire,
and then again stumble upon blocks and stones. Here we sometimes
fall into the holes, and have our heel often catched in a snare; but
there will be none of these. Gold! gold! all will be gold, and
golden perfections, when we come into the holy place.
If a sight of sin and the love of God will make such work in that
soul where yet there is unbelief, blindness, mistrust, and
forgetfulness; what will a sight of sin do in that soul which is
swallowed up of love, which is sinless and temptationless, which
hath all faculties of soul and body strained by love and grace to
the highest pin of perfection that is possible to be in glory
enjoyed and possessed?
O the wisdom and goodness of God, that he at the day of judgment
should so cast about the worst of our things, even those that
naturally tend to sink us and damn us, for our great advantage. All
things shall work together for good, indeed, to them that love God.
Those sins that brought a curse upon the whole world, that spilt the
heart-blood of our dearest Saviour, and that laid his tender soul
under the flaming wrath of God, shall, by his wisdom and love, tend
to the exaltation of his grace, and the inflaming of our affections
to him for ever and ever.
These visions, that the saved in heaven shall have of the love of
Christ, will far transcend our utmost knowledge here; even as far as
the light of the sun at noon goes beyond the light of a blinking
candle at midnight.
As there are great saints and small ones in the church on earth, so
there are angels of divers degrees in heaven; some greater than
some; but the smallest saint, when he gets to heaven, shall have an
angel's dignity, an angel's place.
What goodly mansions He for them provides,
Though here they meet rough winds and swelling tides;
How brave a calm they will enjoy at last,
Who to the Lord and to his ways hold fast.