The four last things viz. death, judgment, heaven, hell, practically considered and applied in…

3. The fullness of Joy in Heaven is everlasting, without defect, and without end.

3. The fulness of Joy in Heaven is everlasting, without defect, and without end.

1. 'Tis undecaying, the productive Causes are conservative of it, being always equal. Those are the beatific Object, and the continual fruition of it. Whilst we are here below, the Sun of Righteousness, as to our perception and sense, has Ascensions and Declinations, Accesses and Recesses. And our Earth is not so purified, but some Vapours arise that intercept his cheerful refreshing Light. From hence there are alternate successions ⟨p. 329⟩of Spiritual Comforts and Sorrows, of Doubts and filial Confidence in the Saints. 'Tis a rare Favour of Heaven, when an humble Believer in his whole course is so circumspect, as not to provoke God to appear displeased against him: When a Christian (as those tutelar Angels spoken of in the Gospel) always beholds the Face of his Heavenly Father, and converses with him with an holy Liberty. And what a torment the hiding of God's Face is to a deserted Soul, only they know who feel it. External troubles are many times attended with more Consolations to the Spirit, than Afflictions to Sense; but to love God with a transcendent Affection, and to fear he is our Enemy, no Punishment exceeds, or is equal to it. As his Loving-kindness in their esteem is better than Life, so his Displeasure is worse than Death. How do they wrestle with God by Prayers and Tears, and offer, as it were, a holy Violence to the King of Heaven, to recover their first serenity of Mind, the lost Peace of Heart? How passionately do they cry out with Job, in the Book of his Patience, O that I were as in months past, ¹as in the days when God preserved me: when ⟨p. 330⟩his Candle shined upon my head, and when by his Light I walked through darkness: As I was in the days of my youth, when the Secret of God was upon my Tabernacle. And sometimes God delays the revealing himself even to his dearest Children; not that he does not see their Necessities, and hears their Prayers, or is so hard that till their Extremities he is not moved with Compassion, but for wise and holy Reasons; Either that they may not return to folly, if by any presumptuous Sin they forfeited their Peace; or if they have been careful to please him, yet he may deprive them of Spiritual Comforts for a time, to keep them humble, and that with an obedient resignation to his Sovereign Pleasure they may wait for his reviving Presence. And then Joy returns greater than before.