To be near unto God - pagina 404

to life in Paradise, and when sin came in, Paradise was gone, and the curse overtook our earthly existence. Not as though deadly monotony prevailed in Paradise, or that in heaven the absence of all change about God's throne would occasion a somber pall to darken the life of the blessed. Without endless distinction no higher life is thinkable, and that richer unfolding of life before the throne of God shall once exceed and excel everything that we have known as higher development of life on earth or have dreamed of in poetic fancy.

But life in the hereafter can not be measured by the standards of this life. It is of a different It obeys a It bears a different character. different law. It interests and charms the senses by an entirely different beauty, wealth and enjoyment. On this very account it always is to be an object of faith and hope, and does not lend itself to forecasting in this life. And though Scripture sort.

may employ

images from the earthly by which to convey to us an impression of the heavenly, everyone feels that the fat full of marrow and unmixed wine of the marriage-feast of the Lamb serve exclusively to waken the sensation of festal joy, and are by no means intended to indicate wherein this heavenly delight shall consist. It hath not yet been revealed what we shall be. It is enough for us to know that it will be a life in endless joy and glory. But how this joy shall once disclose itself to us, and in what form it will present itself, faith leaves with God. And all that the souls of God's children can desire, in expectation of this

glory,

itself in the Father his son Jesus Christ.

centers

heaven and

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