1793] ^^^ WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 403 



and which shall remain our portion and inheritance forever." For, in 

 the "new Jerusalem we shall drink and be satisfied out of the rivers 

 that flow by the throne of God, whose waters are pure as crystal, and 

 shall eat the fruit of the tree of life, whose leaves heal the nations."* 

 Some there are, likewise, whose whole lives are devoted to the pursuit 

 of what tliey call pleasure. Now, to draw their attention, the happiness 

 of heaven is called "pleasures for evermore," nay, rivers of pleasure, 

 which do not cloy the taste, enfeeble the body, unnerve the very soul, 

 and generally terminate in poverty, shame, disease and death ; but tlie 

 pleasures of heaven, when we shall have put on immortality, instead of 

 weakening and wearying the powers of the soul, more and more inspire 

 it with renewed vigor, exalting it to the strength of angels, and a taste 

 for happiness as boundless and sublime as are the employments in which 

 we shall be engaged and the objects with which we shall be forever sur- 

 rounded. f 



4. There are others again v/ho, in this life, consider power and do- 

 minion and worldly grandeur as the supreme happiness. 



To them, also, the bliss of heaven is represented as glory, honor, 

 power and dominion eternal. " The upright shall have dominion over 

 the wicked in the morning of the resurrection — in that everlasting king- 

 dom which Christ shall establish, wherein they only who are rich in faith 

 shall be the joyous heirs." No outward enemy sliall ever be able to rob 

 or despoil the righteous of this honor and dominion, to which they shall 

 be exalted with the angels on high, in subordination to the King of 

 kings, to execute his high commands and to be hi 3 ministers of love 

 through the infinite bounds of his creation. We shall then have true 

 glory and dominion, eclipsing beyond comparison all the little pageantry 

 of what we call glory here. For we shall receive from Christ himself a 

 crown of life and diadem of glory. The veil of our present weakness 

 and ignorance shall be taken away; we shall behold with open face, and 

 in beatific vision, the glory of the living God ; and not only behold, 

 but be changed into the image of him, and advanced from glory to 

 glory, through endless duration. 



But we must proceed a little farther in considering the circumstances 

 of this heavenly glory, to which wc are called to aspire. And it con- 

 sists not only in the perfection to which we ourselves shall be advanced, 

 but in the place, the company and the employ to which we shall be 

 admitted — even unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God — the 

 heavenly Jerusalem — the company of the innumerable hosts of angels ; 

 the delightful employment of rising and mixing and joining in their 

 songs of praise, in the instruction to be derived from their conversation, 

 whose faculties are enlarged beyond our present comprehension ; who 



* Rev. xxii. i, 2. 



f See a fine passage in Cudworlh's " Intellectual System," which led to this thought. 



