ing as they are, they must needs be supposed to understand all the wise arts of endearment; and being so good, they must be also supposed to be continually practising them. And if so, what a heavenly conversation must theirs be, the scope whereof is the most glorious knowledge, and the law whereof is the most perfect friendship! Who would not be willing to leave a foolish, froward, and ill-natured world, for the blessed society of these wise friends and perfect lovers! And what a felicity must it be, to spend an eternity in such a noble conversation! Where we shall hear the deep philosophy of heaven communicated with mutual freedom in the wise and amicable discourses of angels and glorified spirits; who, without any reserve, or affectation of mystery, without passion or interest, or peevish contention for victory, do freely philosophize, and mutually impart the treasures of each other's knowledge. For since all saints there are great philosophers, and all philosophers perfect saints, we must needs suppose knowledge and goodness, wisdom and charity, to be equally intermingled throughout all their conversation; and being so, what can be imagined more delightful! When therefore we shall leave this impertinent and unsociable world; and all our good old friends that are gone to heaven before us shall meet us as soon as we are landed upon the shore of eternity, and, with infinite congratulations for our safe arrival, shall conduct us into the company of the patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, and introduce us into an intimate acquaintance with them, and with all those brave and generous souls who by their glorious examples have recommended themselves to the world; when we shall

be familiar friends with angels and archangels, and all the courtiers of heaven shall call us brethren, and bid us welcome to their Master's joy, and we shall be received into their glorious society with all the tender endearments and caresses of those heavenly lovers; what a mighty addition to our happiness will this be!

There are indeed some other additions to the happiness of heaven; such as the glory and magnificence of the place, which is the highest heaven, or the upper and purer tracts of the ether, which our Saviour calls paradise, Luke xxiii. 43. and St. Paul the third heaven, 2 Cor. xii. 2. both which, in the phrase of that age, bespeak it to be a place of unspeakable glory: for so the Jews do commonly call this blessed seat the third or angel-bearing region of heaven, by which they denote it to be the place of the King of the whole world, where his most glorious courtiers do reside; and they also call it paradise, in allusion to the earthly paradise of Eden; because as that was the garden of this lower world, so this is of the whole creation. And though we have no exact description of this place in scripture, and that perhaps because no human language can describe it; yet since God hath chosen it for the everlasting theatre of bliss and happiness, we may thence reasonably conclude, that he hath most exquisitely furnished it with all accommodations requisite to a most happy and blissful life.

Besides which also, there is the everlasting duration of it, which is another great accession to its happiness. That such is the nature of its enjoyments, as that they do not, like all other pleasures, spend and waste in the fruition; that though it will be al

ways feeding our faculties with new delights, yet it will never be exhausted, but be always equally, because infinitely, distant from a period. So that its happiness consisting of an infinite variety of pleasure extended to an infinite duration, it will be impossible for those that enjoy it to be either cloyed with the repetition of it, or tormented with the fear of losing it.

But these two last I only mention, because they do not so properly belong to our present argument; which is only to explain the nature of heaven so far as is necessary to the right understanding of the nature of those means by which it is to be attained.

Now from what hath been said concerning this great end of the Christian life, these two things are to be inferred concerning the nature of it.

I. That the main of heaven consists not so much in any outward possession, as in an inward state and temper. For though heaven be doubtless a most glorious place, and all its blessed inhabitants do possess and hold it by an everlasting tenure; yet it is a great mistake to imagine that the main happiness of heaven consists in living for ever in a glorious place, which, separated from all the rest of heaven, would be but a poor and hungry kind of happiness. For life is no otherwise a happiness, than as it is the principle of all our pleasant and grateful perceptions; and if we could live for ever without perceiving, it would be the same thing to us, as if we were nothing but a company of everlasting stones and trees; and what great matter would it signify to live for ever in a glorious place, unless we could be for ever affected by it with a delightful sense and perception: which is impossible;

because all delightful sense (as hath already been proved) arises out of the vigorous exercise of our faculties about such objects as are suitable to them; but what can there be in the most glorious place so suitable to a rational mind and will, as to keep them for ever vigorously employed and exercised about it? It may indeed for a while employ the mind in an eager contemplation of its new and surprising beauties; but how soon would the mind disrelish it, were it to be its only entertainment for eternity! And as for the will, what would a fine place signify to it, if it were not replenished with such objects as are suitable to its own options? And indeed there is nothing that can everlastingly gratify a rational mind and will, but what has in it such an infinity of truth as is everlastingly knowable, and such an infinity of goodness as is everlastingly desirable; or, which is the same thing, nothing but what hath truth enough in it for the one to be vigorously contemplating for ever; and nothing but what hath goodness enough in it for the other to be as vigorously loving, adoring, and imitating for ever. And such an infinitude of truth and goodness is no where to be found but in God. But God, as well as the place and duration of heaven, being an object that is external to us, neither is nor can be a happiness to us, unless we act upon him, and freely exercise our faculties about him; unless we know him, and love him, &c. So that that which felicitates all is our own internal act; it is by this that we enjoy heaven, and perceive all the pleasures of it. It is not by being in heaven that men are constituted happy, but by vigorously exerting their faculties upon the heavenly objects: for without this, to be in heaven

The happi

or out of it would be indifferent to us. ness of heaven therefore consists in a state of heavenly action; in being so attempered and connaturalized to the objects of heaven, as to be always acting upon, and cheerfully employing our faculties about them. For as there is no pleasure in acting coldly upon suitable objects, so there is pain and trouble in acting vigorously upon unsuitable ones. And therefore to make heaven itself a happiness to us, it is necessary not only that we should act vigorously upon the objects of it, but that we should so act from a suitableness of temper to them: that we should contemplate God, submit to his will, adore and imitate his perfections, from a godlike temper and disposition. For otherwise these acts will be penances instead of pleasures to us; and the more intensely we exert them, the more painful they will be. And if we were in heaven, all that heavenly exercise in which the happiness of it consists would be but a torment and vexation to us, unless we had a heavenly temper. For as the parts of matter can never rest, but do move about in a perpetual whirlpool, till they hit into a place or interstice that is of the same form and figure with them; so there is nothing can rest in heaven but what is heavenly. All that is otherwise rebounds and flies off of its own accord, and can never acquiesce there, till it is of the same form, and temper, and disposition with it. From hence therefore it is evident, that the happiness of a man in heaven consists not so much in the outward glory of the place, as in the inward state of his own mind, which, from a suitableness of temper to the heavenly objects, doth always freely employ and exercise its faculties about them.