Live, and bathe, and
dive, to a blessed eternity!
Sir,
My work on earth is almost done, glory be to God! A nobler work in heaven
will soon come on. Now I would serve the Lord—but then I shall serve Him
perfectly, incessantly, and eternally; serve Him without sin, interruption,
weakness, and weariness—which attend our present services; serve Him under
the full and immediate vision of His glorious face—to His perfect and
endless praise—and to my ineffable and eternal bliss.
Oh, dear Sir, what grace is this, that the Lord has
formed and shaped our hearts for His service, else for the perfect and
eternal service of God in Christ in future bliss we would have no taste;
whereas to a soul that loves the Lord fervently, the perfect, endless
service of God in Christ is esteemed by him an essential part of heaven's
bliss; nor shall any one soul that is thus prepared by grace for divine
service here, lack the ineffable bliss of perfect, endless service
hereafter. Alas! what would an unholy soul do in heaven? Heaven would
be no heaven to him—he has nothing in him suited to heaven's enjoyment and
employment. A soul that cannot make a life out of God, or rather that cannot
live joyfully in God as His life, and
find his unspeakable bliss in an entire dedication to Jehovah's praise, is
quite unfit for the glories of the heavenly state; as there is not the least
agreeableness between the object and the subject, so there can be no
enjoyment. What thanks then shall we give "unto the Father, who has made us
(initially, and will make us perfectly) fit for the great inheritance of the
saints in light"—in light without darkness; in the light of His immediate
Presence, without the least darkness of distance; and in the light of
perfect holiness, without the least spot of sin to darken our perfect,
endless praises!
Oh, how great and vast is our Jehovah's infinite
essence—who with the simple vision of His glorious face can satisfy and
solace myriads of glorious angels, and an innumerable multitude of saved
men, when most capacious—and excite in all thereby perfect, ceaseless,
endless praises to His eternal glory and their eternal joy! Well may it be
said, "Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, O God, besides You, what You
have prepared for him who waits for You!" For no line short of an infinite
understanding can search the immense glories of an infinite Being. None but
the Lord Jehovah has seen, or can see, those immense glories which He has
prepared in His infinite self as the boundless ocean of our soul-filling and
eternal enjoyment!
We shall be cast, when all-enlarged, into the God of
glory for an eternal fill of all felicity, and there
live, and bathe, and dive, to a blessed eternity! And though
the communications of divine glory will not be infinite, because of our
incapacity, as we shall ever be but finite recipients, yet it is an
infinite sea of glory we shall live, and swim, and play in—to a blessed
eternity just as the God of nature has prepared an immense ocean of water
for the fish of the sea to live, and dive, and sport in—although they can
never comprehend that which comprehends them.
Thus, Sir, I humbly think, as the apostle says, "Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God has prepared for those who love Him;" and then adds, "but
God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit;" and elsewhere says, "we know
in part" that we are to understand the revelation of them which is now made
unto spiritual men, to be that which is partial and suited to our present
condition; and though to the knowledge had in the present state he opposes
that knowledge we shall have in the future state, and says, "but then shall
I know, even as also I am known;" yet we are to understand the difference to
lie only in this—our present imperfect and our future perfect knowledge of
God, according to our creature-measure; because, as creatures, we can never
have an adequate knowledge of an infinite essence. And as that revelation of
God and His things which is here made to spiritual men, is denied by the
apostle to natural man, "But the natural man receives not the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know them," and as, in the text which he
refers to, it is said, "Eye has not seen, besides You, O God," I think, Sir,
we may justly form these distinctions:
First, That no natural man has seen, nor can see, the
things which God has prepared for those who love Him, because he lacks a
spiritual capacity to discern the spiritual nature and kind of eternal
glory.
Secondly, that spiritual men, in the revelation now
made of spiritual things unto them, have seen them but partially, and will
hereafter see them but finitely.
Thirdly, That none but God Himself has seen, nor can
see them, infinitely; as the glories prepared for our enjoyment in His
immense Being can be searched by no line short of His own infinite
understanding.
Thus, Sir, all the texts will harmonize; and how vast, in
Jehovah's infinite essence, is our prepared bliss!
That the Spirit of the Lord, in His sevenfold gifts and
graces, may rest upon you, dear Sir, unto all assistance and success in
divine service, and that you may at last be blessed with a massive crown of
righteousness, is my earnest desire.