glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- what a Canaan of rest, a land flowing with milk and honey "Second. The other fruit of this love in heaven exercised in such circumstances is perfect tranquility and joy. Holy, humble and divine love is a principle of wonderful power to give ineffable quietness and tranquility to the soul. It banishes all disturbance, it sweetly composes and brings rest, it makes all things appear calm and sweet. In that soul where divine love reigns, and is in lively exercise, nothing can raise a storm. Those are principles contrary to love which make this world so much like a tempestuous sea. It is selfishness, and revenge, and envy, and such things which keep this world in a constant tumult, and make it a scene of confusion and uproar, where no quiet rest is to be enjoyed, unless it be in renouncing the world, and looking to another world. But what rest is there in that world which the God of love and peace fills with his glorious presence, where the Lamb of God lives and reigns, and fills that world with the pleasant beams of his love; where is nothing to give any offense, no object to be seen but what has perfect sweetness and amiableness; where the saints shall find and enjoy all which they love, and so be perfectly satisfied; where there is no enemy and no enmity in any heart, but perfect love in all to everyone; where there is a perfect harmony between the higher and the lower ranks of inhabitants of that world, none envying another, but everyone resting and rejoicing in the happiness of every other. All their love is holy, humble, and perfectly Christian, without the least impurity or carnality; where love is always mutual, where the love of the beloved is answerable to the love of the lovers; where there is no hypocrisy or dissembling, but perfect simplicity and sincerity; where is no treachery, unfaithfulness or inconstancy, nor any such thing as jealousy. And no clog or hindrance to the exercises and expressions of love, nor imprudence or indecency in the manner of expressing love, no instance of folly or indiscretion in any word or deed; where there is no separation wall, no misunderstanding or strangeness, but full acquaintance and perfect intimacy in all; no division through different opinions or interests, where all that glorious loving society shall be most nearly and divinely related, and all shall be one another's, having given themselves one to another. And all shall enjoy one another in perfect prosperity, riches, and honor, without any sickness, pain, or persecution, or any enemy to molest them, any talebearer, or busybody to create jealousies and misunderstandings. And all this in a garden of love, the Paradise of God, where everything has a cast of holy love, and everything conspires to promote and stir up love, and nothing to interrupt its exercises; where everything is fitted by an all-wise God for the enjoyment of love under the greatest advantages. And all this shall be without any fading of the beauty of the objects beloved, or any decaying of love in the lover, and any satiety in the faculty which enjoys love. O! what tranquility may we conclude there is in such a world as this! Who can express the sweetness of this peace? What a calm is this, what a heaven of rest is here to arrive at after persons have gone through a world of storms and tempests, a world of pride, and selfishness, and envy, and malice, and scorn, and contempt, and contention and war? What a Canaan of rest, a land flowing with milk and honey to come to after one has gone through a great and terrible wilderness, full of spiteful and poisonous serpents, where no rest could3 be found? What joy may we conclude springs up in the hearts of the saints after they have passed their wearisome pilgrimage to be brought to such a paradise? Here is joy unspeakable indeed; here is humble, holy, divine joy in its perfection. Love is a sweet principle, especially divine love. It is a spring of sweetness. But here the spring shall become a river, and an ocean. All shall stand about the God of glory, the fountain of love, as it were opening their bosoms to be filled with those effusions of love which are poured forth from thence, as the flowers on the earth in a pleasant spring day open their bosoms to the sun to be filled with his warmth and light, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy by his rays. Every saint is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrancy and sweet odor which they all send forth, and with which they fill that paradise. Every saint there is as a note in a concert of music which sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together employed wholly in praising God and the Lamb; and so all helping one another to their utmost to express their love of the whole society to the glorious Father and Head of it, and [[to pour back]] love into the fountain of love, whence they are supplied and filled with love and with glory. And thus they will live and thus they will reign in love, and in that godlike joy which is the blessed fruit of it, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath ever entered into the heart of any in this world to conceive [cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9]. And thus they will live and reign forever and ever." Jonathan Edwards 'Heaven A World Of Love' 8:08 p.m. - 2022-05-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||