SERMON XV.

THE REST OF LOVE AND PRAISE.

TRINITY SUNDAY.

66

REVELATIONS iv. 8.

They rest not day and night saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."

66

GOD resteth everlastingly, and yet worketh in time. His work hindereth not His everlasting rest. His resting from His works hindereth not His working. It is said, after the six days of Creation, "He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made." And yet our Blessed Lord saith, “ My Father worketh hitherto and I work." He rested, in that He ceased to create; He worketh, in that He upholdeth what He created. He created thenceforth nothing outwardly new. All this fair harmony of nature, sun, moon, and those thousand thousand suns in almost infinite space, were created and made. And this our earth was provided, once for all, with

its herbs, trees, and all which walketh through earth and sea, and above all, man, as God's Vice-gerent, in the image and likeness of God. God worketh, in in that He bringeth into life all which lives, and retains it in life by His Will. But God is not like us, that He should with effort create or uphold. He has no limbs of flesh, which can be wearied; nor in Him do His thoughts come and go, so that it should cost Him attention of mind, as it were, to behold all things which are in Heaven and earth. What He IS, that He ever was. What He sees, He ever saw. In His Infinite, Unchanging, Mind, He beholdeth all things which were, or are, or shall be, changing while He remaineth. He beholdeth them, not one by one, nor by motion, nor one less and the other more; but all alike, as we should say, spread forth before Him as in a waveless mirror. Before the worlds were made, He dwelt in the everlasting bliss and rest of His love. When according to His Eternal purpose, He made them, He rested within Himself, although He made, by His Will, things out of Himself, reflecting Himself in some measure, yet subject to labour and change. And in this world He worketh, in that, in that unchanging rest, He still, by His Will maketh anew and giveth life and motion to things which come into being, grow, change, and pass away. When this fleeting world shall come to an end through that same unchanging Will of God, God will in that same everlasting rest, uphold unchangeably all who have abode in, or returned to, His Love, in His own bliss, imparted to them.

How then doth the Apostle say, "They rest not, day or night?" There is an unrest of pain, and

there is a "rest not" of joy. It is the sweetest rest, to rest, and not to rest. For what is it but an unceasing, unwearying, unwearied rest, a river of joy which flows on in one peaceful fulness of bliss, without bound and without end? God giveth to the blessed, in their measure, to be like Himself. Here, to continue on in anything has weariness; because here is not our rest. There, upheld by God, the blessed behold the Eternal Truth without toil of thought; they, in spiritual bodies, move swiftly as the lightning without weariness; they love God above all things, with everlasting love and all besides, with undivided love. They, in their degree, like Him, love none the less, because they love the others more. They love with a full undistracted soul, as God loves, at once, all whom He loves, with the fulness of His Infinite Love. And as our love, so will our praise be. What is praise, but to say, how worthy of love is He Whom we love? But then we shall see without effort, praise without toil of seeking words in which to praise, with the whole unstrained power of our soul; unstrained, because sustained by God. Do we not find here, that if we would praise whom we deeply love, our words fail us? Is not our deepest praise to dwell in silent thought, gazing and feeling what is beyond our power to utter? And it is our deepest rest, so, entranced in love, to love without thought, or word, or motion, but in our inmost souls, to go forth out of ourselves, and dwell, without rest, on and in that which we love. We cease to rest, not by pausing to love, but if ever there is a pause in our love, or if what we love is out of sight.

But it has, doubtless, seemed to many of us, at some time, as if we could not hold on thus throughout eternity in praising God. Here, after a few minutes, we become weary. Well, if in a few minutes, some thought dart not in, which is not of God! Here we love variety. We love varied pleasures, or thoughts, or refreshment of the body, or knowledge, or sights, or hearing or speaking words or thoughts of love. How can we be occupied throughout eternity in praising God? How can God be the One Object of our thoughts or of our love?

First, Holy Scripture hath not said, that we should so love God, as to shut out any other love, or any other joy, which does not shut Him out. God has said in this life, "He that loveth God, let him love his brother also." Heaven will not be a lonely place, that we should not there have any beside God, to love. Love of our brethren increases, it does not shut out, the love of God. The more we love rightly God or man, the more power we have to love both. There all will love all.

There we shall love all in

God, and God in all. We shall, in the love of others, love God the more, because it is God whom we shall love in them. They will not be separated from God, that we could love them apart from God. God will dwell in all there. All will be transparent with His Glory and His Love. His Beauty (as it does here in a manner) shall make all beautiful. His Love shall make all lovely. His Joy will beam every countenance. His Wisdom will fill all their thoughts. All shall be full of Him; all shall joy in Him; the joy in Him shall vibrate from soul to soul. All shall love Him the more, because He is so good

in

to those whom He gave to love them and to be loved by them.

There, in that abode of love, shall no special holy love be lost. God has not formed us, yea, bidden us, in this our nursery for the heavenly life, to love one another, in all our several relations, that all this, after this life, should cease. He has not bound us in those varied sweet bands of love, fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends, or those wider circles through which love radiates here, that the love which is from Himself, and which He has made part of the undying soul, shall die. We could not think as to the very Human Nature of our Lord, that in the full glory of God He does not love still, with that same special love, with which on earth He loved the disciple whom He loved. He cannot change. For then too He was "Very God" as well as " Very Man." His Human soul loved then with the Unchangeable Love of the Godhead with which It was united. Again, how could He, as Man, not have fulfilled His own command, and not have loved with the love of a son, the Mother who bare Him after the flesh? And how can that have ceased now? He Himself says of the twelve Apostles, that they should "sit down on twelve thrones with" Him. And since that holy love of His Manhood abides in Him, in Whom our Nature is restored and united with God, how should it not be, that all holy love, which is His gift in us, should abide, if, by His deep Mercy, we enter into His Joy? Rather it shall be part of our joy, to love all which we loved here; only how much more, because every infirmity which in ourselves or in others, ever checked for an instant