Adoring God in Heaven For All Eternity
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Adoring God in Heaven Forever
Adoring God in Heaven by Ezekiel Hopkins (Works, Volume 2, 515-516).
As, in heaven, there is an eternal rest ; so also, in heaven, there is an eternal work to be done.
And therefore you should inure yourselves to that work, while you are here upon earth. If happiness, according to the philosopher’s notion, consists in activity; then in heaven, where there is the most perfect happiness, there must needs be the most perfect activity. And, therefore, whatever hath been spoken of rest that remains, yet you are not so to conceive of it, as possibly some gross enough are apt to wish and fancy to themselves, as if in heaven the blessed were inactive and enjoyed there only a long vacation, and only stretched themselves on that flowery bank, and so void of cares and fears lulled away an eternity : no ; these are too low and brutish apprehensions for the glory of that place. That rest, that is there to be expected and enjoyed, is operative, working rest: it is both rest and exercise, at once; and, therefore, it is a true paradox, though the saints in heaven rest from their labors, yet they never rest from their working: continually are they blessing and praising God; ascribing glory, and honor, and power to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb forevermore: always are they beholding, admiring, and adoring God, and burning in love to each other, and mutually rejoicing in God and in one another. And this is the work of that eternal rest ; a work never to be intermitted, nor to cease.
And, therefore, it is worth our observing, that both those places, that do chiefly speak of the future rest of the people of God, do also intimate a work in that rest.
So the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us, “There remaineth a rest for the people of God,” (Heb. 4:9). The word means, “There remaineth a Sabbath for the people of God.” Look how you are to be employed on a Sabbath: such shall be your employment in your eternal rest. Is it not your work upon a Sabbath-day, to raise your thoughts and affections to heaven, to fix and terminate them upon God, to maintain communion with him, to admire him in all his works both of grace and providence, to stir up your own hearts, and to quicken the hearts of others to praise and adore him ? Why this shall be the work of your eternal Sabbath. And, when you are at any time lifted up to a more than ordinary spirituality in these things, then may you give some guess what your work shall be in heaven, and what the frame of your hearts shall be in your eternal rest.
And so that other place, in the Revelation : ” Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their labors; and their works do follow them,” (Rev. 14:13).