a gap must be bridged over, before any such perfect
knowledge will be attained by any of the sons of men. And when we
remember that all blessings come by labour and the goodly heat of
exercised energy, shall we deny to the highest of all states the
choicest of all blessings? So that the attainment of, and advance in,
the light and knowledge peculiar to that glorious land must be
imagined as affording unending employment for the blessed hereafter.
And this gives us another insight into the matter. As there is so
great disparity among men here, so we may well believe will there be
there. All Scripture goes to show that there will be no general
equalizing, no flat level of mankind. Degrees and ranks as they now
are, indeed, there will be none. Not the possession of wealth, not the
accident of birth, which are held here to put difference between man
and man, will make any distinction there: but inequality and
distinction will proceed on other grounds; the amount of service done
for God, the degree of entrance into the obedience and knowledge of
Him, these will put the difference between one and another there.

But we hasten to a close: and in doing so, we come back to the simple
words of our text, "for ever with the Lord;" and we would leave on
your minds the impression that these, after all, furnish the best key
to the employment of the blessed in heaven. If they are fit companions
for the Lord, then must they be like Him as He is there; and thus we
seem to have marked out an employment alone sufficient for eternity.
Look at it in its various aspects.

What is, what will be, the Lord doing in that state of blessedness?
Will He be idle like the gods of Epicurus, sitting serene above all,
and separate from all, created things? No, indeed, no such glorified
Lord is revealed to us in Holy Scripture. "My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work." The created universe will be then as much beholden to His
upholding hand as it is now. If they are to be for ever with Him,
attending and girding His steps, they, too, will doubtless be
fellow-workers with Him there, as they were here. And in this, only
consider how much of His creation was altogether hidden from them
here! Look abroad on a starry night--behold a field of employment for
those who shall be ever with the Lord. The greater part of His works
never came within sight of this our mortal eye at all. These are only
hints, it is true, which we have no power of following out: but the