City which was given her by her pagan soothsayers might be literally fulfilled. {229} Happy those who, amid the storms and winds of error, doubt, and ever-changing doctrine, take refuge within the walls of the Eternal City; whose faith is built not upon the shifting sands of private judgment, but on the immovable basis of church authority; whose wanderings terminate, like those of St. Paul, at Rome, whence, like him, they ascend to that celestial city whose builder and maker is God! Such a person is like the wise man of whom our Lord speaks, "that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not; FOR IT WAS FOUNDED UPON A ROCK." --------------------- {230} Sermon XV. The Thought Of Heaven. (For The Fourth Sunday After Easter.) Heb. iv. 9. "__There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God__." These words, my dear brethren, are full of consolation to each and every one of us. They lift our minds, at this Paschal season, far away from this earth, and fix them in contemplation on that happy land, the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no sorrow, no pain, no sickness, and no death; they take us with the beloved disciple to see that celestial country, the city of God, in which stands the tree of life, and where flows the river of life, beside whose banks are seated all those who have died in the Lord, and rest from their labors. They open those pearly gates to allow us to behold the white-robed army of saints who stand before the Lamb; and we can almost hear their anthems of praise, set to music which no human heart can conceive of, that swell the courts of heaven with the celestial cry of, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come!" {231} Heaven, a rest after the toils of life are over! Heaven, a reward for fidelity! Oh! how good is the thought of heaven! How necessary to many as a stimulant to practise virtue and persevere therein! What a reward for a good life! The thought of heaven is very good, for it encourages us when we grow faint-hearted; the thought of heaven is that which prompts a man to abstain from evil and do good, because he knows that heaven will be his reward, and the loss of it his punishment. It is necessary; for, without this thought being before the mind of a Christian, he might give way to many an enticing temptation. It is far more meritorious, also, than the thought of hell, just as an act of __contrition__ is more meritorious than an act of __attrition__; for the former excites us to sorrow for having offended a good God, who has created us for heaven, and the latter excites us to fear lest we incur the displeasure of an angry God and be condemned to hell.