Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916.
Vol. I. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century
Robert Leighton (16111684)
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This inheritance is often called a kingdom, and a crown of glory. This last word may allude to those garlands of the ancients and this is its property, that the flowers in it are all amaranths (as a certain plant is named) and so it is called (1 Pet. v. 4) a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
No change at all there, no winter and summer: not like the poor comforts here, but a bliss always flourishing. The grief of the saints here is not so much for the changes of outward things as of their inward comforts. Suavis hora, sed brevis mora. Sweet presences of God they sometimes have, but they are short, and often interrupted; but there no cloud shall come betwixt them and their sun; they shall behold Him in His full brightness for ever. As there shall be no change in their beholding, so no weariness nor abatement of their delight in beholding. They sing a new song, always the same, and yet always new. The sweetest of our music, if it were to be heard but for one whole day, would weary them who are most delighted with it. What we have here cloys, but satisfies not; the joys above never cloy and yet always satisfy.