I5AXTÊR'S DYING THOUGHTS. 105 shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me, and in all his glorified ones ? Union will make his pleasure to be much mine ; and: it will be aptly said by him to the faithful soul, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord;" Matt. xxv. 21. Hisown active joy will objectively be ours, as ours will be efficient- ly his, or from him. Can that be an ill condition to me, in which my Lord will most rejoîce ? It is best to him, and, therefore, best to me. 12. And the heavenly society will joyfully welcomea holy soul. If there be now " joy in heaven among the angels, for one sinner that repenteth," (Luke xv. 10,) who bath yet so little holiness, and so much sin, what joy will there be over a perfected, glorified soul l Surely, if our angels there behold our Father's face, they will be glad, In season, of our company. The angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's bosom, no doubt rejoiced in their work, and their success. And is the joy of angels, and the heavenly host, as nothing to me ? Will not love and union make their joy to be my own, if love here must make all my friends and neighbors comforts tobecome my own ? And as their joy, according to their perfection, is greater than any that I amnow capable of, so the par- ticipation of so great a joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment. Surely, that will be my best con- dition, which angels and blessed spirits will be best pleased in, and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in. 111. The Constitutive Reasonsfrom the Intellective State. Though the tempter.would persuade men, because of the case of infants in the womb, apoplectics, &c., that the understanding will be but an unactive power, when separated from these corporeal organs, I have seen before sufficient reasons to repel this tempta- tion. I will suppose, that it will not have such a mode of concep- tion as it hath now by these organs ; but, 1. The soul will be still essentially a vital, intellective substance, disposed to act natur- ally ; and that is to those acts which it is formally inclined to, as fire to illuminate and heat. And as it cannot die, (while it is what it is in dssence,) because it is life itself, that is, the vital substance; so it cannot but be intellective, (as to an inclined power,) because it is such essentially ; though God can change, or annihilate any thing, if he would. 2. And it will be among a world of objects. 3. And it will still have its dependence on the first cause, and re- ceive his continual actuating, influx. 4. And no man can give the least show of true reason, to prove that it shall cease sensation, (whether the sensitive faculties be in the same substance which is intellective, which is most probable, or in one conjunct, as some VOL. II. 14
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