164 THE HIDDEN LIFE Oì` A CHRISTIAN. [SEAM. IX. self revealed but a very small part of the things he hath prepared, in the future world, for them that love him, i Cor. ii. 9, 10. It doth not yet appear what we shall be; theglory of that state is yet a great secret to us, 1 John iii. 2. We know much better what it is not, than what it is: we can define it best by negatives. Absence from the weaknesses, sins, and sorrows of this life, is our best and largest account of it, whether we speak of the separate state, or the heaven of the resurrection. The veil of flesh and blood divides us from the world of spirits ; we know not the manner of their life in the state of separation ; we are at an utter loss as to their stations and residences; what relation they hear to any part of this material creation; whether they dwell in thin airy vehicles, and are inhabitants of some starryworld, or planetary regions ; or whether they subsist in their pure intellectual nature, and have nothing to do with any thing corporeal, till their dust be recalled to life. We are unacquainted with the laws by which they are go- verned, and the methods of their converse : we know little of the businesses they are employed in, those glo- rious services for their God and their Saviour, in which they are favoured with assistant angels; and little are we acquainted with their joys, which are unspeakable and full of glory. The very language of that world, is neither to be spoken, nor understood by us; St. Paul heard sonic of the words of it, and had a faint glimpse of the sense of them ;. but he could not repeat them again to mortal ears; nor had he power, nor leave, to tell us the meaning of them, n Cor. xii. 4. For, whether he was in the body, at that time, or out of thebody, he himself was not able to determine. And as for the heaven of the resurrection ; what sort of bodies shall be raised from the dust, for perfect spirits to dwell in, is as great a secret. A spiritual body is a mystery to the wisest divines and philosophers ; where our habitation shall be, and what' our' special employ- ment through the endless ages of immortality, areamong the hidden unsearchahles. The most that we know, is, that we shall be made like to Chrisf, and We shall be where he is, to behold his glory; 1 John iii. 2. and John xvii. M'4. If the eternal life of the saints be so much a. secret
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=