SECT. 11.3 THE HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. 381 certain and unwavering knowledge, without remaining doubts, without error or mistake. O happy spirits that are thus divinely employed, and are entertaining them- selves and their fellow-spirits with these noble truths and transporting wonders of nature and grace, of God and Christ, anir things heavenly, which are all mystery, intanglement and confusion toour thoughts in the present State ! II. This perfection consists in a glorious degree of holiness without the mixture of the least sin ; and n this sense it is perfect holiness All holiness is contained and summed up in the love and delightful service of God and our fellow-creatures. When we attempt to love God here on earth, and by the alluring discoveries of grace try to raise our affec- tions to things of heaven, what sinful damps and cold- ness hang heavy upon us? What counter allurements do we find towards sin and the creature, by the mischiev- ous influences of the flesh and this world? What an estrangedness from God do the best of christirrns com- plain of? And when they get nearest to their Saviour in the exercises of holy love, they find perpetual reason to mourn over their distance, and they cry out often with pain at their hearts, What a cursed enemy abides still in me, and divides me from the dearest object of my de- sire and joy !" But the spirits of the just made perfect, have the nearest views of God their Father, and their Saviour; and as they see them face to face, so, may I venture- to express it, they love them with a union of heart to heart ; for he that is joined to the Lord in the nearest union in heaven, maywell be called one spirit with him, since the apostle says the same thing of the saints on earth ; 1 Cor. vi. 17. As our love of God is imperfect here, so is all our de- votïoíl and worship. While we are in this world, sin mingles with all our religious duties : We come beforeGod «ith our prayers and our songs, but our thoughts wander from him in the midst, of worship, and we are gone on a sudden to the ends of the earth. We go up to his temple, and We try to serve him there an hour or two ; then we return to the world, and we almost forget the delights of the 'sane tuarv, and the God we have seen there. But " the spi-
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