416 THE HAPPINESS OP SEPARATE SPIRITS. [DISC. I1. the future state, and may feast our contemplation and improve our joy. The blessed God himself is an infinite being: His perfections and glories are unbounded: His wisdom, his holiness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his power and justice, his all sufficiency, his self- origination, and his un- fathomable eternity, have such a number of rich ideas belonging to each of them, that no creature shall ever fully understand. Yet it is but reasonable to believe, that he will communicate so much of himself to us by degrees, as he sees necessary for our business and bless- edness in that upper world. Can it be supposed that we should know every thing that belongs to God all at once, which he may discover to us gradually as our ca- pacities improve ? Can we think that an infant-soul that had no time for improvement here, when it enters into heaven shall know every thing concerning God, that it can ever attain to through all the ages of its im- mortality When a blessed spirit has dwelt in heaven a thousand years, and conversed with God and Christ, angels and fellow-spirits during all that season, shall it know nothing more of the nature and wondrous proper- ties of God than it knew the first moment of its arrival there ?" But I add further, the works of God shall doubtless be the matter of our search and delightful survey, as well as the nature and properties of God himself. " His works are honourable and glorious, and sought out of of all that have pleasure in them;" Ps. cxi. 2, 3. In his works eve shall read his name, his properties, and his glories, whether we fix our thoughts on creation or providence. The works of God and his Wonders of creation in the known and unknown worlds, both as to the number, the variety, and vastness of them, are almost infinite; that is, they transcend all the limits of our ideas, and all our present capacities to conceive. Now there is none of these works of wonder, but may administer some enter- tainment to the mind of man, and may richly furnish * God himself hath infinite goodness in him, which the creature cannot take in at once; they are taking of it in eternally. The saints see in God still things fresh, which they sew not in the beginning of their bles- sedness. Dr. T. Goodwin.
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