THE HAPPINESSOF SEPARATE SPIRITS. 419 to know all things ? Or if each of them have their stinted size of knowledge, or their limited number of ideas at their first release from the body, then they are everlastingly cut off from all the surprizes of pleasure that arise from new thoughts, and new scenes, and new discoveries. Does every saint in heaven read God's great volume of nature through and through the first hour he arrives there ? Or is each spirit confined to a certain number of leaves, and bound eternally to learn nothing new, but to review perpetually his own limited lesson ? Dares he not, or can he not turn over another leaf, and read his Creator's name in it, and adore his wisdom in new wonders of contrivance ? These things are impro- bable to such a high degree, that I dare almost pronounce them untrue; The book of providence is another volume wherein God writes his name too. Has every single saint such a vast and infinite length of foreknowledge given him at his first admission into glory, that he knows beforehand all the future scenes of providence, and the wonders which God shall work in the upper and lower worlds ? I thought the "lion of the tribe of Judah, the root and the offspring ofDavid, had been the only person in heaven or earth that was worthy to take the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof;" Rev. v. 5. Surely the meanest of the saints does not foreknow all those great and im- portant counsels of God which our Lord Jesus Christ is intrusted with. And yet we may venture to say, that the spirits of the just in heaven shall know those great and important events that relate to the church on earth, as they arise in successive seasons, that they may give to God, and to his Son Jesus Christ, revenues of due honour upon'this account, as I shall prove immediately. And indeed if the limits of their knowledge in heaven were so fixed at their first entrance there, that they could never be acquainted with any of these successive providences of God afterwards, we here on . earth have a great advantage above them, who see daily the accom- plishment of his divine counsels, and adore the wonders of his wisdom and his love; and from this daily increase of knowledge, we take our share in the growing joys. and blessings of Zion, 2 E 2
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