¢tieT. y.] THE HAgPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. 42 phecy shall be fulfilled in its utmost force and brightness. Dóubtless there are pleasures to be enjoyed by com- plete human nature, bar imbodied souls, which a mere separate spirit is not capable of. Is it not part of the blessedness of human spirits to enjoy mutual society, and bold a pleasing correspondence with each other ? But whatsoever be the means and methods- of that corres- pondence in a separate state,, surely it wants something of that complete pleasure and sensible intimacy, which. they shall be made partakers of, when they shall hold noble communion in their bodies raised from the dust, and refined from every weakness. Is it not the happi- ness of the saints in heaven to see their glorified Saviour? But even this sight is and must, be incomplete, till they are endued with bodily organs again. What converse soever the spirits of the just have with the glorified man Jesus, while they are absent from the body, yet I am persuaded it is not, nor can it be so full and perfect in all respects, as it shall be at the general resurrection. They cannot now see him face to face in the literal sense, and they wait for this, exalted pleasure, this imrnediate'and beatific sight. Job himself yet waits, though the worms bave destroyed his body, till that glorious hour, when in his flesh he shall see God,; Job xix. C6. even God, his Redeemer, who " shall stand at the last day on the earth," ver. Not only all the saints on earth " who have received the first-fruits ofthe spirit, wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body,'.' Rom. viii. but the saints in heaven also live there, waiting till the body be redeemed from the grave, and their adoption shall appear, with illustrious evidence : Then they shall all look like the sons of God, like Jesus, the first-beloved and the first-born. The spirits above, how perfect soever they. are in the joys of the separate state, yet wait for those endless scenes of unknown delight that shall succeed the resurrection. And there is abundant reason for it, to be drawn from the word of God ; for the scripture, speaks but very little con^erning the blessedness of separate souls, in cornea. t-isq i of the frequent and large accounts of thegloryand triumph that shall attend the sound of the last trumpet, and the great rising day. It is.to this blessed hour that the aposts in their writings are always direr, tiny the hope
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