438 ?HE HAPPIÀTES6 AF SEPARATE SPIRITS. {bISC. IT. freedom of all you active powers ; attend at his feet with intense delight, and love him with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. III. By the death of the body, and their release from it, these spirits of the just are free from all the tempting powers and the sinful influences of earth and bell. This world of sensible allurements, and this world of sinful men, hath a mighty influence on the spirits of the saints while they dwell in flesh and blood. How often are we deceived into practices of iniqùity by the enticing va- nities of this life ? How often tempted by evil com- panions, by flattering mischiefs and ensnaring circum- stances ? And many times too the fear of men, and the terror of their threatenings, fright us to a neglect of duty, or hurry us into the commission of some active iniquity. Sometimes the pleasing enjoyments of life tie our hearts to the creature by the bands of excessive love ; and some- times the injuries and reproaches we receive from them, kindle our fiery passions, and rouzè up our sinful wrath and revenge. This world also is much under the evil influences of the prince of darkness; he is called the God of this world It is greatlygiven up to thé ravages of the roaring lion, and he worries the spirits of the saints while they dwell within his territories, though he is not suffered to destroy and devour them. But at the moment of death the happy spirit is released from the senses, and thereby from the impressions of all sensible things. All the flattering vanities of this lower world have no more power to entice the soul, than the grossest sensualities could entice a pure angel. Sinful companions can no more invite, and threatening tyrants have no more power to terrify. The spirit is then got out of the territories of Satan ; he is prince of the power of the air, but his dominion reaches no farther. The heaven where Christ is, never admits him. Michael with his angels hath cast out the old dragon and his angels, and there is no more placé found for them there. Happy spirits, delivered and se- urzed from the devil and the worldat once, and from all their tempting and destructive influences 1 Now when a sanctified soul is thus released both from itsunion to sinful flesh and blood, and from all possible 2
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