s!CT. v.T THE HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. 439 greater degree of nearness and love, and it will be power- fully: changed more and_more into the likeness of God himself; as a needle when placed within the re Ich of a loadstone's attractive power, ceases not its motion till it be jóined in perfect union, and itself acquires thevirtues of tha:'t wonderful.-mineral.. Nor is it possible in heaven that we should advance in knowledge and holiness without an equal improvement' in felicity and joy. On earth indeed we are told. " he that will live godly, shall suffer persecution ; and he that increases knowledge, increases sorrow ;" 2 Tim. iii. 12.' and Eccles. i. 18. But as heaven is high above, the earth, so are the customs and the blessings of that state supe-' rior to this ; for there are no present sorrows to be known, nor any future to be feared.: And holiness has no enemy` there. All things round the saint, shall have a tendency to promote his blessedness. The spirit of a good man released from the body, and ascending to heaven, is surrounded with thousands and ten thousands of blessed spirits ofthe human and angelic order : When it gets within the confines of the heavenly country, it sweetly and insensibly acquires the genius and temper of the inhabitants ; it breathes; as it were, a new air, and lives, and thinks; and acts jtist as they do. It shines andburns with new degrees of knowledge, -zeal and love, and exults in the transporting communications of the same joy. How vastly shall our understandings be improved by the kind narratives and instructions of the saints that a.r rived at heaven before us, and by converse with the mini- stering angels. You will say perhaps, that we shall have no need of their teaching when we get to heaven,' for we shall be near to God himself; and receive all immediately from him. But bath the scripture any where excluded the assist- ance of our fellow-spirits ? God can teach us here on earth immediately by his own spirit, without the use of books and letters, without the helpof prophets and mini- sters, men of like passions with ourselves ; and yet he chuses rather to do it in an instrumental way, and makes his creatures in the lower world the means of our instruc- tion under the superior influence of his ¡awn Spirit: and 2F4
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