SECT. v.1 T8ß HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SRIRITS. 4$ dwelling in his bosom ;' Mat. viii. 11. and Luke xiv. 15. and xvi. There Paul and Moses shall join together to give us an account -óf the Jewish law, and read wondrous and enter- taining lectures on the types and figures of that oeco- nomy, and still lead our thoughts to the glorious antitype with surprizing encomiums of the blessed Jesus. Paul shall unfold to us the dark places of his own writings, better than he himself once understood them ; and ?loses shall become an interpreter of his own law, who knew so little of the mystery and beauty of it on earth himself. There we shall acquaint ourselves with some of the ancient fathers of the christian church, and the martyrs, those dying cban pions of the faith and honours of the christian name. These will recount the various pxovi- dences of God to the church in their several ages, and chew the visions of St. John in the book of the Revela tions, not in the morning twilight of prophecy, but as in the light of noon, as a public history, or as an evening rehearsal of the transactions of the day. The witnesses themselves shall tell us how they prophesied in sackcloth, and were slain by the man of sin; how they rose from the dead in three days and a half, and how the church was at last reformed from the popish mysteries ofiniquity and superstition,. Cranmer and Ridley, Calvin and Lu- ther, and the rest of the pious reformers, shall make known to us the labours and suffer.ings.of their age, and the wonders of pure christianity rising as it were out of the grave, and throwing off the chains, the darkness and defilements of Antichrist: And those holy souls who. la- boured in the reformation of Great-Britain, while they relate the transactions of their day, shall perhaps enquire and wonder why their successors put a stop to that blessed work, and have made no further progress in a hundred and fifty years. Did one of the elders near the throne give notice to. the apostle John concerning the martyrs ; Rev. vii. 14. These are they which came out ofgreat tribulations, and have washed their robes, andmade them.white in the blood of the Lamb; and shall we not suppose that the happy spirits above tell one another their victories over sin and temptation, and the powers of this world? Shall not the. martyrs, who triumphed in. their own blood, and overcame.
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