442 THE. HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. DISC. II. Satan and Antichrist by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony, shall they not 'make it known to the inhabitants of the upper Ivorld, 'and tell it to the honour of Christ, their Captain and their King, how they fought, and died, and conquered ? Methinks I hear, these noble historians rehearsing their sacred tragedy.; how they entertain a bright circle of listening angels and fellow- spirits with their own glorious and dreadful story,' dreadful to suffer, and glorious to relate ! Shall it be objected here, that all the glorified saints cannot be supposed to maintain immediate discourse with those blessed ancients ? Cari those ancients be Imagined to repeat the same stories perpetually afresh, to entertain' every stranger that is newly arrived at heaven ? I. answer, that since one single spirit dwelling in flesh can communicate his thoughts immediately to five or six thousand hearers at 'once by his voice, and to millions more successively by books and writings, it is very unrea- sonable to suppose, that spirits made perfect and glorified have not a power of communicating their thoughts to many more thousands by immediate converse : and it is past our reach to conceive what unknown'methods may be in use .amongst, them, to transmit theil ideas and narra- tives in a much swifter succession, than by books and writings, through all the courts of heaven, and to inform all the new corners, without putting each happy spirit to the Everlasting labour of a tiresome repetition. Though every saint in heaven should not be admitted to ,immediate and speedy converse with these spirits of renown in past ages, yet doubtless these glorious minds havecommunicated their narratives, and the memoirs of their age, to thousands of that blessed world already, and from them we may receive a repetition of the same wonders with faithfulness and exact truth. Historyand chronology are no precarious and uncertain sciences in that country. It is very probable indeed, that we shall have more intimate nearness to and more familiar communion with those spirits that were of the same age and place with ourselves, and of the same church Or family; for we can more delightfully expatiate in our converse, with them about the sanie providences and the same methods of grace, and agreeably entertain and improve each
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