SECT..VT.1 -TEE HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. no persons there that will tempt or defile us, or lead us astray from the paths of purity and peace. holiness to the Lord is inscribed on every soul there ; nor is there one "Canaanite in that upper house of the Lord of hosts;" Zech. xiv. 21. . But this is not all. For there are many of the saints themselves here on earth that make but very indifferent companions. Some of them are shamefully ignorant, im- prudent and foolish : and we have much ado to bear with their folly. Some of them are morose and conten- tious, captious and peevish, envious and censorious, and ready to take offence on the slightest occasions ; a look or a smile placed wrong shall disoblige them, a mistaken word shall affront them for a month, and it is very hard work to humour and please them Or we ourselves per- haps are foolish and imprudent, we are peevish and re- senting, and our fellow-christians have as much to do to bear with us or to please us. There are some persons, concerning whom we have. reason to hope,' that their hearts in the main are right with God, but either by the iniquity of their animal natures, or the power of their, temptations, they look so like the men of this world, that it is hard to distinguish them, and their society is dangerous, or at least very unprofitable and undesirable. Some of us fall into gross mistakes, and leadour friends into error, and hand in hand we forsake the truth, Some of us are melancholy, and sit in darkness; then we spread a gloom and heaviness over all our conversation, and banish all the joys of earth and heaven : or at best, it may be, and in our sprightly days, we fill up the visiting hour with trifles and impertinencies, and there is little of heavenly and divine conversation among us. . Poor low groveling subjects furnish our tongues, and enter- tain our ears, because we are so very imperfect here on earth in knowledge, in holiness, or in divine joy. But what a glorious difference . is there. in the society above, where we may be secure from all mistake and falsehood, from all impertinence and folly in the longest discourse or conference! for every spirit there is so per- fect in knowledge, as to be free from error, and has so divine a turn of mind, that nothing relishes hut what . is holy and heavenly. No quarrels, no complaints are found there to embitter our converse, to diminish the VOL. iii. 2 G
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=