484 / 674
(
464.
)
DISCOURSE
VI
I
I.
A
SOUL
PREPAk£U
FOR
TOAVEN.
2
con.
r.
5.
Now he
that hath
wrought
us
for
the
self-same
thing,
is
God.
WHEN
this
apostle
designs to
entertain our
hope
in
the noblest manner,
and raise
our
faith
to
its highest
joys,
he generally calls
our
thoughts far
away
from all
present
and visible things,
and
sends them
forward to
the great
and
glorious day
of
the
resurrection
;
He
points our meditations
to take
a
distant prospect
of
the
final
and
complete happiness
of
the saints,
in heaven,
when
their
bodies
shall be
raised shining and immortal
;
whereas
it
is
but
seldom,
that
he takes notice
of
the
hea-
ven
of
separate
souls, or
that
part
of our future happi-
ness, which commences
at
the
hour of
death. But, in
this chapter, the holy
writer
seems
to keep
both
these
heavens
in his
eye,
and
speaks of
that
blessedness, which
the spirits of
the
just
shall
enjoy,
in
the presence
of
the
Lord,
as
soon
as they
are absent
from
the
body,
and yet
leads
our
souls
onwards
also to
our last and
most perfect
state
of
happiness, which
is
delayed till our
corruptible
bodies shall
be
raised
from the dust,
and mortality
shall
be
swallowed
up
in life.
We
know,
saith
he in
the
first
verse
of
this
chapter,
we
know
that
as
soon
as
our
mor-
tal
tabernacle, in
which
we
now
dwell,
is
dissolved,
we
have a building ready for us in the heavens
;
that
is,
an
investiture in
a
glorious
state of
holiness
and immor-
tality,
which waits
to receive our spirits
when
we
drop
this
dying
flesh
:
Yet
the
felicities
of
this
paradise,
or
first heaven, shall receive
an
unspeakable addition
and
advancement, when
Christ
shall come
the
second
time,
with
all his saints, to
complete our salvation."
But
which heaven soever
we
arrive
at,
whether
it
be
this
of
the
separate
state, or
that
when
our bodies
shall
be
restored,
still we
must
be
wrought
up
to
a
proper
fit-
ness for
it
by
God himself; and
as
the end
of
this verse
tells
us,
he gives
us
his
own
Spirit
as
an
earnest of
these: