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A
SOUL
PREPARED
FOR
HEAVEN.
LDISC.
VIII.
many of
these
iniquities
in
their hearts, and
they have
made
a
painful complaint
of
these rising
corruptions of
nature
upon many
occasions,
these iniquities must
be
mortified and
slain
by
the
work
of
the Spirit
of
God
within
us,
if
ever
we
ourselves would
live
the divine
life
of
heaven
;
Rom. viii.
13.
There
is
a great deal of
this purifying
work
to
be done in
the
souls
of
all
of
us,
before
we
can
be
prepared
for the heavenly
world,
and
though
we
cannot
arrive
at
perfection here, yet
we
must
be
wrought up
to
a
temper
in some
measure
fit
to
enter
into that
blessedness
:
And
God
is
training
his
people
up
for
this purpose, all the
days
of their
travels through
this
desert
world.
Happy
souls, who feel
themselves more
and
more released
from the
bonds
of
these iniquities,
day
by day,
and thereby
feel
within themselves the
growing evidences
of
a
joyful hope
!
3.
God
does
not
only purify
us
from every
sin,
in
or-
der
to
prepare
us
for heaven,
but
"
he
is
ever loosening
and
weaning
our hearts
from all those lawful things in
this
life,
which
are
not
to
be
enjoyed
in
heaven."
Our
sensual appetites, and our carnal
desires,
so
far
as
they
are natural,
though
not
sinful,
must
die
before
we
can
enter
into
eternal
life.
"
Flesh and blood
cannot
inhe-
rit
that
divine,
incorruptible, and
refined happiness
;"
1
Cor.
xv.
50.
"
Riches and treasures
of
gold and
sil-
ver which the
rust
can
corrupt, and
which thieves
can
break
through and
steal,
are not provided
for
the
hea-
venly
state;"
Mat.
vi.
19.
They
are all
of
the
earthly
kind, and too mean for
the relish
of
a
heavenly spirit.
Although a christian
may possess many
of
these things
in
the
present
life,
yet
his
affections
must
be
divested
of
them,
and
his
soul divided from them,
if
he would
be
a
saint
indeed, and ever ready for the
purer
blessings
of
paradise. The
businesses,
the cares
and the concerns
of
this secular
life,
are ready
to
drink up our spirits too
much
while
we
are here
;
we
are
too
prone
to
mingle
our
very souls
with them,
and thereby
grow
unfit for hea-
venly felicities
:
And therefore it
is
that
our Saviour
has
warned
us
;
Luke
xxi. 34.
" Let not
your hearts
be
overcharged
with
the cares
of
this world any more
than
with
surfeiting and drunkenness,"
if
you would be always
ready
for
your
flight to a
better state, and meet
the sum-
mons
of
your Lord
to
paradise.