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SECT.
11.3
THE HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE
SPIRITS.
381
certain
and
unwavering
knowledge,
without remaining
doubts,
without
error
or mistake.
O
happy spirits
that
are
thus
divinely
employed,
and are entertaining them-
selves
and their
fellow
-
spirits with these noble
truths
and
transporting wonders
of nature
and
grace,
of
God
and
Christ,
anir
things heavenly, which are
all
mystery,
intanglement and confusion
to
our thoughts
in
the
present
State
!
II.
This perfection consists
in a
glorious degree
of
holiness
without the mixture
of
the least
sin
;
and
n
this
sense
it
is
perfect
holiness
All holiness
is
contained and
summed up
in
the
love
and delightful service
of God
and
our
fellow-
creatures.
When
we
attempt
to love
God here
on
earth, and
by
the alluring
discoveries
of
grace try
to
raise
our
affec-
tions
to
things
of
heaven,
what
sinful damps
and
cold
-
ness
hang heavy
upon
us?
What counter
allurements
do
we
find
towards
sin
and
the
creature,
by
the mischiev-
ous influences
of
the
flesh
and
this world?
What an
estrangedness
from
God
do the best
of
christirrns
com-
plain of? And
when they
get nearest
to
their
Saviour in
the exercises
of
holy love,
they
find
perpetual reason to
mourn
over
their
distance, and they cry
out
often with
pain
at
their
hearts,
What a
cursed enemy abides
still
in
me,
and
divides
me
from the
dearest
object
of
my
de-
sire
and
joy
!"
But the
spirits
of
the
just
made perfect,
have the
nearest
views
of God their Father, and
their
Saviour; and
as
they
see
them face to face,
so,
may
I
venture-
to
express
it,
they love them
with
a union
of
heart
to
heart
;
for
he
that
is
joined
to the
Lord
in
the
nearest
union
in
heaven,
may
well be
called one
spirit
with
him,
since
the apostle
says
the
same
thing
of
the
saints
on
earth
;
1
Cor.
vi. 17.
As
our
love
of God
is
imperfect
here,
so is
all our de-
votïoíl and worship.
While
we
are
in this world, sin mingles with all
our
religious
duties
:
We
come
before
God
«ith
our prayers
and our
songs,
but
our thoughts wander
from him
in
the
midst, of
worship,
and
we
are
gone
on a
sudden
to
the
ends
of
the
earth. We
go
up
to
his
temple, and
We
try
to serve
him
there
an
hour
or
two
;
then
we
return
to
the
world, and we
almost
forget the
delights
of
the
'sane
tuarv, and the
God
we
have seen
there.
But
"
the
spi-