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426
THE HAPPINESS
OF
SEPARATE
SPIRITS.
(DISC.
II.
mortality and
sun
-
beams!
When
these spirits
shall
assume
and
animate their
limbs again,
exulting
in new life
and
everlasting
vigour
!
Now
can
we
suppose
it
possible
that
all
this vast
and
amazing change shall
be
made
by
the conflagration
of
the
earth
and
the
lower heavens,
by
the
awful
and
illustrious
splendors and solemnities
of
the last judgment,
by
the
bodies
of
millions
of
saints and sinners rising into
a
pain-
ful or
joyful
immortality,
and yet
no new
ideas hereby
communicated
to
the
happy spirits
;
no increase
of
their
knowledge,
or improvement
of
their joys
?
Sl
}all
the apostles and the prophets, the
confessors
and
the martyrs stand
at
the
right-hand of
Christ, and be
owned
and
acknowledged
by
him with divine
applause
in
the
sight
of
the
whole
creation, and
yet
have
no
new
transports
of
pleasure running through their
souls
?
Shall
they
.be
absolved and
approved
by
the
voice
of
God,
with
thousands
of
applauding
angels, in
the
face
of
heaven,
earth and
hell,
and
all this
without any advancement
of
their
knowledge,
or
their
blessedness
?
Shall
St.
Paul
meet
the Thessalonian
converts
in the
presence of
his
Lord
Jesus,
those souls
who were
once
his
'labour and
his hope, and
shall they
not
at that
day
appear
to
be
his
glory and
his
joy
?
Does
not, he
himself tell them
so
in
his first
epistle;
chap.
ver.
19,,2).
And can
we
be-
lieve
that
he
or
they shall
be
disappointed
?
Shall
that
great
apostle,
see the
immense
fruits of
his
labours, the
large harvest
of
souls
which he
gathered
from many pro
-.
vinces
of Europe
and
Asia,
all
appearing
at
once
in
their
robes
of
light and
victory, and shall
he feel
no
new
inward
exultations
of
spirit at
such
á
sight
?
And doubtless many
thousand
souls, whom he
never
knew
on
earth, shall
be made
known to him
at that
day,
and
own
their con-
version
to
his
sacred
writings.
And
shall all this
make
no
addition
to
hiss
pleasures
?
The
very mention
of
so
'absurd
a doctrine refutes
and condemns
itself.
The
saints
at that
day
shall, as
it
were, be
brought into
n
new world, and
he
that
sits
upon
the
throne
shall make
all things
new;
and
as he
crowns
his
happy
followers
with
new
and unknown
blessings,
so
shall he
receive the
homage
of
new
and unknown praises. This
is
a
new
heaven and
a
new
earth
indeed,
beyond all
our
present
apprehensions; and.
tale
magnificent language
of
pro,