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THE HAgPINESS
OF
SEPARATE
SPIRITS.
42
phecy
shall be fulfilled
in its
utmost
force and brightness.
Dóubtless
there
are
pleasures
to
be
enjoyed
by
com-
plete human
nature,
bar
imbodied
souls, which
a mere
separate spirit
is
not
capable
of.
Is
it
not
part of
the
blessedness
of
human
spirits
to enjoy
mutual
society,
and
bold a pleasing
correspondence
with
each
other
?
But
whatsoever
be the means and methods-
of that
corres-
pondence
in
a separate
state,,
surely
it
wants
something
of that
complete pleasure
and sensible intimacy,
which.
they
shall
be
made
partakers
of, when
they
shall hold
noble communion
in
their
bodies
raised
from the
dust,
and
refined from every weakness.
Is
it
not
the
happi-
ness
of the
saints in
heaven to
see
their
glorified
Saviour?
But
even this sight
is
and must,
be
incomplete, till they
are
endued
with bodily
organs
again.
What
converse
soever the spirits
of
the
just
have with
the
glorified
man
Jesus,
while
they
are absent
from the body,
yet
I
am
persuaded it
is
not,
nor
can
it
be
so
full
and perfect
in
all
respects,
as
it
shall be
at
the general
resurrection.
They cannot
now
see
him face to
face
in
the
literal
sense,
and
they wait for
this,
exalted
pleasure, this
imrnediate'and
beatific
sight.
Job
himself yet
waits,
though the worms
bave destroyed
his body,
till
that
glorious hour, when
in
his flesh he shall see
God,;
Job
xix.
C6.
even
God,
his
Redeemer,
who
"
shall
stand
at
the last day
on
the
earth,"
ver.
Not
only
all the saints
on earth
"
who have
received
the
first-
fruits
of
the spirit, wait for the
adoption,
that
is,
the redemption of
the
body,'.'
Rom.
viii.
but
the
saints
in
heaven also
live
there,
waiting till the body
be
redeemed
from
the
grave,
and
their adoption
shall
appear,
with illustrious evidence
:
Then
they shall all look like
the
sons
of
God, like Jesus, the
first-beloved
and the
first
-born.
The
spirits
above, how
perfect soever
they.
are
in
the joys
of
the
separate
state, yet wait for those
endless scenes
of
unknown delight
that
shall succeed
the
resurrection.
And there
is
abundant
reason for
it,
to be
drawn from
the
word
of
God
;
for the scripture, speaks
but
very
little
con^erning
the blessedness
of
separate
souls,
in
cornea.
t-isq i
of
the
frequent
and
large accounts
of
thegloryand
triumph
that
shall
attend the
sound
of
the last trumpet,
and
the
great
rising
day.
It
is.to
this blessed
hour
that
the
aposts
in
their writings
are
always direr, tiny
the
hope