449 / 652
s!CT.
v.T
THE HAPPINESS
OF
SEPARATE SPIRITS.
439
greater
degree
of
nearness and
love,
and
it
will
be
power
-
fully: changed more
and_
more into the
likeness
of
God
himself; as
a needle
when
placed within
the re
Ich
of
a
loadstone's
attractive power, ceases not
its motion
till
it
be
jóined
in
perfect
union, and
itself
acquires the
virtues
of
tha:'t
wonderful.
-mineral..
Nor
is
it
possible
in
heaven
that
we
should advance in
knowledge and
holiness
without
an
equal improvement'
in felicity
and joy.
On
earth
indeed
we
are told.
"
he
that
will
live godly,
shall suffer
persecution
;
and
he
that
increases
knowledge,
increases
sorrow
;"
2 Tim. iii.
12.'
and
Eccles.
i.
18.
But as
heaven
is
high
above, the
earth,
so
are the customs and the
blessings
of that
state
supe
-'
rior
to this
;
for there
are
no
present sorrows
to be
known,
nor
any
future
to be
feared.: And holiness
has no enemy`
there.
All
things
round
the saint, shall have
a tendency
to
promote
his blessedness.
The spirit of a
good
man released from the body,
and
ascending to heaven,
is
surrounded with thousands
and
ten thousands
of
blessed
spirits
of
the human
and angelic
order
:
When
it
gets within
the confines
of
the heavenly
country,
it
sweetly
and insensibly acquires the genius
and temper
of
the
inhabitants
;
it breathes;
as
it
were,
a
new air,
and
lives,
and thinks; and acts
jtist
as
they
do.
It
shines
and
burns
with
new degrees
of
knowledge,
-zeal
and
love,
and exults
in
the
transporting
communications
of
the same
joy.
How
vastly shall
our understandings
be
improved
by
the
kind
narratives
and
instructions
of
the
saints
that
a.r
rived at
heaven
before
us,
and
by
converse
with
the mini-
stering
angels.
You
will
say
perhaps,
that
we
shall
have
no
need
of
their
teaching
when
we
get
to heaven,'
for
we
shall be
near
to
God
himself;
and
receive
all
immediately from
him.
But bath the scripture any where excluded the assist-
ance
of our
fellow-
spirits
?
God
can
teach
us
here
on
earth
immediately
by
his
own spirit,
without
the use
of
books and letters,
without
the help
of
prophets
and
mini
-
sters, men
of
like passions with ourselves
;
and
yet he
chuses
rather
to do
it
in
an
instrumental
way,
and makes
his
creatures
in
the lower world
the
means
of our instruc-
tion
under
the
superior influence
of
his
¡awn
Spirit:
and
2F4