452 / 652
442
THE.
HAPPINESS
OF
SEPARATE
SPIRITS.
DISC.
II.
Satan and
Antichrist
by
the blood
of
the Lamb, and
the
word
of
their
testimony, shall they
not
'make
it
known to
the inhabitants of the
upper
Ivorld,
'and
tell
it to the
honour
of
Christ, their
Captain
and
their
King,
how
they
fought, and died,
and conquered
?
Methinks
I
hear,
these noble historians rehearsing
their
sacred tragedy.;
how they
entertain
a
bright
circle
of listening
angels
and
fellow
-
spirits
with their
own glorious and
dreadful story,'
dreadful
to suffer,
and glorious
to
relate
!
Shall
it
be
objected
here,
that
all
the glorified
saints
cannot
be
supposed
to
maintain immediate discourse
with
those
blessed
ancients
?
Cari
those ancients
be
Imagined
to
repeat
the
same stories
perpetually
afresh,
to
entertain'
every
stranger
that
is
newly
arrived
at
heaven
?
I.
answer,
that
since one single
spirit
dwelling
in flesh
can communicate
his
thoughts
immediately
to
five
or
six
thousand hearers
at
'once
by his
voice,
and
to
millions
more
successively by
books and
writings,
it
is
very
unrea-
sonable
to
suppose,
that
spirits made
perfect
and glorified
have not
a
power
of
communicating
their
thoughts to
many
more
thousands
by
immediate
converse
:
and it
is
past
our
reach
to conceive
what
unknown'methods
may
be
in use .amongst, them,
to
transmit
theil
ideas and
narra-
tives
in
a
much swifter
succession,
than
by
books
and
writings,
through
all
the
courts
of
heaven, and
to
inform
all the new corners,
without putting
each happy spirit
to
the Everlasting
labour of
a
tiresome
repetition.
Though
every
saint
in
heaven should
not
be
admitted
to ,immediate
and
speedy converse with these spirits
of
renown
in
past
ages,
yet doubtless
these glorious minds
have
communicated their narratives, and
the memoirs
of
their
age,
to
thousands
of that
blessed world already, and
from them
we
may receive a
repetition of
the same
wonders
with faithfulness
and exact
truth. History
and
chronology are
no
precarious and uncertain
sciences in
that
country.
It
is
very
probable
indeed,
that
we
shall have more
intimate nearness
to
and
more familiar communion
with
those spirits
that
were
of
the same
age
and
place
with
ourselves, and
of
the
same
church
Or
family; for
we
can
more delightfully
expatiate
in
our
converse, with
them
about
the
sanie providences and the same methods
of
grace,
and
agreeably
entertain
and improve each