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THE HAPPINESS
OP
SEPARATE
SPIRITS.
{DISC.
II.
a-
'rived,
we
stretch our
wings
a
little, and
are ready
to
wish
for
the
flight. But
God our
sovereign must
appoint
the
hour
;
he sees
that
we
are
not vet refined
enough.
Keep
our
souls,
O
hather,
in
this
erect posture, looking,
reaching
and
longing
for
the celestial
world,
till
thou hast
completely prepared
us
for
the promised glory, and
then
give
us
the
joyful word
of
dismission.
Thus
I have
endeavoured
to
make
it
appear
on
what
accounts
a
dismission from the body
is
both the
season
when,
and the means whereby the
spirits
of
the
just
ar-
rive at this
perfection.
Their
state of
trial
is
ended at
death, and therefore
all
inconveniences
and
imperfections
must
cease
by
divine
appointment
:
By
death the
soul
is
released
from
all
the troublesome and
tempting
influ-
ences of
flesh
and
blood;
it
is
delivered
from
this sinful
world,
it is
got beyond the reach of
Satan the
tempter
and
the
tormentor;
and
it
is
surrounded with
a
thousand
advantages
for
improvement
in
knowledge,
holiness
and
joy.
SECTION
VI.
_Remarks on
the
foregoing
discourse.
REMARK
I.
Are the
spirits of
the
just
made
perfect
at the death of
the body
?
Then
we may
be
assured
that
they neither
die
nor
sleep;
for
sleep and death
are
both
inconsistant with
this
state
of
perfection which
I
have
described.
The
dead saints
are not
lost
nor
extinct. They
are
not
perished
out of God's world, though
they ate gone
from ours.
They
are no more in
the world
that
is
en-
lightened
by
the
sun
and
moon,
and the
glimmering
stars; but
they themselves
shine gloriously, like stars
of
different
magnitudes,
in
the
world
where
"
there
is
no
sun, nor
is
there
any
need of the
moon
to
shine
in
it,
for
the
glory
of
God enlightens it, and the
Lamb
is
the
everlasting light
thereof;"
Rev.
xxi.
23.
They
are lost
from
earth, but
they are found
in
heaven. They are
dead
to us at
present, but they
are alive to
God
their
Father,
and
to
Jesus
their Saviour
;
they
are alive to
the
holy
angels,
and
all
their
fellow
-
saints
in
that upper
world.
If
there had been
any
such
thing
as
a soul
sleeping or
dying,. our
Saviour would
never
have
argued
thus
with
the
Sadducees, Luke
xx.
37, 38.
nor
have proved
the
doctrine of the resurrection
from the
doctrine of
the sepa-