$$4 tsaPpfleetS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. unworthy of the favour of God or of the meanest place hi bía house, shall be acknowledged as a son in the midst of hit Father's court on high, and amongst millions of eongratulatiAg angels ! No cloud shall ever interpose, ne melancholy gloom, no shadow of darkness shall ever arise in those regions ; for the countenance of God, like the sun in its highest strength, shall shine and smile upon them for ever. And through the length ofalltheir immortality, there shall not be the Least interruption of the sweet intercourse of love, on God's side, or on theirs. In that world there is no sorrow, fur thereïs no sin ; the inhabi- tants of that city, of the heavenly Jerusalem, shall never say I am sick ; for thepeople that dwell therein shall beforgiven their ini- quity ; Is. Xxxiii. 25. When the righteous are dismissed from the flesh, they enter bed peace, their bodies rest in their beds of earth, and their spirits walk in heaven, each one inhit own uprightness; Is. Iva. 2. And as there is no sin within them to render them uneasy, so there is no troublesome guest, no evil attendant with- out them, that can give them fear or pain ; no sinners to vex them, nó tempter to deceive them, no spirit of hell to devour or destroy ; Is. xxxv. 9, 10. No lion shall be there, nor any ra- venous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there ; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrowand sighing shall flee away. God himself shall never be absent, and then they cannot be unhappy. They behold his face in righteousness, and they are satisfied when they awake with his likeness ; Ps. xvii. 15. When they leave this world of dreamsandshadows, and awake into that bright world ofspirits, they beholdthe face of God, and aremade like him, as well as when their bodies shall awake out of the dust of death in the morningofthe resurrection, formed in the image of the blessed Jesus. That glorious scripture, in Rev. xxi. 3, 4. be the sense of it what it will, can neverbe fulfilled in more glory on earth than belongs to the state of heaven. The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himselfshall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe. away all tears from their eyes; and there shall beno more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall therebe any more pain : for the formerthings are passed away. The saints above see their blessed Lord and Saviour in all his exalted glories, and they are with him where he is, according to his ownprayer andhis own promise ; John xvii. 24. andxiv. 3. They are absentfrom thebody, andpresent with the Lord. They have esteemedhim on earth above all things, and longed after the sight of his face, whore having not seen they loved; 1 Pet. i. ß,
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