DISCOURSE IL 415 spirits shall assume and animate their limbs again, exulting in new life and everlasting vigour 1 Now can we suppose it possi- ble that all this vast and amazing change shall be made by the conflagration of the earth and the lower heaven's, by the awful and illustrious splendors and solemnities of the last judgment, by the bodies of millions of saints and sinners rising into a painful or joyful immortality, and yet no new ideas hereby communicated to the happy spirits; no increase of their knowledge, or improve- ment of their joys I Shall the apostles and the prophets, the confessors and the martyrs stand at the right-hand of Christ, and be owned and acknowledged by him with divine applause in the sightof the wholecreation, and yet have no new transports of pleasure run- ning through their souls ? Shall they be absolved and approved by the voice of God, with thousands of applauding angels, in the face of heaven, earth'and hell, and all this without any advance- ment of their knowledge, or their blessedness ? Shall St. Paul meet the Tbessalonianconverts in the presenceof his Lord Jesus, those souls who were once his labour and his hope, and shall they not atthat day appear tobe his glory' and kis joy? Does not he himselftell them so in his first epistle ; chap. ii. ver. 19, 20. And can we believe, that he or they shall be disappointed ? Shall the great apostle see the immense fruits of his labours, the large harvest of souls which he gathered from many provinces of Eu- rope and Asia, all appearing at once in their robes of light and victory, and shall he feel no new inward exultations of spirit at sucha sight ? And doubtless many thousand souls whom he ne- ver knew on earth, shall be made known to him at that day, and own their conversion to his sacred writings. And shall all this make no addition to his pleasures ? The very mention of so ab- surd a doctrine refutes and condemns itself. The saintsat that day shall, as it were, be brought into a new world, and he that sits upon the throneshall make all thing's new ; and as he crowns his happy followers with new and unknown blessings, so shall he receive the homage of new and unknown praises. This isa new heaven and a new earth indeed, beyond all our present apprehensions ; and the magnificent language of prophecy shall be fulfilled in its utmost force and brightness. Doubtlessthere are pleasures to be enjoyed by completehu- man nature, by embodied 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 hold a pleasing correspondence with . each other ? But whatsoever to the meansand methods of that correspondence in .a seperate 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 weak.
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