424 HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. and is ragenerated, and renewed, and sanctified by theholy 'spirit, hattl not a1r its remaining sins and imperfections owing to its bonds of sinful flesh and blood ? And whether its compliance with so many temptations, is not to be attributed to its close at- tachments to corrupt animal nature and sensible things ? And therefore whether this sanctified nature would not become cons:. pletely free from sin, when it is freed from all the influence of a tempting body and a tempting world ? Whether the divine bent and biasthat is given it by the Spirit of God at first conversion, and by which it maintains continual opposition to sinful flesh, would not make its own way toward perfection without new and extraordinary operations? Whether this would not be sufficient to cause the soul for ever to ascend naturally toward God inde- sire, and love, and delight, when, all clogs and embarrassments are removed ? So a vessel filled with upper air, and dragged down by some heavy weight to the bottom of the sea, labours and wrestles with the uneasy burden, and hath a perpetual tendency toward this upper region : But if the weight be once taken off, it immediately of itself rises through the water, and never ceases its motion till it come to the surface. I confess this is a nicer speculation, and of doubtful evidence, though when, St. Paul lays his sinful compliances and captivity so much tothe charge of his flesh and members in the viith chap. to the Romans, and in other placesof his writings, one would be ready to think St. Paul was of this opinion. However, this we are sure of, that a sanctified soul released from the body, shall be made free from every sin, and its absence from flesh and the world have alarge, if not a sufficient influence, to effect this freedom. And ifwe should grantit, that a soul just dismissed from this world is not perfectly sanctified by the mere influence of this release ; yet this perfection is sufficiently secured by its dismission from flesh ; or wizen absentfrom the body, it ispresent with the Lord : And this leads me to the next particular, viz. IV. At death the spirits of the just released from bodies, ,enter into another state, a different world, where they have a thousand advantages for improvement in knowledge, and ad- vances in holiness and joy, vastly beyond what any thing in this world could furnish them with.! They see God, and are for ever with him. They behold him face and face, as I have before - explained it, in a snore im- mediateand intuitive manner ; and doubtless such a sight fills the .spirit with a clearer and brighter idea of the nature and attributes. of God, than all the former lessons it had learned in the books of nature andof scripture could ever give it. They see our Lord Jesus Christ, our glorified Saviour, in such a wayand manner as glorified separate spirits can converse with spirits emhodihsd; and one such view as this willperhaps lead
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=