426' ITAPPIRESS OF SEPARATE sPIRITs. the help of prophets andministers, men of like passions with our.. selves ; and yet he chuses rather to do it in an instrumental way, and makes his creatures in the Iower world the means of our in- struction under the superior influence of hisown Spirit : and why may he not use the same methods to communicate knowledge to the spirits that newlyarrive at that upper world ? Therewe shall see the patriarchsof the old world, andpro- phets of the old dispensation, as well as the apostles and evange- lists of Christ and his gospel, There we shall be conversant with those blessed angels whom he has used as ministers of his vengeance, or his mercy, to persons and churches, families and nations : and they will not be unwilling to inform us of those great and surprizng transactions of God with men. There we shall find a multitude of other eminent saints before and after Christ. Adam doubtless will take a peculiar pleasure in ac- quainting all his happy posteritywith the special form and terms of the covenant of innocency ; he shall tell us the nature of the trees of knowledge and of life, and how fatally he fell, to the ruin of his unborn offspring. Unhappyfather, deriving iniquity and death down to his children ! But with what immense satis- faction and everlasting surprise he views the second Adam, his ,ion and his Saviour, and stands in adoration and transport, -while he beholds millions of his seed that he once ruined, now raised to superior glories above the promises of the law of works, by the intervening influence of a Mediator ? Enoch, the man that walked with God, and Elijah, the great reformer, shall in- struct us how they were translated to heaven, and passed into a blessed immortality without calling at the gates of death. Noah will relate to his sons among the blessed, what was the wicked- ness of the old world before the flood, that provoked God their Maker to drown them all ; he shall entertain us with the wonders of the ark, and the covenant of the rainbow in all its glorious co- lours. Abraham, the father of the faithful, and the friend of God, shall talk over again withus his familiar converse with God and angels in their frequent apparitionsto him, and shall tell us how much the promised seed transcends all the poor low ideas he had of him in his obscure age of prophecy. For we cannot suppose that all intimate converse with our father Abraham shall be forbidden us, by any of the laws ormanners of that hea- venly country, since heaven itself is described by our sitting down as at one table with Abraham, and dwelling in his bosom ; Mat. viii. 11. and Luke xiv. 15. an xvi. 23. TherePaul and Moses shall join together to give us an account of the Jewish law, and read wondrous and entertaining lectures on the types and figures of that eeconomy, and still lead our thoughts to the glorious autitype with surprising encomiums of the blessed Jesus. Paul shall unfold to us the dark places of
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