428 HIAPPINESS OF SEPARATt SP1RIT3. books and writings, it is very unreasonable to suppose, that spirits made perfect and glorified have not a power of communicating their thoughts to many more thousands by immediate converse:. and it is past our reach to conceive what unknown methods may be in use amongst them, to transmit their ideas and narratives in a much swifter succession,than by books and writings, through all the courts of heaven, and to inform all the new comers, without putting each happy spirit to the everlasting labour of a tiresome repetition. Thoughevery saint inheaven should not be admitted to immediate and speedy converse, with these spirits of renown in past ages, yet doubtless these glorious minds have communi- cated their narratives, and the memoirs of their age, tothousands of that blessed world already, and from them we may receive a repetition of the saine wonders with faithfulness and exact truth. History and chronology are no precarious and uncertain sciences in that country. It is very probable indeed, that ire shall have more intimate nearness to andmore familiar communion with those spirits tnat Were of the saine age and place with ourselves, and of the same Church or family ; for we can more delightfully expatiate in our converse with them about the same providences and the same methods of grace, and agreeably entertain and improve each other with notices of the affairs of the upper and lower worlds. Nor must we suppose such sort of historical converse among the blessed spirits is merely designed to fill the mind with new and strange ideas. This pleasure considered by itself, is not sacred enough for the spirits of the just made perfect. There is not a ° narrativeüt the world, but shall disclosesome wondrous instances of divine wisdom or mercy, power òr faithfulness, patience and forgiveness, or wrath and justice : The speaker shall feel the workings of all proper reverence, zeal and love ; and every hearer shall be impressed with correspondent affections, and join in adoration and holy wonder. And while we speak of the means and advantages that glo- rified spirits enjoy for their improvement in all theparts of their felicity, surely we may expect the greatest and the best assistan- ces, even those of the Holy Spirit, to render all these means more effectual. Is he not promised to abide with us, to be in us, and dwell with us forever; John. xiv. 16, 17. Is he not repre- sented as dwelling in the spirits if the just made pelfectz when it is said, the Spirit that dreelleth in them shall raise then' mortal bodies fromthe dead? Rom. viii. 11. May we not then reason- ably infer, that that gloriousSpirit, who bathbeen our enlightener, our comforter, and our sanctifier on earth, will be our perpetual enlightener, our eternal sanctifier, and our everlasting comforter ; He that huth so wonderfully be¡;un'the divine work in us, and laid fouudations of joy in knowledge and, holiness, will he not finish
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