DISCOURSE H. 429 and perfect his own work, and add the top-stone to crown the heavenly building ? ' O blessed state of spirits discharged from the prison of flesh and this world 1 this wicked world, where Satan the evil spirit has so wide a range, and so poisonous au influence, and where sinful men swarm ou every side, and bear the largest sway ! What divine advantages are you possessed of, for the improve anent of all your sacred excellencies and joys! When we can raise our thoughts a little, and survey your privileges, we feel somewhat of an inward wish to dwell among you, and send a breathing meditation, or a glance of warm desire towards your world and your society. We poor prisoner spirits, when we hear such tidings from the country at which youare arrived, we stretch our wings a little, and are ready to wish for the flight. But God our sovereign must appoint the hour ; he sees that we are not yet refined enough. Keep our souls, O Father, its this erect posture, looking, reaching and longing for the celestial world, till thou hastcompletely prepared us for the promised glory, and then give us the joyful word of dismission. Thus I have endeavoured to make it appear on what accounts a dismission from the body is both the season when, and the means whereby the spirits of the just arrive at this per- fection. 'Their state of trial is ended at death, and therefore all inconveniencies and imperfections must cease by, divine appoint- ment : By deaththe soul is released from all the troublesome and tempting influences of flesh and blood ; it is delivered from this sinful world, it is got beyond the reach of Satan the tempter and the tormentor; and it is surrounded with a thousand advantages for improvement in knowledge, holiness and joy. Sect. 'VI.Remarks on the foregoing discourse. I. Are the spirits of the just made perfect at the death of the body ? Then we may be assured that they neither die nor sleep ; for sleep and death are both inconsistent with this state of perfection which I have described. The dead saints are not lost nor ex- tinct. They are not perished out of God's world, though they are gone from ours. They are no more in the world that is en- lightened' by the sun and moon, and the glimmering stars ; but they themselvesshine gloriously, like stars of different magni- tude, in the world where there is no sun, nor is there any need of the moon to shine in it, for the glary of God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the everlasting light thereof ; Rev. xxi. 23. They are lost from earth, but they are found in heaven. They are dead to us at present, but they are alive to God their Father, and to Jesus their Saviour ; they are alive to the holy angels, and all their fellow-saints in that upper world. If there had been any such thing as a soul sleeping or dying, our Saviour would never have argued thus with the $adducees,
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