Wesley Corpus

with Adam, first of men; with Noah, who saw both the primeval and the ruined world; with Abraham, the friend of God; with Moses, who was favoured to speak with God, as it were, "face to face;" with Job, perfected by sufferings; with Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the Prophets; with the Apostles, the noble army of Martyrs, and all the saints who have lived and died to the present day; with our elder brethren, the holy angels, cherubim, seraphim, and all the companies of heaven; above all the name of creature owns, with Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant! Meantime, how will they advance in holiness; in the whole image of God, wherein they were created; in the love of God and man; gratitude to their Creator, and benevolence to all their fellow-creatures! Yet it does not follow, (what some earnestly maintain,) that this general benevolence will at all interfere with that peculiar affection which God himself implants for our relations, friends, and benefactors. O no! had you stood by his bed-side, when that dying saint was crying out, "I have a father and a mother gone to heaven;" (to paradise, the receptacle of happy spirits;) "I have ten brothers and sisters gone to heaven; and now I am going to them that am the eleventh! Blessed be God that I was born!" would you have replied, "What, if you are going to them They will be no more to you than any other persons; for you will not know them." Not know them! Nay, does not all that is in you recoil at that thought Indeed, sceptics may ask, "How do disembodied spirits know each other" I answer plainly, I cannot tell: But I am certain that they do. This is as plainly proved from one passage of Scripture as it could be from a thousand. Did not Abraham and Lazarus know each other in hades, even afar off even though they were fixed on different sides of the "great gulf" Can we doubt, then, whether the souls that are together in paradise shall know one another The Scripture, therefore, clearly decides this question. And so does the very reason of the thing; for we know, every holy temper which we carry with us into paradise will remain in us for ever. But such is gratitude to our benefactors. This, therefore, will remain for ever.