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our great concernments, and rejoyce in our felicity; and fhill we be fo fwinifhly ungrateful, is feldom to look up, and res member their high and bleffed ftate ?

Many think that they have no more bufinels with their de ceafed friends, than to fee them decently interred, and to mourn over them, as if their removal were their lots or to grieve for our own lofs, when we perceive their places empty; but we fcarce look up after them with an eye of faith, much lefs do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven: When Chrift was taken up, his Difciples gazed after him, Act. 1. 10. Stephen looked up stedfaftly into Heaven, and favo .Chrift fitting at the right hand of God, Acts 7.55. And how feldome, how flightly do we look up, either to Jefus, his Angels, or his Saints,

I tell you Sirs, you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flefh. They have lett you their holy examples: They are entered before you into reft: You are haftening after them, and must be quickly with them, if you are true Believers: You muft fee them every day by faith: When you look to Chrift, you muff look to them, as his beloved friends, entertained by him in his family of glory. When you look up to Heaven, remember that they are there: When you think of coming thither, remember that you must there meet them. You muff honour their memories more than you did on earth, because they are more boncurable, being more bonoured of God. You must love them better than you did when they were on earth, because they are better, and fo more lovely: You must rejoyce much more for their felicity, than you did whileft they were on earth; because they are incomparably more happy than they were. Either you believe this, or you do not. If you do not believe that the dead are ble ffed that die in the Lord, and reft from their labours, and are with Chrift in Paradife, why do you ferm Chriftians? If you do believe it, why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends, than you would have done, if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world? It is the natural duty of friends, to mourn with them that mourn, and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce; and if one member be honoured or difhonoured, the rest of the body are accordingly Ecce 2

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affected,

affected. Do not your forrows then instead of joyes, tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to forrow, and not to joy? If not, you are very felfifh or inconfiderate,

Direct, 10. Laftly, Let not your averfation to Popery, turn to a factious partial forfaking of Gods Truth, and your owa duty and confolation, in this point. Abundance of Chriftians have taken up opinions in Religion, upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of, and being poffcffed with a juft diflike of Popery in the main, they fufpect and caft away, not a few great truths and duties upon a falfe information, that they are parts of Popery. It hath grieved me more than once to hear religious perfons come from hearing fome Minifters with difdain and cenfure, faying that they prayed for the dead; and all their proof was that [Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the fpirits of the Juft; therefore they prayed for them.] And fo have they argued, because they have read the 1 Cor.15. at the graves or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpfe was prefent, or because they prayed then for themselves, or for the Church. Alas, for the childish ignorance, and pievifhnefs, and foolifa wranglings of many Christians, who think they are better than their neighbours! How much is Chrifts family dishonoured by his filly froward, children? And they will not be inftructed by their friends; and therefore they are pofted up, and openly reproached by their enemies. Have Angels or heavenly Saints deferved fo ill of God or us, that we should be fo fhy of their communion? Are they nothing to us? Have we nothing to do with them? Have we caufe to be afhamed of them? Is their bonour any difhonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due? Can we give fo much love, respect and honour to Magiftrates, Minifiers, and Friends on earth (imperfe&, finful, troublesome mortals :), and shall we think that all is idolatrous, or call away, which is given to them that fo far excel us? Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or frange to men on earth? Or would you perfwade the world, that the fouls of the Saints are not immortal, but perifh as the bruits? Or that there is no Heaven? Or that.

that God is there alone without any company? Are fo many fond of the opinion of a Perfonal Reign on Earth, for Chrift with his holy ones; and yet is it Popery fo much as to fpeak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven? My Brethren, these things declare you yet to be too dark, too factious, and too carnal, and to hold the faith of our Lord Jefus Chrift, with refpect to parties, fides and perfons. Chrift taketh not his Saints as ftrangers to him: He that judgeth men as they love and use him, in the least of his Brethren upon Earth, will not fo foon cenfure and quarrel with us as the Seetary will das for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven, for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory, John 12. 26. & 17. 24. And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints (who fhall judge the world and Angels) and to be admired in all them that do now believe, 2 Thef 10, 11, 12.

CHAP. XXVII

How to receive the Sentence of Death; and how to die by Faith.

Aving faid so much of this elsewhere (in my Books called, A Believers laft work: The laft Enemy: My Chriftian Directory: Treatife of Self-denyal, &c.) I fhall be here but very brief.

1. For the firft Cafe, before sickness cometh?

Direct. 1. Be fure that you fettle your Belief of the life to come, that your Faith may not fail.

Direct. 2. Expect Death es seriously all your life, as wife Believers are obliged to do': That is, as men that are alwaies fure to die, as men that are never fure to live a mɔment longer; as men that are fure that life will be fhort, and death is not far off, and as forefecing what it is to dies of what eternal confequence; and what will then appear to be necessary to your fafe, and to your comfortable change.

Dired. 3. All your daies_babituate your fouls to believing, Ecco 3,

Swees.

fweer enlarged thoughts of the infinite Goodneß and Love of God, to whom you go, and with whom you hope to live for

ever.

Direct. 4. Dwell in the ftudies of a crucified and glorified Cbrift, who is the way, the truth and life who ruft be your hope in life and death, Ephef. 3. 17,18,19.

Direct. 5. Keep clear your evidences of your right to Chrift, and all bie Promifer by keeping grace or the heavenly nature, in life, activity and increafe, 2 Pet. 1. 10. 2 Cor. 13.5. John 15, 1, &c. ↑ John 3.

Direct 6. Confider ofen of the poffeffion which your mature in Christ bath already of Heaven; and how highly it is advanced, and how near his relation is, and how dear his love is to his weakest members upon earth: And that as fouls in Heaven have an inclination and defire to communicate their own felicity to their bodies, fo hath Chrift as to his body the Church, Jobn 17, 24. Ephef. 5. 25, 27, &c.

•Direct. 7. Look to the Heavenly H, and thofe who have lived before you, or with you in the flesh, to make the thoughts of Heaven the more familiar to you (as in the former chapter.)

Direct.-8. Improve all Adions, yea the plague of fix it felf, to make you weary of this world, and willing to be gone to Chrift, Rom. 7.

Direct. 9. Be much with God in Prayer, Meditation, and other heart-raifing duties; that you may not by ftrangeness to him be dismayed.

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Direct. 10. Live not in the guilt of any wilful fin, nor in any flotbful neglect of duty, left guilt breed terrour, and make you fly from God your Judge. But efpecially ftudy to redeem your time, and to do all the good you can in the world, and to live as totally devoted to God, as confcious that you live to no carnal intereft, but defire to ferve him with all you have; and your confciences teftimony of this, will abundantly take off the terrours of death (whatever any erroneous ones may lay to the contrary, for fear of being guilty of conceits of merit.) A fruitful life is a great preparative for death, 2 Tim. 4. 8. 2 Cor. 1. 12, &c.

Direct. 11. Fetch from Heaven the comforts which you

live upon through all your life: And when you have truly learned to live more upon the comforts of believed glory, than upon any pleasures or bopes below, then you will be able to die in and for thofe comforts, Matth. 6. 20, 21. Col.38 4. Phil. 3.20,21. 1 Thef. 4. 18. Pbil.1.21;23. odd Direct. 12. The Knowledge and Love of God in Chrift is the beginning or foretaste of Heaven, (John 17, 3, 1 Cor. 13. &c.) and the foretaftes are excellent preparations: There fore Aill remember that all that you do in the world, for the getting and exercifing the true Knowledge and Love of God in Chrift; fo much you do for the foretalics (and belt preparations) for Heaven, I Cor. 8. 3. If any man love God, the fame is known of him (with approbation and love.) besuEY

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II. In the time of fickness, and near to death, vast wo Dired. 1. Let your firft work, when God feemeth to call you away, be, to renew a diligent fearch of your hearts and lives, and to fee left in either of them there fhould be any fin which is not truly hated and repented of.

Though this must be done through all your lives, yet with an extraordinary care and diligence when you are like to come fo fpeedily to your tryal. For it is only to Repenting Believers, that the Covenant of Grace doth pardon fin: And the impenitent have no right to pardon. Though for ordinary failings which are forgotten, and for fins which you are willing to know and icmember, but cannot a general Repentance will be accepted. (as when you pray God to thew you the fins which you fee not, and to forgive thofe you the be which you cannot remember or find out :) Yet thofe which you know must be particularly repented of: And Repentance is a remembring duty, and will hardly forget any great and heinous fins, which are known to be fins indeed. If your Repentance be then to begin, alas it is high time to begin it: And though if it be found, it will be faving (that is, If it be fuch as would fettle you in a truly godly life, if you fould reCover;) yet you will hardly have any affurance of falvation, or fuch comfort in it as is defirable to a dying man: Becaule you will very hardly know whether it come from true con