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stream of it a little diversion into a better channel. Come, let us take the advice which our blessed Saviour gives to the daughters of Jerusalem, who atended him to his cross with tears, Luke xxiii. 28. Weep not for me," but if ye must weep, "do it or yourselves and your children;" because you are till left in the valley of sin and sorrow, while the aints departed are arrived at the land of peace, and heir feet stand upon the mountains of paradise.

Could the voice of those blessed spirits made perect reach our ears, we should hear them speak in he language of their Lord, "Weep not for us, but For yourselves; you are still encompassed with emptations and difficulties, we have surmounted hem all you are wrestling with many errors, and entangled in dark and noisy controversies; we are perfect in knowledge, and see divine mysteries in divine light you are laboring in the race; we Are crowned, and have received the prize: you are till striving in the field of battle, and we will renember the toilsome and painful conflict; we pity hou, and call you rather to weep for yourselves han for us; we have finished the war through divine grace, and are secure in the city of triumph: You are yet travelling through the valley of tears; we are refreshing ourselves in the gardens of pleaure, and on hills of everlasting gladness. Hold on with courage, and faith, and patience; there are mansions of joy prepared for you also, and we wait your happy arrival."

A Remark IV. Are the spirits of just men in heaven made perfect, in the same excellencies and privileges which they possessed on earth? then, "if our curiosity, or our love, has a mind to know what are the circumstances of our pious friends departed, or how they are employed above, let us review what they were here below, and how they employed themselves when they were with us;" for, as I told you, in this life we are trained up for the life of (XVII. )

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glory: we shall then be advanced to a glorious and transcendent degree of the same graces; and there will be something in the future state of rewards an swerable and correspondent to the present state of labor and trial.

This thought necessarily calls our meditations backward a little, to take a short survey of some peculiar characters of our excellent friend departed, that we may learn to rejoice in the present perfec tion of his graces and glories.

SECT. VII.

THE CHARACTER OF THE DECEASED.

WHEN I name Sir JOHN HARTOPP, all that knew him will agree that I name a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian; and neither of these characters, in the best and most valuable sense of them, could forsake him at his entrance into heaven.

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He shone with eminence among the persons of birth and title* on earth; while his obliging deportment, and his affable temper, rendered him easy access to all his inferiors, and made him the delight of his friends. Though he knew what was due to his quality in this world, yet he affected none of the grandeurs of life, but daily practised condescension and love, and secured the respect of all, without assuming a superior air.

"Then surely he carried this temper with him to the upper world, where gentleness and goodness reign in the highest perfection; and doubtless be practises now all the same graces of conversation among the blessed spirits there, but in a far superior manner, according to the unknown laws and customs of that region of light and love."

* His grandfather, Sir Edward Hartopp, was created a Baronet by King James I. 1619, which was but a few years after the first institution of that order,

He had a taste for universal learning; and ingenius arts were his delight from his youth. He purued knowledge in various forms, and was acquaintd with many parts of human science. Mathemaical speculations and practices were a favorite study with him in his younger years; and even to his old ge, he maintained his acquaintance with the moions of the heavenly bodies, and light and shade, hereby time is measured.

"And,may we not suppose that there are enterainments amongst the works of God on high to east the spirit of such a genius? May they not, n that upper region, look down and survey the arious contrivances of divine wisdom, which creaed all things in these lower worlds, in number, weight, and measure? May not our exalted friend give glory there to his Maker, in the contemplaion of the same heavenly bodies, though he dwells n the region where night and shadows are never known, and above the need or use of sunbeams?"

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But the book of God was his chief study, and his livinest delight. His Bible lay before him night and day and he was well acquainted with the writers that explained it best. He was desirous of seeing what the Spirit of God said to men in the original languages. For this end he commenced some acquaintance with Hebrew when he was more than fifty years old: and that he might be capable of judging of the true sense of any text in the New Testament, he kept his youthful knowledge of the Greek language in some measure even to the period of his life.

"But earthly languages are of little use in heaven.. There are too many defects and ambiguities in them to express the bright, the complete, and the distinct ideas of separate spirits. We may allow our learned friend therefore to be divested of. these when he dropt mortality. Now he is out of the body, and caught up to dwell in paradise,

where St. Paul made heretofore a short visit, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4 he hears and he speakssthose unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a mortal tongue to utter. The things of heaven are not to be expressed in any foreign language."

Among the various themes of christian contemplation, he took peculiar pleasure in the doctrines of grace, in the display of the glories of the person of Christ, God in our nature, and the wondrous work of redemption by his cross. He adored him as his Lord and his God: and while he trusted in his righte ousness as the great Mediator, and beheld him as his crucified Saviour, he was ever zealous to maintain the honor due to his divine nature and majesty.

"And we may be sure this is a study in which he is still engaged, and he spends the days of his eternity in the pleasurable contemplation of his glorified Redeemer, and the sacred mysteries of his cross and his throne, which things the angels desire to pry into."

His practice in life was agreeable to his christian principles, for he knew that the grace of God, that brings salvation to men, teaches them to deny all ungodliness, and to live sober, righteous, and religious lives; that in all things they may adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour.

"Now that this part of his character is continued and exalted in the region of the blessed spirits, is too evident to need any amplification or proof; for holiness in every part of it is made perfect there, and all under the sweet constraint of love."

His conversation was pious and learned, ingenuous and instructive; he was " inquisitive into the affairs of the learned world, the progress of arts and sciences, the concerns of the nation, and the interest of the church of Christ. And upon all occasions was as ready to communicate as he was to inquire." What he knew of the things of God or man, he resolved not to know them only for him

self, but for the benefit of all that had the honor of his acquaintance. There are many of his friends that will join with me to confess, how often we have departed from his company refreshed and advanced in some useful knowledge. And I cannot but reckon it among the blessings of heaven, when I review those five years of pleasure and improvement which I spent in his family in my younger part of life; and I found much instruction myself, where I was called to be an instructor.

"Nor can I think such inquiries and such communications as are suitable to the affairs of the up. per world, are unpractised among the spirits of just men made perfect there; for man is a sociable creature, and enjoys communion with his fellowsaints there, as well as with his Maker and his Saviour. Nor can the spirit of our honored and departed friend be a stranger to the pleasures of so→ ciety among his fellow-spirits in those blessed man

sions."

His zeal for the welfare of his country, and of the church of Christ in it, carried him out to the most expensive and toilsome services in his younger and his middle age. He employed his time, his spirits, his interest, and his riches for the defence of this poor nation, when forty years ago it was in the utmost danger of popery and ruin*.

"And doubtless the spirits of the just in heaven are not utterly unacquainted with the affairs of the kingdom of Christ on earth. He rejoices and will rejoice among his fellow-saints when happy tidings of the militant church, or of the religious interests of Great Britain, are brought to the upper

*He was three times chosen Representative in Parliament for his county of Leicestershire, in those years when a sacred zeal for liberty and religion strove hard to bring in the Bill of Exclusion, to prevent the Duke of York (afterwards King James II) from inheriting the crown of England.

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