great benefit in the performance of this duty, that it will incline our hearts to be the more heavenly, and draw up our desires to the society which we so much love and honour.

Direct. 11. 'Remember that it is a part of the life of faith, to see by it the heavenly society of the blessed, and a part of your heavenly conversation, to have frequent, serious, and delightful thoughts of those crowned souls that are with Christ.'

Otherwise God would never have given us such descriptions of the heavenly Jerusalem, and told us so much of the hosts of God that must inhabit it for ever; that must come from the "east and from the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God." When it is said that our conversation (Toλirevua) is in heaven, the meaning extendeth both to our relation, privileges, and converse we are denizens or citizens of the heavenly society; and our title to their happiness is our highest privilege and honour; and therefore our daily business is there, and our sweetest and most serious converse is with Christ and all those blessed spirits. Whatever we are doing here, our eye and heart should still be there: for we "look not at the temporal things which are seen, but at the eternal things which are not seen." A wise Christian that hath forsaken the kingdom of darkness, will be desirous to know what the kingdom of Christ is into which he is translated, and who are his fellow subjects, and what are their several ranks and dignities, so far as tendeth to his congruous converse with them all. And how should it affect us to find that "we are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant?" Live then as the members of this society, and exclude not the chief members from your thoughts and converse; though our local, visible communion be only with these rural, inferior inhabitants, and not with the courtiers of the king of heaven, yet our mental communion may be much with them.

If

our home and treasure be there with them, our hearts will be there also.

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Direct. 111. It is the will of God that the memory of the saints be honoured on earth when they are dead.' It is some part of his favour which he hath promised to them. The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rote." Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." The history of the Scripture recordeth the lives of the saints to their perpetual honour.

will have it so also for the sake of his abused servants upon earth, that they may see that the slanders of malicious tongues, shall not be able to obscure the glory of his grace, and that the lies of the ungodly prevail but for a moment. And God will have it so for the sake of the ungodly, that they may be ashamed of their malicious enmity and lies against the godly, while they perceive that the departed saints do leave behind them a surviving testimony of their sanctity and innocency, sufficient to confound the venomous calumnies of the serpent's seed. Yea, God will have the names of his eminent servants to be honoured upon earth, for the honour of their Head, and of his grace and Gospel so that while malice would cast dishonour upon Christ, from the meanness and failings of his servants that are alive, the memory of the dead, (who were once as much despised and slandered,) shall rise up against them to his honour and their shame. And it is very observable how God constraineth the bitter enemies of holiness to bear this testimony for the honour of holiness against themselves! that many who are the cruellest persecutors and murderers of the living saints, do honour the dead even to excess ". How zealous are the Papists for the multitude of their holidays, and the honouring of their names and relics, and pretending many miracles to be wrought by a very touch of their shrines or bones, whilst they revile and murder those that imitate them, and deprive temporal lords of their dominions that will not exterminate them. Yea, while they burn the living saints, they make it part of their crime or heresy,

e Prov. x. 7.

f Matt. xxvi. 13.

8 Concil. Later. sub Innoc. III. Cau. 3.

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that they honour not the days and relics of the dead, so much as they: to shew us that the things that have been shall be, and that wickedness is the same in all generations. "Woe unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" I know that neither did the pharisees, nor do the Papists, believe that those whom they murdered were saints, but deceivers and heretics, and the troublers of the world: but if charity be the grace most necessary to salvation, then sure it will not keep any man from damnation, that he had malice and uncharitableness sufficient to persuade him, that the members of Christ were children of the devil. But thus God will force even the persecutors and haters of his saints to honour them. And if he constrain his enemies to it, his servants should not be backward to do it according to his will.

Direct. IV. Only such honour must be given to departed saints, as subserveth the honour of God; and nothing must be ascribed to them that is his prerogative.' All that of God which was communicated to them and appeared in them, must be acknowledged: but so that God must still be acknowledged the spring of all; and no honour given ultimately to them; but it is God in them that we must behold and love, admire and honour.

Direct. v. The honour of the saints departed must be only such as tendeth to the promoting of holiness among the living.' It is a most horrid aggravation of those men's sins, who make their honouring of the saints departed a cover for their hating and persecuting their followers; or that make it an engine for the carrying on of some base design. Some make it a device for the advancing of their parties and peculiar opinions. The Papists make it a very great means for the maintaining the usurped power of the pope, giving him the power of canonizing saints, and assur

Matt. xxiii. 29-33.

ing the world what souls are in heaven. A pope that by the testimony of a General Council (as Joh. 23. Eugenius, &c.) is a heretic, and a wicked wretch, and never like to come to heaven himself, can assure the world of a very large catalogue of persons that are there. And he that by the Papists is confessed fallible in matters of fact, pretendeth to know so certainly who were saints, as to appoint them holidays, and command the church to pray to them. And he that teacheth men that they cannot be certain themselves of their salvation, pretendeth when they are dead that he is certain that they are saved. To pretend the veneration of saints for such carnal, ambitious designs, and cheats, and cruelties, is a sin unfit for any that mentioneth a saint. So is it when men pretend that saints are some rare, extraordinary persons among the living members of the church: to make men believe that honouring them will serve instead of imitating them; and that all are not saints that go to heaven. God forbid,' say they, that none but holy persons should be saved: we confess it is good to be saints, and they are the chief in heaven; but we hope those that are no saints may be saved for all that.' But God saith, that without holiness none shall see him." Heaven is the inheritance of none but saints. He that extolleth saints to make men believe that those that are no saints may be saved, doth serve the devil by honouring the saints. The same I may say of those that give them Divine honour, ascribing to each a power to hear and help all throughout the world that put up prayers to them.

Direct. vi. Look up to the blessedness of departed souls, as members of the same body, rejoicing with them, and praising God that hath so exalted them.' This is the benefit of holy love and Christian unity, that it maketh our brethren's happiness to be unto us, in a manner as if it were our own. "That there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another-that if one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it." So far as selfishness is overcome, and turned into the uniting love of saints, so far are all the joys of the blessed souls in heaven become the joys of all that truly love them upon earth. How happy then is the state

i Heb. xii. 14.

* Acts xxvi. 18. Col. i, 12.

1 Cor. xii. 25, 26.

of all true believers, that have so many to rejoice with! Deny not God that thanks for the saving of so many souls, which you would not deny him, if he saved but your friends, estates, or lives. Especially when afflictions or temptations would deprive you of the joy which you should have in God's mercies to yourselves, then comfort yourselves with the remembrance of your brethren's joy. What an incongruous, indecent thing is it for that man to pine away in sorrows upon earth, who hath so many thousand friends in heaven, in joy and blessedness, whose joys should all be to him as his own!

Direct. VII. When you feel a cooling of your love to God, or of your zeal, or reverence, or other graces, think then of the temper of those holy souls, that see his glory!' O think, with what fervour do they love their God! with what transporting sweetness do they delight in him! with what reverence do they all behold him! And am not I his servant, and a member of his family as well as they? shall I be like the strangers of this frozen world, when I should be like my fellow citizens above? As it will dispose a man to weep to see the tears and grief of others; and as it will dispose a man to mirth and joy to see the mirth and joy of others; so is it a potent help to raise the soul to the love of God, and delight in his service, to think believingly of the love and delight of such a world of blessed spirits.

Direct. VIII. . When you draw near to God in his holy worship, remember that you are part of the same society with those blessed spirits that are praising him in perfection.' Remember that you are members of the same choir, and your part must go to make up the melody; and therefore you should be as little discordant from them as possibly you can. The quality of those that we join with in God's service, is apt either to dull or quicken us, to depress or elevate us; and we move heavenward most easily and swiftly in that company which is going thither on the swiftest pace. A believing thought that we are worshipping God in concert with the heavenly choir, and of the high and holy raptures of those spirits, in the continual praise of their great Creator, is an excellent means to warm and quicken us, and raise us as near their holy frame, as here on earth may be expected.