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DEATH AND HEAVEN,

OR

The Last Enemy conquered, and Separate Spirits made perfect : With an Account of the rich Variety of their Employments and Pleasures; Attempted in Two Funeral Discourses, in Memory of SIR JOHN HARTOPP, Bart. and his Lady, deceased.

WITH THE PREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION.

SIR,

To Sir John Hartopp, Baronet.

To descend from such parents as yours, is no common favour of heaven;

nor is it the blessing of every descendant to inherit the natural virtues of his progenitors: yet I know that you esteem your happiness incomplete, without the imitation of their heavenly graces, and the attainment of their sublimest hopes.

Forgive me, Dear Sir, if I take the liberty to say, it is with a sort of fond pleasure that I have beheld your victories over the most dangerous scenes and temptations of youth; and every step in your progress towards perfect triumph, is an addition to my joy. The world and the church hold their eyes fixed upon you, while God and angels, and, perhaps, the souls of your sacred ancestors, look down from on high to observe your conduct. Never was there a more proper time to awaken your zeal for the religion of Christ, than in a day of spreading infidelity and heathenism; nor can there be a fitter season to exert your utmost efforts for the support of serious piety, than in an age of numerous and growing iniquities. Your just sense of refi gious liberty will shine in its fairest glory, while you stand as a barrier against the fearful inroads of a wild and unbounded licentiousness. Nor can your attachment to the cause and interest of the Protestant Dissenters appear with more honour, than while they are defamed and scorned by the proud and the profane, and while their own imprudent contests stand in need of your candour and charity.

Many are the advantages you enjoy for this purpose. Divine Providence has placed your circumstances above the bribery of a flattering world, and a corrupt generation. Your superior sense has no need to stand in awe of fools, who make a mock of sin and godliness. Let your native modesty and gentleness then arm itself with an unshaken courage in the cause of God; and fear not the malicious scoff and censure of sinners, since you have nothing to expect or hope from them.

Go on, Sir, and prosper, in the things of heaven, and become an example of shining holiness in a degenerate world. Let the libertines of the nation know, that you also dare to think freely for yourself, and with all that freedom of thought you dare to chuse the paths of your holy ancestors.

The peculiar favour of God has provided you a consort, whose natural and pious accomplishments and assistances will attend you through all the way. These will soften the seeming severities of strict religion with the

tenderest endaarments of life, and make the pleasures of it double and tran scendent. The name, the title and the character of your excellent father dcceased, require and demand an eminent degree of goodness in his successor. The pious lady your mother, now in heaven, would have rejoiced in the present prospect, and would have purchased your felicity even with her own life, and your numerous relatives around you suspend their happiness upon yours. The piety you have shewn towards your worthy parents from your infancy. and the affectionate honours which you now pay their memory, give me further assurance that this is your aini, and your glorious ambition. And that you may ever keep in mind their example and your duty, you have commanded me to make public these discourses, which were framed on the occasion of their decease.

You well know, Sir, I am no friend to loose panegyric, nor am I wont to bestow it on the dead or the living. What I have written of the late Sir John Hartopp at the end of the second discourse, is the first attempt that ever I made of concluding a funeral sermon with a distinct and particular character of the deceased, through the whole space of twenty-three years of my ministry; and surely the world will not envy nor detract from the just honours of a name so much beloved. As for the lady, your mother, she affected retirement to such a degree, that it would have placed her in a wrong light to have drawn out her virtues at length, and set them to public view. I have therefore only interspersed a few hints of her eminent piety, as the text and argument led me into them: And indeed this is the utmost that I have ever done before on such occasions.

I have much reason to ask pardon that I have so far enlarged these discourses, and especially the last; for I hate the thoughts of making any thing in religion heavy or tiresome: But having entertained myself many a time with some of these meditations on the business and the blessedness of Separate Spirits, I took this opportunity of shewing them to the world, enshrined in the lustre of two such names as adorn my title-page.

To render the reading of them yet more agreeable to yourself and to all your friends, I have cast them into distinct sections, that my readers may leave off almost where they please, and peruse so much of them at one time as suits their present inclination and convenience.

You know, Sir, I pretend to no authority to pronounce effectual blessings upon you; but you will accept the sincere good wishes of a man that loves you, and is zealous for your felicity in the upper and lower worlds. May the best of mercies descend daily on yourself, your lady, and your little offspring! May the closet, the parlour, and public assemblies be constant witnesses of your piety; and the house where a Sir John Hartopp dwells be a house of prayer and of praise in every generation, nor the name be extinguished in your family till the heavens be no more! May the ladies your sisters live happily under the sweet influence of that mutual affection that has been always remarkably cultivated amongst you! Their interests are your care: And I am well persuaded that their solicitude and tender concern for your welfare, will ever deserve and find such returns of love, as I have long observed with delight! May the prayers of your progenitors in past ages be answered in hourly benefits descending on you all, and be fruitful of blessings in ages yet to come! Such a lovely scene, with such a long and joyful prospect, will advance the satisfactions of my life, and give pleasure even in a dying hour, to him who had once the honour to be your affectionate monitor, and must ever write himself,

July 6, 1722.

SIR,

Your obliged, humble servant,
I. WATTS.

To this Book of Death and Heaven, when it was translated into the German Language, and published at Halle, in Saxony, 1727.

TO THE READER.

HERE is communicated to you a treatise, in which the late pious Mr.

Frank, professor of divinity at Halle, found so much edification and satisfaction that he engaged an able person to translate it into our German tongue, to make others partake of the same spiritual benefit. This treatise consists of two funeral sermons, which an English divine, who perhaps is still living, composed on the death of two eminent persons, which he enlarged afterwards for their publication. The subject of the first is death, taken from 1 Cor. xv. 26. The second is heaven, from Heb. xii. 22. From this last he takes an occasion of flying with his thoughts into the blessed mansions of the just made perfect, by giving us not only a very probable and beautiful idea of the glory of a future life in general, but also an enumeration of the many sorts of employments and pleasures, that are to be met with there.

After the several false notions, people of different complexions have of eternal life, are laid open, the author of the preface goes on and quotes some German authors, who have writ upon that subject, and says at last: I hope nobody will presume to aver this doctrine to have been so far exhaused by those authors, that nothing new could be said upon it. For several learned writers in England, who in meditating and searching after hidden truths, have shewn an extraordinary capacity, prove the contrary; and amongst others there is the treatise, called, The future State, published 1683, by a gentleman whose name is concealed, which appeared in French 1700, and is now printed in German with a preface of the famous Dr. Pritius, senior, at Frankfurt ad Mænum. There is among Sir R. Blackmore's Essays, one upon the future beatitudes. The traces of these two English gentlemen are followed by our present English divine I. WATTS, who however, in many points has outdone these predecessors, and advanced a step farther in his contemplations.

Though the first sermon contains many elegant passages worthy to be read, yet the latter seems to be a more elaborate piece, because it sets the doctrine of eternal life in a greater light, and enriches it with many probable inferences drawn from the word of God. He proposes his excellent thoughts in most emphatical terms, in that beautiful order and with such a vivacity of style that he keeps the reader in a continual attention, and an eager desire to read on. It is plain the author's mind was so taken up with the beauty of heaven, that his mouth could not but speak from the abundance of his heart. There is a secret unction in his expressions, which leaves a sweet savour in the reader's heart, and raises in him a desire after the blessed society he speaks of. And though the reader should not entirely agree with the author's notions, yet he will not peruse this treatise without a particular edification and blessing. I cannot deny but the author's conjectures may be sometimes carried a little too far, but that doth not prejudice the subject in the least. Be sides, he is generally so happy as to find some arguments for his probable notions in the word of God, and to answer very dexterously all the objections that can be made against him.

May the ever-living God give a blessing to this work, and grant that those sweet and relishing truths proposed in these leaves may make such an impression upon the minds of the readers as those noble truths deserve. May he prevent all the abuse of this delightful subject, and never permit it to be turned into a mere dry or fruitless speculation; but may he inflame every reader with a holy desire after a blessed eternity, and rouze and excite all those, that have not begun yet to tread the path of salvation, to enter into the same without delay, that they may not rest in a mere delightful prospect of the land of Canaan, nor be for ever excluded by their unbelief from the eternal enjoyment of it. Given at Halle, July 10, 1727. JOHN JACOB RAMBACH, S. Theol. Prof. Ordinar.

VOL. II.

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DISCOURSE I.

The Conquest over Death.

Described in a Funeral Discourse in Memory of the Lady Hartopp, deceased.

THE INTRODUCTION.

I persuade myself that none of you are unacquainted with that mournful providence that calls me to the service of this day*. The words which were borrowed from the lips of the dying, I am desired to improve for the instruction and comfort of those that live. They are written in

1 COR. XV. 26.-The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death.

WHEN a nation hath lain for whole ages under the power of some mighty tyrant, and has suffered perpetual ravages from his hands, what gladness runs through the land, at the sure prediction of his ruin? and how is every inhabitant pleased, while he hears of the approaching downfal of his great enemy? "For this is he that has slain my father or my mother, my children, or my dearest relatives, and is still making havoc of the remnant of my friends, while I myself stand in hourly danger." This pleasure grows up into more perfect joy, when we are assured this is the last tyrant that shall arise, the last enemy that shall afflict us; for he shall have no successor, and we shall be for ever free. Such should be the rejoicing of all the saints, when they hear so desirable and divine a promise as the words of my text; The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death.

To improve this glorious proposition, let us consider these four things, with a reflection or two upon each of them:

I. How death appears to be an enemy to the saints.-II. Why it is called the last enemy, or the last that shall be destroyed. III. How it is to be destroyed, and what are the steps or gradual efforts towards its destruction.-IV. What are the advantages that the saints receive by the destruction of this last enemy.

Section I.-Death an enemy even to good men.-The first enquiry is, how, or in what sense death appears to be an enemy to the saints? That it is in general an enemy to human nature, is sufficiently evident from its first introduction into the world; for it was brought in as an execution of the first threatening

Nov. 9, 1711, the Lady Hartopp died, and this discourse was delivered at Stoke-Newington, Nov. 25, following.

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