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DEATH AND HEAVEN,

OR THE

LAST ENEMY CONQUERED,

AND

SEPARATE SPIRITS MADE PERFECT.

1

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 candeur 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 transcendent. The name, the title and the character of your excellent father deceased, 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 nie further assurance that this is your aim, 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 argu-ment 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.

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