Reverend Father but Love to a Parent tho ne'er so tender is lost in that to a Wife And now as is mentioned in the following Essay if I can mingle my Ashes wi h thine I have nothing farther to ask those few Hours I do survive thee but can I word it so when your Letter says When dead and gone you shaâ—â— still live in Phil. who is dearer to you than Lâ—fe it self thy Tomb shall be my Breast till on six Shoulders I am brought to thee and n as the only Companions of my long Home So that now leaving All Pleasures behind me and my Dear fast asleep in her Grave I 'll drop a few Tears on thy Coffin and so depart to my own House which tho once so pleasant to thee and me will now whilst thou art found in no room of it appear a very melancholy thing Tears To the Memory of DEAR ELIZA who departed this Life in the Year 1697. SAcred Urn with whom we trust This Dear Pile of Sacred Dust Know thy Charge and safely Guard 'Till Death's Brazen Gates unbarr'd 'Till the Angel bids it rise And remove to Paradise A Wife Obliging Tender Wise A Friend to Comfort and Advise Vertue mild as Zephir's Breatb Piety which smiled in Death Such a Wife and such a Friend All Lament and all Commend Most with Eating Cares opprest He who knew and loved her best Who her Loyal Heart did share He who reign'd Unrivall'd there And no Truce to Sighs will give 'Till he die with her to live Or if more we woud comprize Here Interr'd ELIZA lies Thus you see my Dear if you can see from Heaven to Earth how loth I am to give the beck'n of Farewell the best of Wives and my Truest Friend is but part of your Character and I can't leave such a Treasure in Post haste I had kinder things to add but my whole Family Friend J n and honest N y call me down so must reserve the rest ' til we meet in Heaven * The Primitive Christians buried their Saints with Hymns and Psalms of Joy Chrysostom on the Hebrews saith We are to glorifie God and give thanks to him that he hath crown'd the Deceased and freed them from their Labours and chides those that mourn'd And the Days of their Death were called the Birth-days of the Saints And Hierome in his Epitaph on Holy Paula saith That at her Funeral no Shreeks were heard but Multitudes of Psalms and Hymns were sung in divers Languages See Mr. Henry's Life p. 206. but here 's enough to let you see that as in Life so in Death I am wholly Yours and shall so continue as long as I am Philaret From Eliza 's Grave July 10th 1697. AN ESSAY PROVING We shall know our Friends in Heaven c. In a Letter to a Reverend Divine OUR Secret Correspondence my Dear Ignotus as it owes its Rise to the melodious Notes of the WESTERN NIGHTINGALE so it has been continued ever since with a World of Harmony Maugre the great Opposition it met with from Argus and his Aged Friend In this long Correspondence I attempted to prove as the First Step to our Friendship That there may be a greater Love 'tween Man and Man than 'tween Man and Woman I next proceeded to other Subjects and from thence to treat of Conjugal Love where I gave you the Character of my First Wife told you how she designed to Love if ever she married proved the practised her own * They were Rules she writ whilst a Virgin for her own practice if ever she entred into a married state Rules and having told you what her Rules were I next from my own Experience compar'd a single Life and a married together defended my Loving again in a months time and having ended with Honey-Moon 't is proper next to speak of that state of Life where they neither marry nor are given in Marriage And this leads me to enquire Whether we shall Know our Wives Parents Children and Friends in Heaven if ever we get thither I told you in my Last the Answering of this shou'd be the Subject of this Letter and that I 'de send it by this Post I have now kept my word and heartily wish you having so much desir'd it the Mountain may not produce a Mâ—use However I have done my best But before I discourse of Knowing our Friends in Heaven I must first tell you That good Eliza that dearest part of my self went thither in May last Her Death has made me so very melancholy that I had pin'd away in a few days had not the hopes of finding her again in Heaven given me some Relief Oh! the Sighs the Wishes the Languishments with a long c. Chargeable on that Account really Sir there are yet Tears in my Eyes left undried for the Dear Eliza the best of Wives and best of Friends I yet feel the Torments to which a Heart is exposed that loses what it Loves none love as I have lâ—ved My sentiments have a delicacy unknown to my others but my self and my Heart Lov'd Eliza more in one Hour then others do in all their Lives Witness the Tears shed on her Grave to what excess I love her I want to know wâ—at sullen â—â—â—r â—ul'd at my Birth that Phil. should Live when Eliza iâ— Dead or at least Dead to me or if there be a Beam of Comfort 't is n't to shine till the Resurrection or till I meet her in Heaven Thus the kind Turtle parted from his Mate passes by a Thousand Objects and only mourns at all he sees but met their Life and Love is through each others Bill convey'd But Mum for that for Valeria and I have now compounded with one another and Resolv'd for better for worse have been at I Ned take thee Hannah But on what Conditions with the Terms of our Honey Moon you shall know hereafter 'T is enough if I say at present That she fully understands and practises all the Duties of a Tender Wife so that she seems to be Eliza still in a New Edition more Correct and Enlarged or rather my First Wife in a New Frame for I have only changed the Person but not the Vertues But I leave Valeria here for the Dearest Friends must part to answer this Curious Question Whether we shall know our Friends in Heaven I send you my Sentiments in this matter in hopes you 'll Rectifie my Judgment where you find it Err and supply my Defects with better thoughts of your own that so between us this Curious Subject may be fully handled which I the rather mention for that te'nt my way to say much to the purpose on common Suhjects much less can you expect it in such a Theam as this where had I an Angel's Tongue I should be at a Loss The way to Heaven is Long and Difficult and therefore no wonder if now and then I mistake a Turning but when I do I hope Ignotus you 'll set
Impressed upon my Soul I have not the Comfort of any Child by so blessed and sweet a Yoke-fellow to be a living Evidence of our Mutual Endearments then God and Man I hope will pardon me if I endeavour to have the Idea of thy Perfections always before me and that I have drawn this faint Shadow of 'em with my rude Pen as a more useful and valuable Portraiture of thee than any that could be drawn by the Pencil of the most Famous Artist that is but the Outside but this is the Inside and what I was taught by the Divine Records That the King's Daughters are Glorious within I found it to be true by Experience in thee you convinc'd me what Charms there are in a Vertuous Spouse What a Mine of Pleasure What sprightly Life and Vigour did my Dear give to all my Thoughts Looks and Actions How many new Satisfactions in every thing you did How did I even live in your dying Words Oh the kind and tender Farewells you gave me with your last Breath such as Poor Rogue thou art the kindest Husband that ever lived Ill love thee as long as I live Thou art a dear Child to me I love thee dearly I pray God bless my dear Yoke-fellow and give him Grace I pray thee give him Grace to live so here as he may live with thee hereafter which you repeated over and over very earnestly further begging that God would make me his for there was Grace enough in store To the last Minute of your Life you spake nothing so sensibly as when you spake of Heavenly things and all this you utter'd at the time when you were actually dying It would be a pleasant and delectable Subject for me further to expatiate upon thy Graces and Moral Vertues but I shall conclude with the Wise Mans Character of a Vertuous Woman that Many Daughters have done Vertuously * Prov. 31.29 but thou excellest them all and therefore tho it should be my Lot to engage in a Second Marriage yet it will be impossible for any other Wife to deface the Impression which thou hast made upon me and seeing I can no more enjoy thy sweet Fellowship here on Earth I will contemplate upon thy Perfections and view this Picture which my Affection hath copied from the Original that thy Vertues had impressed upon my own Soul And thus my dearest I must with unexpressible Grief bid thee a long Adieu but that which still comforts me is that we shall meet in Heaven where there shall never be any more perplexing Separation And it shou'd be a great Satisfaction to me to consider That the Providence of God order'd thy Death when I could be present and perform the last Offices of my Love That it did not happen at such a time when I was in Holland and at a great Distance from thee So you had the Comfort of my Love to the last moments of your Life And doubtless it pleased and comforted you much and allay'd your Affliction to see that you enjoy'd in your distress the constant Attendance of so dear a Friend And if this softned your Affliction it may justly lessen my Sorrow for what you endur'd I may be satisfied too in this That I sought and procur'd for you the best Means and Helps to recover you that Art Nature could afford and sure I am could any Physitian or Friend have sav'd your Life it had been Dr. T Mr. C and Cousin J n whose unwearied Endeavours to preserve thy Life shall be * As you desired on your Death-Bed thankfully acknowledged to my Dying Day but it being evidently God's Will to take you from me no Care or Tenderness could retain you amongst us but my Comfort is that as you was Virtuous and Pious you was in the same measure willing to Die and able to receive your Death with an undanted Courage and Resolution Virtue * See Mr. Dorington's Consolations to a Friend is an Essay a kind of Preludium of Dying As it mortifies our Affections to this vain World and fixes them on better Objects the Gifts and Felicities of Heaven Eliza was practising Death by Degrees while she liv'd and mortified first one Affection then another To make the Burden of Dying more easier to bear you took it up by Parcels and so having delivered your self from them you did not bear it all at once Thus it came to pass that Eliza was no sooner sensible she must die than willing to do so She was ready to resign up her good Soul into the Hands of a Faithful Creator Eliza whose Death I am tempted inordinately to Lament did not at all Lament for her self Your willing Submission and Resignation to the Divine Disposal should teach me the same thing You went away perhaps not only contented but joyful that you was to go Tho your Love to me and your Wisdom might make you Conceal that you was willing to leavâ— me yet you was glad I may believe to find that you had finish'd your Course for you had such Foretastes of the Heavenly Bliss as even ravish'd your Soul away Then 't is very incongruous that I shou'd attend your Triumph and Ioy with my immoderate Sorrow and Tears the Remembrance of your Happiness in the unseen World should give Comfort to me under the great Loss I have by your Death Have I not taken Satisfaction heretofore to reflect upon the obliging and charming Conversation of Eliza when my Affairs have kept me absent from her And have not such Reflections sweetned and allay'd that Absence Why then should not such Reflections do me the same Kindness still If I let this Impertinent Thought afflict me that I must no more enjoy the same Delight it will deprive me too of all the Use and Comfort and Pleasure of what I once enjoyed in Eliza which would make my Condition still much the worse Then why shou'd I grieve (a) See the Note at the end of the Dedication with this Mark * thus seeing Eliza is only departed from me for a while she is not lost nor annihilated Thy Body Eliza is laid in the Dust to rest in the quiet Grave and is there watcht by the careful Eye of Divine Omnisience And wheresoever any Parts of that may happen in Ages to come to be scatter'd the Divine Power will certainly collect them all again and thou shall be perfectly restored to Being and Happiness But the mean while thy better Part the noble Soul is return'd to God that gave it And since so much of thee still lives I may say thou art gone to thy Celestial Kindred Upon your Departure from the Body I do believe you immediately found your self like the Soul of good Lazarus attended by kind and glorious Angels And they I must needs think were not silent at their meeting you They congratulate your Delivery from this World applaud your Patience in suffering the Evils of it your Diligence in doing Good your bold Conflicts against the
Assaults of many Temptations and your Perseverance to the end of your Life If I could look within the Veil and view the Celestial Temple I shou'd see you there in Transports of Joy surrounded with a Glorious Ring of Rejoycing Spirits Then how unsuitable is it that I should immoderately grieve for Eliza when she is gone to inhabit a Joy unspeakable and glorious Eliza while I am mourning for thy Death thou art giving Thanks for it you are overjoy'd to think that it is over with you and that you have finish'd your last and worst Conflict with the Enemy of your Salvation How happy soever your Condition was on Earth it is much happier now The Place and Condition you are in is represented in the Divine Writings by all that is great pleasant and glorious in this World but we are also told there that all these Representations fall short of it I cannot know then how happy Eliza is till I go to see and that must be now the Care that engages me With all my Sorrow with all my vain Wishes I cannot bring you back again from thence and I should do you the greatest Diskindness if I could I must then if I am truly sorry to have parted with you be earnestly concern'd to meet you again And that I may do so I will earnestly concern my self to serve and promote the Glory of God among Men and to do all the good Offices to the World that I can And I will as often as I think of Dear Eliza who is gone before excite my self to these things in Consideration that this Course will bring me to dwell with her again And if I make such Resolutions as these and perform them then I may promise my in a little time to meet you where the Spirits of Just Men are made perfect where we shall love again and that with an Affection more pure and more ardent than before Where both of us shall be more happy than ever we could be here We shall have no Griefs to communicate no Complaints to make to one another No Burdens or Cares to divide hetween us no †'T is the Saying of one that to distrust the word of an honest Man is not only to expose him to H C but to rank him in the number of V le ts such Carking Jealousie justifies the severest Resentment as Reputation is a tender thing and dearer to a good Man than his Life then what Conscience must that Person have that makes those Resentments a Câ—ime which were occasioned by the Provocations given But I stop here for the Barbarous Treatments that 〈◊〉 and othâ—â—â— meet with in this kind â— sufficiently proves at what Door such Quarrels lie Distrust to allay our Happiness or damp our Joy no Distance of (a) As I hinted before in P. 8. Place shall part us there or hinder our delightful Communion with one another We shall be of one Family in one Sacred Temple and in one rejoycing Quire joyning to pay Eternal Adorations and Thankful Praises to the Father Son and Holy Ghost We shall never be parted more Within a little while this happy Meeting may be It cannot be far off since it will come at the end of my Life Then seeing a Part of me is now in Heaven I shall take Mr. Rogers Advice (a) See Mr. Rogers Character of a Good Woman P. 163. to his Friend Make this Vse of my Loss more diligently to prepare to meet you in Heaven where our Conversation will be infinitely more pleasant and more durable than it ever was on Earth and there as you told me on your Death-Bed We shall meet and never part This is also the Opinion of our Friend H n for in his last Epistle He wishes he may so live this Year and the Remainder of his time That at last he may meet Eliza c. and the rest of the Saints There we shall have Joys eo the full And I think adds he this will be ONE HAPPINESS to have sweet Conversation with Pure and Spotless Creatures without Hindrance or Disturbance for ever c. Some Hope that they in Heaven their Learning share But sure Love and Friendship enter there I am impatient till I find it again in Eliza and till that happy Minute come as I told your Brother All my pleasant Days are over 'T is true I have been at Agford since your Death and you saw me there if you know what 's done on Earth to see that Dear unknown you so much admir'd and as you thought cou'd have made me happy but when I arriv'd My Heaven was still as distant as before all I got was Joy in Reversion and scarce that For ever since that Fatal Afternoon I first saw Cloris Madam Shute and Madam W ch I have not tasted a Minutes Joy nor expect it now till I meet Eliza and she 's gone to Heaven Poor Miserable Phil If Fate happen to guild o're one Inch of thy Vnhappy Span and lend a Glimpse of Heaven in a Wife how soon does the Beauteous Vision vanish out of Sight Ah Cloris must we part then first let me close thy Eyes bedew thy (a) The Chinese always before they bury their Dead if he was a Married Man bring him to his Wife that so she might first kiss him and bid him farewel Cheeks a little compose thy Body for the Grave follow thee thither see thee put into it be one of the last that shall come thence as I desired of thee if I died first and then farewel till we meet in the Silent Grave where I 'll visit thee and when I leave this Light Come spend my time in the same Cell at Night Till then farewel farewel I cannot take A Final Leave until thy Ashes wake Dr. Brown applauds those ingenious Tempers that desire to sleep in the Vrns of their Fathers and strive to go the nearest way to Corruption 'T was the late Request of a great Divine to lie by his Wife in Shoreditch and for that reason he was buried there and Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston in his last Will desires his Executors that the Bones of his Father might be digged out of the Earth where they were buried and laid by his own Body in a new Vault he ordered them to erect for the same purpose that tho he could not live with his Father as Iong as he would have desired yet he designed their Bodies should lie together till the Resurrection As it is good to enjoy the Company of the Godly while they are living so it is not amiss if it will stand with Convenience to be buried with them after Death The old Prophets Bones escaped a burning by being buried with the other Prophets and the Man who was tumbled into the Grave of Elisha was revived by the Vertue of his Bones So good it is to be buried with those that are accounted Pious 'T was for this reason I formerly desired to Lie in the Chancel of with my
The Quality Condition or Circumstance of the Person very much adding to or taking from the Goodness or Badness of the Action or Expression Neither (a) See Mr. Shower's Mourner's Companion P. 63. can it well be Imagined how the Process and Proceedings of the Judgment Day according to the Scripture-Account of it can be manag d by the Man Christ Jesus or the Lord Redeemer cloathed with human Nature without our Knowledge of one another in the other World who were Acquainted and Conversed together in this 'T is true the present Relations by Marriages and Blood will then cease but there is no reason to think that the Remembrance of those Relations must also cease yea their Knowledge and Remembrance of us and their Affection to us whom we knew and lov'd in the Lord is not like to be Abolish'd but perfected by dying A particular Remembrance of our Actions and Words in the other World must needs infer as particular a Remembrance of the very individual Persons to whom they refer and do not think my Ignotus that God will preserve so intire a Memory in the Wicked for their Torment and will not preserve as perfect and exquisite a Remembrance in the Vertuous for the increase of their Joy As God will exact an Account for every idle Word Men shall speak so He will bring to the Remembrance of his Chosen all the good Actions they have done nor will He let them forget their dear Companions and pious Conversation they have had one with another So much as a Cup of cold Water given to a Disciple in the Name of a Disciple Matth. 10.42 He will not let us forget nor the Disciple neither to whom 't was given He will shew us every one of those Persons when we come to Heaven to whom we have done any Good on Earth and pointing to them will say to us Forasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me Matth. 25.40 And as we shall be made to know and remember all the particular Persons we have done any Good to and with whom we have been acquainted So 't is as plain they shall be made to know and remember us as appears by the Parable of the unjust Steward since 't is intimated there that the Poor to whom the Richer Christians had been liberal shall plead with God that their Benefactors likewise may be received into the same everlasting Habitations with themselves which how they cou'd do unless they were some way or other made to know those particular Friends again that had relieved them is hard to conceive But since Christ assures us That the very Angels tho' they be so far from being related to our Persons that they are Foreigners to our very Nature which by the way is an addition to our Glory that our Natures not theirs was taken into the Personal Union with God receive accession of Joy for a relenting Sinner Luke 15.7 that by Repentance begins to turn towards God You will not think it absurd says the Ingenious Boyl That in a place where Charity shall not only continue as St. Paul speaks 1 Cor. 13.8 but grow perfect our dear Friends shouâ—d rejoyce to see us not only begin to turn towards God but come home to Him nor is it unlikely as I hinted before that our Transported Souls shall mutually Congratulate each other their having now fully escaped the numerous Rocks and Shelves and Quick Sands and threatning Storms and no less dangerous Calms thro which they are at length arrived at that peaceful Haven where is both Innocence and Delight which are here so seldome match'd with those Friends we here lamented we shall there rejoyce And 't will be but needful that the Discovery of each others Vertues shou'd bring us to a mutual Knowledge of our Persons for otherwise we shall be so changed that we shou'd never know our Friends and shou'd scarce know our selves were not an Eminent Encrease of Knowledge a part of that happy Change for those departed Friends whom at our last Separation we saw disfigured by all the Ghastly Horrors of Death we shall then see assisting about the Majestick Throne of Christ with their once vile Bodies transfigured into the likeness of his Glorious Body mingling their glad Acclamations with the Hallelujahs of Thrones Principalities and Powers and the most dignified Favourites of the Celestial Court In Heaven continues this Author we shall not only see our elder Brother Christ but probably also all our Kindred Friends and Relations that living here in his Fear died in his Favour For since our Saviour tells us that the Children of the Resurrection shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to or like the Angels Luk. 20.46 who yet in the Visions of Daniel and St. John appear to be acquainted with each other When the having turned many to Righteousness Dan. 2. shall as the Scripture foretells confer a Star-like and Immortal Brightness Since which is chiefly considerable the knowledge * As was hinted before in P. 34. of particular Actions and consequently Persons seems requisite to the Attainment of that great End of God in the day of Judgment the Manifestation of his Punitive and Remunerative Justice considering this 't is very probable that we shall know each other in a place where since nothing requisite to Happiness can be wanting we may well suppâ—se â—at least if we can imagine here what we shall think there that we shall not want so great a satisfaction as that of being knowingly happy in our other selves our Friends Nor is this only probable Lindamor but 't is not improbable that those Friends that knew us in Heaven shall welcome us thither It was no small Contentment and Satisfaction to St. Paul that he should meet his beloved Thessalonians in the Presence of Christ for thus much seemeth to be intimated by that his exuâ—ting demand what is our Hope or Joy or Crown of Rejoycing are not ye even in the Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming Which must needs imply his distinct Knowledge of them in that day which must be many Hundred Years after Death hath separated them from each other And the same Apostle when he would set Bounds and Limits to a Christian's sorrowing for the Dead tells us that we must not sorrow as those that have no Hope Such Mens Sorrow finds no Ease because that Good whose Absence they bemoan in their Opinion is irrecoverably lost and to shake Hands with a Dying Friend is with them as much as to bid them everlastingly farewel But a Christian's Tears like Drops from a Cloud may sometimes fall they must not like a River be always running He may sorrow because he is parted from some Good suppose from a loving Friend but this Sorrow must be tempered with this Hope that he shall see his Friend again And we find the late Athenians of this Opinion for being asked by one of their