452 THE HAPPINESS OF SEPARATE SPIRITS. [Bise. Ir. there are mansions of joy prepared for you also, and we wait your happy arrival." 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 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 labour and trial. This thought necessarily calls our meditations back- ward a little, to take a short survey of some peculiar cha- racters of our excellent friend departed, that we may learn to rejoice in the present perfection of his graces and glories. SECTION 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. He shone with eminence among persons of birth and title * on earth ; while his obliging deportment and affa- ble temper rendered him easy of access to all his infe- riors, and made him the delight of all 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 he practises now all the * 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.
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