_Direct._ I. Remember that the departed souls in heaven are part, and the noblest part, of the body of Christ and family of God, of which you are inferior members; and therefore that you owe them greater love and honour, than you owe to any saints on earth. "The whole family in heaven and earth is named of Christ," Ephes. iii. 15. Those are the happiest and noblest parts, that are most pure and perfect, and dwell in the highest and most glorious habitations, nearest unto Christ, yea, with him. If holiness be lovely, the most holy are the most lovely; we have many obligations therefore, to love them more than the saints on earth: they are more excellent and amiable, and Christ loveth them more. And if any be honourable, it must especially be those spirits that are of greatest excellencies and perfections, and advanced to the greatest glory and nearness to their Lord. Make conscience therefore of this as your duty, not only to love and honour blessed souls, but to love and honour them more than those that are yet on earth. And as every duty is attended with benefit, so we shall find this exceeding 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._ II. 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.[186] 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 (πολίτευμα) is in heaven, Phil. iii. 20, 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, 2 Cor. iv. 18. 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