_Direct._ III. It is the will of God that the memory of the saints be honoured on earth when they are dead. It is some part of his favour which he hath promised to them. Prov. x. 7, "The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot." Matt. xxvi. 13, "Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." The history of the Scripture recordeth the lives of the saints to their perpetual honour. And God will have it so also for the sake of his abused servants upon earth, that they may see that the slanders of malicious tongues shall not be able to obscure the glory of his grace, and that the lies of the ungodly prevail but for a moment. And God will have it so for the sake of the ungodly, that they may be ashamed of their malicious enmity and lies against the godly, while they perceive that the departed saints do leave behind them a surviving testimony of their sanctity and innocency, sufficient to confound the venomous calumnies of the serpent's seed. Yea, God will have the names of his eminent servants to be honoured upon earth, for the honour of their Head, and of his grace and gospel; so that while malice would cast dishonour upon Christ; from the meanness and failings of his servants that are alive, the memory of the dead (who were once as much despised and slandered) shall rise up against them to his honour and their shame. And it is very observable how God constraineth the bitter enemies of holiness to bear this testimony for the honour of holiness against themselves! that many who are the cruelest persecutors and murderers of the living saints, do honour the dead even to excess.[187] How zealous are the papists for the multitude of their holidays, and the honouring of their names and relics, and pretending many miracles to be wrought by a very touch of their shrines or bones, whilst they revile and murder those that imitate them, and deprive temporal lords of their dominions that will not exterminate them. Yea, while they burn the living saints, they make it part of their crime or heresy, that they honour not the days and relics of the dead, so much as they; to show us that the things that have been shall be, and that wickedness is the same in all generations. Matt. xxiii. 29-33, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" I know that neither did the Pharisees, nor do the papists, believe that those whom they murdered were saints, but deceivers and heretics, and the troublers of the world; but if charity be the grace most necessary to salvation, then sure it will not keep any man from damnation, that he had malice and uncharitableness sufficient to persuade him, that the members of Christ were children of the devil. But thus God will force even the persecutors and haters of his saints to honour them. And if he constrain his enemies to it, his servants should not be backward to do it according to his will.
_Direct._ IV. Only such honour must be given to departed saints, as subserveth the honour of God; and nothing must be ascribed to them that is his prerogative. All that of God which was communicated to them and appeared in them, must be acknowledged; but so that God must still be acknowledged the spring of all; and no honour given ultimately to them; but it is God in them that we must behold and love, admire and honour.