Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…

O let Christians now so converse together, as remembering that they must meet in Heaven, where all that was secret will be brought to light. If we now put on any Visor, and seem better than we are, if we hide any sin or base corruption; if we by fraud or falsehood deceive our Friends, all this will be opened when we meet in Heaven. It is a daily grief and shame to my Soul, to think of the sins that I have committed against some that are now in Heaven, which I either excused, extenuated or hid: And to think how much evil they will know of me there, which on Earth they knew not by me. But God who pardoneth them, will cause his Servants there to forgive each other; but the detected sin for all that will be an odious shameful thing. Lying and Hypocrisy are there no cloak, but an aggravation of the shame. If we cannot confess and take shame to our selves by repentance upon Earth, how shall we appear in the open light, and see the Faces of those whom we wronged: What diminution it will make of our joy, I know not; but it must needs ⟨p. 330⟩be a dishonour to have been false to God or Man. And especially when we meet where sin is perfectly hated, to think how we either sinned together, or that we tempted and ensnared one another in any sin; how it will affect us then I do not fully know, but it is now to me a far greater grief to think of any in Heaven whom I tempted or wronged, than it was while they lived with me on Earth. And I think there is somewhat of this Nature common to good and bad: Even the Consciences of wicked men do haunt them for notable injuries to others, especially concealed ones, and especially for persecuting the Servants of God, when they are dead, more than while they lived. In so much that (though I doubt not of real Apparitions) I am ready to think, that some that say they are haunted by the sight and the voice of such as seem to them to be deceased Persons, are rather haunted by their own Consciences, which strongly represent those Persons to their imaginations.

O let Christians now so converse together, as remembring that they must meet in Heaven, where all that was secret will be brought to light. If we now put on any Vizor, and seem better than we are, if we hide any sin or base corruption; if we by fraud or falshood deceive our Friends, all this will be opened when we meet in Heaven. It is a daily grief and shame to my Soul, to think of the sins that I have committed against some that are now in Heaven, which I either excused, extenuated or hid: And to think how much evil they will know of me there, which on Earth they knew not by me. But God who pardoneth them, will cause his Servants there to forgive each other; but the detected sin for all that will be an odious shameful thing. Lying and Hypocrisie are there no cloak, but an aggravation of the shame. If we cannot confess and take shame to our selves by repentance upon Earth, how shall we appear in the open light, and see the Faces of those whom we wronged: What diminution it will make of our joy, I know not; but it must needs