You Never Leave a Loved One Behind When You Die

Edwards, jotting down some thoughts (a "miscellany") in a private notebook:

When a saint dies, he has no cause at all to grieve because he leaves his friends and relations that he dearly loves, for he doth not properly leave them.

For he enjoys them still in Christ; because everything that he loves in them and loves them for, is in Christ in an infinite degree; whether it be nearness of relation, or any perfection and good received, or love to us, or a likeness in dispositions, or whatever is a rational ground of love.

--Jonathan Edwards, Works, Yale ed., 13:167