or as it comes from that love, which neither hath beginning nor end. (I speak this of my deliberate thoughts.) And if some ⟨p. 131⟩ignorant or forgetful soul, have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure: I confess, he may be merrier for the present: But where is his mirth when he lieth dying? Alas, its a poor happiness that consists only in the Ignorance or Forgetfulness of approaching misery. But, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears! where we shall be pillars in Gods Temple, and go out no more.1 O, what do I say when I talk of Eternity? Can my shallow thoughts at all conceive, what that most high expression doth contain? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Why surely, this if any thing is the resemblance of God: Eternity is a piece of Infiniteness. Then, O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? Days, and Nights, and Years, Time, and End, and Death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity, as the mention of Hell, to extol Heaven. No more use of our Calendars or Chronology: All the years of our Lord, and the years of our lives, are lost and swallowed up in this Eternity. While we were servants, we held by lease, and that, but for the term of a transitory life; but the Son abideth in the House for ever.2 Our first and earthly Paradise in Eden, had a way out, but none that ever we could find, in again: But this eternal paradise hath a way in, (a milky way to us, but a bloody way to Christ) but no way out again: For they that would pass from hence to you (saith Abraham) cannot.3 A strange phrase, would any pass from such a place, if they might? Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour? No; but upon supposal that they would, yet they could not. O, then my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures: And loose thy hold of Earth and Flesh. Fear not to enter that estate, where thou shalt ever after cease thy Fears. Sit down, and sadly once a day, bethink thy self of this Eternity: Among all thine Arithmetical numbers, study the value of this infinite Cypher; which though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account, doth yet contain all our Millions, as much less then a simple Unit: Lay by thy perplexed and contradicting Chronological Tables, and fix thine eye on this Eternity;
or as it comes from that love, which neither hath beginning nor end. (I speak this of my deliberate thoughts.) And if some ⟨p. 131⟩ignorant or forgetful soul, have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure: I confess, he may be merrier for the present: But where is his mirth when he lieth dying? Alas, its a poor happiness that consists onely in the Ignorance or Forgetfulness of approaching misery. But, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears! where we shall be pillars in Gods Temple, and go out no more.1 O, what do I say when I talk of Eternity? Can my shallow thoughts at all conceive, what that most high expression doth contain? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Why surely, this if any thing is the resemblance of God: Eternity is a piece of Infiniteness. Then, O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? Days, and Nights, and Yeers, Time, and End, and Death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity, as the mention of Hell, to extol Heaven. No more use of our Calendars or Chronology: All the yeers of our Lord, and the yeers of our lives, are lost and swallowed up in this Eternity. While we were servants, we held by lease, and that, but for the term of a transitory life; but the Son abideth in the House for ever.2 Our first and earthly Paradise in Eden, had a way out, but none that ever we could finde, in again: But this eternal paradise hath a way in, (a milky way to us, but a bloody way to Christ) but no way out again: For they that would pass from hence to you (saith Abraham) cannot.3 A strange phrase, would any pass from such a place, if they might? Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour? No; but upon supposal that they would, yet they could not. O, then my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures: And loose thy hold of Earth and Flesh. Fear not to enter that estate, where thou shalt ever after cease thy Fears. Sit down, and sadly once a day, bethink thy self of this Eternity: Among all thine Arithmetical numbers, study the value of this infinite Cypher; which though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account, doth yet contain all our Millions, as much less then a simple Unit: Lay by thy perplexed and contradicting Chronological Tables, and fix thine eye on this Eternity;
- 1Revel. 3.12.
- 2Gal. 6.8.
- 3Luke 16.26.
