Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…

Again, this is not the time that God will communicate much of himself in, and therefore we must look beyond this life. It is a witty elegant speech Bernard hath, God reserves his new and best wine until afterward. Amongst the Latins they call prosperous ¹things second things, because they are to be had hereafter, they are not the first things. So true prosperity is not to be expected here in the first way of Gods communication of himself to the creature, but in the second way, in the life that is to come: If a man have ⟨p. 712⟩good wine, he reserves it till the last; so God reserves the riches of his grace, and the treasures of his goodness, his best wine, till they shall come and drink with him in his own presence before him continually.

1. 1Res secundae.

And know further, that Christ hath wrought hard to provide happiness for mankind; and shall we neglect it? In his working for the glory of mankind, and this happiness of the children of men, he sweat at it, and so sweat, as clods of blood trickled down his flesh in the garden, though it were in the winter time, and a cold night, and he lay upon the ground, and shall it now be neglected by us? You that have neglected this all this while, who might justly have had your reward amongst those creatures that are cast out from the presence of God: yet know there is a possibility for that tongue of thine that hath been guilty of so many blasphemies, to be singing Allelujahs to the Lord, and to the Lamb that sits upon the throne for ever. Who knows but that body of thine that hath been so intemperate, and but a sink of filthy lusts, may be made glorious like the body of Christ? and what is it that God requires of you for all this? Nothing but only to work his own work in you, and it is not a dishonourable work, but a glorious work, that in which there is more excellency then in any thing in the world: were it that there were no reward of godliness, the very excellency of godliness it self, hath more in it then the whole world: but take godliness with that excellency which it hath in its own nature, and take it with its glorious end, and who would not come into this way? Many men care not what base thing they do,