A30592:736
Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…
Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of a self-denying heart, delivered in a treatise upon Hebrews II, 25, 26 / by Jeremiah Burroughs.
London: printed by John Field, 1650
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Suppose a beast should have happiness suitable to ⟨p. 318⟩its nature for eternity, that would come infinitely short of the happiness of a rational creature, that knows wherein happiness consists, and what eternity is; for the beast enjoys nothing but the present happiness, but a reasonable creature it hath happiness for the present, and it can by the thoughts of the mind fetch in the infiniteness of the duration, and put it upon the present content it receives, and so have infinite satisfaction every moment: And so for misery; it were not so much if God by his power should hold a brute beast in the fire eternally, as if a man were in misery; because though it hath pains, yet it hath no thought of future pains, but what it now feels: But if a rational creature be in misery, by the thoughts of his mind, he can fetch all the pains that shall be in hundred thousands of years, and put them upon that instant, and this makes it to be miserable indeed, in a kind of infiniteness, beyond that which any other creature is capable of.
Suppose a beast should have happiness suitable to ⟨p. 318⟩its nature for eternity, that would come infinitely short of the happiness of a rational creature, that knows wherein happiness consists, and what eternity is; for the beast enjoys nothing but the present happiness, but a reasonable creature it hath happiness for the present, and it can by the thoughts of the minde fetch in the infiniteness of the duration, and put it upon the present content it receives, and so have infinite satisfaction every moment: And so for misery; it were not so much if God by his power should hold a brute beast in the fire eternally, as if a man were in misery; because though it hath pains, yet it hath no thought of future pains, but what it now feels: But if a rational creature be in misery, by the thoughts of his minde, he can fetch all the pains that shall be in hundred thousands of years, and put them upon that instant, and this makes it to be miserable indeed, in a kinde of infiniteness, beyond that which any other creature is capable of.