The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

Or Eternity is with us an empty sound, and the future blessedness of Saints, an airy thing, that we should reckon it insufficient to counterpoise the sufferings of a few hasty days, that will so soon have an end. 'Tis a sad Symptom of the declining state of Religion, when the powers of the world to come are so overmastered, by the powers of this present world; and objects of sense so much outweigh ⟨p. 392⟩those of Faith. And is not this apparently the case with the Christians of the present age. Do not your thoughts run the same course with theirs, that meditated nothing but sitting on the right and left hand of Christ, in an earthly dominion? while they never dreamt of drinking of his Cup, or being baptized, with his Baptism? How many vain dreamers have we of golden mountains and (I know not what) earthly felicity? whose pretended Prophesies about a (supposed) near approaching prosperity to the Church on earth, gain easier belief, or are more savoury, and taking with too many; then all that the Sacred Oracles discover about its glorious state in heaven? Hence are our shoulders so unfitted to Christs yoke (like the unaccustomed Heifer) and the business of suffering will not enter into our hearts. Methinks the belief, and expectation of such a state hereafter, should make us even regardless of what we see, or suffer here; and render the good, or evil things of time, as indifferent to us. Yet neither plead I for an absolute Stoical Apathy, but for patience. ¹A great follower of that Sect acknowledges, It is not a virtue to bear what we feel not, or have no sense of. Stupidity under Providence is not a Christian temper; as that Moralist says of the wise man. 'Tis not the hardness of stone or iron that is to be ascribed to him.

Or Eternity is with us an empty sound, and the future blessedness of Saints, an aiery thing, that we should reckon it insufficient to counterpoise the sufferings of a few hasty days, that will so soon have an end. 'Tis a sad Symptom of the declining state of Religion, when the powers of the world to come are so overmastered, by the powers of this present world; and objects of sense so much outweigh ⟨p. 392⟩those of Faith. And is not this apparently the case with the Christians of the present age. Do not your thoughts run the same course with theirs, that meditated nothing but sitting on the right and left hand of Christ, in an earthly dominion? while they never dream't of drinking of his Cup, or being baptized, with his Baptism? How many vain dreamers have we of golden mountains and (I know not what) earthly felicity? whose pretended Prophesies about a (supposed) near approaching prosperity to the Church on earth, gain easier belief, or are more savory, and taking with too many; then all that the Sacred Oracles discover about its glorious state in heaven? Hence are our shoulders so unfitted to Christs yoke (like the unaccustomed Heifer) and the business of suffering will not enter into our hearts. Methinks the belief, and expectation of such a state hereafter, should make us even regardless of what we see, or suffer here; and render the good, or evil things of time, as indifferent to us. Yet neither plead I for an absolute Stoical Apathy, but for patience.