Grace, mercy & peace be to you: So often as I think on our case in our soldiers night-watch, & of our sighting life in the fields, while we are here: I am forced to say, prisoners in a dungeon condemned by a judge, to want the light of the sun and moon & candle, till their dying day, are no more, nay not so much to be pitied as we are; for they weary of their life, they hate their prison: But we fall to in our prison, where we see little, to drink our selves drunk with the night-pleasures of our weak dreams, & we long for no better life then this; but at the blast of the last trumpet, & the shout of the Archangel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this fading world, we shall not have so much as a drink of water of all the dreams that we now build on. Alas that the sharp & bitter blasts on face & sides which meet us in this life, have not learned us mortification, & made us dead to this world! We buy our own sorrow, & we pay dear for it, when we spend out our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence upon an handful of snow & ice that time will melt away to nothing, & go thirsty out of the drunken Inns when all is done: Alas that we enquire not for the clear fountain; but are so foolish as to drink foul muddy & rotten waters even till our bed-time; & then in the resurrection when we shall be awakened, our yesternight's sour drink & swinish dregs shall rift up upon us, and sick, sick shall many a soul be then: I know no wholesome fountain but one: I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven: And my own mind is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ & heaven, I would sell heaven with my blessing & buy Christ. Oh if I could raise the market for Christ, & heighten the market a pound for a penny, & cry up Christ in mens estimation ten thousand talents more then ⟨p. 360⟩men think of him! But they are shaping him & crying him down & valuing him at their unworthy half-penny, or else exchanging & bartering Christ with the miserable old fallen house of this vain world, or then they lend him out upon interest & play the usurers with Christ: Because they profess him & give out before men that Christ is their treasure & stock, & in the mean time, praise of men, & a name, & case, & the summer-sun of the Gospel is the usury they would be at, so when the trial cometh, they quite the stock for the interest & loose all:
GRace, mercy & peace be to you: So often as I think on our case in our souldiers night-watch, & of our sighting life in the fields, while we are here: I am forced to say, prisoners in a dungeon condemned by a judge, to want the light of the sun and moon & candle, till their dying day, are no more, nay not so much to be pitied as we are; for they weary of their life, they hate their prison: But we fall to in our prison, where we see little, to drink our selves drunk with the night-pleasures of our weak dreams, & we long for no better life then this; but at the blast of the last trumpet, & the shout of the Archangel, when God shall take down the shepherd's tent of this fading world, we shall not have somuch as a drink of water of all the dreams that we now build on. Alas that the sharp & bitter blasts on face & sides which meet us in this life, have not learned us mortification, & made us dead to this world! We buy our own sorrow, & we pay dear for it, when we spend out our love, our joy, our desires, our confidence upon an handfull of snow & ice that time will melt away to nothing, & go thirstie out of the drunken Innes when all is done: Alas that we enquire not for the clear fountain; but are so foolish as to drink foul muddy & rotten waters even till our bed-time; & then in the resurrection when we shall be awakned, our yesternight's sowre drinke & swinish dregs shall rift up upon us, and sick, sick shall many a soul be then: I know no wholesom fountain but one: I know not a thing worth the buying but heaven: And my own minde is, if comparison were made betwixt Christ & heaven, I would sell heaven with my blessing & buy Christ. Oh if I could raise the market for Christ, & heighten the market a pound for a penny, & cry up Christ in mens estimation ten thousand talents more then ⟨p. 360⟩men think of him! But they are shaping him & crying him down & valuing him at their unworthy half-penny, or else exchanging & bartering Christ with the miserable old fallen house of this vain world, or then they lend him out upon interest & play the usurers with Christ: Because they profess him & give out before men that Christ is their treasure & stock, & in the mean time, praise of men, & a name, & case, & the summmer-sun of the Gospel is the usury they would be at, so when the trial cometh, they quite the stock for the interest & loose all:
