A62047:386
The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity…
The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity with the only way to throw it well : as also the gracious persons incomparable portion / by George Swinnock ...The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity with the only way to throw it vvell : as also the gracious persons incomparable portion / by George Swinnock ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1662
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Other portions, like summer-fruit, are soon ripe, and soon rotten; but this portion, like winter fruit, though it be longer before the whole be gathered, yet it will continue. Gold and silver, in which other mens portion lieth, are corruptible; but thy portion, like the body of Christ, shall never see corruption.
When all earthly portions, as meat over-driven, certainly corrupts; or as water in cisterns quickly groweth unsavoury: this portion, like the water in Aesculapius his well, is not capable of putrefaction.
O Friend, what are all the portions in the world (which, as a candle, consume in the use, and then go out in a stink) to this eternal portion! It is reported of one Theodorus, that when there was music and feasting in his Fathers house, withdrew himself from all the company, and thus thought with himself, Here is content enough for the flesh; but how long will this last? this will not hold out long: then falling on his knees, O Lord, my heart is open unto thee. I indeed know not what to ask but only this, Lord, let me not die eternally: O Lord, thou knowest I love thee, O let me live eternally to praise thee. I must tell thee, Reader, to be eternally happy, or eternally miserable; to live eternally, or to die eternally, are of greater weight then thou art aware of; yea of far more concernment then thou canst conceive: Ponder this motive therefore throughly. God is not only a satisfying portion, filling every crevice of thy soul with the light ⟨p. 175⟩of joy and comfort, and a sanctifying portion elevating thy soul to its primitive and original perfection, and an universal portion; not health, or wealth, or friends, or honours, or liberty, or life, or house, or wife, or child, or pardon, or peace, or grace, or glory, or earth, or heaven, but all these and infinitely more; but also he is an eternal portion. This God would be thy God for ever and ever,