Ouranos kai tartaros= heaven and hell epitomized. The true Christian characterized. As also an…

When God would smite the rich fool, under the fifth rib as it were, and strike him so home, as that there need not a second thrust, he doth it in these words, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, Luke 12.20. Ah! sad sentence, wherein every word speaketh woe, every syllable sorrow and sighs; Had it been, Thou wise man, the message might have been well-come, and death desirable as a passage to eternal life; but it's Thou fool; had it been this year, or this month, nay, had it been this week, the man might have been fore-warned and fore-armed, but it is, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; Had it been this night thy riches shall be required of thee, how harsh would it have sounded in his ears who had no other God but his gold; who like a Mole lived in the earth as his element! O how hard would it be to part this covetous ⟨p. 90⟩muck-worm, and his Mammon of unrighteousness! but it is not thy silver, but thy soul shall be required of thee! Had it been, This night thy relations shall be required of thee, thy wife and children, and all thy kindred shall be required of thee, what heavy tidings would it have been to his heart, that had had no kindred in heaven! with what wringing of hands, and watering of cheeks, and sighs and sobs would such news have been entertained! many an eye would a tender husband and father have cast upon his loving wife and lovely babes; and O how would his eye have affected his heart with grief and sorrow, to consider that these thriving hopeful plants must be removed into another soil, that this near conjugal knot must be untied, and he and his dearest relations, who had so often, and so much rejoiced together, so suddenly be separated, and that for ever! but it is not thy wife that is one flesh with thee, but thy Spouse that is a spirit within thee; thy soul shall be required of thee. Had it been, This night all the means of grace shall be required of thee, it had been worse then the loss of a limb to him that had had any spiritual life; the Ordinances of God to a ⟨p. 91⟩soul, are as the Sun to the world, without which (notwithstanding all its earthly delights) it would be but a place of darkness, and of the shadow of death, Matth. 4.16. but it is thy soul; the former might have spoken the mans condition very dangerous, but this speaks it altogether desperate, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall he required of thee.