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A word to the aged. By Mr. Will. Bridge, sometime fellow of Emmanuel College…
A word to the aged. By Mr. Will. Bridge, sometime fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and late preacher of the word of God at Yarmouth.
Boston: printed by John Foster for J.G. i.e, 1679
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.
8. Better in regard of our freedom from needs and necessities. It was Augustine's Prayer. Deliver me, O Lord from my necessities. It is a great mercy now to have bread to eat when we want it, but it is a greater mercy to have no need of it. A great mercy it is to have a good bed to lye on, and so to sleep quietly, but it is a greater mercy to have no need of bed or sleep. This is the state of that Heavenly Country, where you have not these blessings, but where you have no need of them.
8. Better in regard of our freedome from needs and necessities. It was Augustines Prayer. Deliver me, O Lord from my necessities. It is a great mercy now to have bread to eat when we want it, but it is a greater mercy to have no need of it. A great mercy it is to have a good bed to lye on, and so to sleep quietly, but it is a greater mercy to have no need of bed or sleep. This is the state of that Heavenly Country, where you have not these blessings, but where you have no need of them.
9. Better also it is in regard of continuance, where every mercy and blessing grows upon the stalk of Eternity; and if it be good thing to have a Lease of a good house and Land for one hundred years, what a blessed thing then is it to have a glorious Mansion and Inheritance lying in the Fields of Eternity? When you come to a great Palace, and see fair Barns and Stables and out-houses, you say then, if the out-rooms and Stables be so costly and sumptuous, how costly and glorious is this Palace within? why? lift up your eyes and behold that spangled Canopy of the Heavens, that is over your head. Are not the Sun and Moon and Stars glorious? Yet these are but the out-houses of Heaven, and if these out houses be so glorious, how glorious is the Palace within? Yet this is that Country, that better Country, that you are going and drawing nigh unto, and your passage thither is very short, for no sooner do ye step our of this World, but (if ⟨p. 9⟩godly, gracious, and in Christ, you step immediately into that Country, there is no sleeping of the Soul after death: some have dreamed of such a sleep, but Solomon tells us that the body upon death goes to the dust, & the Spirit into him that gave it, Ecclesiastes. Christ said to the Thief, this day shalt thou he with me in Paradise, and the Apostle Paul tells us that Paradise and the third Heaven are one and the same thing,