The saints everlasting rest

What rising up early, fitting up late, labouring and caring year after year, to maintain themselves and children in credit till they die; but what shall follow after, that they never think on; and yet these men cry to us, may not a man be saved without so much ado? How early do they rouse up their servants to their labour? [Up, come away to work, we have this to do, and that to do;] but how seldom do they call them [Up, you have your soul to look to, you have everlasting life to provide for; up to prayer, to the reading of the scripture.]

What a gadding up and down the world is here, like a company of ants upon a hillock, taking incessant pains to gather a treasure, which death will spurn abroad, as if it were such an excellent thing to die in the midst of wealth and honours! Or as if it would be such a comfort to a man in another world, to think that he was a lord, or a knight, or a gentleman, or a rich man on earth! What hath this world done for its lovers and friends, that it is so eagerly followed, and painfully sought after, while Christ and heaven stand by, and few regard them? Or what will the world do for them for the time to come? The common entrance into it is through anguish and sorrow. The passage through it is with continual care and labour. The passage out of it is with the greatest sharpness and sadness of all. What then doth cause men so much to follow and affect it? O unreasonable bewitched men! Will mirth and pleasure stick close to you? Will gold and worldly glory prove fast friends to you in the time of your greatest need? Will they hear your cries in the day of your calamity? If a man should say to you, as Elijah did to Baal's priests, cry aloud: Oh riches, or honour, now help us! Will they either ⟨p. 128⟩answer or relieve you? Will they go along with you to another world, and bribe the Judge, and bring you off clear; or purchase you a room among the blessed? Why then did so rich a man want a drop of water to cool his tongue? Or are the sweet morsels of present delight and honour of more worth than eternal rest? and will they recompense the loss of that enduring treasure? Can there be the l••st hope of any of these? What then is the matter? Is it only a room for our dead bodies that we are so much beholden to the world for? Why this is the last and longest courtesy that we shall receive from it. But we shall have this whether we serve it or no; and even that homely, dusty dwelling it will not afford us always neither; it shall possess our dust but till the resurrection. How then doth the world deserve so well at men's hands, that they should part with Christ and their salvation to be its followers? Ah vile deceitful world! how oft have we heard thy faithfullest servants at last complaining, Oh the world hath deceived me, and undone me! And yet succeeding sinners will take no warning.