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A36093
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A Discourse of eternitie, collected and composed for the common good being necessary for all seasons, but especially for this time of calamitie and destruction.
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1646
(1646)
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Wing D1597; ESTC R14406
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48,185
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170
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* Coelum venale est nec multum exaestues propter pretij magnitudine 〈◊〉 te ipsum da habebis illud Aug. let sorrows oppresse my minde Bone Jesu qui par cendo sae prus nos à te abijcis feriendo effice ut ad te redeamus Ger. med let pains consume my flesh let watchings dry me or heat scorch me or cold freeze and contract me let all these and what can come more happen unto me to I may enjoy my Saviour For how excellent shall the glory of the just be how great their joy when every face shall shine as the sun when our Saviour shall martiall the Saints in their distinct orders and shall render to every one according to his works O were thy affections rightly setled on these heavenly mansions how abject and underneath thee wouldest thou esteem those things which before thou setst an high price upon As he which ascends an high mountain when he cometh to the top thereof findes the middle steps low and beneath him which seemed to be high to him while he stood in the bottom so he which sends his thoughts to heaven however he esteemed of the vanishing pleasures of the world when his heart lay groveling on the earth below now in this his transcendency he sees them under him and vilisies them all in regard of heavenly treasures Let us therefore chearfully follow that advice of a reverend Father * Quod aliquando per necessitatem amittenduÌ„ est pro aeterna remuneratione sponte est distribuendum Let us here willingly part with that for heaven which we must first or last necessarily leave upon earth and let all the strength of our studies and the very height of our endeavours be dispended for the attainment of Eternitie For certaine it is howsoever we live here like secure people of a secure age and however we waste out the strength and flower of our dayes as if we should never account for it yet our judgement is most sure and shall not be avoided The sentence of the Judge will be one day most assuredly published and shall not be revoked We must all appear saith Saint Paul before the judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Then shall our wickednesse be brought to light which now lies hid in darknes I saw the dead saith Saint Iohn Revel 20.12 both great and small stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books according to their works and whosoever was not found witten in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire Thus it is evident every man shall give up his account every soul shall first or last come to his reckoning Multorum vocatio paucorum electio omnium retributio Many are called few chosen but all rewarded according to their deeds Oh then let us prepare our selves to meet our God let us come before him with fear and tremble at his judgements Fear not him saith our Saviour who when he hath killed the body can do no more but fear him who can cast both soul and body to hell I say him fear Oh hovv many of the Saints of God trembled and quaked when they have meditated upon the last judgement Hierom saith as oft as I think of that day how doth my whole body quake and my heart vvithin me tremble Cyril saith I am afraid of hell because the worme there dies not and the fire never goeth out I horribly tremble saith Bernard at the teeth * A dentibus bestiae infernalis contremisâ— quis dabit oculis meis fontem lachrymarum ut prç eniam fletibus fletuÌ„ stridorem dentium of that infernall beast Who will give to mine eyes saith he a fountain of tears that by my weeping here I may prevent vveping and gnashing of teeth hereafter And have the Saints of God thus shrunk at the thoughts of hell hovv should then the loyns of the vvicked quake and tremble Come novv thou prophane vvretch of a prophane age vvho at every vvord almost that drops from thy irreligious mouth speakest damnation to thy soul bealching out ever and anon these or the like execrable speeches Would I were damned if I knew this or that God damne me body and soul if I doe it not Alas alas seemeth it a light thing in thine eyes to play with flames to sport thy self with everlasting burnings Tell mee dost thou know or diddest thou ever cast it in thy thoughts what a condition it is to be damned Hear a little and tremble Thou shalt there to thy greater horrour and amazement see much joy but never feel it for thou shalt see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kingdome of God thou thy self thrust out Luke 6.13.28 As touching thy company Though here on earth thou wouldest not perchance be hired to lodge one night in a house haunted with spirits yet there thou must inhabite with unclean divels for evermore Matth. 25.41 And to conclude in this thy cursed estate thy heart and tongue shall be full of cursings and blasphemies Thou shalt blaspheme the God of heaven for thy pains and sores thou shalt curse those that were the means to bring thee thither curse the time that ever thou lost so many goldeÌ„ opportunities of getting grace that thou hast heard so many sermons and no whit bettered by them Curse thy self that slightest so many wholsom reproofs which might have happily been improved to the saving of thy soul Say now desperate fearles sinner canst thou be content in the apprehension of these miseries to curse thy self again to the nethermost of hell or on the contrary dost thou now begin to be ashamed and confounded in thy self and is thy conscience affrighted with the ugly face of thy sins and of those bitter torments that abide them Know then thou hast to deal with a God who when thou art truly moved for thy sins an mourn for thy sufferings Jer. 31.20 Thou hast to deal with a God who will meet thee when thou approachest to him if thou worke righteousnes and remember him in his way Isa 64.5 Thou hast to deal with a God who doth account it his strange work to punish Isa 28.21 And he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. 3.33 Yea thou hast to deal with a God who hath graciously proclaimed to the whole world that he delights to shew mercy yea with his whole heart and with his whole soul Jer. 32.41 Oh then be wise now for thy soul in time and think it a mercy that thou art yet on this side hell And whatever thou judgest thy self worthy to be condemned for at that terrible barre condemn thy self for it before hand that the Lord may say I will not judge this man because he hath judged himself already And be assured where mans conversion begins there Gods displeasure makes its period Excellent is that advice of Saint Gregory weigh saith he and consider the errours of thy life while thy time serves Tremble at that strict judgement to come while thou hast health lest thou hear that bitter sentence Goe ye cursed goe forth against thee when it is too late Did man know what time he should leave the world carnall wisdom would prompt him to proportion his time some to pleasure and some to repentance But he that hath promised pardon to the penitent hath not assured the sinner of an houres life Culpam tuâ—m duÌ„ vacat peÌ„sa districtioneÌ„ su uâ— judicij duÌ„ vâ—les exhorresce ne tunc amaram sententianâ—â—â—udias cum nul lis fletibâ— evadas Since therefore we can neither prevent nor foresee death let us alwaies expect it and provide for it Let us dye to our sinnes here that we may live to Christ hereafter and let us suffer with Christ in this world that we may rejoyce and raign with him in the world to come When we depart this life we goe to an eternity to an eternity I say which shall never end never never me thinks this word never hath a mountanious weight in it to an eternity which maketh every good action infinitely better and every evill action infinitely worse Oh the unhappines everlasting woe of those men who preferre the small and trifling things of this life before the eternall weight of glory hereafter who to enjoy the short comfort of a miserable life here are content to lose the presence of God and society of Angels for ever hereafter FINIS
them Certainly they would never have so much undervalued their earthly contentments and sold all the comforts of this life as some of them did at so cheap a rate but that they trusted to some future rest of more enduring substance after this life and comfortably expected the immortall fruition of such joyes as should abundantly countervaile the losse of all their pleasures When I revolve in my minde the Stoicall reservednesse the moderation the unconquerable courage of these miserable Heathens when I see Cleombrotus in hope of immortality to tumble himself voluntarily down a hill when I see Socrates smile upon his hemlock and sullen Scevola burn off his own hand without ever gnashing his teeth at it when I see Marcus Cato scorn his own life because his enemy gave it him and tear off the salve from his bleeding sides which his own sword had peirced When I thus behold these unhappy souls in the light of nature to conquer nature it self and to build these their resolutions upon no other ground but the slender hope of some unknown contentment in the life to come me thinks these magnanimous acts of theirs however they are not for the imitation of us Christians yet doe they tend to our condemnation Their hope did exceed their knowledge and our knowledge doth exceed our practcie God hath revealed to us the immortality of the soul and the eternity to come in a farre more clear and perspicuous manner then ever to the heathen Idolaters and yet we lesse regard it what should more affect us here since our liâ—e is but a vapour then to know what shall become of us hereafter and yet the consideration hereof lyes like a weight of lead upon our souls and we judge the very thought hereof a burthen We readily apprehend such things as concerne us in this world our honours our preferments our pleasures we look on with a cheerfull eye but alas with how slow and dull a pace doe we proceed in the pursuit of our future blessednes we meet with many stops in our way many turnings in our journey and the truth is we must not expect to arrive at so happy a haven without some storms but what are these to Eternity that long day that shall never shut in that unum perpetuum hodie that beginning ever in beginning in which the blessed doe everlastingly enjoy their happinesse and renew their pleasures and the damned are alwaies dying and yet never dye O that the meditation of this our future state could sinke deep enough into our hearts that we would make that the object of our thoughts here which must be the object of our accounts hereafter that the sense of our sinnes were the chief matter of our sorrowes then should we enjoy an eternity hereafter boundlesse for time endlesse for happinesse where our joyes should be such as should neither change nor perish CHAP. IV. Explaining how Nature hath represented and shadowed out Eternity to us in some of the creatures NOw to the end we should be the farther encouraged unto the inquisition of eternity God hath not only planted the knowledge hereof in the hearts of the Heathens but hath also represented it in the nature of the creatures For if we search with a narrow eye into the secrets of nature how many things shall we finde in the world as lively resemblances shadowing as it were and tracing out unto us this eternity Solinus reports of a stone in Arcadia which being once inflamed burnes perpetually And of this matter or the like were your burning lamps made which continued as Histories speak so many hundred years in ancient Sepulchres Like hereunto in the nature of it is your Linum vivum a certain kinde of linen known in India which is uncombustible nay it is not only not consumed by the fire but it is as it were cleansed and washed and purified by the heat thereof and hence it was that the bodies of the ancient Roman Emperors when they were to be buried according to the funerall rites of those times were shrouded up into such linen to preserve their ashes and to avoid a confusion and mixture of their bodies with common dust Behold here nature it self suggests an eternity to thy soul while it presents to thee such things as the fire cannot consume many other such Symboles and representations of immortality may be found in the book of the creatures The Salamander liveth in the fire and perisheth not Those famous hills in Sicily have been on fire continually beyond the memory of man and yet remain whole and unconsumed The like we reade of that Oleum incombustibile as Historians call it an oyle that ever burns but will never waste and of the matter of this was that burning torch composed which was found in Tulliola daughter of Cicero her sepulchre which as story speaks continued burning fifteen hundred years These and many other shadowes and traces of eternity God hath vouchsafed us to stirre up our dead and drousy hearts to a more exact inquisition and serious consideration of the time to come For in the book of the creature we may see the power of the Creatour and out of these particular works of his we may understand that that God which hath endowed nature with such admirable qualities can give the flesh also such a condition that it shall endure according to his wise dispensation either torments or happinesse for evermore Now then to draw all this to an issue since it is undoubtedly true that God hath provided an everlasting being for the souls of men in the world to come since he hath engraven the knowledge hereof as with an iron pen in the consciences of the Heathen since he hath given us so many lively resemblances and traces thereof in the secrets of nature and in the works of his creation Oh how should the meditation of this take up our deepest thoughts our refinest affections how should this cause us to reflect upon our souls to ponder our waies and with an impartiall eie look into our own estates and seriously consider with our selves whether are we in the number of those that are become Kings and Priests unto God and have our hearts inlightned with the supernaturall life of grace and godlinesse or lye we yet polluted in our own blood Oh how can man be at rest and quiet in his minde till he be assured and secured in this particular since that upon it depends his everlasting estate in another world our daies we see are woven with a slender threed our time short our end uncertain and when the oyl in our lamps is spent and our glasse runne out then we flee in a moment to an everlasting being Ex unico momento pendet duplex aeternitas either in horror or happinesse where we shall receive according to the works of our hands If we have approved our selves sincere in Gods service just in our actions diligent in our callings faithfull in our promises we shall then