attain the end of our faith the salvation of our souls and the conscience of our well spent life shal at that dismall day replenish our souls with abundance of consolations Then all our tears shall be wiped from our eys what we have sowed in sorrow we shall reap in joy when we have finished our course and ended our combate with sinne and death then shall our crown be sure our victory glorious and our triumph Eternall our grave shall be but as a sweet refreshing place to our wearied bodies and death shall be our day-starre to everlasting brightnesse But on the other side if we have in the whole course of our warfare here expended our precious time in the service of sinne and Satan and crumbled away the best and choicest of our years in the desires of the flesh and sports of vanity if our lusts have been our law and we have traded in pleasure all our dayes then heare our dreadfull doom Our mirth will be turned into wormwood and our joy into heavines all our delights in this earth shall vanish as the flower our sun shall set in a cloud and our daies of jollity and contentation shall irrecoverably be involved and turned into perpetuall darknesse CHAP. V. Containing a short digression touching the eternity of the damned ANd here it will not be unseasonable nor any digression from the point in hand to consider with our selves for our better encouragement to the wayes of holinesse the condition of that eternity which the damned have in Hell O the unhappy and ever deplorable state of those poor souls who feel nothing for the present but wrath and vengeance and can expect nothing to come but the vialls of Gods indignation to be poured on them in a fuller measure for ever hereafter And that which addes abundant weight to their miseries Nec qui torquet aliquando fatigatur nec qui torquetur aliquando moritur Bernard meditat cap. 3 is they shall burn but not diminish they shall lye buried in their flames but not consume they shall seek death but shall not finde it they shall desire it but it shall flee from them their punishment consists not in the indurance of any proper or peculiar pain but in the accumulation and heap of innumerable torments together All the faculties of the soul all the senses of the body shall have their severall punishments and that which is more unseparable and more then that eternall There shall be degrees in their torments but the least shall be infinite For as the wrath and displeasure of God toward them is everlasting so shall their pressures be They enjoy an eternity like the Saints but not the Saints eternity for their eternity shall beginne in horror and proceed in confusion their eternity shall purchase and yeeld to them no other fruit but yellings and lamentations and woe Their eternity is such as turns all things into its own nature for all things where the damned do inhabit are eternall The fire is eternall for the breath of God like a river of brimstone hath kindled it and it shall never goe out night nor day but the smoak thereof shall ascend for ever The worm is eternall for the conscience of the damned shall be everlastingly tormented with the sense of their sinne Their worme dyeth not saith the Prophet and their fire never goeth out The prison wherein they are inclosed is eternall The prayers of the Church could open the prison doors to Peter but no prayers can pierce these walls no power can overthrow them no time can ruine them out of Hell is no redemption no ransome no delivery Cruciantur damnati cruciantur in aeternum This is the last sentence of the Judge his irrevocable decree his immutable and eternall Judgement on the damned which shall nevever be reversed Adesse intolerabile abesse impossibile there is no appeal will lye from this Judge there is no reversing this judgement when the sentence is once past it stands for eternity Hence it was that the ancient Church repeated this sentence often in their divine service Peccantem me quotidie non penitentem timor mortis conturbat quia ex inferno nulla est redemptio Whil'st I daily sinne but repent not daily as I ought the fear of death amazeth me because after this life ended out of Hell is no redemption The blood of Christ shed on Golgotha is fully sufficient to save all man-kinde but it belongs not to the damned If therefore the yoak of repentance seem not sweet to thee saith St Bernard think on that yoak which thou shalt be sure to suffer which is Goe ye cursed into eternal fire But the most deplorable thing which is eternall in hell is the irrevocable losse of the beatificall presence of God the eternall privation of Gods sight the uncomfortable want whereof doth more grieve their hearts and wound their afflicted souls then all their bodily torments Thus we see the unhappy estate and condition of the damned in the other world and how the highest link in all this chain of sorrows wherewith they are environed is the miserable perpetuity of their torments when their restlesse thoughts have carefully runne thorow many thousands of years yet will they not then enjoy one day one little houre one minute of rest and respiration Everlasting darknesse is their portion they beginne and end alike with weeping and gnashing of teeth Now since this is certainly true is it possible for man so to degenerate into a beast as to beleeve these things and not to tremble Can the knowledge of these things swim in our brain without a serious and found digestion of them into our hearts when we know and stand convinced that inexplicable eternall endlesse easelesse horrors without true and unfeigned repentance abide us hereafter and on the other side we know not nor can possibly discerne with how speedy and swift a foot our end approacheth nor how suddenly we shall be summoned to give the world our everlasting farewell How can so sad and important consideration as this possesse our thoughts not torment them Or how can this chuse but imbitter our dearest pleasures and crosse our indulgence to our sensuall affections Did we but reason a while with our souls and every one of us in a particular application say within himself I am here floating like a ship in the sea of this world ballasted on every side with the cares and disquietings and miseries of this life and I saile on with full course towards the haven of Eternity one little blast is able to plunge me irrecoverably into this bottomlesse gulf where one houres torment will infinitely exceed for the pain of it an hundred years bitter repentance And shall I now thus standing upon the very battlements of hell melt in my delights cheer up my self in the dayes of my youth shall I tire out my spirits trifle out my precious time rob mine eyes of their beloved sleep for such things
A DISCOVRSE OF ETERNITIE Collected and Composed for the Common good Being necessary for all seasons but especially for this time of calamitie and destruction The sinners in Zion are afraid a fear is come upon the Hypocrites who amongst us shall dwell with the devouring fire who amongst us shall dwel with the everlasting burnings Esay 33.4 He that beleeveth in the Son hath everlasting life and he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Ioh. 3.36 Printed at London by George Miller for Christopher Meredith at the signe of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard 1646. To the Christian Reader IF any man would know the Patron of this discourse let him understand that it belongs to Every body For there is not a man under heaven be he King or Subject Noble or Ignoble Barbarian Scythian Bond or Free but lives unavoidably under the law of Death and within the Pale of Eternity Now as all men are equally inrolled into this book of Eternity so must they of consequence be equally interessed in this discourse Therefore I commend these short Meditations of a long Eternity for the favour of protection as in right they appertain to Every body But will every one countenance them with a friendly welcom Certainly such entertainment may rather be wisht then hoped for This Eternitie whereof I treat findes for the most part but slender countenance and cold respect amongst the sons of men For where is the man of so setled and well composed temper that can fix and terminate his thoughts upon that everlasting state which abides him in the life to come That can orderly frame readily dispose his heart to search into it and his tongue to discourse of it and his will to affect it I doubt not but flashes of Eternitie and transient thoughts thereof doe often swim in the brain and straggle about the heart of a sensuall worldling but there they lodge not they take not up their rest The covetous man soon strangles them in his money bagges the drunkard drowns them in his fulcups the Epicure swallows them with his daintie and superfluous fare every man in his way strives to keep that from his heart here which he cannot possibly deliver his soul from hereafter his endlesse Eternity Thus are we unhappily ingenious to deceive our selves wittie to invent new waies to put off the melancholy consideration of the evil day We plod daily onward towards our long home but we think not of any reckonings till we come to our journeyes end we fear not the pit till we be irrecoverably plunged into it we never know the true worth of time nor price to the desert our golden hours untill they be everlastingly lost and gone and then alas those precious dayes which we have prodigally expended in the lusts of our flesh and vanity of our eye we shall infinitely desire to redeem were it possible even with tears of blood Oh then whosoever thou art examine with due care the state of thy soul if thy lust be thy life and thy sensuality thy joy then gull not thy soul with hope of pardon Imagine not to finde two heavens one upon earth another above it assure thy self though thou make with the Eagle thy nest on high and seat thy habitation as it were in the clouds yet thy highnesse will not free thee from the stroak of death nor deliver thy soul from the nethermost hell Now if there be any man so unmercifull to his soul that notwithstanding all that is or shall be said will desperately on in his cursed way I say no more but this He that is filthy let him be filthy still The smart of this Eternity they that will not beleeve shall feel The Contents of the first Book CHAP. 1. Containing an Introduction to the ensuing discourse 2. Containing a discription of Eternity with a brief declaration of the nature and condition of it 3. Expressing how all men doe naturally beleeve this Eternity 4. Explaining how nature hath represented and shadowed out Eternity to us in some of the Creatures 5. Containing a short digression touching the Eternity of the damned 6. Wherein the question is answered Wherefore a finite sinne is recompensed with an infinite punishment Wherein also is further shewed that the Severity of Gods Justice therein doth no way diminish the greatnesse of his Mercy The Contents of the second Book CHAP. 1. Containing an Exhortation to Holinesse grounded upon the consideration of Eternity 2. Shewing that there is no other way nor possible means to attain to the true Eternity but by a confident affiance upon the Mercy of God in Christ 3. Certain conclusions drawn from the serious and devout consideration of Eternity 4. Directions for the better ordering of our lives in the way to a happy Eternity By the word procure p. 76. l. 22. I reâ—ate to a reward of grace not of debt THE FIRST CHAPTER Containing an Introduction to the ensuing Discourse Fecisti nos ad te domine inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te Aug. lib. 1. Conf. cap. 1. THere is nothing can fully satisfie the minde of Man but that which is above man all the treasures and riches under Heaven cannot make up a proportionable object for the soul For that which must terminate the desires of so excellent and divine a nature must bee of a correspondent and like condition with it that is infinite and immortall Now no sublunary blessings extend thus farre All worldly happinesse and earthly delights have their changes and have their death They are short in their continuance and uncomfortable in their end For they leave us when we leave the world and they nothing availe us in the day of triall when our bodies shall descend into the slimie valley and our souls returne to God that gave them then all the choicest comforts of this life glide away from us as the stream and the sunne of our joy will set for ever Our beautie wherein we have so much prided our selves shall turne into rottennes our mirth into wormewood our glory into dust Now if this be the condition if such the state of our best pleasing contentations here below how undiscreetly improvident of our soules welfare should we be to bound ouâ— affections on the things of this world what a madnesse beyond admiration were it in us to trifle out our time to waste and weare out our most precious daies in the vanities under the funne as if God had placed us here on earth like the Leviathan in the Sea to take our pastime in it to ingulfe our soules into the sensuall pleasures of this life as if we had neither hope nor expectation of a life to come what an intolerable stupiditie were it for the short fruition of a momentary content here to plunge our selves for everlastingnes into a sea as it were of fire and brimstone where we shall see no â—ankes and feele no bottome Me
all this yet be not too confident one hour may accomplish that which a thousand years could not produce and think with your selves what a little distance there is between your souls and death Let me ask the strongest of men on earth what certainty of life canst thou promise thy self seeing that either a little bone in thy throat may choak thee or a tile from thy house may brain thee or some malignant ayre may poison thee Tu te prius abreptum miraberis quam metueres abripiendum and then where art thou There are a thousand waies whereby suddenly a man may come to his end and certain it is that Mors illa maxime improvisa est cujus vita praecedens non fuit provida i.e. that death is the suddenest which is not ushered in with a foregoing preparation It is therefore a speciall point of wisdom to think every day our last yea to account every hour the period of our lives For look how many pores there are in the bodie so many windows are there to let in death yea we carry our deaths continually about us in our bosomes and who can promise himself his life till the evening Death doth not alwayes send forth her harbingers to give notice of her coming she often presseth in unlookt for and suddenly attacheth the unprovided soul Watch therefore because ye know neither the day not the hour work whilest ye have the day for the night comes wherein no man can work look towards thy evening and cast thy thoughts upon that long Eternitie Death first or last will apprehend thee expect it therefore at every turn and of this assure thy self * Qâ—alis quisque in hac vita moritur talis in die novissimo judicabitur as death leaveth thee so shal judgement finde thee How improvidently secure then are those who set up their rest in the comforts of this life and overly-regard their eternall welfare This is the generall carelesnesse of our times If a man have a perpetuitie but of five shillings yearly rent what travel and pains and sweat what beating of his braine and exhausting of his treasure wil he run thorow before he will lose one dram of his right Yet our eternall inheritaÌ„ce is cast behinde us undervalued as a trifle not worth the seeking this shews our small love to our home for we little esteem of that which we take small pains for All other things which conduce to our temporall well being we seek with circumspection and enjoy them with content but matters of Eternitie we conceive of as things far distant from us we scarcely entertain them in our thoughts We busie not our understandings in the search of those things which we see not things present obvious to our sight do best affect us We are ill sighted upward weak and dim eyes have we towards heaven The truth of this appeares even in children who presently even from the cradle drink in the rudiments of vice they learn to swear riot drink and the like enormities with the smallest teaching but they are utterly indisposed to any vertuous inclinations They soon apprehend what belongs to the curiositie of behaviour and deportment of the body and the fashions of the times Hoc discunt omnes ante Alpha Beta puelli but for Heaven and that Eternity they are wholly averse from it they are utterly uncapable of the things above they carry about them as the liverie of their first parents not only an indisposition but a very opposition to goodnesse And whereas for other imployments and undertakings they have certain naturall notions in them bending their intentions to naturall works some one way and some another yet they have not so much as any apprehension of the things of God * Homo sine gratia praeter carnem nihil sapit intelligit aut potest Thus it is with children and thus it is with all men even those of the ripest and most piercing understanding untill the light of Gods Spirit hath shined on the hearts and powerfully wrought some spirituall holy dispositions in in them The naturall man saith the Apostle neither doth nor can discern the things that are of God O how infinitely miserable and deplorable is his state who having neither knowledge of the true life nor possibilitie of himselfe to finde it out * Cum exul sit a patria exultat in via yet runnes on securely in his damned way untill he fall wofully and irrecoverably into the pit wher he will not have no not when he hath uncomfortably worne out millions of years the least intermission of sorrow or drop of comfort or hope of pardon Here on earth malefactors condemned to die have this comfort though wretched that one hour commonly terminates all their griefes in this life but the torments of the damned are not concluded in an age nay the end and period of ten thousand yeers will not end their sorrow And this is it which adds more to their sufferings even their unhappie knowledge of the perpetuitie of them they have not so much as any hope of releasment Hope in this life hath such a power in it that it can yeeld some comfort in the middest of trouble the sick man whilest his soul is in him he hath hope but after this life this small refreshment is denied the damned all their hope is turned into desperation The prophet Daniel cap. 4.14 heard the voice of an holy one crying Hew down the tree and cut off his branches shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit nevertheles leave the stump of his root in the earth Thus it is with men in this world saith Ambrose their leaves and their flowers are shaken their delights are taken from them but the roots remain and their hope is not abolished But it is not so in hell saith he There both flower stump nay even all hope too are banished away froÌ„ them The day of the Lord saith the prophet Malachi shall burn them up leave them neither root nor braÌ„ch The very hope saith SalomoÌ„ of the wicked shal perish what should this teach us but whilst our hope remains to improve our few daies to our best advaÌ„tage to make straighter paths to our selves to abridge our inordinate appetites in some measure of their vain and fruitlesse joyes and with all the power of our affections strive to attain that haven where no billow shall affright us no storms astonish us no perils indanger us Then shall our dissolution prove our gain and our death our glory if otherwise we persist wilfully in the paths of our voluptuousnes and solace our selves in the vain ioyes of our own hearts in the sight of our eyes certainly it will be bitternes in the later end * Extâ—ema gaudii luctus occupat All our earthly delights will glide away lik a swift river The rejoycing of the wicked is short saith Iob and the joy of a sinner is but for
more outwardly glorious then inwardly sincere Alas what a melancholy peece of busines will it prove in the end to be a man of praises as it were for a day and afterwards if repentance prevent it not to be a man of sorrows for ever to have this life comfortable and eternity miserable What ever thy hand shall finde to be done cast first in thy thoughs Whether durst I act this same thing were I now to die * Quicquid agis quicquid suscipis tecum prius cogita num tale aliquod ageres si hac hora esset moriendum It s good to live by dying principles A frequent arraignment of thy heart will render thy life comfortable thy death peacefull thy eternity glorious and shelter thee from many snares and temptations which otherwise sin and Satan would cast upon thee When thou settest upon any religious duty seriously weigh with thy self what the temper of thy heart is towards it Oh what a sad thing is it if judiciously balanced to think I have begun and ended a holy duty before a most holy God but felt not what I spake My heart was sealed up labour therefore above all things whilst thy soul in any exercise is in communion with God to keep thy affection on the wing and strive not so much to be long winded as heart-wounded in thy petitions as knowing assuredly that when once thy devotion is flatted though thy speech doe continue thy prayer is done We live in dismall dayes fire and sword rage round about us yet our greatest enemies lodge in our bosome Labour thou by thy prayers and pains to master thy corruptions Then cruell cut throats though they may pull thy heart from thy body can never take God from thy heart then death it self that king of terrors need not affright thee because hereby thy soul is but let out of a cage and her out going from this life is but an in going to a better When once thou hast devoted thy self to the service of God thou wilt finde thy heart to be a very busy thing Thou wilt ever and anon be forcing thy self upon vows and resolution to doe more for God to fight more eagerly more effectually against thy worser self but remember this by the way that self-confidence is an inlet to often failings Therefore ingage Christ with thee in all thy purposes and let S. Pauls profession in this particular be thy instruction and digest it into practice I can doe all things through Christ that strengthens me There is now adayes much wording of religioÌ„ in the world but favour and frowns like strange byasses doe frequently twist men round and this is the garb of these unhappy times but to avoid intanglements of this nature study to be quiet and meddle with thine own busines and as it is said of humble men be thou more troubled with thy self then with all the world besides Live as thou canst a disingaged man Innocency and Independency are prevalent means to keep the soul close to God I have done with directing thee the Lord direct us all that our reformation may be answerable to our incoms of mercy otherwise though all our enemies were destroyed yet shall we finde divisions enough at home to ruine us X. Now that we may be the better incouraged to raise up our endeavours to the attainment of this happy eternity Let us in a word consider the abundant and the ever-flowing happines in the world to come Neither eye hath seen nor eare hath heard nor tongue can expresse the joys that God hath provided for them that love him Saint Augustine being ravished with the desire of this life breaketh out with an inflamed affection Uâ—â—nullum erit malum nullum latebit bonum how great shall that happines be where there can be no unclean thing where no good can be wanting where every creature doth praise and admire his Creatour who is all in all things How great shall that reward be Fraemiun virtutis critipse qui virtutem dedit where the river of vertue shall be himself the reward of vertue how great shall that abundance be where the author of all plenty shall be unto me life and soul and rayment health and peace and honour and all things yea the end and compleat object of all my desires For in his presence is the fulnes of joy and at his right hand there is pleasure for evermore How great shall that blessednesse be where we shall have the Lord our debtor who hath promised to reward our good deeds where we shall have the Lord for our portion who will be to us as he was to Abraham our exceeding great reward How great shall that light be where the Sunne shall no more shine by day nor the moon by night where God shall be our light and the Lord our glory How great shall that possession be where the heart shall possesse whatsoever it shall desire and shall never be deprived of its possessions Here will be to the Saints an abundant everlasting overflowing banquet no grief can accompany it no sorrow succeed it Here is joy without sadnesse rest * Quies motus noÌ„ appetitus without labour wealth without losse health without languor abundance without defect life without death perpetuity without corruption Here is the beatificall presence of God the company of Saints the society of Angels Here are pleasures which the mindes of the beholders can never be wearied with they alvvaies see them and yet alwaies rejoyce to see them These are the flagons of wine vvhich comforted up David when he cried out According to the multitude of the sorrowes which I had in my heart thy comforts have refreshed my soul In coelo est vita verâ— vitalis In heaven and onely in Heaven is the true life For there our memories shal live in the joyfull recordation of all things past our understandings shall live in the knowledge of God our wills shall live in the fruition of all excellencies that they can wish for all our senses shall abound in their severall delights Here is that white stone which Saint Iohn speakes of even glory and immortality to them that overcome Here is that water of life which our Saviour speakes of whereof whosoever drinks shall never thirst again Here is that river the springs whereof make glad the hearts of men And how earnestly are we invited to these delights come buy wine and oil without money Heaven is at sale and thou maist buy if thou wilt and shrug not at the greatnesse of the price give but thy self to God and thou shalt have it And who would not abandon his honours his pride his credit his friends nay himself Who would not be willing to passe thorow the gates of hell and endure infernall torments for a season so he might be certain of so glorious and eternall an inheritance hereafter Let all the devils in hell saith Saint Augustine beset me round let fastings macerate my body