Eternity it will be too late to prepare for it Preparation for Eternity must be done in time not in Eternity Now or Never if once Death stop your Mouth and close your Eyes dying in your sin you must bid farewel to God and Christ for ever When time is gone your hope and all is gone When time is gone it will never come again Yesterday you shall never see more and the time that is going while I speak and you hear when gone will never come that which is to come will be present but not that which is past If you lose your Health you might recover it again if your Estate you might get it again but if you lose your time it is gone for ever 6. If you go out of time unfitted for Eternity better you had never been in time Better for you if you had been alwaies nothing Or if a Being to have been a Dog a Toad or Serpent for these do live in time but after time they do not live in Eternal Misery as they are not capable of Eternal Happiness and when you lye in extremity and eternity of pains in Hell this will be your judgment that it had been better never to have been then to be for ever miserable 7. Multitudes have and more shall come short of Eternal Happiness and go do down to Everlasting Misery and yet doth it not concern us to be preparing for Eternity What means this sottishness of mind that when multitudes are going dayly out of time into Eternity from seen pleasures to unseen pains that we are thus secure and careless as if we should live so long in time as never to live in Eternity Or that our Being should end with time Have not we deserved Eternal punishment as well as they that in Eternity are now enduring of it and do you know you have deserved it and take no care to prevent it not so much as ask of God by serious Prayers and Tears that you might not be cast into Everlasting burnings Do you think you can make as light of the wrath of God when you shall feel it in Eternity as you do when you hear of it in time Can you be merry in the flames of Hell Can you jest and sport and play when you shall be filled with the Indignation of a provoked God or when the Arrows of the Almighty shall stiick so fast as never to be plucked from you Why then do you in time cry out and roar and bitterly complain under the smarting pain that the Gout or Stone or Cholick puts you to why do you say if this were to continue for one year without intermission or mitigation you had rather dye than live Do not many walk in the broad way that leads to Eternal Damnation Matth. 7.13 14. Are not the Holy Humble Penitent ones saved with much difficulty 1 Pet. 4.18 Are not many Professors gone to Hell Matth. 8.12 and Preachers too Matth. 7.22 23. and yet is it not time for you in good earnest to mind your Eternal state lest there being an Everlasting Kingdom you should never enter into it and Everlasting Torments and you should feel them to all Eternity 8. God doth give you all the helps and means you have that you should make ready for Eternity Have not you had Sermons and Sabbaths Have not Gods Ministers preached to you and warned you from God of the wrath to come and charged you in the Name of God to repent believe and turn and told you you must turn from sin or burn in Hell And will you go from hearing on Earth to howlings in Hell from the Light of the Gospel to utter Darkness with the sound of the voice of Mercy in your Ears After a thousand calls to mind your Souls to accept of Christ and remedying Grace Do you mean to have the hottest place in that Infernal Lake the heaviest load of Wrath in that Eternal Furnace Read and tremble when you read Matth. 11.20 to 25. 9. This will be approved Wisdom ere long by all the Sons of Men Those that now do mock at Praying and make a mock of Sinning and deride serious Godliness shall quickly be of another mind shall confess and know that they were the wisest Men that in time prepared for Eternity and they were the Fools that spent their time in Sin and Vanity Some do say as much when they lye a dying and wish oh that I had been convinced of this before my time had been so near an end before my glass had been so nigh out Oh my Folly Oh my Vanity that had Eternity to make preparation for and yet of all the time I had I never spent one hour in hearty Prayer unto God to save me from Everlasting Torments Wo is me my strength is almost gone my time is almost gone and I in danger of Eternal Torments that never shall be past and gone or if they be blind or hardned on their Death-beds yet a moment after Death they shall be convinced indeed that it was worse than madness to neglect Eternity When stept into the other World shall be amazed and confounded saying where am I now what a place is this what a state is this I heard of such a place before but it is worse than any Mans Tongue in time could tell What is time gone this is not time Here is no Sun to measure it by its motion here is no succession of Night and Day Here is no turning of an Hour-glass no striking or telling of Clocks No Morning Noon and Evening this is not time I see nothing like the things I saw in time But a little while ago I was among my Friends on Earth Did I say a little while ago Alas I am but lately come and this little while seems to me a Thousand years No while in this place is little and it will never be less because it doth not go Oh happy they that are in Eternity but in another place than I am in they were wise indeed that have prevented their coming hither and are got into a place that is as light as this is dark as joyful as this is sorrowful as full of ease as this is of pain and yet this must last as long as that and that makes this as bitter and dreadful as that is pleasant and delightful Wise were they that did foresee while they were in time but I like a blind Fool did not see before I felt what I must endure for ever I did not see but Death did draw the Curtain open the Door and let me in to an Everlasting State but wo is me it is of Misery and Damnation You are for being of the mind of the most and doing that which the Generality do approve take in but these words first or last and then do so even that which all first or last shall confess to be truest wisdom and the neglect of it folly and madness God Angels good Men do all approve of this as
moment and must be tormented for ever What if they have Pleasures and carnal Delights for a season they must be under the heavy wrath of God for ever You might stand and see all their mirth at an end but their sorrow never will have end all their joy is but for a moment as the crackling of Thorns under a pot but their misery will be endless misery Let them laugh a while they shall weep for ever let them rejoyce for a season their mirth shall be turned into heaviness their Temporal rejoycing into Everlasting howling and the Eternity of Joy will be more than a recompence to the afflicted Saints whatsoever their Sufferings for Christ and Conscience be in this World A supposed case might be an help in this Temptation Suppose then that you were poor and full of pain for so long time or rather for so short that you should fall asleep and after you awake should be poor no more nor afflicted any more but have a Life of manly delights afterwards Suppose again another man were compassed about with all manner of accommodations costly Dishes to please his Palate beautiful Objects to delight his Eyes all manner of Musick grateful to his Ears many Servants to attend him all standing bare before him and bowing the knee in Honour to him and all this and much more he were to enjoy as long as he could abstain from sleeping but assoon as he doth fall asleep he should be taken off his Bed and cast into a Furnace of boyling Lead or scalding Pitch I demand which of these two Mens Condition you would choose I know it would be the condition of the former and not the latter this and infinitely beyond this is the case in hand you are afflicted till you fall asleep and then you shall be afflicted no more but live a life of Joy for ever the Wicked prosper till they fall asleep and they cannot long keep open their Eyes but Death will come and close them then the justice of God will arrest them and then Devils will seize upon them and they shall be cast into a Lake of burning Brimstone where they shall have no rest night nor day but the smoak of their Torment shall ascend for ever and ever Exercise your thoughts in this manner and have an Eye unto Eternity and you will more easily and successfully overcome such Temptations to murmuring and discontent from the different dispensations of the Providence of God here in time to good and bad 3. Such eyeing of Eternity would have great influence for the well improvement of our time Time is to be valued in order to Eternity because we go out of time into Eternity and that which should make every Man in time most concerned out of time into Eternity of Misery or Glory Oh! what a pretious thing is Time it is beyond the worth of Gold or Silver because we might do more in time in reference to Eternity than we can do by all our Gold and Silver Jewels are but Toyes in comparison of pretious Time Many are saving of their Money but are prodigal of Time and have more of Time then they know what to do with when others find so much to do that they know not what to do for time to do it in Oh Fools and blind what were an Hundred years to make preparation for Eternity Oh sluggish careless Sots Do you ask how shall we pass away the time Might ye not with more reason ask how shall we prevent hasty time from passing away with such winged motion Or if that cannot be prevented How shall we improve our time that is so fast a posting from us Blind World Do any Men in thee enquire How shall we spend our time It is easily answered in Praying Repenting begging for Grace the pardon of Sin the favour of God and peace with Him and fitness for Eternal Life Had the Damned in Hell the time that once they had and you now have do you think they would ask what they should do to pass away the time Their cry rather is Oh hasty time whither art thou fled Why didst thou move so fast while we sate still Or why in time did we so swiftly run in ways of Sin as if we could not have sinned enough before time was past and gone When we had a God to serve and Souls to save and an Everlasting State to make preparation for we like Fools did say How shall we spend our time But now our time is spent and past and gone and now the question is which never can be answered How shall we spend Eternity which never can be spent no not in enduring Ten Thousand Thousand Millions of Years in pain and punishment for when they are past it is as fresh and as far from ending as it was the first moment it began then Eye Eternity and you cannot but improve your time 4. Such Eyeing of Eternity would make us careful how we die because Death is our passing out of time into Eternity Death is dreadful to the ungodly because it opens the door into Everlasting Misery gainful to all endued with saving Grace because it lets them in to Everlasting Happiness Did you that are yet Christless Impenitent and Unbelieving see whither you are going and where you must within a little time take up your Everlasting Lodgings what fear and trembling would seize upon all your joynts and when by sickness you perceive Death to be approaching you would cry out Oh Death forbear forbear stay thine hand and do not strike for if thou cut me down in this condition I drop into Eternal Misery there is nothing but this single thred of my frail Life between me and endless wo and if this be cut or snapt asunder I sink in to irrecoverable Misery without all hope of ever coming forth Could you but see a Soul the next hour after its separation from the Body what a taking it is in what wo what despair it is filled with would you then live without Christ go to bed without Christ and rise and trade and still remain without an Interest in Christ What mean ye sirs to make no provision for Death that is so near so very near when you are as near to going into an Everlasting World as you are to going out of this Transitory World and your Souls be dragged sooner by Devils into Hell than your Bodies can be carryed by Men unto your Graves Awake arise repent and turn unto the Lord for if you sleep on in sin till you sleep by Death you will be awaked by the flames of Hell and then though you be under the power of Eternal Death you will sleep no more and rest no more for ever And Death is as gainful and desirable to a Gracious Man as it is terrible to the Ungodly for it lets him into unseen Eternal Glory to the sight of Christ unseen to us on Earth How willing would you be to go a Thousand Miles to see
consistent with his Fathers Purpose and Honour yet all this notwithstanding he boweth his Soul and prayeth his Father to Glorify his Name so Matt. 26.39 c. His Soul trembled at the thoughts of the bitterness of that Cup we find him not Relucting at any foregoing Suffering but this amaz'd him as Mark expresseth it yet see his resolve nevertheless not my Will but thine be done Two things in times of Trouble we usually start at yet a resigned Soul will refer it self therein to the Will of God 1. The matter of the Tryal Very oft we think we could be content to bear any burden but what Providence lays upon us carrying it as if God had pick't out the very worst of Pains and Aff ictions for us We'd bear Sickness if it pleased God but cannot away with Death we 'd lay down our Lives at Gods Feet but know not to be confined in a nasty Goal Let God send any thing but Poverty or Banishment or Slavery c. The meaning of it is we would Suffer according to our own Will not Gods For to corrupt Nature any Trouble is more Eligible then what Providence fixeth upon Rachel could Die more quietly as she imagined then endure the Affliction of Barrenness Gen. 30.1 Though poor Woman she found that first as hard a Task as the second Chap. 35. 18. Was this Christs meaning when he prayed the Father to Glorify his Name doth he prescribe the Suffring or close with his Fathers Pleasure did Christ say any Cup Father but this any Death but this accursed Crucifixtion Nay but if this Cup may not pass away thy Will be done O how far are we from this Frame when we Complain our Lot is worse then any Mans. We think God hath chosen the Smartest Rod in all the Bundle for us But where is our Resignation all this while 2. The manner of the Tryal this is usually disputed Saul in his dispare will Dye but Scorns to be Slain by the uncircumcised 1 Sam. 31.4 Abimeleck too will Dye when he cannot help it but not by the hand of a Woman Judg. 9.54 And we flatter our selves as if we were willing to Glorify God by our Death only we would chuse the way of Dying The meaning is God shall be Glorified aâ— we please He shall have the Honours but we 'l prescribe the manner Indeed he owes us much thanks for our kindness Is this to Glorify God No! He is not Glorified but in the way of his Will 2. This Frame carrieth in it a Resolution of our Suffering not only into the Will of God but his Glory also O saith our blessed Lord I 'l Suffer thy Wrath and Mens Malice Rage and say thine be the Glory I 'l endure the Shame and thou shalt have the Honour Father Glorify thy Name Christ stood not upon his own Credit but the Fathers Glory 1 Cor. 10.31 Whether therefore ye Eat or Drink or whatever ye do do all to the Glory of God Ye whether ye Live or Dye Suffer or Prosper do all Suffer all for the Glory of God A resigned Soul counteth it worth his while to bear any Affliction so God be Glorified Our holy Lord here Ballanc't the Glory of God against his Sufferings what a blessed Spirit was that of the Baptist Jo. 3.30 I must decrease but he must increase he began to loose his followers when Christ entred upon his Ministry but instead of grudging at it or envying him he 's aboundantly Satisfied that his loss was his Lords gain A resigned Soul will be base in its own Eyes and be content to be vile in Mens Sight also so God be Glorified I know nothing more contrary to the Spirit of the Gospel then Affectation of Reputation to our selves nor any thing more Christian then Zeal for and desire of the Glory of God and our Lord Jesus Jo. 5.44 How can ye believe who receive Honour one of another Christ aimed at his Fathers Glory First Jo. 17.4 I have Glorified the upon Earth Here both in doing and Suffering we must design Gods Glory our turn comes not to have Glory till we be in Heaven Nay We must not only Aim at Gods Glory in our Suffering but be willing that he mannage our Sufferings to that end He always hath most Glory when he Orders the whole affair Christ doth not say Father I 'l Glorify thy Name but refers himself unto the Father do thou O Father Glorify thy Name Our Sufferings bring God no Glory unless he order them Heb. 10.7 Lo I come to do thy Will there was nothing of the Will of Christ in the case further then its Submission to the Fathers Will so must we lay our selves at the Feet of God and desire him to work out his own Glory in and by us 2. We must also be willing that he make what Glory for himself he pleaseth of us and by us Some think from Rev. 11.7 The Witnesses would have finish't their Testimony too soon and laid aside the Sackcloth and Ashes before the time What know we when God hath got Glory enough by our Sufferings Nay let 's be content to bear as long and as much as he thinketh fit to be sure we cannot Glorify him too much Let him Carve for himself when his Name hath had Glory enough by us himself will ease us Did Christ hang back after his Agony in the Garden No! but thence he went to meet his apprehenders thence to the Chief Priest thence to Herod and thence to Pilate again then to the place of Execution then to the Cross then to the Grave He Suffered as long and as much as it was his Fathers Pleasure His Prayer in the Text fixeth no measure nor Time but leaveth the Stint to the Will of God Holy Job bare his several Afflictions Patiently not one but all till God had done Paul professeth that he was not only ready to be bound but Dye for the Name of Jesus Acts 21.13 And none of these things move me saith he Chap. 20. 14. If when God hath Glorified himself by my Bonds he thinks fit to get him Honour by my Death I Submit This should check our impatience and weariness in a Suffering Day how can we say Father Glorify thy Name when we would Stint him in the degree and time of our Sufferings 3. This Frame Submits the Season when we shall Suffer to the Fathers wise Determination This was the dismallest hour that ever Christ saw the Hour and Power of Darkness Luke 22.53 when Hell and the World seemed to have all possible Advantages against the Lord. And doth he say Father save me from this Hour yea but he corrects himself and with respect to that Hour puts up his request to the Father in the Text Father Glorify c. He is so far from contending about the Season that he came designedly to Jerusalem at that time to Suffer Jo. 12.9 10. But we are apt to Reluct in this case O Lord deliver us from