be I am ready for love of him to suffer hunger thirst cold nakednesse povertie and such like I am willing for his sake to be bound burnt and cut in pieces These sufferings are but short they cannot continue long But the joyes or torments of Eternitie are long indeed for they shall never have end Therefore farewell all the world and the things that are in it I care not for you I regard you not Farewell I say But welcome Eternitie whensoever thou comest Thou art the onely thing that I seek after my soul longeth after thee there is nothing that I desire in comparison of thee With the heat of such cogitations his soul was so set on fire that it was inflamed with the love of Eternitie which the blessed shall enjoy in heaven Therefore he resolved to take leave of his parents to forsake his riches and bid adieu to his delights for ever He did not resolve hastily but continued in his resolution constantly He was not soon hot and soon cold He was not altered all on the sudden He did not passe from one extreme to another He did not strive for the highest pitch at the first but rose up by degrees and became one of Pachomius his Scholars You have heard the Prologue But there follows no Tragedie after it For contrarie to the law of a Tragedie we have a sorrowfull beginning but a joyfull ending He came forth with a Lachrymae but went off with a Plaudite At his Intrat there was weeping for grief but at his Exit there was clapping of hands for joy Thus you have heard the life and death of Theodorus whose soul fed as it were upon thoughts of Eternitie and was delighted therewith as with marrow and fatnesse He was not of the worlds minde which counteth Eternitie but a fable but refused not himself to become a fable and a by-word in the world being perswaded fully of a blessed Eternitie and earnestly desiring and thirsting to have a part in it Christian brethren shall I speak a free word but a true or not I but Theodorus Most men live so as if there were no such thing as Eternitie as if it were but a meer fable and feigned thing But what do I tell you of Theodorus Will you heare what Saint Peter saith The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the elements shall râ—elâ— with servent heat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of men ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlinesse But where are these men now adayes by whose holy conversation and godlinesse a man may judge that they beleeve Saint Peter that the day of the Lord is coming and that Eternitie shall follow after But if you will not beleeve Saint Peter heare what truth it self saith Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat Certainly men would not go in at the broad gate of destruction if they did think they should come out no more if they did once dream of Eternitie But as I said before most men make Eternitie but a feigned thing a wittie invention to keep men in aw and a good honest fable And yet how many are apt to say We beleeve that there is a blessed Eternitie after this life we hope to have part in it we have a desire and longing after it But alas How little is their faith how vain is their hope How cold is their desire Present pleasures money in the hand the allurements of the flesh steal away the hearts of many and by little and little make the desire and love of Eternitie grow quite cold in them as if they had drowned and buried it in the grave of oblivion We heare it often read and preached Thus saith the Lord This is the commandment of the Lord And as often as we heare it we still neglect it Say the Lord what he will command what he will our old way pleaseth us best We will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart Therefore thus saith the Lord Ask ye now amongst the heathen who hath heard such horrible things Had the people which knew no God but known these secrets of Eternitie certainly they never would have contemned and neglected them Go to now O ye sonnes of men Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded I will also laugh at your calamitie I will mock when your fear cometh when your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwinde when distresse and anguish cometh upon you when Eternitie shall suddenly overtake you If Death seize upon you in this miserable state and condition there is then no hope of mercy The gate is presently shut there is no opening of it The sentence of condemnation is past there is no repealing of it Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Watch therefore good Christians watch I say The Judge stands at the gate That may happen in a minute that you may be sory for for all Eternitie Antonie the great in a certain Sermon which he made to his people spake thus unto them Dearly beloved brethren in matters of this life we have a care to make good bargains we will be sure to have a penyworth for a peny I lay out for instance so much money and I have the worth of it in wares I give so many crowns and I have so many bushells of wheat So many pounds and I have so many quarters of Malt. But we are not so wise in heavenly matters we will not give things Temporall in exchange for things Eternall Eternall life is a thing not worth looking after we much undervalue it we will scarce give any thing for it we will not take any pains or labour to obtain it And yet what is our labour suppose the greatest we can undergo If it be compared unto life Eternall the reward of it it will not amount to so much as one halfpeny in respect and reference to a Million of Gold For what saith the Psalmist The daves of our life are threescore yeares and ten and if by reason of strength they be fourescore yeares yet is their strength labour and sorrow But suppose a man should live an hundred yeares to speak with the most and all that while serve God zealously and faithfully were it not time well spent to gain Eternitie were not the labour well bestowed to purchase a kingdome I do not mean a kingdome to continue for an hundred yeares onely but throughout all ages not an earthly kingdome but the kingdome of heaven Therefore Christian brethren be not puffed up with vain
full of horrour round about which a Serpent windes it self and in the winding bites it self by the tail At the right hand of the den stands a Young man of a beautifull and pleasant countenance holding in his right hand a Bow and two arrows and in his left hand an Harp In the very entrance of the den sits an Old man opposite and having his eyes very intent upon his Table-book according as the celestiall globe by its motion or the young man standing by dictates unto him so he writes At the left hand of the den sits a grave matron gray-headed and having her eyes alwayes busied At the mouth of the den there are foure stairs each higher then other The first is of Iron the second of Brasse the third of Silver the fourth of Gold On these are little children running up and down and playing and never fear the danger of falling This is the Picture The meaning is this The Den signifies the incomprehensibility of Eternitie The Serpent that twines it self about it Time The Young man God in whose hand is Heaven Earth and Hell On Earth and in Hell are the Arrows of the Lord fastened but in Heaven there is nothing but Joy and the sounding of the Harp The Old man is Fate or rather That which God hath decreed from all Eternitie The Matron Nature The Stairs distinct Times Ages The Children running up and down the stairs do signifie things created especially Man who is sporting in matters of Salvation and playing and jesting in the very entrance of Eternitie Alack Alack O mortal men we have played too long amidst these dangers we are very neare unto Eternitie even in the very entrance of it whilest we live Let but death lightly touch us and we are presently swallowed up of Eternitie Death need not use any great power or fight long against us we are thrown down headlong in a moment and tumble down these stairs into the Ocean of Eternitie Bethink your selves well you that play upon these stairs and think upon any thing rather then upon Eternitie It may be to day or to morrow you may be translated from Time to Eternitie CHAP. II. The secret sense and meaning of Scripture is unfolded AFter the Chapter of the Type and Picture of Eternitie the holy Scripture of divine truth shall not unfitly follow When Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon had cast the three Hebrew children into the fiery furnace for refusing to obey his impious command the flame is said to have ascended nine and fourty cubits above the furnace A strange thing But not without a Mysterie What Did any man accurately measure the height thereof Did any man ascend and apply unto it a rule to take the just measure of it was it just nine and fourty cubits neither more nor lesse Why not fifty For we use to number thus Twenty thirty fourty fifty though the number be somewhat more or lesse Here in this place there wants but one of fifty Surely there is a Mystery in it and some secret meaning The number of fifty was wont to signifie the yeare of Jubilee But the flames in the fiery furnace of hell although they rage both against body and soul and infinitely exceed all the torments of this life yet they shall never extend so farre as the yeare of grace and Jubilee In hell there is no yeare of Jubilee no pardon no end of torments Now now is the time of Jubilee not every hundred or fifty yeares but every houre and every moment Now one part of an houre may obtain pardon here which all Eternitie cannot hereafter Now is the time that in one little and short day we may have more debts forgiven us then in the fire of Hell in all yeares and times to come hereafter Let us adde hither another explication of divine Scripture When the people of God did passe over Jordan the waters which came down toward the sea of the plain which is now called the dead sea failed untill there was none left And in Ecclesiasticus it is said There is that buyeth much for a little These two testimonies of Scripture Galfrid joyneth together and thereupon discourseth thus If Eternall bitternesse be due unto thee and thou mayst escape it by tasting of Temporall certainly thou hast redeemed much for a little I confesse It is a sea indeed in which thou saylest but yet a dead sea And how much art thou bound to give thanks unto God who whereas thou hast deserved to be overwhelmed in the salt roaring and unnavigable sea hath of his great mercy towards thee suffered thee rather to sayl in the dead sea O blessed change that so by the dead sea thou mayst passe unto the land of the living This writer compares all the adversities of this life to the dead sea and Eternall punishments to the salt and unnavigable sea No man can escape both He must needs sayl in the one or in the other What dost thou O man cryes out S. Chrysostome Art thou about to ascend up to heaven and dost thou ask me whether there be any difficulties by the way Whatsoever we do this dead sea we must passe over we may if we will arrive at the haven of Tranquillitie and Eternall happinesse The word of God most high is the fountain of wisdome and her wayes are everlasting cōmandments Through this dead sea there is no other way into the region of the living but the way of Gods commandments We have a most cleare place of Scripture for it If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments This is the onely way to Eternitie If a man shall ask a Divine of our time this question What is Eternitie His answer will be It is a Circle running back into it self whose Centre is Alwayes and Circumference No where that is which never shall have end What is Eternitie It is an Orb every way round and like it self in which there is neither beginning nor end What is Eternitie It is a wheel A wheel that turns a wheel that turned ever A wheel that turns and will leave turning never What is Eternitie It is a yeare continually wheeling about which returns again to the same point from whence it began and still wheels about again What is Eternitie It is an ever-running fountain whither the waters after many turnings flow back again that they may alwayes flow What is Eternitie It is an ever-living spring from whence waters continually flow either the most sweet waters of Benediction and blessing or the most bitter waters of Malediction and cursing What is Eternitie It is a Labyrinth which hath innumerable turnings and windings which alwayes leads them a round that enter in carrying them from turning to turning and so losing them What is Eternitie It is a pit without bottome whose turnings and revolutions are endlesse What is Eternitie It is a Spirall Line but without beginning which hath circles and windings one within another but
the woman of Samaria makes often mention of Eternitie and life everlasting Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life I would we did thirst with the woman of Samaria after those waters and earnestly pray for them O Lord give me of this water that I thirst not Give me O Christ though but a drop of this water that is some thirst and desire after Eternall life In the yeare after the Nativity of our Lord fourescore and one as Suetonius Dion and Plinius Secundus tell at large on the first day of November about seven of the clock at the Mountain Vesuvius in Campania there was an horrible eruption of fire before which there went an unusuall drought and grievous earthquakes There was also heard noise under earth as if it had been thunder The sea roared and made a noise the Heaven thundred as if mountains had in conflict met together great stones were seen to fall the aire was filled with smoke and fire mixt together the Sunne did hide his head Whereupon it was thought by many that the world was almost at an end and that the last day was come wherein all should be consumed with fire For there was such abundance of ashes scattered up and down over land and sea and in the aire that there was much hurt done amongst men and cattell and in the fields that fish and fowl were destroyed that two cities the name of the one was Herculanum and the name of the other Pompeii were utterly ruined These and such other Caverns in the earth with Precipices and fiery mountains alwayes flaming but never going out are lively examples given us by God to put us in minde of the fire in Hell in which the bodies of the cursed shall be alwayes burning but never be burnt out Concerning this you may reade Tertullian Minutius and Pacian See O man how providently even Nature her self doth go before thee and as it were leade thee by the hand to the contemplation of Eternitie To conclude This Time of ours carryeth with it some signe and print of Eternitie Nature fain would have us learn the thing signified by the signe and take a scantling of Eternitie by the little module and measure of time It is the saying of S. Augustine This is the difference between things Temporall and Eternall We love things Temporall more before we have them and esteem them not so much when we have them For the soul cannot be satisfied but with true and secure Eternitie and joy which is Eternall and incorruptible But things Eternall when they are actually possessed are much more loved then before when they were onely desired and hoped for For neither could Faith beleeve nor Hope expect so much as Charitie and Love shall finde when once we shall be admitted to possession Why then doth not earth seem vile in our eyes especially when we must ere long forsake it And why do we not with ardent desire lift up our eyes to Heaven where we shall inherit a kingdome and that Eternall Thou art weighed in the balanceâ— and art found wanting Dan 5.27 That man regardeth not ETERNITE who weigheth his money more accurately then his life THE THIRD CONSIDERATION upon ETERNITIE Wherein the old Romanes principally placed their Eternitie PLinius Secundus thought those men happy which either did things worthy to be wrote or wrote things worthy to be read but those men of all most happy which â—ould do both So the Romanes thought they might three manner â—f wayes eternize their fame and â—ransmit their names unto posteriâ— First they wrote many excellent things many excellent indeed but not all not all chaste not all holy They committed to writing their own blemishes their dishonest oves and filthy lusts But this was no honest or Kings highway to Eternitie How many books have dyed before their Authours and according to Plato have been like unto the Gardens of Adonis as soon dead as sprung up They pleased not long which quickly pleased But suppose the books of all the Romanes should outlive time and be alwayes extant and exposed to publick view yet they should not be able to give life unto their Authours Again the Romanes did not onely write but also did many brave works worthy to be recorded by the pennes of eloquent and learned men and these works were of divers kindes They sought Eternitie in many things but found it in nothing as we are taught to beleeve They were great we do not deny it in civill and warlike affairs at home and abroad admirable for their skill in Arts and Sciences Magnificent and profuse in setting forth shews and bestowing gifts wonderfull even to astonishment for stately buildings Tombes Vâ—ults Monuments and Statues as you may guesse by these few particulars which I will briefly run over Augustus in his own name and at his own proper charges set forth Playes and Games foure and twenty times and at the charge of the common Treasury three and twenty times And never a one of those cost him under two Millions and five hundred thousand Crowns and this so great a summe of money I say was all laid out upon one shew The very meanest and cheapest that ever Augustus set forth came to a Million two hundred and fifty thousand Crowns Nero gilded over the whole Theatre the Ornaments of the Tyring house and comâ—â—al implements he made all of gold to these you may adde square pieces of wood or woodden Lots scattered amongst the people which had for their inscriptions whole houses fields grounds farms slaves servants beasts great summes of silver and many times jewels a great number To whosoevers lot fell any one of these he presently received according to the inscription The same Nero for a Donative to a common souldier commanded to be told two hundred and fifty thousand crowns Agrippina Nero's mother caused the like summe of money to be layd upon a Table thereby secretly reprehending and labouring to restrain her sonnes profusenesse Whereupon Nero perceiving that he was toucht commanded another summe to be added as great as the former and said thus Nesciebam me tamparum dedisse I forgot my self in giving so little The same Nero entertained at Rome for nine moneths together King Teridates and was every day at cost for him twenty thousand Crowns which came in nine moneths to five Millions and fourty thousand Crowns And at his departure he gave him for a Viaticum or to spend by the way two Millions and an half What should I tell you of their stately and magnificent buildings Caligula the Emperour made a bridge over an Arm of the Sea three miles long There were Temples in Rome foure hundred twenty foure most of them very magnificent Domitian spent upon the sole gilding of the Capitol seven Millions On the staires of the Amphitheatre which were