shall be the unlading of their affections They are triumph not service the ◠souls everlasting ovation there is nothing of toyle in those holy gratulations They are the triumphant Rev. 4. 11. song the musicke the jubiles of the glorified ones Cantus coronatus crown'd harmony these blessed praises are but the Saints wedding day These Hallelujahs of the Church triumphant proceed not so much from an enforcement of duty as that beatificall vision They are the ravisht acknowledgment of heavens Courtiers the blessed sight of God extracts these pretious collaudations The Lord saith Exod. 33. 20. No man shall see me and live by reason of mans weaknesse and sinfulnesse But in heaven the sight of God shall not only be the fountain of life but shall spring a vein of eternall praises and hallelujahs Object 2 But seeing the Majesty and greatnesse of God is the same in heaven to the Saints as it was on earth why are not the Saints as full of service and humility Answ 1 Now Majesty is sweetned into familiarity and the Saints are now truly Kings and Priests advanced into a glorious Rev. 1. 6. dignity and now God appeares purely as a father No longer as a God among his creatures which resembles soveraignty and subjection but as a father among his children So that now duty is transformed into delight and service is changed into satisfaction God in heaven fits in his throne not in his tribunall to his Saints and so there shall be an unclouded familiarity 1 Cor. 13. 12. In glory the Lord shall not so much appear as a great God as a great benefactour great in his largesses he shall be lovely in his bounty all his attributes shall be remunerative Observe that rare place 2 Tim. 4. 8. which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteous judge shall give Even Gods justice shall be open handed and overflow in donations Indeed the Majesty of God in heaven shall not be abated but more communicated Moses was called Gods friend here what shall Exod. 33. 11. he be in heaven when his Majesty shall be seen unveyled CHAP. IX Concl. 9 Man 's eternall condition admits of no waste or diminution AND here lies the great riddle of eternity that time never wasts I say time though it be an improper locution there being no time in eternity and that after millions of ages are past over there is not the thousandth part of a moment spent When there are as many centuries and ages spent as there are drops in the Ocean or starres in the heaven or haires upon all the heads that are or have been in the world since the Creation yet then there is not one flying moment blown over the taper of eternity spends not nor doth duration shed or fade at all As the Psalmist speaks of the Eagle it renewes Psal 103. 6. its strength so there is a perpetuall renovation in eternity One flying moment generates another As the Sea is alwayes full of water though the waves passe away After the damned Mar. 9. 46. 48. have tumbled on flames a tedious night of ages it is as far from morning as the first moment Could we sum up all those years which those Patriarchs of old spent mentioned in the 5. of Genesis when their lives were stretcht out to so many centuries and their glasse was so long in running and hoary age so slowly seized upon them I say could we digest so many thousand years into one totall sum nay Est enim aeternitas duratio quaedam permanens unicum nunc stans nunquam fluens Cabrea in Thomam and cast in the time of all their posterities lives into the computation yet this totall sum would be a cypher in eternity when so many ages are elapsed eternity is yet to spend the clock hath not struck one hour And let not the fond sinner who is inebriated with the soft effeminacies and dalliances of the world imagine his future miseries shall be as fleet as his downy pleasures here Nay eternity in this is like the Sun that weares not out nor wasts its substance by all its swift and constant travaile Time sheds not I say time for explications sake nor failes in our everlasting condition nor shall wrinckles ever surprise the face of eternity Abraham Isaac and Jacob that holy triumvirate are at this day in the spring of their sublime beatitude nor shall their glory be blasted with the fear of an Autumne In a word eternity cannot be lessen'd nor curtaild by the longest tracts or circuits of duration Time it self in eternity is a pure anomaly I say time which is the Genus of moments dayes houres years those winged parcels of duration is obsolete and a cypher in our everlasting estate And there can be no diminution in the eternity of the blessed This would be an eclipse to their glory that their joyes passe away and their consummative happinesse should be capable of a waste the Suns beauteous light though it be recreative and refresh the earths inhabitants yet as posting towards night and being capable of declining it leaves a dampe in the worlds joy Could the Saints say so much of their happinesse was blown over it would cloud their felicities with trouble and murmuration It would be the wombe of grief and leaven glory with sorrow In Luke 20. 36. Christ saith the glorified Saints shall be equall to the Angels and those blessed Spirits viz. the Angels never stained themselves with any crime which might depopulate or waste their happinesse And indeed heaven it self must be hung with mourning could the rivers of the Saints pleasures be capable of ebbing Psal 36. 8. This shall be Dives his misery in hell to thinke of his past delicacies and with a sad recordation to review the pleasant banquets that are now blown over And now no sorrow shall veil glory or benight heaven no grief shall thrust into the Brides-chamber nor shall any trouble Mat. 01. 52. overshadow the everlasting festivall of the glorified ones Gods smile shall dry up all teares there * Rev. 7. 17. Neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat loco prius citato the Saints shall not be interrupted by the overkind embraces of a warming Sun the morning of glory shall not spend there shall be a fountain of happinesse and Gods presence shall be a spring to this fountain So there can be no waste in the Saints eternity All time wastes and spends according to the motion of the Sun Its rising denominates the morning its setting gives name to the evening and its circuite includes the space of a year in its circumference so that time flies after the chariot of the Sun whose setting is the index of the transient hours But now God himself shall be in stead of a Sun to his Saints in glory Rev. 21. 23. And the City had no Isa 60. 19. need of the Sun nor of the Moon to shine in it
A Prospect OF ETERNITY OR Mans Everlasting condition Opened and Applyed By JOHN WELLS Master of Arts sometimes Fellow of St. Johns Colledge in Oxford and now Pastour of Olaves Jewry LONDON 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys ad Theod. lapsum paraen Cap. 5. Edit Par. Amanda est illa vita ubi nullus labor est ubi summa semper securitas secura felicitas felix libertas libera beatitud◠Audoenus And these shall goe away into Everlasting punishment but the righteous into life Eternall Mat. 25. 46. London Printed by E. C. for Joseph Cranford at the Phoenix in St. Pauls-church-yard 165◠Septemb. 8. 1654. Imprimatur EDM. CALAMY To the right Worshipfull Alderman Foote Alderman Fredericke and the rest of his much Honoured and dearly beloved Friends the Inhabitants of Olaves Jewry LONDON John Wells their unworthy Pastor wisheth all increase of happinesse both here and to ETERNITY Dear and much Honoured Friends THis small Manuall had necessitated me to an Apology to excuse my precipitance in adventuring in publick especially in this age which so many Learned and Able Pens hath visited had not my passionate desire to serve you not only in the Pulpit but in the Presse not only by Supplications and Prayers but by Meditations enforced this presumption It hath been the tedious controversie and long dispute of my thoughts what testimony of my Love and Thankfulnesse to present you with and at last the vote carried it to present you with a Landskip of Eternity Indeed I confesse this small Treatise cals for as many Apologies as it hath lines in it self but the unusualnesse of the subject and your wonted favour and goodnesse shall be my Apologeticall plea. And as the Painter who pictured Alexander with his finger on his defective eye let your candidnesse cloud and conceale all the imperfections of it What it is let me intreat you to entertaine and accept and now it is come abroad into the world let it not wander up and down and no man own it but let it be sheltred and received in the kind embraces of your patronage This I must informe you that my ambition to serve you was real and sincere though this short Enchiridion be but a rude draught of that ambition I shall not my dear Friends and Flock dilate or digresse in the amplifying of the seriousness profoundness necessity and sutableness of the argument the great state of Eternity lest I should anticipate and forestall my self and leave the Treatise to be only a rehearsall and repetition Only let not this suggestion be troublesome and unwelcome to you if I mind you that Eternity is the end of all our hopes the stage of all our duties the shoar of all our labours the reward of all our prayers and the consummation of all our happiness Man himselfe was not created to live in a Cottage made up of lime and hair of mud and dirt to fix his thoughts or hopes upon fading and fainting enjoyments but to be an inhabitant of and residentiary in heaven where Eternity keeps the doore The great Creatour of Heaven and Earth is Mans only fit companion and Eternity is essentiall to him he is Deus aeternus immutabilis the comforts of the Spirit are the souls onely refreshments and everlastingness is entailed on them Joh. 14. 16. Nay the soul it self which is mans nobler and better part which is life incorporate and activity wrapt in the winding-sheet of flesh is immortall in its being and onely rests satisfyed in the attainment Psal 17. 15. of a glorious Eternity Let it not therefore my endeared and Honoured Friends and as the Apostle speaks 1 Thess 2. 20. My glory my joy seem a tedious impertinency or long digression to fasten your thoughts on Eternity It may be through grace and it shall be my importunate prayer for you some of you may blesse God for these few hints to all Eternity Who Eccles 12. 11. knowes what a word in season if as a naile it be struck down to the head by the Master of the Assemblies may produce in an ingenuous and serious Congregation Only let Prayer usher in and accompany your Meditations on this Subject I shall leave both the Treatise and You in the hands of the Lord and intreat the God Psal 65. 2. that heareth Prayer that every line in it may be written upon your soules in the bloud of Christ and with the point of a diamond the Spirit of the Lord and shall rest expecting the longed for fruits of these inconsiderable labours and shall beg that the blessing of the Lord would enliven and enrich every truth in them contained and that this poor Tract of Eternity may in some measure conduce to the landing of every one of your precious soules whose welfare shall be the crown of my joy both here and for ever in a glorious steddy and joyous eternity But I will no longer detain you onely let me tell you I have endevoured in this Treatise not onely to put my Sermons but my Affections in Print And if this weak birth which only your disrespect and misinprovement can render abortive shall put you upon more frequent thoughts of and serious preparations for Eternity my designe is accomplishshed and it will not only be an unspeakable joy unto but an incompensable obligation upon Yours in all soul-service in Jesus Christ John Wells From my Study in the Old Jewry Sept. 7. 1654. The EPISTLE TO THE READER Courteous Reader IT was the cursed and Atheisticall speech of Paul the third who sat in the Pontificall chair when lying on his death-bed he said He should now make tryall of three things whereof he had doubted all his life 1. Whether the soul was immortall Dignum patella operculum Eras Pudet fari Catoniana Chreste quod facis lingua Mar. 2. Whether there was a God And 3. Whether there was an Hell But however though most men will not so far play the Atheists as to be Sceptickes in these things in their discourse and language yet in their lives and deportments they act the verification of all these enquiries I have here candid Reader presented thee with a Subject of latitude enough to take up all thy thoughts with the Sea of Eternity which may drown all that heat which boyles over in sinfull and sensuall objects Our age is the womb of multiplyed confusions and every one is ready to barre up their own Cabbins and lock up their earthly enjoyments in security but who is it that makes it his enquiry how to ensure Eternity and when death shall throw him overboard that he may be swallowed up in the Ocean of a glorious Eternity In the following Treatise kind Reader you have the nature of our eternall estate unravelled and so on necessity the joyes of the blessed and the woes of the damned unbowelled and if either the one shall affright thee from thy sin and why not thy sin will ingulfe thee in eternall misery or the other
Gods afflictive and castigatory justice but that is impossible for in eternall happinesse there shall be nothing appearing but smiles love and indulgence And as in eternity the day of grace and favour is past to the reprobate sinner so the day of correction and displeasure is blown over to the glorified Saint In glory the least heat of anger shall not appear in the face of God nor shall the sword of vindicative justice be brandisht there I speak after the manner of men And so on the contrary there shall not be the least change in the eternity of the damned For the worse they cannot for they shall be fully miserable as before hath been demonstrated Nor for the better for this change would either proceed from Gods pity or mans piety First from Gods pity now God will shew no pity in hell For 1. Hell is a place of pure justice and exact severity no mitigation or favour in eternall misery could one drop of mercy fall into hell it would alter the very propriety of it Dives Mat. 5 26. in hell begs a drop of water but a Luk. 16. 24. drop the smallest measure and of water the most common element Natures common bounty yet in hell there is no concession to so reasonable a petition Mercies sweet voyce shall not be heard among the damneds groanes And 2. The day of grace is past when once the sinner is set on the shoare of eternity offers and overtures of mercy and peace are then buried in silence Sometimes the climacterical year of a Luk. 19. 42. Sinner is past before but alwayes then There shall be no mercy after the sun-set of mercy more then the shadowes of the night can counterfeit the light of the day here is the day of salvation which when once blown over the day of love shall break no more And 3. What should move Gods pity in hell 1. The cries of the damned they shall exalt his justice not move his compassion the horrours and the lamentations of the damned shall be the very musicke of Gods justice the Prov. 1. 26. heraulds of his righteous severity Mat. 25. 12. here Ephraims moaning turnes Gods Jer. 31. 20. bowels within him but the reprobates groanes shall only tune his justice Or 2. Shall the sinnes of the damned move God to compassion and therefore stir up pity because they are great Surely sin is the fuel of wrath not the argument of commiseration and grief and guilt shall be the reprobates livery for ever And Secondly as not from Gods pity so neither from mans piety shall any change arise in the eternity of the damned They shall not be refresht with mercy or their condition sweetned with an alleviating change from any conversion to God penitency for sin c. For 1. This piety had it been true or could it be so it had never come to hell nor could it lie there True grace is no Salamander to live in the fire of hell no flower to grow in that stench the fruit of the Spirit shall not lie in the womb of eternall misery that 2 Pet. 1. 4. grace which is honoured with the name of divine nature cannot be the subject of eternall divine wrath Had they been or could they after death be really pious they should not be eternally calamitous the least degree of true grace seales Christ and heaven to the soul Weak faith saint love c. And 2. If this piety be false as all tears in hell shall be for the weeping of the damned cannot be caâ—d a repentance but only a watery desperation an execration of themselves steept in tears then this dissembled mourning is a provocation not a mitigation to inflame not appease Gods wrath and certainly all the self-condemnations of the miserable reprobate proceeds not from a detestation of sin but a deploration of their torment And therefore now to sum up the whole this remains unfallibly true There shall not be the least alteration or change in our everlasting condition Ah! what might this consideration seriously weighed in the ballance work upon our feared and unawakened consciences CHAP. V. Concl. 5 Man 's eternall condition admits of no measure or commensuration ETernity is an Ocean without a shoare a Sea without land it hath neither bottome nor banks it is an unlimited estate As Boetius forementioned Status interminabilis an unconfin'd estate What is said of eternall joy 1 Cor. 2. 9. It hath not entred into the heart of man is true likewise of eternall misery Who can tell how eternity begins or when it ends who can divide or parcell out eternity who can set landmarkes to measure or find plummets to fadome it It is nothing but the vast Ocean the eye cannot see to the end of it nor the understanding reach to the bottome of it The most curious and criticall brain in the greatest abstractions cannot comma or put a stop in eternity Astronomers find out fictitious and imaginary lines to measure the heavens and the earth the Aequator Meridian Horizon c. but what imaginary circles shall compasse eternity who can say so much is gone so many Centuries so many Lustra so many Olympiads and so many ages are yet to come Eternity is a boundlesse being Aeternitas nec tempus nec temporis ulla pars est nec e. in mensuram cadit sed quod nobis tempus est solis motu definitum hoc aeternis aevum est Greg. Naz. there is no infancy in it no strength of years no decrepitnesse Nec efflorescentia nec canescentia aetatis no triumph or decay of age There are no divisions or subdivisions in it Numbers and multiplications are paradoxes in eternity There is no lease or determinate time time it self being a riddle as before But more particularly Eternity is unlimited In the possessions of it the eternall joy of the Saints is said to be full Psal 16 11. In thy presence is fulnesse of joy 1 Joh. 3. 2. but this is a faddomlesse fulnesse who can tell the portion of everlasting happinesse or count it out It is a summe that cannot be measured by number or figure The blessednesse of the Sâ—ints shall be ineffable inalterable inconceivable Who knowes how soft the down of the Saints rest is how sweet the bosome of Christ how pleasant the smile of God who can tell how delightfull the taste of the rivers of pleasure in heaven is There is no measuring or confining the Saints happinesse How unspeakably sweet is communion with God here that sometimes the Sâ—int can set it out more by admiration then eloquence how ravishing then are those extasies of joy which the glorified ones shall be raised and sublimated with And so on the contrary the misery of the damned how inintolerable how incomprehensible how unmeasurable who can tell how hot Gods wrath is when turn'd into a flame Or can any weigh the torments of the damned and say they rise to such an height
nihil addi potest Arist and cast into a nobler form fals short of perfection Now the Saints in glory enjoy a double perfection 1. A perfection in their persons They are perfect in all purity holinesse and unspotted transcendency their beings are refulgent with all rich and rare enoblements in all excellent capacities their natures shall shine with the diamonds of perfection as I may so say And 2. A perfection of inheritance the fulnesse of possession and therefore 2 Tim. 4. 8. heaven is alwayes represented by the Luk. 12. 32. most sublime enjoyments A Crown Joh. 3. 16. a Kingdome life a throne Now perfection Rev. 3. 21. that is the bound and bank to As they said of Cyrus Satia te sanguine Cyre So I may say Satia te gloria Sancte limit all expectation Our desires cannot sail beyond the pillar of perfection Nor fly above an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top the firmament confines the eye of the body and heaven the ambition of the soul And thirdly There can be no further hopes in the blesseds eternity because the Saints in eternity enjoy God immediately which is Summum bonum in summo gradu the chiefest good in the highest degree God is comprehensively all inconceivable good As the Sun containes more light gradu eminentiori in a more eminent degree and consideration then all the candles in the world when lighted The beatificall vision is not all happinesse epitomized but enlarged in the most incomprehensible latitudes And when the Saints shall come to enjoy a free and full sight of God without the interposure of cloud or curtain then shall they say as the Queen of Sheba concerning Solomons glory 1 King 10. 7. Behold the one halfe was not told me All the expectations of the glorified ones shall be swallowed up in inexpressible admirations How sweet those glorious intuitions shall be that the Saints shall enjoy in heaven our most vast conceptions are not able to comprehend God being essentially whatever deserves the name of good And I need not by way of amplification of the Argument make mention of that glory that the humane nature of Christ shall shine in and how pleasing that pretious sight will be to the redeemed ones when arrived at the heavenly countrey And therefore to look for further happinesse is a solecisme in a blessed eternity And as eternity shall confine the hopes of the Saints so it shall bury all expectations of the sinner Hell shall be the grave of all the reprobates hopes Here indeed all hope was not smoothered and evaporated they had a reconcileable God Gods bowels 2 Cor. 5. 19. were not totally restrained but repentance might have enlarged them the treasury-door of mercy and grace was not lockt up but faith could have opened it and the oyle of grace might have procured the oyle of gladnesse and there was still a blanck in the lease for the sinners name to be put in upon conversion to God Mat. 25. 1. But in the eternity of the damned every door of hope is shut and lockt up and all expectation of change or compassion shall be silenced All longing for or looking after either 1. A totall extinction of the remembrance of them that ever there were such caytiffes in the World might cease Or 2. A releasment from their torturing extremities Or 3. An advancement to happinesse and change of the wrack into a throne I say all these hopes shall cease and evaporate in the damneds eternity Nay further the reprobates carnall hopes which was their pleurisie here and with which they were so elevated and rejoyced their hopes of pleasure and profit All their sinfull hopes that cursed tympany they did swell with here their hopes to satisfie their lusts the titillation of their sinfull hearts nay all their formall hopes that Christ would not blast a professed Christian shall all die and fade in their eternity And the damned shall be overwhelmed with cursed desperation as full of torment as void of comfort and hope for evermore the wretched despaire of Judas being the monster his exulcerate conscience brought forth was but a sad embleme of the Reprobates condition in eternity when they shall lie in an hopelesse helplesse endlesse easelesse condition of extremity to all everlasting And it must be so Because the Reprobate never had any true hope or rationall expectation in this life Indeed happily they were inflated with presumption here and their hearts were deluded into a vain dream of future glory but their soules were never winged with true hope it may be with the blaze of hope but not with the grace of hope They never were raised with the Heb. 11. 1. expectation of faith and the reason is because they never had any interesse in Christ which is objective objectively the summe of all true hopes Nor Col. 1. 27. was their hope fastned to or fixed upon a promise for they had no title to a Gospell-promise Indeed all the hopes and expectations of a sinner here they are but the ebullitions of fancy an anchor in the water both uselesse and ridiculous And if their hopes were but counterfeit coyne and alchymie expectation here what shall their hopes be in miserable eternity when they shall be out of sight of the land of promise And what should be a ground to the damned of hope 1. The greatnesse of their torment this is but commensurate to regular justice their inexpressible miseries are but the execution of Gods justice which is essentiall to the divine nature and which after this life is inexorable the very miseries of the reprobate shall be the glory of Gods righteous severity and the very flames of hell as I may say shall cast a light on divine justice Gods compassions in eternity are seal'd up to reprobate ones Or 2. Shall the duration of their torments fill the reprobate with hope Alas every sin they have committed deserves eternall calamity and that propter infinitam Majestatem offensam because of an infinite Majesty offended For sin being infinite ratione objecti in reference to the object the person incensed and because no punishment can be adequate to the deserving of sin in the greatnesse of it For how can a finite creature undergoe an infinite wrath what is abated in greatnesse shall be made up in the duration of the punishment So that the duration of misery shall be no argument to suggest the least hopes to the damned for eternall pain shall be proportionate to divine justice So that hope the last comforter of a wicked man shall leave him in eternity and everlasting despaire shall be as an ever corroding worme to him The Prophet Daniel speakes of an Angell coming down from heaven and saying Hew the tree down and destroy it cut off Dan. 4. 23. her boughs shake off her leaves and scatter her fruit abroad yet leave the stumpe of the roots thereof in the earth Upon which words Ambrose descants elegantly
Cor. 15. 19. If Sancti cuncta in hac vita patienter tolerant sustinent spefuturae compensationis gloriosae felicitatis in coelis pro illis per Christum repositae Par. in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most miserable This life to a poor believer is but the stage of a diversified calamity a den of Dragons a place of trouble and amazements and it is the hopes of future enjoyment that are the Saints crutches to walke by through his shady pilgrimage and therefore could there be a possibility of the Saints return after death when sailing in the Sea of eternity to this valley of tears again it would cast all their active and passive services into a dying consumption Nor will Christ himselfe suffer his Saints to lose his presence again Rev. 3. 21. when once he enjoyes them in his everlasting embraces After they are As Luther said to the threatning Emperour Aut invenies me sub coelo aut in coelo but if once in coelo no more sub coelo Luth. once courtiers in heaven they shall no more be exiles on earth The bottomlesse love of Christ to his people which was written in the characters of his own bloud and broke out at every vein of his massacred body will not permit those belieuers whom death brought with the veil and ushered into the presence of God to be again banisht into a tempestuous world John the beloved disciple who now lies in the bosome of Christ shall no more see his Patmos And suppose we that heaven can harbour any thing that can breed a discontent between Christ and his glorified ones so that Christ 2 Cor. 5. 8. again should expose them to the crueltie of the world what infinite solecismes would such an assertion be the womb of If we finde Moses and Elias visiting the world again after their death it is in a glorious transfiguration to solemnize that rare appearance Mat. 17. 3. And as there can be no revocation in the eternity of the blessed so neither in the eternity of the Reprobates Because their naturall day and their spirituall ends together death Joh. 9. 14. that closeth the eyes of their body As the Psalmist puts the Quest Psal 30. 9. likewise closeth the eyes of their understanding so far as it hath reference to their spirituall good the grave buries and entombs all their hopes and all their capacities Now for what should the sinner be returned again into the world His destruction is seal'd and irreversible Dies operandi tempus est nox quiescendi Musc his death speaks it in loud language And shall he break the prison of the grave and react the part of a sinfull caitiffe in the world This is one reason why God takes the sinner out of the world and casts him upon eternity to stop his blasphemous mouth and put a period to his carriere in wickednesse No surely when once the sinner is cast into the sea of eternity he shall swim no more to shoar God will not revive the dead sinner to obnubilate his glory with further deeds of darknesse Eternity shall not be as Jonas his whale when once it hath Jon. 2. 10. swallowed up the sinner to cast him up again upon the shoare of the world Death which is the inlet to eternity is but the Lords Sergeant to arrest the sinner to appear before him for his tryall It is but the sinners citation to Heb. 9. give up his accounts when once the sinner is cast upon eternity his work it at an end all the sinners deportments and carriages and conversation now only the cause comes to be tried first death and then judgment No reprieves or protracting Death brings the sinner to the bar and eternity finds him condemned And therefore let all unawakened sinners fill their thoughts with this consideration that when once death casts them on the state of eternity they shall sail back again no more into the world They shall never enjoy their possessions again they shall never feed on their banquets again nor wallow Prov. 9. 17. in their sins again nor cry againe to their stolen morsels they are sweet nor be invited to Christ again nor be capable of penitentiall brokennesse Nor of Gospell-grace of gospell opportunities again Eternity is an reversible and irrevocable condition the soul once lost and death having drawn the curtaines Redemption and restitution shall be a solecisme CHAP. XIV Concl. 14 Man 's eternall condition admits of no conclusion ETernity is a Sun that shall never Non beatitudo esset sic ertum sancti non haberent se ibi semper futures Aug. de civit dei set a taper that shall never fall into the socket a terme without a vacation a race without an end When men in eternity have spent as many millions of ages as there are atomes in all the beames of the Sun Sicut Sancti incessabile habent gaudium ita injusti indesinentem poenam dicuntur ergo ituri in supplicium aeternum i. e. nunquam finiendum Theoph. in Mat. or drops in all the water of the world they are as far from a close or an exit as at the first moment of that state and condition The Vestall fires are out Methuselahs age is spent the Sun shall either be annihilated or else transformed but the eyes of eternity shall never be closed Eternity is an Ocean that we shall be ever sailing in and never see land Let us but Ignis infernalis qui semel accensus est nunquam extinguetur Gerard. illustrate the never-ending duration of eternity in a familiar way as a Divine of late hath gone before us Consider saith he what is the length of eternity How long shall God and his Saints reign How long shall the Dan. 12. 2. damned burn in hell For ever How long is that Imagine an hundred thousand years Alas that is nothing in respect of eternity Imagine ten hundred thousand years yea so many ages yet that is nothing to eternity Imagine a thousand millions of years and yet all this is nothing no espying of a close yet imagine yet more a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand millions of years and yet no sight of land Imagine once more so many millions of millions of years as there are drops in the Sea and thou are not come to the very beginning of eternity Such for continuance is the eternity of the joy the blessed shall enter into and the eternity of the torments the damned shall be ever wrackt with Gulielmus Peraldus Bishop Diaboli impiorum omnium credimus aeternae tormenta Hiers in Isa of Lyons hath another manner of reckoning meditating upon the innumerable number of years throughout which the damned shall be tormented If the damned saith he should every day distill from their eyes but one small tear and those teares should be added together day
him every day at dinner and to cry to him Memento te esse mortalem Remember thou art but mortall and this should alwayes ring in our ears Memento te esse immortalem Remember thou art immortall thou hast an eternity to spend thou hast an everlasting condition to succeed All our thoughts should be alwayes drawne as so many lines to this center As the Psolmist he did never Psal 139. 18. awake but he was with God his meditations fastned upon that infinite and pleasant object and in the night Psal 16. 7. which buries all things in a silent confusion his heart bubbled forth holy Ejaculations towards heaven Let us in this draw Davids picture to make eternity the sphear of our thoughts and the object of our meditations There is no occurrence or passage that can befall us which may not draw eternity into our thoughts when we see the graves of others we may conclude they have already hoysed saile upon the the Ocean of eternity when we observe the prosperity of others we may conceive they are but ripening for eternity as the Sun when it is at the highest it then posteth to a setting Our lives here let them be the pageants of never so many temporall felicities they are but a short dying groan and are always lanching into the vast Ocean of eternity When we observe our own corporall distempers and indispositions then death is but scaling the wals which being broken down the soul flieth to eternity when we 2 Cor. 4. 17. observe the fleet pace and swift carreer of time how the severall parcels of it slide away in an inobservable velocity one houre treading upon the heels of another all these diversities of time are but so many streams running into the sea of eternity There is no passage or Providence can knock at our doors but eternity may be behind it Therefore let our contemplations be alwayes preying upon our everlasting Luk. 12. 20. estate It is not what I am here whether gorgeous or inglorious filled with the good things of the earth or covered with the reproaches of the Psal 73. 6. world but what shall do for ever where shall I take up my lodging in eternity St. Hierome used to say Nier He could never go forth but he alwayes supposed he heard the sound of the last trumpet and the Angell crying Surgite mortui venite ad judicium Arise ye dead and come to judgmen It is strange to consider how men rally up their thoughts and muster them to prosecute their basenesse here below with what eagernesse and studiousnesse they methodize their earthly affaires how do they live and clog their reasons and understandings with a multiplicity of occurrences how do they put judgment and memory and conscience it self upon the Act. 5. 2 wrack to put to usury their advantages and in the mean while seldome or never seriously and practically put this one question to themselves What shall I do whither shall I fly where shall my harbour be to all eternity Insomuch that most men like that dying Heu vaga animula blandula quae nunc abibis in loca Pope when they come to lie on their death-beads they then begin to enquire where they are going and which way their travels must be So pleasingly and inconsiderately doth poor man delude and turn cheat to his own soul But ah let our contemplations Mat. 24. 28. as the Eagle to the carkasse flock to eternity and there be always hovering and brooding till we get a sight of an eternall crown But now to set home this argument and to invite your meditations to this necessary probleme and subject to chain your thoughts to vast boundlesse eternity a Sea we must all sail in whether rough or pleasant I say to further this designe let me cast in these few considerable incentives That you may fill you thoughts with eternity consider It is the noblest study it is most sublime and generous Eternity compriseth all those noble enjoyments and subjects which are fit for the speculations of the soul of the Saint God and Christ and glory the souls chiefest possession these are Contemplations fit to give the As he said when he used to contemplate on God Nunquam minus sosus quam cum solus studious soul entertainment these are sutable company for our cogitations and thoughts It is strange to take notice how men for the most part fill their thoughts with dirt and the muddie profits of the world how Psal 63. 6. they disgrace and discredit their own souls those pieces of divinity in their breasts with frothy carnall and earthly contemplations How many are there who put only pibble in the beautifull casket of their understanding study drosse and dung and that which the Apostle cals losse are Phil. 3. 8. versed about their inaminate comforts their corne their wine and their oil what is this but to carry rubbish and ragges in a Chariot But the most adequate and noble study of the soul is eternity to be alwayes sounding and fadoming that Ocean how shall my soul fare for ever what will be the portion of my eternity what will God settle on me for everlasting Platoes Treatise De immortalitate animae of the immortality of the soul spake him divine The understanding of man is the noblest faculty of the noblest part viz. his soul and what more proportionable for the encounters of this noble light then eternity and those things that are attendant upon it What a low degeneracy is it for men to corrupt and putrefie their thoughts with perishing and dying objects and crowd into their most serious meditations nothing but earth and the things of the world How doth poor man when wholly taken up in these drossie contemplations but debase Nec in rebus caducis aeternitas complacere potest Bern. himself into the vilenesse of an idoll undervalue and uncoyne himself blot out Gods image and superscription and write in the image and inscription of earth he doth as it were turn himself into brasse and iron and reprobate silver the soul whose heat and studies are vented and wasted upon these sublunary things doth but stain its originall and cast a dampe upon the divinity of its own nature Now how low and sordid these meditations upon terrestriall and drossie vanities are will appear in our viewing of these three things It is a degeneracy to confine our thoughts to sublunaries as they are the impertinency of our life they are Rom. 14. 17. a meer parenthesis These outward things they are nothing to our purpose We are travelling towards eternity and to fix our thoughts on these crackling thornes is but a meer digression It is strange to observe how Mat. 6. 33. men vex their own thoughts plot contrive foster and commence their designes for these outward things which shall never fall into the account no further then as they aggravate the guilt of a sinner the
a tempest to an everlasting tranquillity through a rough Sea to an eternall harbour There are three things sweeten affliction 1. The pleasure of a promise Isa 43. 2. The promises are the believers bladders to swimme through the highest waters of Marah of miseries They are 2 Pet. 1. 4. pretious not only in their futurition as they shall be dissolved and melted into reward but as they are present balme in the wounds of affliction pretious balsame to a groaning and troubled Saint 2. The smile of a God that cannot only mitigate affliction and allay the pain of it but transforme the Serpent of misery into a blossoming rod of consolation the favour and smile Psal 119. 67. of Christ cannot only pare an affliction Psal 23. 4. take off the noxious skin of it and take out the sting the torment of it but can change the nature of it and turn a perplexity into a perfume into an advantage Can make the melancholy face of trouble it self look pleasant 3. The thoughts of eternity these contemplations Guttatim poend sumitur liquando bibitur per minutias transit In re muncratione torrens est voluptatis fluminis impetus inundans laetitiae flumen gloriae flumen pacis Bern. can carry up the soul above and make it look beyond trouble All the distresses of a Saint in the world they are but as one fit of the stone compared to eternity they are a little foul weather and plashie dirty way in his journey to a glorious eternity One moments fruition of eternall joy shall take away the smell of all our troubles here the very memory of these flashes of affliction shall not remain in eternity unlesse it be to enlarge the extasie of joy In all thy flames of trouble remember eternity what is this teare this sigh this single groan of misery to an Ocean of satisfaction when I shall sail upon a sea of boundlesse and endlesse mercy This moment as the Prophet speaks Isa 54. 8. this flash of lightning to an endlesse state When I have passed millions of ages in a blissefull everlastingnesse will this transient recollected What darknesse or woe doth Jeremiahs dungeon or Jobs Jer. 38. 6. dunghill cast upon their glorified souls Job 2. 8. now shipt upon the Ocean of a blessed eternity or doth the stench of either offend those enthroned Spirits Meditations on eternity would make the oil of gladnesse to swimme above the water of affliction There are four Questions one should aske his soul in the time of trouble 1. Quest 1 What is the spring of these bitter waters where is the fountain head Every one should then search for the Josh 7. per tot Achan What causeth this earthquake this perplexity Christians in affliction Psal 239. 23. should fadome their own hearts search their own wayes and observe what is it that jarres their prosperity and the harmony of it This is the first Question What is it that springs a leake in my happinesse 2. Quest. 2 What is the end of these thunderbolts these troubles which now are fallen upon me and seised upon me as an armed man What aime what errand have these miseries The rod speakes something as the Prophet Mic. 6. 9. hath it what is its language Every one should read the superscription of his trouble see the contents of his affliction and so answer Gods letter in it 3. Quest 3 What may be the improvement of this trouble how shall I refine it and make use of it to my spirituall good How shall I make it ancillari gratiae wait on my souls felicity How shall I turn this misery into gold by a rare Chymistry This should be another question As Manasseh 2 Chron. 33. 13. who turned his fetters into golden chains by holy and serious repentance But 4. Quest 4 What is this trouble to eternity this evaporating sparke to an everlasting condition How inconsiderable this gentle and short gale to a perpetuall estate Am I in Christ Is my everlasting estate sure Is the bond of God sealed to me Am I enrolled in the new covenant Hath Christ left me his bloud for a legacy Have I searched his will and found my name in it Is my name written Luk. 10. 20. in the book of the Lamb and transcribed in the volume of heaven Then what is this transient fit of misery this short-breathed affliction to my endlesse boundlesse and bottomlesse felicity Nay the very thoughts of eternity would yeild some comfort to the wicked in their calamities here in that they would re-inforce the industry of the sinner to get an interest in Christ that being tortured in present calamities he might find rest in eternity Thoughts of eternity would be Spirits in duty I hear for eternity I pray for eternity if I pray not my self into the sweets of Christs bosome I shall fall into the flames of Gods Joh. 9. 4. wrath what heat would eternity beget what zeal resolution invincible and unanswerable buldnesse in all our duties Now are my prayer-seasons Sermon-seasons and my everlasting estate depends on the good improvement of them How would this fire animate and awaken our soules in all ordinances and in all our services I now wrestle I now fight for eternity * Thalami in Sancta Ecclesia sunt illorum corda in quibus animae per amorem sponsae invisibili conjunguntur ut ejus desiderio mens ardeat praesentis vitae longitudinem poenam deputet Mens itaque quae jam talis est nullam praesentis seculi consolationem recipit sed ad illam quam diligit medul litus suspirat fervet anhelar anxiatur Vilis sit ipsa salus sui corporis quia transfixa est vulnere Amoris Greg. Hom. the crown lies at stake my everlasting joy and rest Mariners in a storme how do they pump work sweat throw overbord their lumber nay their richest Merchandise because their lives are concerned When thou hearest or prayest remember Thy eternity stands in competition Had those damned spirits who have tasted of the miseries of eternity but a renewed capacity of duty to pray and hear again how would they nail their eyes to heaven in holy contemplation chain their knees to the earth in prayer and turn their flesh into iron in a constant adoration as one in the Primitive times Eternity would make zeal leap in the wombe of duty And it is worth our considerations What a short breath would our duties be were our life but one constant service Did we seriously thinke of our future eternity it would be a good cure for all our frothinesse drowsinesse carelesnesse formality coldnesse indifferency infrequency extravagancy in duty Such thoughts would inflame the heart raise the minde fire the spirit set on worke the affection nay spiritualize and sublimate the body it self in holy services As Archimedes who was so intent on his Mathematicall studies that he heard not the Souldiers when they came
eternity To assure thy eternity Dir. 2 Labour after a reall and rich faith a faith which continually breaks out and sparkles forth in vigorous acts and the sparke of faith will at last be turned into the flame of assurance which is is only praemium fidei emeritae the compensation of a long-fighting and experienced faith Assurance it is the triumph of faith its jubilee its present hallelujah its consummation the Spirit at last as the Philosophers stone will turn the silver of faith into the gold of assurance Faith is only assurance in incunabulis in the cradle and assurance is faith with the crown Thus Job after all the conflicts wrestlings and exercises of his faith with the losse of his estate the malice of a Devill the cursing and cursed temptations of his wife the scoffes and hypocrisies of his friends he at last breakes out into a triumphant assurance I know my Redeemer lives and Joh 19. 26. that with these eyes I shall see him c. Causa instrumentalis fiduciae est fides fidei verbum Faith will sprout out and bloffome forth into a greater certainty And therefore pray read hear and use all those means which usually generate and produce faith Dir. 3 That thou mayest finde some evidence for thy everlasting condition study holinesse and exactnesse of life Thou canst not walke with a trembling heart even foot and watchfull eye and yet miscarry I speak not of a morall unblameablenesse but of an evangelicall holinesse that is when we study to tread surely and walke in-offenfively upon a threefold account 1. Obedience to God 2. Love to Christ And Joh. 14. 15. 3. Pity to our own souls Now Sanctification is the eccho of Election Holinesse the blossoming of happinesse and Piety the dawning Bona opera sunt via ad regnum Nostra conversatio in coelis est per vitam coelestem quia in terris vitam agimus puram qualem Angeli agunt in coelo A Lap. of felicity and therefore a holy conversation is called a conversation in heaven Phil. 3. 20. While we live purely and walke closely with God we draw a map of heaven we live more like Angels then Men we are as corporeall Angels we enjoy heaven upon earth two wayes 1. In a pure conversation 2. In spirituall consolation 2. Pet. 1. 8. In a holy life we follow Christ in the same tracke to glory Thou 1 Cor. 11. 1. mayest read thy eternall life in thy Prov. 24. 16. spirituall and see Vestigia beatitatis in vestigiis sanctitatis I speak of holinesse ratione partium non graduum of parts not degrees else heaven door would be shut to all but God expounds desires after perfection for the attainment of it So you may see Gods smile and your own crown in the glasse of a holy life and so thou mayest assure eternity to thee by beginning heaven before thou comest to heaven Dir. 4 If thou wouldest have something to shew for thy eternity Often enter into the withdrawing room of thy own heart and search for some tokens of love there Thou mayest read the intentions of Coelum non tantum sit super nos juxta nos circa nos sed intra nos Gods concerning thee in the impressions of thine Men need not climbe up to heaven in a vain curiosity to search the records and register book to see whether their names be pricked down for glory They may dive into their own souls and see Gods will concerning them in his worke upon them as the Mariner in the darke night that he may finde whether he be near land or no throwes down his plummet and happily he observes himself near the shoar but it is not by his eye but his plummet throw down the plummet make a curious narrow impartiall diligent search into thy own soul and see what humility what self deniall what sin-abhorrency what affectionatenesse to Christ what ravishings of the Spirit what love to the Ordinances what zeal for Gods glory what contempt of the world what sympathy with the afflictions and desires after the society of the Saints c. And if thou findest any impressions of grace any spirituall work any saving savory distinguishing operations upon thy heart that the Spirit hath been there with his cure thou art in the port of a glorious eternity already thou mayest see the face of God in the water of thine own heart If Christ sit Eph. 3. 17. in the throne of thy heart here by a Confirmavit quasi sigillo promissiones suas deus dando juxta eas pignus futurae haereditatis gratiam sc qua nos vexit signavit in filios dei Chrys Theod. worke of grace thou shalt sit in the throne with him and enjoy the weight of glory the work of grace foreruns the wayes of glory grace and glory differ non specie sed gradu in degree not kind as our Divines speak here the Spirit is a refining spirit above a ravishing the Spirit doth seal Eph. 1. 13. as well as sift it doth win to Christ and so to glory Col. 1. 27. as well as wean and winnow it from sin the Spirit is the pawn as well as the Eph. 1. 14. purifier of the soul grace is but the dawning heaven is the noon day 2 Cor. 1. 22. death will blow the bud of grace into the flower of glory So the Psalmist joynes grace and glory together as indeed they are individuall and inseparable Psal 84. 11. grace doth but usher in glory grace is but the greener fruit of heaven So that to get security for heaven and eternall felicity is to search for some privy token in thy own soul see the prints of Jesus Christ there and he will know his own hand when death shall summon thee to him Dir. 5 That thou mayest get some oertainty of thy everlasting condition Electionis nostra ad viram aeternam comes est crux afflictio a mundo sed ejusdem comes â—st victoria certa Polan Labour after not only a patience under but a joyfulnesse in afflictions and trouble It is the Apostles advice Jam. 1. 2. and the character of a Christian the heir of the promises to triumph in tribulation to carry Christs Crosse with gladnesse and not wearisomenesse therefore Martyrdome in the Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruce Christi crux est scala heatae aeternitatis A Lap. primitive times was called Corona Martyrii the Crown of Martyrdome the Crosse going before Crown It is the Apostles argument Rom. 7. 18. If so be that we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together observe the together inseparably unquestionably If we drinke of the cup of gall with him we shall likewise drinke of the cup of gladnesse with him if we fall into the Martyrs fire we shall likewise enter into the Masters joy when a believer is filled with alacrity in suffering it is probable he