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
Zimri and Cosbi with their Numb 25. 14. own bloud The good mans zeal and the bad mans fury may either destroy the wicked man he hath no security his life is a prey for any that God will suffer to seize upon it He is outlawed a condemned man every tile on the house every thiefe on the way may dispatch him and this is to be considered his death and his damnation go both together when he dies he dies for good and all he dies everlastingly thus for the sinners danger And so for the disadvantage of a pendulous doubtfull wavering Christian that can shew nothing for eternity how doth this ambiguity and unsatisfiednesse discourage duty distract his spirits edge temptation make way for Satan and causeth himself to be a burden to his own soul What sighs doth this hesitancy raise what sorrows doth it ingender what teares doth spring and veyle the heart with perpetuall mourning especially when the poor trembling soul considers That every moment he is ready to be disrobed of the flesh turned out of the sinking cottage of his body and to be disinherited of all his patrimonies here and he knows not whether he may not beg with a vain importunity a drop of water to all Luk. 16. 24. eternity How then should every of us aske the question as the Spouse in another case the Spouse asketh Did Cant. 3. 3. ye see my beloved so our enquiry should alwayes be Is my name written in heaven have I an interest in Christ will the Lord make over glory to me did I ever enjoy the smile of God which is the porch to a glorious eternity I say rest not feast not delight not thy self sleep not till God hath morgag'd the lease of a joyous eternity to thee We should not sleep quietly till God had put the crown of immortality under our pillow till we were sure of an eternall rest And now on the contrary the assurance of eternity did God deliver the deeds of glory into our possession how would it wing duty fill the sales of grace of faith love joy c. sweeten affliction Jam. 2. 2. put a comelinesse on the blacknesse Cant. 1. 5. of trouble make Christs yoak not only easie but pleasant and complacentiall In a word How would a certainty of eternall glory make the Saints condition here even while he Gen. 47. 9. writes Pilgrime to be truely Angelicall Now to re-inforce this Argument that I may bribe your industry to get something under Gods hand for thy future eternity let it not seem a digression to supply your thoughts with some few Considerations Arg. 1 Consider Thou canst have assurance of nothing on this side eternity Death will strip thee of all thy enjoyments the grave shall find thee as bare as the womb delivered thee only with this Job 1. 21. difference the wombe delivered thee Quod dicitur nudus revertar illuc intelligitur in illum statum quem habuit in utero matris Aquin. in Job cap. 1. enricht with a life landed thee alive in the world but the grave shall receive thee only a cold dead piece of clay covered with a winding sheet Death is called an uncloathing 2 Cor. 5. 4. We that are in this tabernacle d◠groan being burdened not that we would be uncloathed that is not that we would die I say Death is an uncloathing because it pulleth off all outward things from a man it puls off his rayment his riches his land his honours yea death uncloathes the very bones our flesh quickly weares off in the grave There was little difference between Job on the dunghill and Job in the grave in point of poverty only that dunghil kept him a prisoner fettered with various miseries and the grave loosened him and enfranchised him to eternall liberty Death will rob and strip thee of all thy glittering titles flourishing revenues pleasing dalliances and sweetest most indeared relations will impoverish thee of all thy claimes and fruitions thou didst sport and pride thy self with the dust of the rich man and the poor the honourable and the ignoble promiscuously mingled will take away all the distances degrees and differences between them Death will bury indifferently the Crowns of Kings and the shackles of Prisoners the roabs of Princes and the rags of beggers the Gallants bravery and the peasants russet and the Courtiers luxury and shall cast them all into an equall denudation and poverty Pliny in the Natura noverca unum hominem animantium cunctorum alienis velat opibus caeteris veria tegumenta tribuit testas cortices coria spinas villos setas plumam pennas squammas pellem trunceos etiam arboris cortice interdū gemino a frigoribus calore tutata est hominem tantum nudum in nuda humo natali die abj ecit Plin. Nat. Hist Preface to the seventh book of his Naturall history complaines and doth as it were chide with nature it self for turning man into the world in such a helplesse forlorne condition as if men were dealt more hardly with then any other creature the birds of the aire or the beasts of the field I shall not commend the reluctancy of this Heathen against the Providence of God but shall only say the wombe doth not as before was hinted deliver us more helpelesse naked forlorne then death doth make us or the grave shall finde us Death shall fully Absalons beauty and spoile Herods bravery shall destroy Agags delicacy and put an end to all Solomons temporall felicity death is a worme that will consume all the felicities on this side 2 Sam. 18. 14. the veil but only the riches within 1 Sam. 15. 31 32. the veil as they are unsearcheable and admirable so they are immarcessible Act. 12. 23. and inamissible Therefore make sure of eternity all other things are fledged and will escape our embraces only the revenues of glory the Crown of Righteousnesse 2 Tim. 4. 8. the honours of heaven we shall Et ibi vita sine morte veritas sine eriore felicitas sine perturbatione finde for ever Neither death nor confusion shall make the triumphant Saint look pale or wither the magnificent preparations of a blessed eternity Aug. Enchir. Arg. 2 Consider in the next place as an argument to provoke you to make sure of eternity That a chief part of the Angels blessednesse consists in this that they Mat. 18. 10. are confirmed in their eternall happinesse Aeterna electio beatorum Angelorum est praedestinatio qua deus ab aeterno Angelos quosdam ex gratia constituit in communione sui perpetuo conservare in bono in quo eos creaturus erat confirmare ad beatitatis sempiternae fruitionem Polan that Jesus Christ is their Mediator sustentationis as our Divines speak and that they are incapable of following the cursed example of their fallen companions but are setled for ever in their triumphancies I say this
but no sleep Conscience shall be alwayes a flaming torch The conscience is to be considered in the justnesse of its torment Ah faith conscience I might have been in glory installed in eternall beatitude but my sins have righteously crusht me into these flames And this will be the very poyson of conscience it self The sinner suffers not as a Martyr but as a malefactour he is burnt in the hand as a thief The Martyrs though they were the sacrifices of the cruelty and tyranny of men yet how serene and calme how full of peace and joy were their consciences they were as crystall seas within them and the reason was because they dyed not for their sins but their sanctity as the witnesses of Gods truth and not as Act. 24. 16. the staines of Christs Gospell but this shall be the sting in the worme of conscience to the damned they reap the miserable fruits of their own sinfull deserts This will inflame the reckoning the losse of offered grace And now the winde shall ever blow contrary they die justly as the prisoners of Gods wrath and not as the heralds of their owne innocency The torments of the conscience of the damned are to be considered in the infinitenesse of them The soul shall be lasht with sin and guilt which is all venome and rancour Sin is the sharpest sword when edged with Gods wrath the fire indeed scorches sorely but it is a creature there is something Conscientia mala non solum recordationem scientiam perpetratisceleris maleficia ob oculós ponit sed etiam dolorem anxietatem comitem habet Chemn of good in it but sin is all deformity all mischief as the consciences of the damned shall be lasht with a scourge made up of the cords of innumerable sins Ah! who knowes the torment that one sin sets home by the anger of the Lord can create in the soul How smarting the lash of one crime What palenesse of face anguish of spirit trembling of knees terrour of heart did the hand-writing on the Dan. 5. 2 3 4 c. wall the repercussion of an evill conscience cast Princely Belshazzar into Neque ullum erit peccatum quod non proprium suum ibi habeat cruciatum Ger. what furies will the reflexions of conscience be when awakened in everlasting and irrecoverable misery The conscience of the damned may be considered in the innumerablenesse of its torments when every sin shall fetch bloud at the soul Compute the evils of one day how many thousands it is stained with and what then are the sins of mans life and yet every sin shall have its full blow as before was hinted Every sin in specie in the kind of it Pride Excesse Covetousnesse Rom. 2. 9. Formality c. and every sin in individuo individually considered every act ebullition nay conceiving of Pride Vanity Hypocrifie c. shall strike upon the hot iron of conscience and there shall be no warding of any one blow the soul shall be naked to it and God shall see the execution done The consciences of the damned are to be considered in that torment which their envy shall produce that shall likewise put conscience on the wrack The Fathers make much mention of Livor damnatorum the envy of the damned to see the Saints crownd and themselves wrackt the Saints living in the embraces of Christ and themselves lying under the wrath of the Lambe and it may be both lived under Mat. 8. 11 12. the same means enjoyed the same mercies were wet with the same Gospell showres this likewise shall keep open the wound that when others are arrived at the harbour they are shipwrackt upon a wofull eternity The torments of the damneds consciences may be considered and inhanced upon this account in the consideration of their own madnesse and folly to come to be tortured by so many vultures and for what to please a Mat. 16. 20. piece of clay for the spending of a few moments and those interrupted by manifold afflictions and imbittered with various troubles the greatest jollities of this world are sowred and overtaken with many disturbances our sweetest musicks jar all delights below have their distastfull pauses Prov. 13. 14. and how will this torture conscience to undergoe the frowns of a God the losse of a Crown the perishing of a soul the divorce of a Christ the malice of legions of devils and the executions of eternity and all for the paint of a few specious but fallacious but fugacious satisfactions and accommodatious And thus you see what those torments are which shall torture the consciences of the damned to eternity And as the souls of the damned in all their faculties shall ever be upon the wrack so likewise the bodies of the reprobates in all their parts shall be scorcht in the flames of eternall vengeance Could I as a skilfull Anatomist by a rare dissection open every considerable Patietur etiam corpus non qua sentire quid sine carne non potest anima sed qua necesse est illam etiam carne sentire Tertul. particular in the body I might then fully describe the universality of its torments There is not a vein not an artery not a muscle not the least and most latent part of the bodies of the damned but shall be torne with intolerable torments and anguish Those curious pieces of workemanship the bodies of the damned for so they were in point of formation which the Psalmist looked upon as Psal 139. 26. the subject of admiration and wonder shall after their resurrection be but the common slaughter-houses of pain and punishment 1. The heads of the damned shall then be fuller of pains then here they were of plots those forges of covetousnesse Ad patiendum societatem carnis expostulat anima ut tam plene per eam pati possit quam sine ea plene agere non potuit Idem lust ambition c. which oftentimes in this life were tortured to beat out and accomplish wicked and facinorous designes shall feel the inexpressible surprisals of Gods everlasting displeasure and their sinfull impostume which they laboured with here shall break into eternall pain and agony And all the paint of that ensnaring beauty their faces were comely with shall melt away in inextinguishable flames 2. And so the hands of the damned which it may be here must not be Mat. 3. 12. besmeared or sullied with any soil but must be sweetned with the perfumed glove and enriched with the sparkling diamond which here could not think to graspe corruption shall be burnt with the hot iron of Gods eternall indignation Those hands of the wicked Isa 33. 14. which here were the boysterous executours of Will and Passion the common receivers of bribes and usury the manuall instruments of manifold wickednesse shall feel the corroding pain of eternall flames 3. The feet of the reprobate which here have been swift in running to
though the Gospell he hath brought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life and incorruptibility to light which as learned men observe is an Hendyadys for life and incorruption in the text is no more then an incorruptible life All the promises of Christ they are bonds for eternity They are not for a lease of happinnesse but they are for a free purchase Eph. 1. 14. And by faith we are co-purchasers with Jesus Christ co-heires saith the Apostle in another place Rom. 8. 17. Christ hath bought glory not for us and our heires for ever but for us and our souls for ever The pretious free Haereditatem terrae Canaan acceperunt Patres ex pacto legali Haere ditatem aeternam'ex morte Christi est ergo hic alter effectus mortis Christi aeterna Patrum haereditas per terram Canaan adumbrata Par. sacred and superlative promises of Christ they shall be ever performing they shall be making good for evermore All the promises of God are pretious and great not only from the things promised but from the duration of what is promised this enamels Gods promise of life to believers that it shall be everlasting And what I have said of the promises of Christ may also be averred of the threatnings of Christ Promises and threatnings run parallel they bear the same date and they shall be of the same duration the mercies and the menaces the comminations and the consolations of Christ shall be both lengthened out to all eternity So that there cannot be any conclusion in eternity for a stoppage or a close whether by death or abolition would benight the glory of Christs promises and impeach the justice and righteousnesse of his threatnings It is inconsistent to the merits of Christ His merits are an unsutable price for a temporary happinesse as they are unsutable for an ordinary moderate possession as before hath been demonstrated so likewise for a temporary Indeed as the least sin of man deserves eternall wrath for what can answer for the offence of an infinite God So the least drop of Christs bloud deserves eternall love Shall Christ buy us only a lease paroll of happinesse And it may well be argued that as no revenue or enjoyment can befall man proportionable to the sufferings of Christ for what can be Act. 20. 28. given answerable to the bloud of Patet salutem electorum aeternam merito beneficio Christi mediatoris Sanctis obtingere Ger. him that was God himself and what comparison between an infinite merit and a finite enjoyment as all the enjoyments of man must be he being a creature and so finite I speak ratione subjecti in reference to the subject So therefore the transcendency of the possession falling short of Christs merit eternity is cast into the scale to make up weight I say not but ratione objecti in regard of the object viz. God that is possessed and whose face the Saints see and shall see for ever the 1 Cor. 13. 12. possession is infinite but in reference Visio dei est tota vita aeterna to man whose nature and capacities and possibility is finite limited and Aug. de Sp. An. circumscribed the inheritance cannot be but disproportionable to the price and therefore it must be that everlastingnesse of duration must come in to make up the sum That which is the life of every enjoyment is perpetuity grace is therefore the most considerable riches because inamissible Those revenues which are short-lived and are capable of a flight they are but nominall and titular advantages the pictures and umbrages of enjoyment the riches of the coffer they are inconsiderable not only because they are inanimate but because they are winged As the wiseman saith Prov. 23. 5. They have wings and so are alwayes fledged and ready to escape our embraces Those inheritances cannot be superlative which are fugitive all fading are but fancied riches eternity is the life of glory it self There are two words best expresse the happinesse of heaven life eternall both Joh. 3. 16. which Christ hath bought for his And faith in the bloud of a Saviour crownes the believer with both if duration as certainly it doth doth shed a glosse and set the crown on the head of possession what below eternity can be Heb. 1. 3. the purchase of the death of him who is the expresse image of God the father himself The German Emperours have a custome to be crowned with three Crownes an Iron one at Millan a Silver one at Aken and a Golden one at Rome And truly Christ shall crown all his glorified ones with three crowns first with life secondly with glory and thirdly with eternity a perpetuity of subsistence their beings shall be supported their life shall be superlatively glorious a gloriousnesse of enjoyment and eternity of both So that the merit of Christ chases away all fond conceptions of a close in eternity And now there can be no conclusion in the eternity of the blessed Reas 1 Could there be an end in their eternity there would be more fear then joy in heaven more fear of a future losse then joy of a present possession What tremblings would it beget in the Saint in glory lest he should fall out of Christs bosome the thought of a departure would smother the Hallelujahs of heaven nay the very variety and sweetnesse of celestiall happinesse would make a farewell more intolerable What damps would the word farewell create in glory what wounds would it make When Christ was to leave his disciples and re-inthrone himself in glory how did the thoughts of his absence fill the disciples Joh. 16. 6. hearts with sorrow Their thoughts of the misse of that pretious communion which they enjoyed with Christ what griefs did they produce what tears did they spring So that Christ was fain to quiet their lamentations with the promise of a substitute no other then his own Spirit the glorious divine consolatory holy Spirit of Christ Now I say If Christs departure from his disciples Joh. 14. 2. which was but to make their way to the Crown did spring such a fountain of sorrow how would this inarticulate and smother the joyes of heaven could the Saints loâ—e the sight of Christ in glory or be snatcht from his embraces Death here is the more terrible by how much the more sweet our enjoyments have been it robs us of Ah! who can compute that losse which drawes the curtain between Christ and the glorified Saint Pessima poena est poena damni Divines say that the worst punishment which the damned undergoes is the punishment of losse In that they shall not hear the musick see the glory enjoy the company and be blest with the happinesse of heaven they shall not smell the perfumes of the bride-chamber Mat. 25. 10. But how would this losse be amplified had they ever felt how Objectum divinae scientiae sunt omnia quaecunque aliquam
his honour Psal 17. 15. to execute his commands live upon his promises and to breath after Joh. 4. 32. his everlasting presence This was the worke God sent thee into the world for to advance the fame of his Majesty adore the eternall being and to publish the transcendencie of all his glorious attributes Ah consider a piece of clay thy body a winged piece of duration thy life a Rom. 17. 17. few floating enjoyments thy present inheritance were never set out by God to be the taske and the toil of thy care and animosities 2. Nor is thy care for the world any thing to eternity Thy eternall conditoâ—n Ibi erit fames maxima erit enim tanta inopia ut damnati neque guttam aquae poterunt habere Bonav in glory shall want no supplies in misery shall finde none not a drop of water to coole nor to cherish The rich man shall not find his barnes in eternity though happily with much care and sweat he obtained the filling of them Nero shall not finde his Crown in his everlasting condition though he tortured both brain and conscience to wear the imperiall lawrell Eternity explodes all creature-enjoyments the Saints in glory shall live at a higher rate then the mean and perishing provisions of the world 1 King 17. 6. Elijah doth not want now a Raven to be both his cooke and his caterer And the damned in their endlesse misery shall want the crummes that fell from their own tables In a word carke for thy soul professour thinke of the gulfe of eternity This mouldy bread thou carest for will be no food there Our everlasting condition hath no to morrow no yeares of famine or plenty therefore provide for thy everlasting soul get thy name ingrossed in the lease of glory with Gods hand and the Spirits seal to it and then Providence will either spread thy table here or bring thee to thy Fathers house where thou shalt keep an everlasting festivall And let this additionall consideration come into the account viz. That those outward enjoyments which mens cares are fixt upon and many are so sollicitous to gain and atchieve may occasionally prove the unhappy murtherers of the soul and drown it in everlasting perdition How often do Joh. 14 2. Deut. 6. 12. the riches and delights of the world effascinate the minde blind the understanding Dan 4. 30. 2 Chron. 26. 16. wantonize the spirit inâ—briate Luk. 12. 21 22. the affections seare the conscience Luk. 18. 23. and hearden the heart of the possessors of them and open quatenus instrumenta as instruments the flood-gates of eternall wrath upon them Then the whole amounts to thus much that eternity well weighed will cure the frensie and distraction of mens spirits for sublunary contenements Advant 9 The thoughts of eternity would make us admire Christianity Only the Christian profession acknowledges the state 2 Tim. 1. 10. and the way to eternity What fancies and forgeries doe other professions hold forth and acknowledge The Jewes look for a Messiah to come as if the way to heaven were yet to be found out The Turkes have a tradition and frantick opinion that wicked men at the great day shall carry their sinnes in satchels after their Captaine Cain and such like ridiculous inventions Divers of the Pagans suppose another temporall life to succeed this and therfore give their dead cloaths and money and other appurtenances to bear their charges there Only the Christian profession can unriddle the mystery of eternity How many thousands shall tast of eternity of misery that never heard of an eternity of being this perpetuall estate is only written in a Christian character the knowledge of Christ is our only conduct to the Mar. 16. 16. knowledge of eternity Gospell knowledge Purgatorium est duplex unum in quo est poena damni sensus alterum in quo est poenadamni tantum Bell. Nemo manet in purgatorio ultra decem annos Domin a Soto can only lead us to the mount to behold a future Canaan and teach us how to escape a future Tophet True Evangelicall profession brings us to the shoar to view the Ocean of eternity How do the Romanists themselves defile and adulterate the doctrine of eternity with their fiction of Limbus Patrum Purgatory Limbus Puerorum and many of their guilefull Non est desperatio aut metus gehennae in purgatorio est carentia divinae visionis est poenasensus inflicta est poena ignis Bell. yet gainfull inventions Only the doctrine of the Gospell unmaskes the riddle of our boundlesse and bottomelesse eternity gives us a map of heaven drawes a landskip of glory opens to the believer the wardrobe of eternall beatitude Rev. 21. 16 17 18 19 c. And in Evangelicall story how lively are the flames of hell described how clearly the paines horrours despaires everlasting doomesday is set down and at large deciphered And they said to the rockes Rev. 6. 16. and mountaines Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Thus onely the Christian faith gives a prospect of evernity which is one of the articles of its beliefe Advant 10 The thoughts of eternity would be a good preparation for death Such thoughts would Observetur suavis mutatio quod cadentibus mors non est miseria aut perditio sed transitur ad vitam aeternam Chemn conduce much to cast us into such a frame that death should not be the womb of our fears but of our joys not our affrightment but our contentment our dying day should be reckoned our wedding day the day of our dissolution the day of our coronation The thoughts of eternity Tolle tunicam hanc graviorem da mihi leviorem Greg. would put us upon getting an interest in eternity which would familiarize meet with and sweeten death it self and put the soul upon enquiries after it How would our everlasting condition well studied frame us to a serious patient and joyfull embracement of death that the gracious expectant having sent his heart to heaven before looks on death but as a good wind to carry him to the Ocean of a joyous eternity Now we may hoise sail upon that sea he had been long in the meditation of Nay what wrestlings with God for assurance Phil. 1. 23. for one smile upon the soul in the face of Christ for God to open his pardon and let him read it what desires that God would draw the curtain and let the soul see Jesus Christ what diving into and searching after tokens of love broken pieces of the ring and former experiences would the thoughts of eternity produce And all by way of preparation for death This endlesse state well ballanced in a serious and continued meditation would make the soul restlesse and in a constant motion till death which originally is a curse as being