Let us draw near and see from the pure fountain of the Scriptures what excellencies the saints’ everlasting rest affords. May the Lord hide us in the clefts of the rock and cover us with the hands of indulgent grace while we approach to take this view. And may we put off from our feet the shoes of irreverence and fleshly thoughts while we stand upon this holy ground. These truths are like jewels in the Christian’s heavenly crown:
Heaven Will Be a Seasonable Rest. A further excellency is this: it will be unto us a seasonable rest. He who expects the fruit of His vineyard in season and makes His people as trees planted by the waters, fruitful in their season, He will also give them the crown in season. He that will have the words of joy spoken to the weary in season will sure cause that time of joy to appear in His perfect time.
They who knew the season of grace and did repent and believe in season shall also, if they faint not, reap in season. If God will not miss the season of common mercies, even to His enemies, but will give both the former and the latter rain in their season, and the appointed weeks of harvest in its season, and by inviolable covenant has established day and night in their seasons, then sure, the harvest of the saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season.
He who has given the stork, the crane, and the swallow to know their appointed time will surely keep His time appointed. When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness, will not the day breaking and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable? When we have endured a hard winter in this cold climate will not the reviving spring be then seasonable? When we have sailed (as Paul) slowly many days, and much time spent, and sailing now grown more dangerous; and when neither sun nor stars in many days appear, and no small tempest comes on us and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away—do you think that the haven of rest is not seasonable then?
When we have passed a long and tedious journey and that through no small dangers, is not home then seasonable? When we have had a long and perilous war, and have lived in the midst of furious enemies, and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch, and received from them many a wound, would not a peace with victory be now seasonable? When we have been captivated in many years’ imprisonment, and insulted over by scornful foes, and suffered many pinching wants, and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries, would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful state, even from this prison to a throne, be now seasonable?
Surely, a man would think, who looks upon the face of the world, that rest should seem seasonable to all men. Some of us are languishing under continual weakness and groaning under most grievous pains, crying in the morning. “Would God it were evening!” and in the evening, “Would God it were morning!”—weary of going, weary of sitting, weary of standing, weary of lying, weary of eating, weary of speaking, weary of walking, weary of our very friends, weary of ourselves. Oh! how often has this been mine own case! And is not rest yet seasonable? Some are complaining under the pressure of the times; weary of their taxes, weary of their dwellings, weary of crime, weary of their fears and dangers, weary of their poverty and wants. And is not rest yet seasonable?
Where can you go and into what company can you come, where the voice of complaining does not show that men live in a continual weariness—but especially the saints, who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel? What godly society can you fall into, but you shall hear by their moans that something ails them? Some are weary because of a blind mind, doubting the way they walk, unsettled in almost all their thoughts. Some are weary because of a hard heart, some because of pride, some because of passion—and some from all these and much more. Some are weary because of their daily doubtings and fear concerning their spiritual estate; some because of a shortage of spiritual joys; and some because of the sense of God’s wrath. And is not rest now seasonable?
When a poor Christian has desired and prayed and waited for deliverance many a year, is it not then seasonable? When he is ready almost to give up, and saith, “I am afraid I shall not reach the end, and my faith and patience will not hold out,” is not this a fit season for rest? If the voice of the king were seasonable to Daniel, early in the morning calling him from his den, that he might advance him to more than former dignity, then surely that morning voice of Christ our King, calling us from our terrors among lions, to possess his rest among His saints, should be to us a very seasonable voice.
Now we are often grudging that we have not a greater share of comforts; that our deliverances are not more speedy and eminent; that the world prospers more than we; that our prayers are not presently answered. But our portion is kept to a fitter season. When the winter comes we shall have our harvest. We grudge that we do not find a Canaan in the wilderness or cities of rest in Noah’s Ark and the songs of Zion in a strange land; that we have not a harbor in the main ocean, or find not our home in the middle way, and are not crowned in the midst of the fight, and have not our rest in the heat of the day, and have not our inheritance before we are at age, and have not heaven before we leave the earth: and would not all this be very unreasonable?
I confess, in regard of the church’s service, the removing of the saints may sometimes appear to us unseasonable. I must confess it is one of my saddest thoughts, to reckon up the useful instruments, whom God has lately called out of His vineyard, when the loiterers are many, and the harvest great and very many congregations desolate, and the people as sheep without shepherds, and yet the laborers called from their work, especially when a door of liberty and opportunity is open. We cannot but lament so sore a judgment, and think the removal, in regard of the church, unseasonable.
But whatever it is to those that are left behind; yet the saints’ departure, to themselves, is usually seasonable.
Heaven Will Be a Suitable Rest. A further excellency of this rest is this: as it will be seasonable, so a suitable rest, suited to the natures, to the desires, and to the necessity of the saints.
To their natures. If suitableness concur not with excellency, the best things may be bad to us; for it is that which makes things good in themselves to be good to us. In our choice of friends, we often pass by the more excellent, to choose the more suitable. Every good agrees not with every nature. To live in a free and open air, under the warming rays of the sun, is excellent to man because suitable; but the fish, which is of another nature does rather choose another element; and that which is to us so excellent would quickly be to it destructive.
In heaven, suitableness and excellency will finally be conjoined. The new nature of saints suits their spirits to this rest; and indeed their holiness is nothing else but a spark taken from this element, and by the Spirit of Christ kindled in their hearts, the flame whereof, as mindful of its own divine original, ever mounts the soul aloft, and tends to the place from whence it comes. It works toward its own center, and makes us restless, till there we rest. Gold and earthly glory, temporal crowns and kingdoms, could not make a rest for saints. As they were not redeemed with so low a price, so neither are they endued with so low a nature. As God will have from them a spiritual worship, suitable to His own spiritual being, so will He provide them a spiritual rest, suitable to His people’s spiritual nature. As spirits have not fleshly substances, so neither delight they in fleshly pleasures; these are too gross and vile for them. A heaven of the knowledge of God and His Christ; a delightful contentment in that mutual love; an everlasting rejoicing in the fruition of our God; a perpetual singing of His high praises; this is heaven for a saint, a spiritual rest suitable to a spiritual nature. Were not our own nature in some sort divine, the enjoyment of the true divine nature could not be to us a suitable rest.
It is suitable also to the desires of the saints. As their natures, so will be their desires; and as their desires, so will be their rest. Indeed, we have now a mixed nature; and from contrary principles, do arise contrary desires; as they are flesh, they have desires of flesh; and as so they have sinful desires. These are not the desires that this rest is suited to for they will accompany them to their rest. But it is the desires of our renewed natures, and those which the Christian will ordinarily own which this rest is suited to. While our desires remain uncorrupted and misguided, it is a far greater mercy to deny them, yea, to destroy them, than to satisfy them; but those which are spiritual are of His own planting, and He will surely water them and give the increase. Is it so great a work to raise them in us, and shall they after all this vanish and fail?
He quickened our hungering and thirsting for righteousness, so that He might make us happy in a full satisfaction. Christian, this is a rest after your own heart. It contains all that your heart can wish; that which you long for, pray for, labor for, there you shall find it all. You would rather have God in Christ than all the world. There you shall have Him! What would you not give for assurance of His love? There you shall have assurance beyond suspicion. Nay, your desires cannot now extend to the height of what you shall there obtain.
The rest is very suitable to the saints’ necessities also as well as to their natures and desires. It contains whatsoever they truly wanted. It was Christ and perfected holiness which they most needed, and with these shall they here be principally supplied. The rain which Elijah’s prayer procured was not more seasonable, after the three years’ drought, than this rest will be to this thirsty soul.
Heaven Will Be Perfect in Every Way. Another excellency of our rest will be this, that it will be absolutely perfect and complete; and this both in the sincerity and universality of it. We shall then have joy without sorrow, and rest without weariness. As there is no mixture of corruption with our graces, so no mixture of sufferings with our solace. There are none of those waves in that harbor, which now so toss us up and down. There will be a universal perfecting of all our parts and powers, and a universal removal of all our evils. And though the positive part be the sweetest, and that which draws the other after it, even as the rising of the sun excludes the darkness; yet is not the negative part to be slighted, even our freedom, from so many and great calamities.
Heaven excludes nothing more directly than sin; whether original and of nature, or actual and of behavior. For there enters nothing that defiles, nor that works abomination, nor that makes a lie. When they are there, the saints are saints indeed. He that will wash them with His heart-blood, rather than suffer them to enter unclean, will now perfectly see to that; He who has undertaken to present them to His Father, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but perfectly holy, and without blemish,” will now most certainly perform His undertaking.
I know if it were offered to your choice, you wouldst rather choose to be freed from sin than to be made heir of all the world. Wait till then, and you shall have that desire: your hard heart, those vile thoughts that lay down and rose up with you, which accompanied you to every duty, which you could no more leave behind you than you could leave yourself behind, shall now be left behind forever. They might accompany you to death, but they cannot proceed a step farther.
Your understanding shall nevermore be troubled with darkness. Ignorance and error are inconsistent with this light. Now you walk like a man in the twilight, always afraid of being out of the way; but then will all this darkness be dispelled, and our blind understandings fully opened, and we shall have no more doubts of our way. We shall know which was the right side, and which the wrong; which was the truth, and which the error. What would we not give to see all dark Scriptures made plain, to see all seeming contradictions reconciled! When glory has taken the veil from our eyes, all this will be known in a moment; we shall then see clearly into all the controversies about doctrine or discipline that now perplex us. The poorest Christian is presently there a more perfect divine than any is here.
When our ignorance is perfectly healed, then we shall be settled, resolved men; then shall our reproach be taken from us, and we shall never change our judgments more. Oh! that happy, approaching day, when error shall vanish away forever; when our understanding shall be filled with God Himself, whose light will leave no darkness in us! His face shall be the Scripture, where we shall read the truth; and Himself, instead of teachers and counsels, to perfect our understandings, and acquaint us with Himself, who is the perfect truth. No more error, no more scandal to others, no more disquiet to our own spirits, no more mistaking zeal for falsehood; because our understandings have no more sin. Many a godly man has been a means to deceive and pervert his brethren, and when he sees his own error, cannot again tell how to undeceive them; but there we shall all conspire in one truth, as being one in Him who is that truth.
And as we shall rest from all the sin of our understandings, so of our wills, affection, and conversation. We shall no more retain this rebelling principle, which is still withdrawing us from God. Doubtless, we shall no more be oppressed with the power of our corruptions, nor vexed with their presence; no pride, passion, slothfulness, senselessness, shall enter with us; no strangeness to God, and the things of God; no coldness of affections, nor imperfection in our love; no uneven walking, nor grieving of the Spirit; no scandalous action, or unholy living. We shall rest from all these forever. Then shall our understandings receive light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun, where there is no earth to interpose between them; then shall our wills correspond to the divine will, as face answers to face in a glass; and the same, His will shall be our law and rule from which we shall never swerve again.
Heaven Is a Rest from Suffering. Heaven is a perfect rest from suffering. When the cause is gone, the effect ceases. Our sufferings were but the consequences of our sinning, and here they both shall cease together.
We shall rest from all our perplexing doubts and fears. It shall no more be said that doubts are like the thistle, a bad weed, but growing in good ground; they shall now be weeded out, and trouble the gracious soul no more. No more need of so many sermons, books, and signs to resolve the poor doubting soul. The full fruition of love itself will resolve all doubts forever.
We shall rest from all that sense of God’s displeasure, which was our greatest torment, whether manifested mediately or immediately. Sorrowful complaints will be turned into admiring thankfulness. All sense of God’s displeasure will be swallowed up in that ocean of infinite love when sense shall convince us that fury dwells not in God (cf. Isa. 27:4). Though for a little moment He hides His face, yet with everlasting compassion will He receive and embrace us.
We shall rest from all the temptations of Satan whereby he continually disturbs our peace. What a grief is it to a Christian, though he yield not to the temptation, yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord. That such a thought should be cast into his heart; that he can set about nothing that is good, but Satan is still dissuading him from it, distracting him in it, or discouraging him after it! What a torment as well as a temptation is it to have such horrid motions made to his soul!
Here we are too prone to entertain cruel thoughts of God, undervaluing thoughts of Christ, unbelieving thoughts of Scripture, injurious thoughts of Providence. We are so easily tempted to turn to present things, to play with the baits of sin, to venture on the delights of the flesh, and to consider atheism itself! We know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as tinder and gunpowder, ready to take fire, as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them. How the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness, to feel these motions! But more that his heart should be the soil for this seed and the too-fruitful mother of such an offspring. And, most of all, he is disquieted by the fear that they will at last prevail and these cursed motions should procure his consent.
But here is our comfort; as we now stand not by our own strength and shall not be charged with any of this; so when the day of our deliverance comes, we shall fully rest from these temptations. Satan is then bound up; the time of tempting is done. Now we do walk among his snares and are in danger of being circumvented with his methods and wiles; but then we are quite above his snares, and out of the hearing of his enticing charms. He has power here to tempt us in the wilderness, but he enters not into the Holy City. There will be no more work for Satan then.
We shall rest also from all our temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh, as well as Satan; and that is a number inexpressible, and a weight, were it not that we are beholden to supporting grace, utterly intolerable. Every sense is a snare; every member a snare; every creature a snare; every mercy a snare; and every duty a snare to us. We can scarce open our eyes, but we are in danger. If we behold them above us, we are in danger of envy; if below us, we are in danger of contempt. If we see sumptuous buildings, pleasant habitations, honor and riches we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires; if the rags and beggary of others, we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness. If we see beauty, it is a bait to lust; if deformity, loathing and disdain.
We can scarcely hear a word spoken but contains to us a matter of temptation. How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches, by that passage creep into the heart! How strong and prevalent a temptation is our appetite and how constant and strong a watch does it require! Have we comeliness and beauty? What fuel for pride. Are we deformed? What occasion of repining! Have we strength of reason, and gifts of learning? How hard it is not to be puffed up! To seek ourselves; to hunt after applause; to despise our brethren; to dislike the simplicity that is in Christ. Both in the matter and manner of Scripture, in doctrine, in discipline, in worship, and in the saints; to affect a pompous, specious, fleshly service of God, and to exalt reason above faith. Are we unlearned and of shallow heads and slender parts? How apt then to despise what we have not and to undervalue that which we do not know; and to err with confidence, because of our ignorance. Conceitedness and pride become a zealous enemy to truth and a leading troubler of the church’s peace, under pretenses of truth and holiness. Are we men of eminence and in place of authority? How strong is our temptation to slight our brethren, to abuse our trust, to seek ourselves, to stand upon our honor and privileges; to forget ourselves, our poor brethren, and the public good. How hard it is to devote our power to His glory from whom we have received it! How prone we are to make our wills our law and to cut out all the enjoyments of others, both religious and civil, by the cursed rules and model of our own interest and policy! Are we inferiors and subject? How prone to judge at others’ pre-eminence, and to take liberty to bring all their actions to the bar of our incompetent judgment; and to censure and slander them, and murmur at their proceedings! Are we rich and not too much exalted? Are we poor and not discontented, and make our worldly necessities a pretense for robbing God of all His service?
But forever blessed be omnipotent love which saves us out of all these and makes our straits but the advantages of the glory of His saving grace. In heaven the danger and trouble is over; there is nothing but what will advance our joy.
As we rest from the temptations, so also from all the abuses and persecutions which we suffer at the hands of wicked men. We shall be scorned, derided, imprisoned, banished, and butchered by them no more. The prayers of the souls under the altar will then be answered and God will avenge their blood on these that dwell on the earth. This is the time for crowning with thorns, buffeting, spitting on; that will be the time for crowning with glory.
Now we must be hated of all men for Christ’s name’s sake, and the gospel; then will Christ be admired in His saints that were thus hated. Now because we are not of the world, therefore doth the world hate us; then, because we are not of the world, therefore will the world admire us. Now, as they hated Christ, they will also hate us; then, as they will honor Christ, so will they also honor us. When their flood of persecution is dried up, and the church called out of the wilderness, and the New Jerusalem come down from heaven, and mercy and justice are fully glorified, then shall we feel their fury no more. We leave all this behind us when once we enter the City of our Rest: the names of Lollard, Huguenots, Roundheads are not there used; the inquisition of Spain is there condemned; the statute of the Six Articles is there repealed. There are no Bishops’ or Chancellor’s Courts; no visitations nor High Commission judgments; no censures to loss of members, perpetual imprisonment, or banishment. Christ is not there clothed in a mock robe and blindfolded. Nor is truth clothed in the robes of error and smitten for that which it most directly contradicts. Nor is a schismatic wounded, and a saint found bleeding; nor our friends smite us, mistaking us for their enemies. There is none of all this blind, mad work there.
Till then possess your souls in patience; bind all reproaches as a crown to our heads; esteem them greater riches than the world’s treasures; account it a matter of joy when you fall into tribulation. You have seen in these days that our God can deliver us; but this is nothing to our final conquest. He will recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with Christ.
We shall then also rest from our sad divisions, and unchristian quarrels with one another. There is no contention, because none of this pride, ignorance, or other corruption. Paul and Barnabas are now fully reconciled. There they are, not every man conceited of his own understanding and in love with the issue of his own brain, but all admiring the divine perfection, and in love with God and one another. Luther and Zwingli will be agreed. There shall be a full reconciliation between Calvinists and Lutherans; Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants; Conformists and Nonconformists. Antinomians and Legalists are terms there not known: Presbyterians and Independents are perfectly agreed. There is no discipline erected by state policy, nor any disordered popular rule; no government but that of Christ!
And is it not shame that our course is now so contrary? Is it not enough that all the world is against us, but we must also be against one another? Did I ever think to have heard Christians so to reproach and scorn Christians; and men professing the fear of God to make so little conscience of censuring, vilifying, slandering and disgracing one another? Alas! Once discernment has been perverted and error has possessed the supreme faculty, where will men go and what will they do? Nay! What will they not do? Oh, what a potent instrument for Satan is a misguided conscience! Today they may be orthodox, unanimous, and joined in love, and perhaps within a few weeks will be divided, and at bitter enmity, through their doting about questions that tend not to edify.
Oh happy day of the rest of the saints in glory when as there is one God, one Christ, one Spirit, so we shall have one judgment, one heart, one church, one employment forever! When there will be no more circumcision and uncircumcision, Jew and Gentile, Anabaptist, Paedobaptist, Brownist, Separatist, Independent, Presbyterian, Episcopal: but Christ is All in All. We shall not there scruple our communion, nor any of the ordinances of divine worship. There will not be one for singing and another against it. But even those who have jarred in discord shall all conjoin in blessed concord and make one melodious choir.
We shall then rest from all the sorrowful hours and sad thoughts we now undergo, by participating with our brethren in their calamities. Alas! If we had nothing upon ourselves to trouble us, yet what heart could lay aside sorrows that live in the sound of the church’s sufferings? The church on earth is a mere hospital. Whichever way we go, we hear complaining, and into whatsoever corner we cast our eyes, we behold objects of pity and grief. Who weeps not when all these bleed? As now our friends’ distresses are our distresses, so then our friends’ deliverance will be part of our own deliverance. How much more comfortable to see them perfected than now to see them wounded, weak, sick and afflicted? Our day of rest will free both them and us from all this.
Oh, the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that my eyes have seen in four years’ space! In this fight [The English Civil War], scarce a month, scarce a week, without the sight or noise of blood. Surely there is none of this in heaven. Our black raiment and mourning attire will then be turned into the white robes and garments of gladness. How hardly can my heart now hold when I think of such, and such, and such a dear Christian friend slain or departed! How glad must the same heart needs be when I see them all alive and glorified!
But a far greater grief it is to our spirits, to see the spiritual miseries of our brethren; to see our dearest and most intimate friends to be turned aside from the truth of Christ; to see many near us in the flesh continue their neglect of Christ and their souls. Oh, what continual sorrows do all these sad sights and thoughts fill our hearts with from day to day! And will it not be a blessed day when we shall rest from all these? What heart is not wounded to think on Germany’s long desolations [from the Hundred Years Wars–wars between the Catholics and Protestants after the Reformation]? Look on England’s four years’ blood, a flourishing land almost made ruined! Look to Scotland, look to Ireland; look almost everywhere! Blessed be that approaching day, when our eyes shall behold no more such sights nor our ears hear any more such tidings!
We shall rest also from all our personal sufferings, whether natural or ordinary, or extraordinary, from the afflicting hand of God. And though this may seem a small thing to those who live in continual ease, and abound in all kind of prosperity, yet, to the daily afflicted soul, it should make all thoughts of heaven delightful. As all our senses are the inlets of sin, so are they become the inlets of our sorrow. Grief creeps in at our eyes, at our ears, and almost everywhere. Fears do devour us, and darken our delights, as the frosts nip the tender buds, our cares consume us, and feed upon our spirits, as the scorching sun withers the delicate flowers. What tender pieces are these dusty bodies! What brittle glasses do we bear about us; and how many thousand dangers are they hurried through, and how hardly cured if once cracked!
Whatever it is to the sound and healthful, to such as myself this rest should be acceptable, who in ten or twelve years’ time have scarce had a whole day free from some sorrow. Oh, the weary nights and days; oh, the unserviceable, languishing weakness; oh, the restless working vapors; oh, the tedious, nauseous medicines, beside the daily expectation of worse! Will it not be desirable to rest from all these? Oh, the blessed tranquility of that region where there is nothing but sweet continued peace! Our lives will be but one joy, as our time will be changed into one eternity. For it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall give us rest from our sorrow, and our fear, and from the hard bondage wherein we served. The poor man shall no more be tired with his incessant labors: no more use of the plough, or flail, or scythe, or sickle; no stooping of the servant to the master, or the tenant to the landlord; no hunger, or thirst, or cold, or nakedness; no pinching frosts or scorching heats. No more parting of friends asunder, nor voice of lamentation heard in our dwellings; no more breaches nor disproportion will be in our friendship, nor any trouble accompanying our relations.
Then shall the “the ransomed of the Lord … return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10). Hold out then a little longer, oh, my soul; bear with the infirmities of thine earthly tabernacle. It will be thus but a little while; the sound of our Redeemer’s feet are even at the door and your own deliverance nearer than many others. And you who have often cried shall then feel that God and joy fill all your soul. The fruition of heaven, with your freedom from all these sorrows, will more sincerely and feelingly make you know, and to His eternal praise acknowledge, that you live.
We shall rest also from all the trouble and pain of duty. The conscientious magistrate now cries out, “Oh, the burden that lies upon me!” The conscientious parents, who know the preciousness of their children’s souls and the constant pains required to their godly education, cry out, “Oh, the burden!” The conscientious minister when he reads his charge and views his pattern; when he has tried awhile what it is to study, and pray and preach; to go from house to house, and from neighbor to neighbor, and to beseech them night and day with tears, and, after all, be hated and persecuted for so doing—no wonder if he cries out, “Oh, the burden!”
And seldom does a minister live to see the ripeness of his people. But one sows and plants, another waters, and a third reaps and receives the increase. To inform the old ignorant sinner, to convince the stubborn and worldly wise, to persuade a willful, resolved wretch, to prick a stony heart to the quick, to make a rock to weep and tremble, to set forth Christ according to our necessity and His excellency, to comfort the soul whom God dejects, to clear up dark and difficult truths, to oppose with convincing arguments all gainsayers, to credit the gospel with exemplary conversations, when multitudes do but watch for our halting. Oh, who is sufficient for these things? So that every conscientious Christian cries out, “Oh, the burden! Oh, my weakness that makes it so burdensome!” But our eternal rest will ease us of the burden.
Lastly, we shall rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God. We shall no more look into our cabinet and miss our treasure; look into our hearts and miss our Christ; nor no more seek Him from ordinance to ordinance, and inquire for our God of those we meet. Our heart will not lie in our knee, nor our souls be breathed out in our request, but all conclude in a most full and blessed fruition.
Heaven Is an Eternal Rest. The last jewel in our crown and blessed attribute of this rest is that it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown without which all were comparatively little or nothing. The very thought of once leaving it would else embitter all our joys; and the more would it pierce us because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake.
Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights. It makes our present life of little value—were it not for the reference it has to God and eternity—to think that we must shortly lay it down. Surely, were it not for eternity, I should think man a silly piece; and all his life and honor but contemptible; a vain shadow. I can value nothing that shall have an end, except as it leads to that which has no end; or as it comes from that love which has neither beginning nor end.
What do I say when I talk of eternity? Can my shallow thoughts conceive at all what that most high expression contains? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Why, surely this, if anything, is the resemblance of God: eternity is a piece of infiniteness. Oh, then, my soul, let go thy dreams of present pleasures and loose thy hold of earth and flesh. Fear not to enter that estate where thou shalt ever after cease thy fears. Sit down and think about this eternity. Study frequently, study thoroughly, this one word: eternity. And when you have learned thoroughly that one word, you will never look on books again! What! live, and never die? Rejoice, and ever rejoice! Oh, what sweet words are those, never and ever.
Oh, that the gracious soul would believingly study this word everlasting. That should revive him in his deepest agony! Must I, Lord, thus live forever? Then will I also love forever. Must my joys be immortal; and shall not my thanks be also immortal? Surely, if I shall never lose my glory, I will also never cease Thy praises. If Thou wilt both perfect and perpetuate me and my glory, as I shall be Thine, and not my own, so shall my glory be Thy glory. And as all did take their spring from Thee, so shall all devolve into Thee again; and as Thy glory was Thine ultimate end in my glory, so shall it also be mine when Thou hast crowned me with that glory which has no end. And unto Thee, “eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17).
Teaching Resources International 