The Saints Everlasting Rest, Treatise 1 · Chapter 7 · Section 19 – Section 20
SECT. XIX.§ 19.
NInthly.9It will be an Everlasting Rest. The ninth and 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 imbitter all our joys; and the more would it peirce us, because of the singular excellencies, which we must forsake. It would be a Hell in Heaven to think of once loosing Heaven: As it would be a kinde of Heaven to the damned, had they but hopes of once escaping? *Transu hora, transit & poena: ne… accedunt sibi; s…d cedunt potius & succedum. Non sic gloria, non sic remuneratio; non sic merces ipsa laboris; nescit Vicissitudinem; nescit finem; manet tota simul, & manet in aeternum: Sufficit nunc cuique diei malitia sua; nec laborem suum poterit reservare sequenti: Sed omnium merces laborum in una illa die reddetur, cui alter a non succedit: Guttatim poena bibitur: liquando sumitur: per minutias transit: Sed in remuneratione torrens est voluptath, & fluminis impetus: torrens inundans laetitiae, flumen gloriae, & flumen pacis. Flumen plane est: sed quod affluat; non quod fluat vel es fluat. Flumen vocatur, non quod transeat vel pertranseat, sed quod abundet. Nobis non favum mellis; purissimum vero & liquidissimum mel reposuit Deus; ipsam laetitiam, gloriam, pacem, amaenitatem, faelicitotem, jucunditatem, & exultationem the saurizavit nobis Deus noster: haec omnia unum: ut sit participatio Hierusalem in idipsum; & hoc unum & idipsum non nisi Ipse: erit enim Deus omnia & i… omnibus. Haec merces; haec corona nostra; hoc bravium nostrum, ad quod utique sic curramus u… comprehendamus. Bernard. Serm. 145. de temp.Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights. It makes our present life of little value, (were it not for the reference it hath to God, and Eternity) to think that we must shortly lay it down. How can we take delight in any thing, when we remember how short that delight would be? That the sweetness of our Cups and Morsels is dead as soon as they are once but pa… our taste? Indeed if man were as the beast, that knows not his suffering or death, till he feel it, and little thinks when the knife is whetting, that it is making ready to cut his throat; then might we be merry till death forbids us, and enjoy our delights till they shall forsake us: But alas, we know both good and evil; and evil foreknown, is in part endured: And thus our knowledg encreaseth our sorrows. Eccles. 1.18. How can it chuse, but spoil our pleasure, while we see it dying in our hands? how can I be as merry as the jovial World, had I not mine eye fixed upon eternity? when methinks I foresee my dying hour, my friends waiting for my last gasp, and closing mine eyes, while tears forbid to close their own: Methinks I hear them say, He is dead. Methinks I see my Coffin made, my Grave in digging, and my Friends there leaving me in the dust: And where now is that we took delight in? O, but methinks I see at the same view, that Grave opening, and my dead revived Body rising: Methinks I hear that blessed voyce, Arise and live, and die no more. Surely, were it not for eternity, I should think man a silly piece; and all his life and honor, but contemptible. I should call him with David, A vain shadow; and with the Prophet, Nothing, and less then nothing, and altogether lighter then vanity it self. It utterly disgraceth the greatest glory in mine eyes, if you can but truly call it Mortal. I can value nothing that shall have an end; except as it leads to that▪ which hath no end; or as it comes from that love, which neither hath beginning nor end. (I speak this of my deliberate thoughts.) And if some ignorant or forgetful soul, have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure: I confess, he may be merrier for the present: But where is his mirth when he lieth dying? Alas, its a poor happiness that consists onelyonly in the Ignorance or Forgetfulness of approaching misery. But, O blessed eternity! where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts, nor our joys interrupted with any such fears! where we shall be pillars in Gods Temple, and go out no more.Revel. 3.12. O, what do I say when I talk of Eternity? Can my shallow thoughts at all conceive, what that most high expression doth contain? To be eternally blessed, and so blessed! Why surely, this if any thing is the resemblance of God: Eternity is a piece of Infiniteness. Then, O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? Days, and Nights, and Yeers, Time, and End, and Death, are words which there have no signification; nor are used, except perhaps to extol eternity, as the mention of Hell, to extol Heaven. No more use of our Calendars or Chronology: All the yeers of our Lord, and the yeers of our lives, are lost and swallowed up in this Eternity. While we were servants, we held by lease, and that, but for the term of a transitory life; but the Son abideth in the House for ever.Gal. 6.8. Our first and earthly Paradise in Eden, had a way out, but none that ever we could finde, in again: But this eternal paradise hath a way in, (a milky way to us, but a bloody way to Christ) but no way out again: For they that would pass from hence to you (saith Abraham) cannot.Luke 16.26. A strange phrase, would any pass from such a place, if they might? Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour? No; but upon supposal that they would, yet they could not. O, 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 sadly once a day, bethink thy self of this Eternity: Among all thine Arithmetical numbers, study the value of this infinite Cypher; which though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account, doth yet contain all our Millions, as much less then a simple Unit: Lay by thy perplexed and contradicting Chronological Tables, and fix thine eye on this Eternity; and the Lines which remote thou couldst not follow, thou shalt see altogether here concentred: Study less those tedious Volumns of History; which contain but the silent Narration of Dreams, and are but the pictures of the actions of shadows: And in stead of all, study frequently, study throughly this one word [Eternity;] and when thou hast learned throughly that one word, thou wilt never lo…k on Books again. What! Live and Never die? Rejoyce and Ever rejoyce… O what sweet words are those, Never and Ever? O happy souls in Hell, should you but escape after millions of ages! and if the Origenists Doctrine were but True! O, miserable Saints in Heaven, should you be dispossessed after the age of a million of Worlds! But O this word [Everlasting] contains the accomplished perfection of their Torment and our Glory. O, that the wicked sinner would but soundly study this word [Everlasting!] Methinks it should startle him out of his deadest sleep! O that the gracious soul would believingly study this word [Everlasting!] Methinks it should revive him in his deepest Agony! And must I, Lord, thus live for ever? Then will I also love for…ever. Must my Joyes 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. Shouldst thou but renew my Lease of these first Fruits; would I not renew thy Fine and Rent? But if thou wilt both perfect, and perpetuate me, and my Glory; as I shall be thine, and not mine own; so shall my Glory be thy Glory: And as all did take their Spring from thee, so all shall devolve into thee again; and as thy glory was thine ultimate end in my glory, so shall it also be mine end, when thou hast crowned me with that Glory which hath no end. And to thee, O King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the onelyonly wise God, shall be the Honor and Glory, for ever and ever, Amen. 1 Tim. 1.17.
§ 20.SECT. XX.
ANd thus I have endevored to shew you a glimpse of the approaching Glory: But O how short are my expressions of its excellency? Reader, if thou be an humble, sincere believer, and waitest with longing and laboring for this Rest, thou wilt shortly see and feel the truth of all this; then wilt thou have so high an apprehension of this blessed state, that will make thee pity the ignorance, and distance of Mortals; and will tell thee then, all that is here said, is spoken but in the dark, and falls short of the truth a thousand fold. In the mean time, let this much kindle thy desires, and quicken thine endevors. Up and be doing, run, and strive, and fight, and hold on, for thou hast a certain glorious prize before thee. God will not mock thee; do not mock thy self, nor betray thy soul by delaying or dallying, and all is thine own. What kinde of men doest thou think Christians would be in their lives and duties, if they had still this Glory fresh in their thoughts? What frame would their spirits be in, if their thoughts of Heaven were lively, and believing? Would their hearts be so heavy? And their countenance so sad? Or would they have need to take up their comforts from below? Would they be so loath to suffer? And afraid to die? Or would they not think every day a yeer till they did enjoy it? The Lord heal our carnal hearts, lest we enter not into his REST, because of our unbelief.