A Prospect OF ETERNITY: OR Man's Everlasting condition Opened and Applied.  
By JOHN WELLS Master of Arts, sometimes Fellow of St. John's College in Oxford, and now Pastor 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 beatitude. Audoenus. And these shall go away into Everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life Eternal. 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 Worshipful Alderman Foot, Alderman Frederick, 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 happiness both here and to ETERNITY.  
Dear and much Honoured Friends,  
THis small Manual had necessitated me to an Apology, to excuse my precipitance in adventuring in public, 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 Press, not only by Supplications and Prayers, but by Meditations, enforced this presumption. It hath been the tedious controversy and long dispute of my thoughts, what testimony of my Love and Thankfulness to present you with, and at last the vote carried it, to present you with a Landscape of Eternity.  
Indeed, I confess, this small Treatise calls for as many Apologies, as it hath lines in itself, but the unusualnesse of the subject, and your wont favour and goodness, shall be my Apologetical plea. And as the Painter who pictured Alexander with his finger on his defective eye, let your candidness cloud, and conceal all the imperfections of it. What it is let me entreat you to entertain 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 sheltered and received in the kind embraces of your patronage. This I must inform 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 digress in the amplifying of the seriousness, profoundness, necessity and sutableness of the argument, the great state of Eternity; lest I should anticipate and forestall myself, and leave the Treatise to be only a rehearsal 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 shore of all our labours, the reward of all our prayers, and the consummation of all our happiness. Man himself 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 door. The great Creator of Heaven and Earth, is Man's only fit companion, and Eternity is essential to him, he is Deus aeternus & immutabilis; the comforts of the Spirit are the souls only refreshments, and everlastingness is entailed on them, Joh. 14. 16. Nay the soul itself, which is man's nobler and better part, which is life incorporate, and activity wrapped in the winding-sheet of flesh, is immortal in its being, and only rests satisfied 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 bless God for these few hints to all Eternity; Who 
Eccles. 12. 11.  knows what a word in season, if as a nail 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 entreat the God 
Psal. 65. 2.  that heareth Prayer, that every line in it may be written upon your souls in the blood 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 souls (whose welfare shall be the crown of my joy, both here and for ever) in a glorious, steady, and joyous eternity.  
But I will no longer detain you, only let me tell you, I have endeavoured in this Treatise, not only 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 design 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 Atheistical speech of Paul the third, who sat in the Pontifical chair, when lying on his deathbed he said, He should now make trial of three things whereof he had doubted all his life;  

1. Whether the soul was immortal. 
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 Skeptics in these things in their discourse and language, yet in their lives and deportments, they act the verification of all these inquiries.  
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 sinful, and sensual objects. Our age is the womb of multiplied confusions, and every one is ready to bar up their own Cabins, 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 eternal estate unravelled; and so on necessity the joys of the blessed, and the woes of the damned unboweled; and if either the one shall affright thee from thy sin, and why not, thy sin will ingulfe thee in eternal misery; or the other allure thee to God, methinks it should, when God is the very life of eternal life: I say, if either physic work, it will abundantly compensate the poor and unworthy Author in what he hath contributed; nor will it be any loss to thee, on whom the Treatise hath tried its experiment. It is strange to observe with what vain Speculations men misguide their zeal, and tyre their own fervour and vivacity; with what overboiling ambition do the Absaloms' of the world raise unnatural rebellions to seat themselves in the throne: and others turn Courtesans to their voluptuous appetites, and spea● Epicurus himself to be illiterate in the sensual trade: And a third sort dig the golden mine by indefatigable industry, and then bury themselves alive in it, by delight and complacency: Nor are there wanting a fourth generation, who drown themselves in the curious subtleties, trifling questions, and vain strifes and disputes of secular learning, (not that I disallow, but honour Learning bespangled with grace) and with eagerness pursue the vanishing delicacies of a better tempered profaneness. When in the mean time, the great and main prey of man's pursuits should be, how to lay claim to a rich eternity. How would the Saints triumphant who now bathe themselves in rivers of eternal pleasure, if such a passion could enter heaven, deride the folly and madness of most in the world? It is thy soul, thy God, thy life, thy eternity calls for thy most serious thoughts, precious time, active graces, fervent prayers, and diligent inquisitions.  
And let it not seem unto thee a tedious and troublesome impertinency to glance thy eye on these short Meditations: I may say concerning this Manual, what Lot said concerning 
Gen. 19 20.  Zoar, Is it not a little oned? Thou knowest not what thy reading this short Treatise, if the Spirit of the Lord give thee a meeting, may engender; what heart-melting, sin-killing, grace-multiplying? Despise not 
Zech. 4. 10.  the day of small things. But I commend It and Thee to the grace of the Lord, and rest  
Thine in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus John Wells. From my Study in the Old Jewry, Sept. 7. 1654.   

A PROSPECT OF ETERNITY: The Introduction.  2 COR. 4. 18. The things which are not seen, are Eternal. 

THis Chapter in the aim and intention of it, is a consolatory reserve for suffering Saints; a Scripture-cordial for fainting Martyrs; and it may be parceled into four principal parts.  
1. Here is Paul's vindication of his 
The first part of the Chapter.  Ministry; and that in three regards.  
1. He advanceth his Ministry, by his call to it: by acknowledging free grace in calling him to so glorious a function. Paul chains Ministry and Mercy together, and reads God's compassion in his own function: a practice unusual with us, for we for the most part make the Ministry a cloth which will slain most, and esteem that sacred office, our misery, not our mercy, our burden, not our privilege; while we reproach the persons, deride the qualifications, and dispute the office of the Ministry; but this great Apostle makes that his honour, which we repute our scorn, ver. 1.  
2. The Apostle magnifies his office by his sincere carriage in it, and as he eyes God's grace to him, in selecting him for this office, so he doth not overpasse God's grace in him, in carrying him on in the office; he triumphs in God's bounty and his own innocency. And truly sincerity sheds a gloss upon the Ministry, and dresses it in its genuine attire; Ministers should no more want integrity in their office then qualifications for it: the first obstructing the prevalency, the latter undervalanuing the dignity of the Ministry, vers. 2. etc. Paul was no daubing sophister, who made the mine, and gain his end: who did adulterate the truth, to get a real gain; he did not daub with untempered mortar, nor preach fucatam 
Ezek. 13. 11.  Doctrinam, dissembled and painted Doctrine, or vent truth in a duskish light; but he would weigh his intentions and practices, not in the balance of his opinion, but in the scales of other men's consciences: he preaches not himself, to make the Pulpit his pander; but Jesus Christ, and him crucified: and if his own name must be mentioned, it was but as the cipher to the figure, to make Christ the more glorious, vers. 2, 3, 4, 5.  
3. Paul advanceth his office by opening the trust, that glorious trust, that every Minister was entrusted withal, vers. 7. Ministers they are considerable caskets, which contain rare jewels, as the matter of the Lamp to the light of it. As Caesar said to the trembling mariner, Thy boat carries Caesar and all his fortunes: so the Ministers they are the heralds of divine truth; and every one of them may justly take up Isaiahs' Apology, Isa. 6. 5. Woe is me, for I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips: pure truth drops from their unclean lips; and this is the first part.  
11. And as the first part compriseth 
The second part.  the glory of the ministerial office, so the second comprehends the troubles of the Ministerial officers: they are not only earthen, but battered and broken vessels, vers. 8. Paul and others they flamed in zeal, but many storms fell upon the fire of their zeal; they were burning lights, but there were many winds to blow these lights out; the dignity of the office did not prevent the misery of the person; in the former part Paul admires his function, and in the second he bewails his condition; Ministers their calling is honourable, but oftentimes their condition is deplorable; We are troubled, we are perplexed, verse. 8. Indeed their ambassage is glorious, but their usage is often grievous, and Christ's Ambassadors 
Rev. 1. 20.  often find the same welcome with david's: they are sent out with renown, 
2 Sam. 10. 4.  though entertained with reproach; they are stars mustled in a cloud: though the misery mentioned ver. 8, 9 may be understood of the Saints in general.  
But thirdly, there is a lamp appears 
The third part.  in this night; the third part of the Chapter comprehends the rare indulgence of God, in providing planks for these shipwrecked Ministers and people, harbours for weatherbeaten Saints, there were yet backdoors for straightened professors, troubled but not distressed, verse. 8. 9 and the voice of despair was not heard in the storm of their calamity, some twigs there were to keep them above weather; God hath either the castle of Providence, or the 
Act. 23. 17.  ark of a Promise, or the alsufficiency of his own grace, for the retirement 
2 Cor. 12. 8.  of his people in the greatest storms and tempests.  
But lastly, here is mention made, of 
The fourth part.  the glorious plot and design that God hath in all the sufferings of his Ministers and people; and that is to bring them to glory at the last; the life of a Saint is a Tragicomedy; tears in the pilgrimage, but joy in the heritage; weeping in the bud, but glory in the flower; here persecution, but shortly coronation, vers. 15, 16, 17. The stripes of a Saint are easy, but the crown is weighty,  
1. For the massiness of it: much glory.  
2. For the value of it, and so I have now brought you within view of the text.  
And the whole verse is the close of the discourse of this Chapter: and it is a serious Aphorism argumentatively used, to stay the minds of God's people in all their infelicities, and to dry up all their tears: and the argument runs thus, That supposing our life here were spread with roses, yet they are marcessible; and if with thorns, yet they are dying; the jewels of the Crown will receive a damp, and the terrors of the Cross will soon be at an end: groans and joys in this life are both expiring, our troubles and our triumphs have their setting, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the things that are seen are temporal; the distresses of the world are a short and sudden tempest, and the delights of it are a shedding flower; and therefore the Apostles argument is, that there ought to be an indifferency in men's thoughts, for the outward passages of this world, wisdom and grace should make our judgements even, and we should be in an aequilibrio, whether we sway the sceptre, or are cast upon the dunghill, for all things sublunary are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for a season: but the things that are not seen, are eternal; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. And now I have brought you within sight of the vast Ocean of eternity, and the text is a pregnant argument that the great Apostle useth why we should make it our inquiry, what our perpetuated estate should be; our future condition, when millions of years shall be as millions of cyphers, and signify nothing: when the Crown and the Cross shall be stretched out to eternity, and there shall be neither fading in the one, nor waste in the other. Now before I traverse the doctrinal conclusion that compriseth the subject of the treatise, I shall unmask the text itself in a percursory explication: and the question will be what the unseen things are in the text. And first I suppose these unseen things spoken of here, are principally those fruitions of glory, which free grace hath stretched out to eternity, that unshaking and unshaken crown of eternity; that everlasting joy, that the Saints shall partake of; that unfading happiness they shall flourish in, to all eternity; that eternal house for the security of it, 2 Cor 5. 1. that eternal glory for the renown of it, 2 Tim. 2. 10. that eternal inheritance for the riches of it, Heb. 9 15. that eternal redemption for the love of it, Heb. 9 12. that eternal salvation for the seasonableness of it, Heb. 5. 9 These are those unseen things chief intended, those glorious beatitudes which are reserved for believers entertainment, which shall never receive either damp or death; those rivers of pleasure which run at God's right hand for evermore. 
Psal. 36. 8.  And there are two reasons which seem to enforce this interpretation:  
1. As the Text is a Cordial: Something laid in by the Apostle to refresh the fainting and languishing spirit of suffering Saints, and it is a rich one, and the argument will hold thus, In all your perplexities (suffering Brethren) do but weigh anchor, and sail into the Ocean of eternity; and consider, there your happiness shall never be blasted, and the waste of ages shall not precipitate the conclusion of your joys: let this single eternity, as it is put into the lease of your glory, revive your trembling and disconsolate spirits, when the storm of trouble beats most upon you; And surely this very argument being weighed in the balance, might be bladders to bear up the believer in the deepest waters; it might as it were cork the soul, that it should not sink.  
And 2. this seems to be the genuine interpretation, because there is a pregnant antithesis observable in the verse; temporals compared with eternals, fading sorrows with fixed joys; our visible martyrdoms are extinguishable fire, but our invisible blessedness shall be an unperishable crown, and so this verse doth but second and amplify the former. But however this chief may be the exposition of the text: yet I conceive that the unseen things mentioned in the text may import and take in these two things.  
1. The interest of man, we see not what the claim of man is here, many here are but Mountebancks and cheats in Religion, Alchemy professors: mens spiritual estates are no more known by their outward profession, than their temporal estates are by their ; wherefore our conjectures are often mistaken in our conclusion, what the interest of man is; whether their interest be laid up in Christ, or whether misery shall be their portion. This may be one of the invisibles in the text; but this unseen interest in man shall be eternal, the Saints interest in Christ is eternal, his membership, his relation, and the sinner's loss is eternal: the impropriation of man is eternal, their damage or their gain.  
2. The state of man is eternal; as the tree falls, so it shall lie to all eternity, there shall be no stoppage to, or breaking up of man's future condition. We see not what the condition of man is here: but his estate shall be everlastingly permanent; whether in the throne or on the wrack, estate of felicity or calamity; his condition, whether grace hath inamel'd it with happiness, or sin inpoverisht it with misery, it shall be inalterably everlasting.  
And now at last I am arrived at that conclusion or observation which shall be the sum of the future discourse; and it is this, Man's future condition is an eternal condition; and I shall take in as well the groans of hell, as the joys of heaven; and now to unravel this bottomless knot, or to sound this fathomless Ocean of eternity, hic labor hoc opus est. This indeed is a constellation of difficulties, here the choicest understanding may be dazzled; eternity being a problem, that may rather astonish, then fit the understanding: we cannot fathom the Ocean of waters, much less that of eternity: but through the direction and by the guidance of the invisible and eternal Spirit, I shall endeavour to draw a map of this unlimited state, and give you a prospect of this boundless and bottomless Ocean. And this I shall do rather negatively, then positively; as Plato said concerning 
Plat.  God, What he is (saith he) that I know not; but what he is not, that I know. And as Augustine describes 
August.  the true beatitude of heaven by removing from it the very thoughts of all evil; so in reference to eternity, we must rather remove from it what it is not, then go about exactly and accurately to describe it; that we shall only do when we are cast upon the shore of eternity. I shall set upon the enterprise in several Propositions and conclusions.  
Conclus. 1 And the first shall be this, Man's eternal condition admits of no changes or distinction of time. There shall be no night in heaven, nor any day in hell: In the eternity of glory, there shall be no full or wanes of the Moon, no falling of the leaf or Autumnal declination: that is a pregnant place, Rev. 22. 5. And there shall be no light there, and they need no candle, neither light 
Rev. 22. 25.  of the sun: for the Lord giveth them light, (that is) by his immediate presence, etc. In heaven the sun shall not set, nor the morning star arise: there shall be no clouds to veil the Saints happiness, no storms nor tempests to be the shadow of a disturbance, no frost to pinch or afflict the bodies of believers, which shall be bespangled with glory; no winter's day to shorten the beatifical vision. And so in the eternity of misery, there shall be no spring, nor pleasant resurrection from the doleful grave of a winter. That is very remarkable, Mat. 25. 30. Cast ye the unprofitable servant into utter darkness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some render it abundant darkness; it may well be understood in tenebras circumferentes, environing darkness, the mantle of darkness. In eternal calamity, there shall be no chirping birds, or green-livered fields to be the emblems of an approaching Summer; hell shall not be gilded with a sunshining day. But eternity shall be an identical condition, simul & semel; the interchangeable seasons of the year shall cease in eternity: the serenity and blackness of the skies, the flourishing beauty and withered deformity of the earth, the eclipses and changes of the celestial bodies, the dawning morning, and the duskish evening, shall all be unknown in eternity. And an everlasting night shall overshadow the damned; and an eternal morning shall refresh the blessed, who shall be ever sunning themselves in the presence of God; and the Sun shall be laid aside as useless in heaven, for it would not be seen for the brightness of God. Now there can be no distinctions of time in the eternity of the blessed (and this method shall run through the whole discourse).  
Reas. 1 For all changes in heaven would argue imperfection; all mutability is imperfect, and therefore God who is 
Solennis ibi festivitas, & festiva ibi aeternitas; ibi nec est defectio, sed optima refectio. Alard.  infinitely perfect, is immutable; such transient changes would cause a wane in the Saint's happiness: Now there is a double royal perfection in heaven; 1. Of purity: 2. Of felicity. Imperfection is a weed which grows not there; there shall no deficiency 
Psal. 17. 15.  slain the celestial beatitude. When man hath attained to a perfection of excellency, as infallibly he shall in glory, there shall then be no defect, to be the womb of dissatisfaction.  
It would be tedious to the glorified Saints to tell the flying hours again; 
Aeterna vita omni taediocaret Ambr. tom. 3.  and pass through a variety of seasons; for the Saints to be incht again with the sharpness of a Winter, or scorched with the over kind beams of a Summer's sun: this is inconsistent with that delight, they shall in heaven be ravished with; so their comforts would grow as cold as the season. Besides that of the Apostle is observable, 2 Pet. 3. 12. Wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat: this text abrogates such disturbance, whether it be understood of a purgation or annihilation. Unquestionably this may be asserted: what ever may imply the least shadow of trouble, or distaste, shall be banished the court of glory; the joys of eternity shall not be eclipsed with the least vicissitude or unpleasantness.  
And God's immediate presence shall scatter all changes and distinctions of time, when his glory is in the full, what clouds can appear? God is as immutable 
Ex visione Dei omnia beatorum bona unicè oriuntur, & dependent.  in his glory as in his nature, and the Saints shall ever in heaven lie under his radiant appearancies; see his face, Mat. 5. 8. behold his glory, Joh. 17. 24. and he will be an everlasting spring to his glorified ones. Vicissitudes in time shall melt in the presence of the Lord, the rivers of heaven's pleasure shall admit of no doubts or decays, there shall no night veil the day of eternal salvation.  
Nor shall there be any distinction or change of times in the eternity of the damned. For  
1. Reas. 1 This would alleviate and mitigate the miseries of the damned, some variety would be the womb of some pleasure, some light would be some refreshment: Eccles. 11. 7. Truly light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But in hell there shall be all severity, but no mercy; there shall be no daybreak, to revive executed reprobates; could there be changes of times or seasons in hell, there might fall out a winter, and Dives might meet with a shower to cool his tongue; but pity visits not those dismal prisons, what ever may contribute to the abatement of the damneds misery, shall be everlastingly banished. In heaven there shall need no light, Rev. 22. 5. In hell they shall have none, they shall so far want the comfort of the sun, as they shall not be blest with the light of a candle; none of nature's variety and embroidery in point of seasons, not the sharpest and the harshest seasons shall shed the least refreshment on the tortured reprobate.  
This would be some ground of comfort to the damned to tell their past miseries; for alteration of seasons implieth a succession, (which as I shall show is impossible in hell) they might then with some reflection of joy recollect, there are so many sharp winters or dark nights of misery blown over, and this would be some satisfaction to suppose that some of their calamity was wasted. Now misery is the only sign in hell, nor shall one drop of mercy fall into a hell of fire; there shall be no preterition in the torment of the damned, but they shall always be in actu moriendi, in the act of execution; 
August.  they shall hang in fiery chains, and those chains shall never break, or they die in those chains. As our Saviour expresseth himself in that doleful language, Mat. 8. 48. Where the worm dieth not; Sed semper corrodit & nunquam satiatur, which always gnaws, but never is satisfied: which language might be a knell to awaken us, from our most stupefied security. But thus much of the 1. Conclusion.   

CHAP. II.  
Concl. 2 Mans eternal condition admits of no gradation.  
THere shall be no degrees in eternity. In heaven there shall be all perfection, in hell all defection. The buds of joy shall not blow in heaven, there shall be no maturation of happiness, or ascension to superior thrones, Rev. 3. 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne. No rising to greater dignity, or more sublime preferment: there shall be no exaltation after a long enjoyment of honour; the first enthronising of the Saint, after the resurrection, is there ultimate honour, their Crown shall have no new pearls set in it. I speak after the manner of men; there shall be no accumulative advancement, or superadded happiness in heaven. Here the Saints grow in grace, but they shall not grow in glory; though sanctification 
2 Pet. 3. 18.  be, yet glorification shall not be gradual: no steps in heaven for the Saints to ascend, the sight of God shall comprise all honour and happiness. And it is impossible there should be degrees of promotion in glory; (I mean secundum eundum, in reference to the same person) for that there should not be degrees of glory, secundum diversos, in reference to divers I dare not disavow, because as Philosophers speak, Eadem est ratio contrariorum, contraries have the same reason. If there shall be degrees of punishment in hell, as our Saviour clearly asserts, Mat. 10. 15. It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. then I suppose there may be degrees of glory in heaven, especially there being interposed this consideration, Mat. 5. 12. Great shall be your reward; that is, more great, than others shall be crowned with; but secundum eundem, in reference to the same person there shall be no gradation in the eternity of the blessed.  
1. Reas. 1 Because there would be nova causa honoris, some new reason of promotion. As Ahasuerus honoured Mordecai for the detecting of a conspiracy against his life; so God's justice would require it, that there should be some new impulsive cause for further dignity. But this cannot take place in glory, when the Saints praises shall always be in the same tune, and their hallelujahs shall be wound up as high as their joys; nay their hallelujahs shall be part of their happiness. It is fancy, nay misguided conception, to suppose that the Saints in heaven could screw up their harps to a higher peg than they shall do for ever: their desires to serve God in glory, shall be-sublimated to the same superlativenesse as their rejoicing in God: Their love being perfect and their power, there shall surely be no decay in their triumphant obediencies.  
2. If there could be any gradation in heaven, than God did not fully observe the state of the Saint before he came 
Psal. 139. 12.  there; and therefore falling upon a more exact Survey, he promotes him to greater dignities: which would be most absurd, and would not only impeach the indulgence of God, who always gives measure running over; but also the omniscience of God, who sees not only our visible actions, but our most internal and retired motions; those secrets that men most obumbrate and conceal. And therefore the Saints shall always be in the same state of glory, and not rise, as the Sun, from a dauning to a noonday. But when once the soul after its long widowhood shall at the Resurrection be espoused again to its glorified body, and shall cloth its self with that rich apparel, then shall the believer ever shine in the same state of perfection, and he shall flourish though in most glorious yet identical excellencies.  
3. One thing more may be added further to illustrate this truth, that secundum eundem in reference to the same person, there can be no degrees of glory; for then there would be imperfection in heaven comparatively, because the Saints might be advanced to greater dignity; Perfectum est cui nihil addi potest, saith Aristotle, & quiequid potest recipere additionem est imperfectum; that is perfect to which nothing can be added, and whatsoever can receive any addition is imperfect. But now the weakling of imperfection shall have no place in glory; all tears, and sins, and defectiveness, all capability of further felicity shall be banished heaven, and the Saints shall be enthroned in consummated beatitude.  
Nor shall there be any degrees in their eternity of misery, no ascension to further ease, or descension to further misery; (for the damned shall be fully miserable) there shall be no slacking of the pulleys or allaying of the flames; surely those fires shall not decay in their force, that have the wrath of God for their fuel, and their bellows. Nebuchadnezars fires, Dan. 3. 19 may 
Isa. 30. 33.  be colder or hotter according to the degree of the King's displeasure; but the infernal flames shall always scorch with the same intensive heat, God wrathfully kindling them, and the Devil and his Angels rigorously applying them. In the primitive times the tormentors were wearied in the execution of the Martyrs; but no such happiness shall befall the damned, the justice and power of God being his nature, and so immutable; now there can be no degrees in the eternity of misery.  
1. For the damned shall be punished according to their capacity, they shall be full of torment, the vessel of wrath shall be up to the brim in calamity. As the Saints shall enjoy fullness of joy, Psal. 16. 11. So the reprobates shall be filled with fullness of wrath and the degrees of torment in hell shall not arise from this, that any shall have a mitigation of their misery, but every one shall be full of torture, but their gradualnesse. Their more tolerablenesse mentioned, Mat. 10. 15. shall be according to the capacity of the damned, some of their natures shall be stretched wider than others to receive more in, as a tun contains more than a firkin, but their misery shall be coextentive to their capacity. They shall be full of anguish and pain, as the Ocean is with water, as the Fountain is with streams; and it must be so, else there would be some alleviation in hell, some comfort, and mercy; the reprobates are not in so doleful a condition as they might be, they might be worse, and this would be some refreshment; but alas! mercy's smile shall not be seen in hell: Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, Mat. 25. 41. The sound of God's bowels shall not be heard there. In miserable eternity the Reprobate shall reap no more, than the fruit of a divine execration.  
2. The damned shall be punished for ever according to demerit, which is from adequate and proportionable justice; and therefore there is mention made of many stripes, Luk. 12. 47. where we may observe the justice, and regular proceed of God. Now could there be degrees in the sufferings of the damned, there would be a variation and mutability in Divine justice, which is impossible to God's unchangeableness; there would then be a rising and falling in the steady and inalterable severity of God; for hell is a place of pure justice: Summi juris: so there can be no declension or slacking of wrath there. Now this gradation cannot be admitted upon this account, it would cast an impeachment of mutation and change upon God; Quod absit; which let us not dare to affirm.   

CHAP. III.  
Concl. 3 Mans eternal cnodition admits of no change.  
THere shall be no telling of the quarters in heaven, nor observation of the flitting hours in hell; no transition or passage of time. There shall be no time in eternity, and durations 
Aeternitas nullam habet successionem. Ambr.  shall not be, as the waves of the Sea, one to follow upon the neck of another. It is a pregnant description which Boetius layeth down, though he describes only the happy eternity, Aeternitas est interminabilis tota sunul ac perfecta possessio, Eternity is an interminable possession, perfect, and all together: And so the miserable eternity of the 
Aeternitas est indivisibilis, & non habet partes sibi juvicem succedentes, & necessario tota coexisti● omnibus temporum differentiis; ut asserunt Patres, & Scholastici. Bonav.  damned, is all together; there is no division in eternity, no priority or posterity; it is a Sun that neither rises nor sets; there is no lapsing of time, one age doth not justle out another; there shall be no maturity, nor immaturity. Eternity is time by the wholesale; here indeed our lives are parceled into so many years, and retailed into so many months; but eternity is an individual, indivisible possession. Nulla est juventus & senescentia in aeternitate, there is no youth 
Aeternitas tota simul. Scotus.  or declining age in eternity: neither spring, nor fall: Time doth not slide away, the duration is always at the same length; eternity admits only the present-tence, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there is no clock in eternity, the hourglass runs not there; when we are set upon the shore of everlastingness, there shall be no progress or regress. Eternity is no complex duration, to be compounded of so many particular ages: in this it is unlike the sands of the Sea, and that comparison will not hold, because the vast sands are but multiplied particulars. 
Falsum est aeternitatem virtualiter habere parts, cum id suae simplicitati & immutabilitati repugnat, non enim sequiillud esse in aeternitate prius, quod est in priori temporis parte, sed totum tempus simul continetur, quantum est ex parte aeternitatis. Sadreva in Thomam.  Time (if I may use the term, for there is no such thing in eternity) doth pullulate as fast as spend, and it sprouts out as fast as it is lopped off in eternity. The womb of eternity, shall be always big with duration, and shall never be delivered of one moment. No centuries or successions shall be found in the state of eternity. All arithmetic numbers in eternity are cyphers. In this it is no Ocean; for the Ocean is but a Sea drops, particular streams in a greater body. Astronomers speak much of the slow motion of Saturn, and other celestial bodies; but in eternity there is no motion known; no in fieries, motion and succession are pure Anomalies. And it must be so, for  
1. Reas. 1 Were their succession in eternity, there would be waist; the taper would spend, and the same decline, could one age succeed another: the succeeded age were then past; we might reckon, those durations that were melted away; but there shall be no waste in eternity: eternity is not a Summer's day that spends and flies away (as more fully hereafter).  
2. All succession implies a motion, and all motion supposes imperfection, while things are in motu, they are not arrived at perfection, than motion ceaseth, and there is no further tendency; but now the state of eternity is a perfect state. The blessed shall be perfectly happy. Heaven is a place of superlative perfection; and the damned shall be fully and perfectly miserable, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there shall be no deficiency in their torment; nor can there be further insufferably unhappy, (as before was hinted).   

CHAP. IU.  
Concl. 4 Mans eternal condition admits of no change or alteration.  
THe throne of the Saints shall 
In aeternitate nulla est mutatio. Aug. Nar.  never be overturned; the crown of glory shall not be changed into a Crown of thorns. Nor shall the damneds bed of flames be altered into a bed of down. All things in eternity shall be everlastingly in the same state: (I exclude not the great change at the general assizes, when the bodies both of Saints and sinners shall be reunited to their souls) Eternity may well take up Q. Elizabeth's 
In quo quemque invenerit suus novissimus dies, in hoc eum comprehendit Mundi novissimus dies; quoniam qualis in die ipso moritur quisque talis in die isto judicabitur. August.  motto, it is, Semper eadem, always the same. As the tree falls, so it shall lie for ever; Taliter, in every consideration and particular: The darkness of the damned, shall never alter into day; their groans shall never be transformed into smiles. There shall be no impoverishment in glory, and no enrichment in misery. Here our state is the Chameleon of Providence, the map of mutability; but in eternity all things shall remain for ever in eodem gradu, & eodem statu, in the same state and degree. It was origen's opinion, or rather dream, that the damned at last should find a relaxation; but this is an old exploded error. There is no variety or revolutions in eternity. Identity is the characteristical note of eternity. In it neither tears shall be tuned into triumphs, nor song turned into sorrows; All things for ever shall look with the same visage and aspect. Weeping and wailing shall be the bitter and everlasting potion of the wicked; triumph and honour the 
Mat. 8. 12.  sweet and eternal portion of the blessed. But more particularly.  
There shall be no change in those persons who are set on the shores of eternity: the glorious bodies of the Saints after the resurrection, shall no more be soiled with rags, or covered with sores: those illustrious caskets of their souls, shall never again endure 
Phil. 3. 15.  either damp or disease, those beautified and polished pieces, shall no more be bloodied with wounds, wracked with distempers, or deformed with scars. Lazarus, whose body here was but a lesser hospital; in eternity his body shall shine, and be bespangled with glory, which shall never be sullied or eclipsed with the least sore or disease. Here Plato calls the body the soul's prison; 
Ergastulum animae. Plato.  but in heaven, in eternity, the bodies of the Saints shall not be the curtains, but the rich  of their souls; their attire embroidered with glory, which shall neither wear or soil. And so the souls of the Saints in glory, they shall ever shine in the enamel of perfection, without the least contrariant tincture. It is only man's sin that distempers, and incurvates the soul, and God's wrath the consequence of sin, that as I may say, maketh the soul look pale; now neither of these have place in heaven. The Israelites 
Deut. 29. 5.  , which wore not out in forty years together, was a lively Emblem of this invariable felicity.  
And so on the contrary, the bodies of the damned shall remain in their deformities, not any spot shall be wiped away; nor the least veil thrown over their exulcerations. They shall never throw off the rags of their beleapered bodies; but they shall ever be the dark prisons of their accursed souls; the fires of hell shall wash away the paint of Absaloms' beauty, but his deformities shall never shed, because the fountain of them shall never cease, viz. sin: (as shall be showed more fully). And their souls, those unclean birds in the unclean cages of their bodies, shall wear the miserable livery of their sins to all eternity. What should wash their souls? Christ's blood, they have no interest in it; if so, they had never been overwhelmed in their intolerable calamity; and all their tears shall be but muddied water: their wounded consciences, their polluted hearts, their impostumated souls shall lie in the sink of their uncleannesses for ever. So there shall be no change in the persons of those that are cast on the coast of eternity.  
Nor shall there be any change of place in eternity. The Saints shall be 
Joh. 17. 24.  everlastingly resident at the Court of 
Rev. 3. 21.  glory. They shall never change their 
* Joh. 14. 2.  Mansions: where by the way, Mansions, not houses, not tents: to signify the immutable duration of the Saints happiness. They shall be always under the smiles, and in the immediate presence of God. They shall ever wait upon the Lord in the Presence-chamber, and the Court shall never be removed. And therefore heaven is called a Kingdom, Luk. 12. 32. A City, Heb. 12. 22. A Country, Heb. 11. 13. To demonstrate the permanency of the Saints state in point of locality: Heaven shall be the Jerusalem, where shall be the perpetual residence of glorified ones. And so the dark dungeon of hell, shall be the Reprobates everlasting gaol; as the chains shall never be loosened or filled off, so neither shall they change their doleful habitation; but the same prison and wrack, the same place as well as degrees of torment, shall fetter them to all eternity: They shall not change 
Mat. 18. 3●.  their Tophet, nor alter their bed of flames.  
There shall be no change in the carriages of those persons who are cast upon the state of eternity: the blessed shall be ever tuning their harps in Hallelujahs; they shall always advance God and Christ in an uniform joy. 
Rev. 4. 11, 12.  Temptation the womb, and sin the birth shall not be found in heaven. There shall be nothing to prompt the Saints to slain their purity; but they shall be ever breaking out into sacred admirations of God. Here indeed there is a variableness, and often a contradiction in the deportment of the Saints; but in glory there shall not be the least titubation or fall. Nor shall eternity 
Prov. 24. 16.  d●●ect the least eccentrick motion in a glorified Saint. But Christ in 
Eph. 5. 27.  heaven shall be Mediator sustentationis, a Mediator of sustentation to the Saints as well as Angels. And so on the contrary, there shall be as little alteration in the carriages of the damned; they shall be ever belching out dishonours against the name of God, and for ever be sick of the same surfeit of blasphemy; accusing the glorious attributes and holy name of God; nor shall they in the midst of their woes, weep out with a truly penitential frame, the least retractation. And the reason is, because sin in hell shall be in the same, and greater impetuousness than it was here. Nor shall those punitive fires turn one lust into ashes, those flames of misery shall not refine, but exasperated the reprobate sinner; shall irritate and feed, not chase away sin. Nor is hell a place for the influences of Gods operative grace; nor can infernal fire be purificatory.  
There shall be no change in the conditions of those who are in the state of eternity. No promotions in misery; no dejections in happiness; the same calamity shall be eternised to the caitiffe-wretch, and the same glory entailed on the perfected Saint; the wheel shall not turn in eternity. No hopes of better times in hell, nor 
Luk. 16. 26.  fears of worse in heaven. Mutation, and change is obsolete in eternity. And to show you the impossibility of change in our everlasting condition, First, there can be none in reference to the blessed.  
If there be any change, it must either be,  
First, In meliorem partem, for the better; and then these inconsequences would follow.  
1. There were degrees of grace in heaven, secundum eundem, in reference to the same person, contrary to Heb. 12. 22. the Spirits of just men made perfect. For God's justice is adequate, and he rewards though not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for our works; yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according 
Rom. 2. 6.  to our works; and so that grace rising to an higher eminency, it calls for a greater promotion. Now this would argue a falling short of perfection which heaven is uncapable of. Can the glorified Saints grow in grace, as they must if they rise to higher happiness according to God's justice; then was there a deficiency in their grace before, which is anomalus to consummate perfection; and glory signifies no more but grace maturated to perfection: And therefore there can be no change for the better; because there can be no cause for this change, especially after the resurrection, when the Grand assizes are over. And  
2. This inconsequence would follow, a change for the better, an imperfection in happiness; for now the Saint is advanced to greater blessedness, which likewise is consistent to the perfection of beatitude, which the glorified Saint is infalled in. Or,  
Secondly, This change must be in deteriorem partem, for the worse; there must be a fall in the Saint's glory: which would ●nforce these two absurdities.  
1. The Saints in glory were capable of defaulting, for what can endamage them but sin? God who is pure justice infers no prejudice upon the Creature, but as provoked by some criminal miscarriage; if otherwise, than God's justice might be impeached, which is most blasphemous. Now that no impurity can slain heaven is most 
Hos. 13. 9  clear, as from the immediate presence of God, which glorifies the Saints, not only with perfection of happiness, but of purity also; or else perfection was 
Rev. 21. 27.  but a titular perfection, it were but nominal, were it not spotless; and so likewise from that consummate condition, which the Saints are arrived at in glory, which cannot retre●● bacl again to any the least prevarication. For herein lies the difference between created perfection, that which Adam was enriched with before his fall, and the perfection of glory; the one includes, the other rejects all mutability. And  
2. Can there be a change for the worse in glory, than heaven would be a place of punitive justice; for all 
Rev. 7. 16.  deteriority and damage that befalls man, is the issue of God's afflictive and castigatory justice; but that is impossible, for in eternal happiness there shall be nothing appearing but smiles, love, and indulgence. And as in eternity the day of grace and favour is passed 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 brandished 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 God's pity, or man's piety.  
First, from God's pity, now God will show no pity in hell. For  
1. Hell is a place of pure justice, and exact severity; no mitigation or favour in eternal 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, Nature's common bounty; yet in hell, there is no concession to so reasonable a petition. Mercies sweet voice shall not be heard among the damneds groans. And  
2. The day of grace is past; when once the sinner is set on the shore 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 passed before, but always then. There shall be no mercy, after the sunset of mercy, more than the shadows 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 God's pity in hell?  
1. The cries of the damned; they shall exalt his justice; not move his compassion; the horrors and the lamentations of the damned, shall be the very music of God's justice, the 
Prov. 1. 26.  heralds of his righteous severity; 
Mat. 25. 12.  here Ephraim's moaning turns Gods 
Jer. 31. 20.  bowels within him; but the reprobates groans shall only tune his justice. Or  
2. Shall the sins 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 God's pity, so neither from man's piety, shall any change arise in the eternity of the damned. They shall not be refreshed with mercy, or their condition sweetened with an alleviating change, from any conversion to God, penitency for sin, etc. 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 eternal misery; that 
2 Pet. 1. 4.  grace which is honoured with the name of divine nature, cannot be the subject of eternal 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 seals Christ and heaven to the soul, Weak faith, saint love, etc. And  
2. If this piety be false, as all tears in hell shall be; for the weeping of the damned cannot be ca●d a repentance, but only a watery desperation, an execration of themselves steeped in tears; then this dissembled mourning, is a provocation, not a mitigation, to inflame not appease God's 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 balance, work upon our feared and unawakened consciences?   

CHAP. V.  
Concl. 5 Mans eternal condition admits of no measure or commensuration.  
ETernity is an Ocean without a shore, a Sea without land, it hath neither bottom nor banks; it is an unlimited estate. As Boetius forementioned, Status interminabilis, an unconfined estate. What is said of eternal joy, 1 Cor. 2. 9 It hath not entered into the heart of man; is true likewise of eternal misery. Who can tell how eternity gins, or when it ends? who can divide or parcel out eternity? who can set landmarks to measure, or find plummets to fathom it? It is nothing but the vast Ocean, the eye cannot see to the end of it, nor the understanding reach to the bottom of it. The most curious, and critical 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, etc. but what imaginary circles shall compass 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 boundless 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 decrepitness, 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 itself being a riddle (as before). But more particularly, Eternity is unlimited,  
In the possessions of it: the eternal joy of the Saints is said to be full, Psal. 16 11. In thy presence is fullness of joy; 
1 Joh. 3. 2.  but this is a faddomlesse fullness: who can tell the portion of everlasting happiness, or count it out? It is a sum that cannot be measured by number or figure. The blessedness of the S●ints, shall be ineffable, inalterable, inconceivable. Who knows how soft the down of the Saints rest is? how sweet the bosom of Christ? how pleasant the smile of God? who can tell how delightful the taste of the rivers of pleasure in heaven is? There is no measuring or confining the Saints happiness. How unspeakably sweet is communion with God here, that sometimes the S●int can set it out more by admiration then eloquence? how ravishing then are those ecstasies 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 God's wrath is, when turned into a flame? Or can any weigh the torments of the damned, and say they rise to such an height? As they are insupportable, so they shall be innumerable and inconceivable. Here indeed God corrects in measure, both the wicked 
Jer. 10. 24.  and the godly; he seems here to proportionate his bounds; but what boundless calamity shall swallow up the reprobate in eternity? God will then draw his arrow to the head, and screw his wrath to an unconfined degree. What shall limit, or be a bank to the inundations of Gods everlasting displeasure? Thou canst not tell how many drams of poison God will put into the cup of trembling, which the wicked must be drinking off for evermore; there is no ultimum, aut maximum quod sic. as Philos. speaks: no stated or terminated height in those anguishes; the element of fire hath its stated heat, which it cannot flame beyond; and if all the fuel and materials of the Creation were cast into one conflagration; yet there would be a termination in those scorching flames, but what bounds or rampires hath the Anger of the Lord in eternity?  
Eternity is a boundless estate in the fountain of it, which is God, he 
Duobus modis aliquid aeternum esse potest; uno modis ab intrinseco, alio modo ex influxu alterius aeterno. Suarez.  shall stretch the future condition of man out to eternity; he that is bottomless in power, and justice, and love, he shall support the beings of men for ever; The incomprehensible God shall break down all banks in eternity. The original and efficient cause of eternity is the unlimited Jehovah, the infinite Majesty shall add fuel to his wrath for ever to the damned, and fill the cup of the Saints joy for everlasting.  
In the space of it. What Arithmetician can number the ages of eternity? or by an exact multiplication can sum up the infinite centuries in it? Who can cast up the several millions of durations? what thousands multiplied can fill up one moment of eternity? the duration of eternity as it is indivisible, so it is unlimited; there is no term, bound or stop in it. Can we reckon up as many ages in eternity, as there hath past moments since the Creation, yet than we are not within view of any stoppage or period. In eternity our thoughts may range, as into a bottomless sea, and cease in a nonplussed admiration. Our Contemplations and inquiries may sail for ever and see no shore. There are not Anno Dominies, or Epochees, or Hegiraes' in eternity; no term to reckon from, and no time to reckon in; but it is an inimaginable, unconfined condition.   

CHAP. VI  
Concl. 6 Mans eternal condition admits of no decay or Consumption.  
THere is no decay in eternity, no Autumns; nor in eternity shall the days grow shorter. There shall be no waist, or wearing out or moth to eat out in eternity. All things shall subsist in the same force and vigour, in the same state and strength. The Sun of eternity shall not decline. Nothing shall moulder away towards a conclusion. Here all things are in a constant tendency to ruin and devastation; the most excellent and flourishing pieces of the Creation are continually posting to abolition. There is a moth in the richest garments, a worm in the tallest Cedars, rust in the finest gold. Nor can our greatest care shed an immotality on our choicest enjoyments, but duration and time damps and soils the rarest excellency's, and every thing yields to the force and fury of age. Continued and numbered years wrinkle and deface the most pleasing beauty, and leaves it to the surprisal of a necessary deformity; the freshest youth, whether it be appropriated to man, or be predicate of inanimate creatures, here soon it loseth its splendour, and goeth upon the crutches of decay. But in eternity all things shall subsist in the same vigour and vivacity, not any thing shall be overtaken with hoary age. Heraelitus 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  his axiom shall be inverted, Nulla erit in aeternitate seneseentia, the pillars in eternity shall never shake nor moulder. There shall be no fading leas, or falling fruit; (though no such thing may be found in eternity) but every thing shall be preserved in its full maturity, without the least perishing or putrefaction. The Sun's motions, Aepyptian Pyramids, and other lasting Monuments of Antiquity, are but the darker hieroglyphickes of the unperishable and undecaying estate of eternity. But more particularly,  
There shall be no waste or decay of time in eternity, time shall not slide away or spend, (but of this more at large in a particular conclusion.)  
There shall be no waste seize on the persons of them, that are set upon the shore of eternity. The souls of the Saints shall not undergo the least dotage by long duration, nor be impaired in their blessedness or capacities. Millions of ages shall not enfeeble the strength of their memories, or cloud the brightness of their minds, or incurvate their ordinate wills, or depress their seraphic desires. The souls of the Saints in eternity shall not contract any debilitation or crasiness; but their intellectuals shall remain pure and perfect, untainted by the largest tracts, or circuits of ages. Here indeed, in this life, the very minds of God's people seem to languish with their bodies, and to be subject to the force and tyranny of age; there is a decay in their intellectuals, and the eye of their understanding groweth dim: but in eternity no hesitancies or doubts shall distract; nor clouds of ignorance darken and obnubilate the sun of their Mind.  
And so the bodies of the Saints admit of no decay in eternity, no weakness, disease, or distemper shall ever batter or surprise them; but they shall be preserved in the same resplendency and beauty for ever: all the issues of infirmity which beset the bodies of the Saints here, shall be dried up in illustrious radiancy; and their bodies shall shine for ever in a greater glory, than the Sun when blazoned in its most vigorous light and irradiations; (as before was suggested.)  
And so on the contrary: The souls of the reprobates in eternity, shall not saint away in their torments; nor shall they ever be blest with the happiness of temporary swoon; but they shall continue in their beings and existencies for ever, and shall be preserved in their miserable immortalities. They shall be spending, vitam morientem, 
August.  as the Father speaks, a dying life for ever; and so their bodies, those cooperating 
Mar. 9 48.  instruments of sin, shall not be scorched into ashes by the infernal flames; but like cursed Salamanders shall ever live in those fires; their bodies shall be immortal capacities of torment, while God's justice and Satan's malice shall make everlasting depredations upon them.  
There shall be no decay or waste, in the losses or possessions of eternity; the Saints blessedness shall not be impaired by duration, nor whither by vast continuances. They shall be clothed with happiness, and their 
Deut. 5. 29.   shall not wear. And therefore the eternal felicity of the blessed consists in a fullness of joy, Psal. 16. 11. Not the fullness of the vessel; there may be an evaporation in that; but of an Ocean that admits no droughts, of a Spring that is continually fed: and to this fullness is added perpetuity, in the same verse, for evermore: that if we suppose this fullness may shed or spend; the holy Ghost tells us, it is an everlasting fullness: It is a bounty that continues for ever up to the brim. The Original is very significant in this 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  place. There shall be a saturiry of joys. The souls of the blessed shall have their fill of happiness. There shall be no want or deficiency, nor place for a request. And this satiety shall be 
Saturitas cum Hebraeis maximam abundantiam significat. Gerard.  eternised. And so the Prophet, Isa. 35. 10. speaking of the future glory of believers, he saith there shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Everlasting joys on their heads, to show the immarcessiblenesse of the Saints glory. Their sight of God, admirations of Christ, full draughts of the Spirits joys, and those divine Raptures which shall flow from that communion they enjoy with unspotted Angels, and glorified Saints, shall never receive the least abatement, or gradual decrease. Their felicities shall never decay, nor after millions of ages grow tedious; but their joy shall spring in the same vivacity for ever.  
And so the miseries of the damned, they shall not be slackened or mitigated by continuance of time; their woes shall be as wearisome and painful after many ages, as the first moment. Nor shall the accustomednesse of the damned to endure the fury of God, and the torments of Satan, so harden, or ease the persons, that they shall be any thing the more insensible, or inapprehensive of the pain. That of the Prophet is very remarkable, and seriously to be considered, The 
* Isa. 30. 33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  flaming breath of God shall ever feed their torments. And therefore the same Prophet, Isa. 33. 14. makes mention of Everlasting burn; the calamity shall ever be in the same impetuous fury. Nor shall one spark of divine fury and displeasure die, or be blown ●ver.  
There shall be no decay or waste either in the love, or wrath of God towards those who are cast upon eternity.  
The love of God to the blessed shall be as vigorous, and full, after innumerable centuries, as at the first interview with the Saints. Duration in eternity, as it cannot inflame, so it shall not allay divine affection. God's heart shall be as much 
Jer. 31. 3.  let out after numberless ages to his glorified ones, as at the first arrival at their heavenly Country. There shall no damp seize on God's inexpressible love. Indeed what should procure a decrease of God's love to his people in glory? Sin and deviation, and whatever may have 
Rev. 21. 27.  the sent of the least irregularity, is banished heaven; there will be no failings or misdoings to wrinkle the face of God into a frown, (to speak after the manner of men). And therefore as there shall not be any aversation in God to his glorified Saints; so neither shall for ever the least faintness or abatement surprise divine affection.  
And so neither shall the wrath of God to the damned ever wear away, or be allayed. The wrath of God to the reprobate is no passion; that time 
Heb. 12. 29. Apostolus hic Mosem secutus, non de gratia, sed de ultione dei loquitur. Corn. A lap.  may quench, or moderate; but the execution of God's just severity, which shall always burn in an equal flame. And indeed, what can the damned produce to mitigate or divert God's wrath? Alas! neither their tears, nor their blasphemies, nor their cries can do it; all these are but the echoes of divine justice: Nothing but the blood of Christ can allay this heat, and that fountain is dry to the dead sinner, that is cast upon eternity. No, surely Gods indignation as it is just, so it shall be ever full, nor shall eternity waste or spill one drop of the Vials of his wrath. Here indeed God 
Jer. 18. 8.  makes frequent promises upon repentance 
Ezek. 33. 14.  of turning away from his wrath, and laying aside his rod, but in eternity God shall whip the damned with Scorpions for ever, nor shall one spark of his anger be quenched by multiplied durations; there shall be no waste in his incensed, yet just fury.   

CHAP. VII.  
Concl. 7 Mans eternal condition admits of no future hopes or expectations.  
ETernity confines all the hopes both of the blessed and the reprobate: there is then an end of all the expectations of man. Here indeed the faith of a believer swells, and the sails of hope are filled with future expectations of greater promotions 
Heb. 11. 25, 26.  and blessedness, having an eye to the recompense of reward. Nay oftentimes 
1 Cor. 15. 19  Meditation is sweetened, when enlarged in the thoughts of those transcendent possessions which shall crown eternity. How doth a believer here often pleasingly compute his riches he shall enjoy in the immediate vision, and perpetual smile of God? Nay, the very formal professor is raised and elevated in the hopes of future, although but fancied, glory. But eternity is the nil ultra, the stop of all expectation; the end and period of the souls anhelations. And this will appear more clearly, if we divide eternity into its usual duplicity.  
For the hopes of the blessed they shall all run out in eternity.  
1. Because they enjoy all the end of their hopes; the fruit and issue of all their prayers, tears, sighs, and patiented 
Heb. 11. 13.  expectations. After Jobs change there was an end of all his waiting. 
Job 14 14.  Heaven is such an harbour, as will satisfy to the full all the curious inquisitions, the fervent supplications, the vast, high, and boundless computations of the Saints. It contains quicquid desiderabile, quicquid optabile, quiquid amabile, whatever is desirable, appetible, or lovely. Whatever was comprised in the large circuits of the Saints hopes, or fell within the travails of their most ambitious thoughts, is to be found in glory. There the glorified believers shall rejoice in the supernumerary accomplishments of all the desires. Jacob said it is 
Gen. 45. 28.  enough; I shall see Joseph before I die; but the glorified Saint shall say, it is 
2 Cor. 12. 9  enough, I shall see God, and never die, Grace is sufficient, but glory is superabundant. In eternity the Saint shall enjoy whatever his eye can glance at; there shall be a plenary satisfaction of all his hopes, of all the pant and breathe of his soul.  
There shall be no future or further expectation in the eternity of the blessed, because they have arrived at perfection; and to look for any thing beyond perfection is a vain contradiction; if it could be surpassed and outvied, it were no longer perfection, but imperfection: what may be bettered, 
Perfectum est cui nihil addi potest. Arist.  and cast into a nobler form, falls short of perfection. Now the Saints in glory enjoy a double perfection.  
1. A perfection in their persons: They are perfect in all purity, holiness, 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 fullness of possession; and therefore 
2 Tim. 4. 8.  heaven is always represented by the 
Luk. 12. 32.  most sublime enjoyments. A Crown, 
Joh. 3. 16.  a Kingdom, life, a throne. Now perfection 
Rev. 3. 21.  that is the bound and bank to 
As they said of Cyrus, Satia te sanguine Cry: 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 contains more light, gradu eminentiori, in a more eminent degree and consideration, than all the candles in the world, when lighted. The beatifical vision is not all happiness epitomised, 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 Solomon's glory, 1 King. 10. 7. Behold, the one half 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 precious sight will be to the redeemed ones, when arrived at the heavenly country. And therefore to look for further happiness, is a solecism 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 smothered and evaporated; they had a reconcileable God. God's bowels 
2 Cor. 5. 19  were not totally restrained, but repentance might have enlarged them, the treasury-door of mercy and grace was not locked up, but faith could have opened it, and the oil of grace might have procured the oil of gladness; and there was still a blank in the lease for the sinner's 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 locked up, and all expectation of change or compassion shall be silenced. All longing for, or looking after, either  
1. A total extinction of the remembrance of them that ever there were such caitiffs in the World might cease. Or  
2. A releasement from their torturing extremities. Or  
3. An advancement to happiness, 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 carnal hopes, which was their pleurisy here, and with which they were so elevated and rejoiced, their hopes of pleasure and profit; All their sinful hopes, that cursed tympany they did swell with here; their hopes to satisfy their lusts, the titillation of their sinful hearts: nay, all their formal 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 despair of Judas, being the monster his exulcerate conscience brought forth, was but a sad emblem of the Reprobates condition in eternity, when they shall lie in an hopeless, helpless, endless, easeless condition of extremity to all everlasting. And it must be so,  
Because the Reprobate never had any true hope, or rational 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 souls 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 interest in Christ, which is objective, objectively the sum of all true hopes. Nor 
Col. 1. 27.  was their hope fastened 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 useless, and ridiculous. And if their hopes were but counterfeit coin, and alchemy 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 greatness of their torment; this is but commensurate to regular justice; their inexpressible miseries are but the execution of God's justice, which is essential to the divine nature; and which after this life is inexorable; the very miseries of the reprobate shall be the glory of God's righteous severity, and the very flames of hell (as I may say) shall cast a light on divine justice; God's compassions in eternity are sealed up to reprobate ones. Or  
2. Shall the duration of their torments fill the reprobate with hope? Alas! every sin they have committed, deserves eternal 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 greatness of it: For how can a finite creature undergo an infinite wrath? what is abated in greatness, 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 eternal pain shall be proportionate to divine justice. So that hope, the last comforter of a wicked man, shall leave him in eternity; and everlasting despair shall be as an ever corroding worm to him. The Prophet Daniel speaks of an Angel coming down from heaven, and saying, Hue 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 stump of the roots thereof in the earth: Upon which words, Ambrose descants elegantly, saying, the leaves and the fruit are shaken off, but the root is preserved; that is, delights are taken from us here, and punishments are inflicted upon us; but yet hope is not taken away from us, the root is preserved, hope remains; but in hell it hath no 
Prov. 13. 12.  rooting, there is no ground, no argument, 
Mat. 4. 1.  no object, no dawning or comfort of hope there; but the damned shall be ever giving up the ghost in the extremity of torment, and yet never die, or be coffined in insensible oblivion.   

CHAP. VIII.  
Concl. 8 Mans eternal condition admits of no service or performance of duty.  
ALL our working is here, there is no working in eternity; our task is here; our tale of 
Joh. 9 3.  bricks here: no sweeting in our future condition. All our duties are either active or passive, acting or suffering for God: now both these shall cease in eternity; Prayer shall cease, and hearing have an end; and suffering reproach for Christ; the Saints quotidian Martyrdoms, shall be swallowed up in eternity. All the sighs, and weeping duties of God's people, which with so much fervency and secrecy have been acted, shall expire when the Saints shall be cast upon the shore of eternity. Their holy ejaculations, and sweet contemplations, their summoning themselves to the bar of conscience; their communing with their own hearts; those conflicts and rugged contests with their irregular corruptions, those pious groans, and bitter tears, those precious expressions of wrath against themselves, shall all have an end in eternity; their closet moans, and dovelike lamentations, for the loss of their mate, the Lord Jesus 
Cant 3. 1, 2.  Christ; their critical observations of God's outgoings in his providence, and their frugal improvements of time; their extractions of good from the bitterness of afflictions, that holy Chemistry which the Saints are artists in; those pious artifices and rare stratagems which believers often use for the repelling and undermining of temptation; and those critical and curious observances of the several and mysterious workings, wind, and waver of their own hearts; their agonies and trembling sweats, lest they should fall into the ambuscado of sin: All these and more shall be as a cloud dissolved into a shower of glory. Eternity is incapable of these services.  
And on the contrary; all the dissembled and hypocritical duties of wicked men, their Ahabs fasting, and Herod's hearing, and Pharisaical praying; their formal approaches to ordinances; their fluent Rhetoric, and rich eloquence, with which their discourses are oftentimes filled, and glossed, about the concernments of Christ, glorious times, and unwonted Gospell-discoveries, and manifestations; their frothy duties so dexterously embroidered with elegancy and hypocrisy, to cover and cloud their secret and internal impieties; and which are only acted to be the Arras hang before their cursed designs; All these shall evaporate and cease in eternity. The formalists tears, and pretended heart-melting, commenced only to be the unhappy harbingers of some sinful policy, or to captivate the opinion of the vulgar, and uncircumspect generation; their Jehues' zeal, and Jerebels fast; all their misguided charity, and vainglorious alms; their extrinsecall duties, those blazing Comets of their profession, shall all fall, and be swallowed up in eternity; and the remembrance of them, but only as they are the reflection of guilt, shall cease for ever. Now to divide this particular according to the usual method.  
1. There cannot be any performance of duty in the eternity of the blessed.  
Because, Duty is via ad regnum, the way to the Kingdom: It is sweat in the vineyard. It is motus ad finem, a tendency to the end; and while we are in 
Bona opera sunt via ad regnum, etsi non causa regnandi.  service, we are still in motion, on this side rest. All duty hath an eye to reward. Prayer and Meditation are but their rowing towards heaven; but heaven is the reward its self: while we are upon the sea of Ordinances and 
Rev. 3. 21.  Duties, we are not come to the shore: but heaven is a place of wages, not work; the wearing of the crown, not the bearing of the cross. Here is 
2 Tim. 4. 8.  pugna, the fight; but above victoria, the conquest. Indeed the sweetest duties, and the most intimate, even close communion with God, is but the rise to the crown, but heaven is the crown itself. Ordinances and Duties are but the soul's flight to glory, but heaven is the habitation of happiness.  
In all Duty there is imperfection, aliquid infectivum, & aliquid defectivum; something polluted, and something defective. Our most sublime and spiritual 
Luk. 17. 10.  duties are not wound up to command. They are all tainted with disproportion to the rule. As the Moon it shines in a lower chamber inferior to the Sun. And not only so, but our choicest 
Isa. 64. 6.  services are beleapered with many spots; like the Moon in this regard too. But in heaven there is all purity, all fullness, all perfection. No inadequatenesse or disproportion; no taint or pollution inhabits glory; and therefore duties are obsolete in eternity. Heaven shuts out anomalies, and mutilated performances. It is true, here, the Saints double-refined duties are sent up to heaven with a gale of complaining sighs, but that such winds should blow in glory, is an absolute inconsistency.  
All our duties and services, they are still looking upon God, e longinquo, a far off. They look on God at a disstance. Prayer looks up to a Majesty above; and hearing receives a discovery from the Court above. All our duties are but traffic with heaven. But now in the eternity of the blessed, 
1 Cor. 13. 12.  the Saint lies in the embraces of God, hath him in his eye, in his full possession: All our performances here, as emblems of subjection, look on God in a perspective, they are prostrations before a Majesty above. There is the distance of heaven between the smiling God, and the praying Saint; and though he stand on tiptoe on the mountain of meditation, yet God is infinitely above him. Indeed in duty the soul is 
Heb. 10. 22.  said to draw nigh to God, yet still there is a curtain between God and it, which death can only draw, and a vail which only the dissolution of the believer can take away. But in glory there shall be the clearest vision, the highest, and entirest fruition, without the interposure of darkness or distance. And there all the applications of the Saints shall be enhanced into a beatifical vision.  
All our duties and services imply a want and exigency. Prayer waits a return, and is the souls trade to heaven, for some commodity that is locked up in God's treasury. Nay when returns do come, then new wants are created. Our daily bread calls for daily prayers. Every day supplieth prayer with new matter of petition. But in eternity all wants are swallowed up in transcendent abundance: there shall be torrents of delight, and satisfaction, as the Original 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  hath it, Rivers of pleasure, fullness of joy, this is the language of 
Psal. 36. 9  heaven. And so likewise Sermons, Hearing, Meditation, they all imply a duskishness in the understanding; and that the scales of ignorance are not fallen from the eye of the mind. But there shall be in heaven a fullness of knowledge, as well as of joy; and the mind shall be as full of light, as the heart of joy.  
All duties and services are to be regulated by precepts, and winged by promises; precepts must guide, and 
Isa. 8. 20.  promises bribe duty. All our services are directed by the line of a Command, 
Jer. 4. 14.  and encouraged by the love of a promise. But in the eternity of the Saints, both precepts and promises cease; for in glory there can be no irregularity, and therefore no need of a precept; and all promises are turned into accomplishment. Commands they are the rules of unbridled nature; but they are superfluous to nature, perfected in glory: to turn to God, wash our hearts, bathe ourselves in penitential tears; these are anomalies and absurdities in eternity. Promises they are spurs to sluggish nature: but to the Saint glorified, they are supervacaneous incentives. God in glory shall be in stead both of precept and promise; he shall then guide us by his eye, not his sceptre; and shall give us himself, not his bond in a way of promise. All rudiments and discipline shall be outdated in heaven.  
And so likewise there shall be no performance of service or duty in the eternity of the damned. For▪  
There is no reward for duty in hell, and therefore no duty; every duty eyes its compensation, though not ratione meriti, by the claim of merit; yet ratione promissi, in reference to the 
Psal. 50. 15.  promise of God. And now if Esau 
Heb. 12. 17.  cannot get the blessing if he seek it with tears here, what shall he do when death hath let down the trap door of eternity upon him? Promises which make the believer heaven's creditor, all cease in the bottomless pit. And the cries of the damned, shall neither procure ease, or liberty; and their bitter lamentations shall return upon them unpitied, there shall be no reward for all their moans; God hath sealed up the sentence of death unto them, and it is irreversible. Now as Philos. speaks, Vbi cessat finis, cessant media, where the end ceaseth, all means cease; the reward of duty failing, there can be no service; the smile and command of God, the supplies and happiness of the soul which are the great incentives to duty, are all obsolete and impossible in miserable eternity. God shall not illuminate 
Psal. 4. 6.  hell's darkness with the light of his countenance. And therefore all adorations and services shall be a dream in endless misery. Dost thou think wretched sinner, that when thou art swallowed up in eternal flames, thou shalt then repent, believe, wrestle with God in prayer, open thy condition to the Lord? shalt thou then with an inundation of tears, and an heart covered with mourning and sables fly to the arms of free grace, and as a prisoner by pleading guilty sue out thy pardon? No surely, God will not hear, nor answer, nor pity the soul lodged in flames. And all such services 
Mat. 25. 41.  shall in the eternity of the wicked be buried in silence.  
There is no such thing as duty in eternal calamity, in reference to the nature of it: for the cries, tears, complaints 
Joh. 9 3.  of the damned, deserve not the name or title of repentance and prayer. There is nothing of duty in Dives his 
Luk. 16. 24.  petition; the tears of the damned shall be only the exertions, and ebullitions of torment; the fruit of their misery, not their love. It is their pain, not their piety; the horror, not the dictate of their conscience suggests these moans; the damned abhor duty more in hell, than they did upon earth. There is no faith, no melting of soul, no fixed hope in all their lamentations: and their violent importunities shall evidence their calamity, but not their duty; their most fervent prayers are but fictitious services; and the fires of hell, not the fire of zeal shall inflame their supplications; Nothing in the eternity of the wicked can be called duty.  
Hell is no place for duty; Who can look for services to God, among the cries, scritches and extremities of the damned? Can any ordinate service, befitting the great God, be found there? the tortured frenzy of the reprobate how incapable of service? what methodised prayer can a wracked miscreant produce? Our diseases, and bodily torments here in this life, how do they stifle and smother the duties of the patiented; and turn the Saint into a frantic distemper? and what shall the infernal fires do? the gout, stone, strangury, how do they inarticulate, and so shatter the services of God's people here, that they all seem to be a distempered passion, and passionate madness? and therefore think not thou painted hypocrite thou shalt flow in thy usual elegancy, when thou liest on the wrack of eternal calamity. No, all the complaints of the damned, shall be fury, not fealty.  
In the eternity of the wicked, there is no object of duty; God is the judge, not the father of the damned. God as reconcileable, and in the notion of a compassionate father, is the object of all duty; but he shall not be found in that notion to the caitiff reprobates, Contemplation it implies a sweetness. 
Psal. 104. 34.  Prayer gins with Our Father. Hearing supposes the discovery of our fathers will. And so all duties and performances wait on God in expectation of favour, answer, and indulgence; and so duty is called communion with God: but after death God shall be to 
Psal. 63 2.  the wicked a severe, inexplorable and implacable judge. And all the cries which the damned make are to God as their tormentor, not their Sovereign. They would cry as much to Satan, would he burn with a cold iron. Here indeed God is easily to be entreated, but hereafter never to be entreated; so that there is no object of duty in the damneds eternity. God sits, as to them, no more in the throne of grace, but in the judgement seat; he shall shine forth no more 
Psal. 80. 1.  between the Cherubims; but break out 
2 Thess. 1. 8.  in flaming fire, in perpetual vengeance and executions.  
But here it may be replied,  
1. Object. 1 Are not the Hallelujahs of the Saints in glory Duty and Service?  
Answ. 1 It is answered, No.  
They are the resultancies of service, not the performance; the rest at night is sweet because of the labour. They are as the honey after the toil of the working Bee. They are the rewards of service. Those holy rejoicings, they are but part of the glory, the Saints are crowned with. They are the pure vent, and sweet overflowing of their love to God, that then they shall be filled with. These Hallelujahs shall be the unlading of their affections.  
They are triumph, not service; the 
●.  souls everlasting ovation; there is nothing of toil in those holy gratulations. They are the triumphant 
Rev. 4. 11.  song, the music, the jubiles of the glorified ones. Cantus coronatus, crowned harmony; these blessed praises are but the Saint's wedding day.  
These Hallelujahs of the Church triumphant proceed not so much from an enforcement of duty, as that beatifical vision. They are the ravished acknowledgement of heaven's Courtiers; the blessed sight of God extracts these precious collaudations. The Lord saith, Exod. 33. 20. No man shall see me, and live: by reason of man's weakness, and sinfulness. But in heaven the sight of God shall not only be the fountain of life; but shall spring a vein of eternal praises and hallelujahs.  
Object. 2 But seeing the Majesty and greatness 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 sweetened into familiarity, and the Saints are now truly Kings and Priests advanced into a glorious 
Rev. 1. 6.  dignity; and now God appears purely as a father. No longer as a God among his creatures which resembles sovereignty 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 tribunal 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 benefactor; 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 God's 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 God's friend here: what shall 
Exod. 33. 11.  he be in heaven, when his Majesty shall be seen unveyled?   

CHAP. IX.  
Concl. 9 Mans eternal condition admits of no waste or diminution.  
AND here lies the great riddle of eternity, that time never wastes (I say time, though it be an improper locution, there being no time in eternity) and that after millions of ages are passed 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 stars in the heaven, or hairs 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 renews 
Psal. 103. 6.  its strength; so there is a perpetual renovation in eternity. One flying moment generates another. As the Sea is always full of water, though the waves pass 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. Can we sum up all those years which those Patriarches of old spent, mentioned in the 5. of Genesis; when their lives were stretched out to so many centuries; and their glass was so long in running, and hoary age so slowly seized upon them; I say, could we digest so many thousand years into one total 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 total sum would be a cipher 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 wears not out, nor wastes its substance by all its swift and constant travail. Time sheds not (I say time for explications sake) nor fails in our everlasting condition; nor shall wrinkles 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 Autumn. In a word, eternity cannot be lessened, nor curtailed by the longest tracts, or circuits of duration. Time itself in eternity, is a pure anomaly. I say time, which is the Genus of moments, days, hours, years, those winged parcels of duration, is obsolete, and a cipher 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 joys pass away, and their consummative happiness should be capable of a waste: the Sun's beauteous light, though it be recreative, and refresh the earth's inhabitants, yet as posting towards night, and being capable of declining, it leaves a damp in the world's joy. Can the Saints say so much of their happiness was blown over, it would cloud their felicities with trouble and murmuration. It would be the womb of grief, and leaven glory with sorrow. In Luke 20. 36. Christ saith, the glorified Saints shall be equal to the Angels; and those blessed Spirits, viz. the Angels, never stained themselves with any crime, which might depopulate or waste, their happiness. And indeed, heaven itself 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 think 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 festival of the glorified ones: God's smile shall dry up all tears 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 happiness, and God's presence shall be a spring to this fountain. So there can be no waste in the Saint's 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 circuit 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, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. I say God, in whom there is no shadow of change. There is no rising or setting, 
Jam. 1. 17. Caelum lumine long● illustriore fulgebit, luce increata, Majestate dei immensa illustrabitur. Par.  no obliqne, or perpendicular beams in the divine Sun: the immediate presence and glory of God, shall be an everlasting noonday. And this natural Sun at the resurrection shall either, as some suppose, as a taper, be put out in the socket of the universal conflagration; or else, as others conceive, be turned into a more glorious luminary; analogical to that of the Prophet 
* Isa. 30. 26. , yet not to amplify, but attend on the Saint's glory; God's presence being universal happiness. Now the Sun being the gnomon of time, that being removed from its office in eternity; time can suffer no lapse or waste.  
Can there be a waste in the eternity of the Saints, there would be at last a conclusion. The Summer's day is overtaken with the shadows of the night, and its splendour is entombed in the grave of darkness: the longest 
Gen. 5. 27.  ages of men have at last been coffined in death and dissolution; and so there would be end of, were there a waste in the Saint's eternity: but eternity admits no conclusion, as shall be fully showed hereafter.  
And there shall be no waste or diminution in the eternity of the damned; their time of execution shall not fly away; their suffering spaces shall be ever filled up, and never slide away or wear out. And it must be so: For.  
This would be relief to the damned, that they have passed so many ages in the burning oil and scalding lead, and devouring worm; that some sparks of their misery were blown over: It is some consolation to the shipwrackt mariner, that the bark is slipped off from the rock, though he be cast upon a tempestuous Ocean. As 
1 Sam. 15. 32.  the spruce Amalekite rejoiced, the bitterness of death was over, though suddenly he was massacred by an unexpected slaughter. It would be some relaxation to the tormented, if they could be so happy in their Arithmetic, as to reckon by the rule of substraction, so many miseries are broke through and gone; if they could say, totidem poenae, so many extremities are overpast. What ease is it to the tortured patient, when the fit is over, not only that the disease is not still in the same rage; but so many throws, of intolerable pain, are past and fled away. But alas! there shall not the least shadow of comfort cool the flaming reprobate, nothing that may be entitled or denominated relief. No mixture of ease, no arguments of comfort, no consideration that may taste of satisfaction, shall allay the damneds extremity. Can any interposure of contentment be found in hell, hell itself would lose its nature; 
Luk. 16. 25.  No time illapses, or torment flies away, but both multiply, as fast as spend, in miserable eternity.  
The eternity of the damned is coexistent with God's wrath, and that shall not waste: So Isa. 33. The wrath of God like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it: It is, ira dei, qui est aete●nus, the wrath of God, who is eternal. And it is a stream, not a flood, not a transient and sudden inundation, but a continued and constant current. So there shall be no waste in God's wrath; but that shall be a flame his justice shall be always feeding. And the damneds being's shall be stretched out to God's indignation, which is inextinguishable fire. Misery and duration shall no more die to the reprobate, than wrath shall die in God, or malice in Satan. Think not presumptuous sinner, when thou shalt fall upon the doom of a woeful eternity, that thy tedious ages of imprisonment, and execution shall abate the tale of thy future (though future be an unknown phrase in eternity) calamity: No certainly, the flames shall scorch as much, the pincers burn as hot, conscience corrode as deeply, God's wrath break out as severely, after the passage of millions of ages, as the first moment of thy doleful execution.  
There shall be no waste in the reprobates eternity; for eternity shall be commensurate to their sin, which shall be without diminution. For we must conceive, that the damned carry all their sinful inclinatious to hell with them, all their corrupt, and abominable propensions; their hearts as full of gall and rancour; their speeches as full of blasphemy, their sins boil up to as great an height, nay greater in hell, then here below: as we see some prisoners, rave more at the place of execution, then when locked up in the uncomfortable dungeon: the reprobates shall sink 
Hacket in the reign of Q. Elizabeth.  into their everlasting condition, more envenomed, and impostumated with villainous, and rancorous principles, with more bloody and malevolent disposition, then when they were tenants to the world. And therefore as there shall be no spending and diminution of sin, so neither of time; as their rebellion shall not waste, so neither shall their duratition fade; they could sinne here indefatigably, with an unwearied career, much more in hell; especially these 3. things being weighed in the balance.  
1. In hell there shall be no examples of piety. No pictures of a godly father to check an exorbitant son. No radiant grace of a famous preacher, precious believer, pious Martyr, to dash the countenance, and bridle the insolency of an audacious miscreant, and as the brightness of Moses his face to fetter the 
Josh. 24. 15, 16.  enormous sinner with astonishment. 
Exod. 30. 30.  But in hell there is universal horror and blasphemy, nothing but a diabolical concurrency of wickedness and provocation, and sin shall ever be in the fever in the eternity of the reprobate.  
2. In eternity there is no means of piety; all ordinances cease there, the sunshine of the Gospel shall not visit the coast of the reprobates eternity. And although the Gospel, Rev. 14. 6. be called an everlasting Gospel, yet this doth not import the use of the Gospel, but the fruit of it; the dispensations of it here, 
Ejus authoritatem, effectum, & constantiam asseret, Par. in loc.  were of everlasting concernment; its converts shall be crowned with everlasting glory, and its enemies wracked with everlasting torment: But all the offers and overtures of the Gospel shall cease and be at an end in eternity; and the tormented reprobate shall have no precious promises to melt him, righteous commands to guide him, severe threats to restrain him, faithful Ministry to convert him, or holy communion to refresh him; all these fruits of Gospel's love, shall be to the damned buried in eternal silence: therefore sin cannot be abated in everlasting misery: Let Dives his frustraneous prayer give 
Luk. 16. 24, 25.  verdict for the whole body of Gospel-exercise. And  
3. In hell there shall be no shame for impiety: sinners shall not see 
Gen. 3. 7.  their own nakedness; but sin and blasphemy shall cover them as a garment, hell shall be the stews of wickedness, as well as the prison of misery. So that to close up this conclusion; as the career and violence of sin, not abating, neither shall the term or time of torment pass away in the reprobates eternity.   

CHAP. X.  
Concl. 10 Mans eternal condition admits of no mixture or moderation.  
ALL things in eternity are in the superlative degree: Every thing is screwed up to the highest. No blended joys in heaven, joys dampt with tears; nor mitigated miseries in hell: when the joys of heaven are described, how gloriously are they represented, 1 Cor. 2. 9 In heaven there shall be joy in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, its height, 
1 Joh. 3. 2.  in its fullness, and music of glory in 
Isa. 64. 4.  its sweetest harmony. Moderation here, is a virtue, in eternity it is an anomaly, a mere impossibility. The happiness 
Quid quaeris ut ascendat in linguam, quod in cor non ascendit? Aug. in Psal. 85.  of the Saints shall be as the Sun at noonday, in its most sublime ascent. The beatifical vision can be no moderate or ordinary possession, but joy in its ravishment, felicity in its glory. Perfection is the perpetual sign in heaven. And so the miseries of hell, are fire in its hottest inflammations; no slaked or allayed flames. Here indeed David may sing, Psal. 101. 1. and we may feel mercy and judgement; we may observe black and white providences, the face of providence sometimes looks pleasant with a smile, and sometimes clouded with a frown, mixed together, the heat of indignation allayed with the waters of compassion: but in heaven there is mercy, no judgement, and in hell judgement, no mercy. In eternity there is no blending by a composition of contrarieties. Here is correction in judgement, Jer. 10. 24. afflictions weighed in the scales of pity, and commiseration; but in the eternity of the reprobate there is judgement, no correction, pure flames of wrath, as Philos. speak, fire and heat, ad octo. 
Cogita homo, quoslibet mundi cruciatus, quasque seculi poenas, intend animo, quosque tormentorum dolores, quascunque dolorum acerbitates, compara hoc totum gehennae, & leve. Isid.  Eternity is the womb of extremity, either of delight in transcendency, or sorrow in extremity. The felicities of the blessed shall be always in a full Sea, and the fit of the damneds pain shall be always upon them in the greatest misery; the Saints happiness shall be incomparable, and the sinners agonies shall be intolerable. Every thing in eternity, whether possession, or execution shall be stretched out, and wound up to its superlative capacity. 
De poenis excogitari non potest, quod ibi non erit. Orig.  All things shall be boiled up to the height. And it must be so. For there can be no mixture or mean in the eternity of the Saints.  
It is inconsistent with the price of Christ's blood, which hath purchased the revenues of the Saints eternal happiness; shall the blood of him that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God as well as man, procure or purchase an indifferent or mixed happiness, glory that may be overmatcht, or that may be raised to an higher enjoyment? how would this slain the royalty of Christ's blood? Shall so few, (that is) comparatively, enjoy the Phaenix-glory that shall arise from the ashes of Christ's sufferings, and shall that revenue be ordinary? or indeed capable of being surpassed? A moderate possession is not proportionate to Christ's bleeding passion. Can we compute what the riches of his merits are; or how much value is contained in one groan of him, who was innocency itself; we might easily collect how superlative the joys of the Saints must be, which flow from the fountain of Christ's merit. Let Arithmeticians cast up what one drop of Christ's blood comes to at the rate, how much the 
Isa. 53. 11.  travel of Christ's soul comprehends; and then how exploded will the opinion be, if any such be, of a mixed or moderate possession in glory: what felicities must that blood purchase, which can fetch out the stain of those scarlet sins, by which the infinite God hath been provoked? And therefore 
Isa. 1. 18.  Christ's purchase speaks the Saints glory Superlative.  
And so doth the magnificence of God himself, who gives eternal life to his people. If Alexander shall boast of 
Rom. 6. 23.  donum Alexandri, Alexander's gift, what do the gifts of God weigh? what massy happiness is included in them? Heaven as it is the price of Christ's blood, so it is the fruit of God's bounty, which must needs be transcendent; especially these 3. things being seriously prepended.  
Heaven is God's last gift: his fatherly donation, the Saints inheritance, not their pension, but their portion, their ultimate honour. In glory God gives like himself, gives 
Col. 1. 12.  himself, the sum of all beatitudes. In eternity the Saints have what they must trust to, and that is superlatively enough. This glory is God's consummative bounty, Luk. 12. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Kingdom. And God in his last gift, will not, as I may speak, crown with a silver crown, I mean one that may be bettered, will not give comparative happiness, that may admit of a higher degree. Not like Herod, give half of 
Mar. 6. 23.  a Kingdom. God's magnificence invests the Saints with superlative glory.  
Let it be considered whom doth God install in glory, not so much his creatures as his children, his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his little flock, such as his heart yearns after. Can transcendent 
Isa. 49. 15.  affection bestow a moderate fruition? Surely there will be a proportion between the fullness, and the fruit of God's love; fullness of love, can give no less than fullness of Joy. It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the love of a father, and the affection of a God; 
1 Joh. 4. 16.  of a father, whose love is his nature, and of a God, who hath all treasures of bounty by him; and his love is the key to these treasuries being oiled with the blood of Christ; so God's relation it amplifies the superabundancy of the Saints eternal possession: this adds to the account.  
The father's promise lies upon record, and enrolled for the most glorious promotions to the glorified Saints. Let us but traverse that one text, Isa. 53. 11. He shall see the travel of his soul, and be satisfied. Ah, remember the word, satisfied; what can satisfy the love of Jesus Christ to his Saints, but most transcendent glory? to those believers who are the redeemed by his blood, the birth of his travel; nay, and the travel of his soul, the agonies and sweats of his soul: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  the Saints were born with the soarest travel, and therefore shall be crowned with sweetest felicity: according to that Joh. 17. 24. That where I am, they may be also: As it were, installed in the same Coronation, according to Christ's one phrase, Rev. 3. 21. in the same throne with himself. The very promises of God are assurance for transcendent glory and happiness. God hath pawned his promise, his irreversible bond, and he will see Christ satisfied, he will abate him nothing of his agreement. Let the people of God 
Psal. 40. 7, 8.  begin their triumphancies here, God will see their Husband satisfied for their everlasting portion and dowry.  
And here can be no mixture or mean in the eternity of the blessed; because they shall enjoy the close, sweet, ravishing, full, and immediate presence of God. And what more 
In hac vita mera calamitas, in aeterna mera felicitas. Ger.  beatifical, then to see God unveil his glorious face, the open face of God? which phrase doth import these three things.  
The distinct knowledge of God; we distinguish men by their faces; their countenances doth diversify them: and we shall see God in 
Vita beatorum, visio, & cognitio beatae Trinitatis. Hugo.  glory distinctly; know him to be the great, glorious, omnipotent, infinite God. I shall not, as many do, debate the way of Gods communicating 
Deus videbitur in ●●gno coelorum paternaliter. Iren.  himself unto us; but certain it is, we shall see him clearly and distinctly, without curtain or cloud: as the face is the characteristical difference. We shall see him, as Irenaeus speaks, Paternaliter, as a father is beheld by his child, with knowledge and delight. His glory shall appear to be the glory of God, infinitely above all the splendour and glory of the creature, though clothed with brightness and perfection.  
This phrase implies a familiar knowledge. We shall see God in heaven, not as the Saints do, in an ordinance 
Psal. 63. 2.  by gracious influences and distillations: or as Abraham saw God, 
Gen. 32. 30.  Gen. 18. 2. masked in the veil of a body, as Divines speak symbolically, 
1 King. 21. 19  speculo symbolico. Nor yet as Moses saw God, in his back parts; though that glorious vision, shed such a resplendency on the face of Moses, as the 
Exod. 33. 23.  Israelites could not behold the radiant 
Quatuor modis videmus deum; per fidem, per contemplationem, per apparitionem, per apertam visionem. Biel.  lustre of his countenance; but the Saints shall see God in heaven familiarly, as one friend beholds another; the Saints shall behold God in a friendly, close, and familiar way.  
This phrase implies a pleasing and satisfactory knowledge of God; as Jacob beheld the face of Joseph his Son. He saw not his wagons only, but his 
Gen. 46. 2, 930.  face. In eternity we shall see God not in ordinances, not by letters, as 
1 Cor. 13. 12.  here, but his face shall be visible to us, (i. e.) we shall see God fully, with transcendent and inexpressible satisfaction. And our Master's joy, which 
Mat. 25. 21.  we shall inherit, shall spring from this, 
Angeli Sancti vino sapientiae inebriantur, dum ipsum deum facie ad faciem videntes omni voluptate satiantur spirituali. Greg. M.  that we see our Master's face. Now the beatifical vision, is infinitely above all gradual, mixed, or ordinary possession: this is the transcendentcy of transcendency; in respect of which all excellencies and enjoyments, are but as a drop to the Ocean. And as the learned Father, This vision only can limit the  and comprehensive desires of man, and put a 
Ille est finis desideriotum nostrorum; qui sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine defatigatione laudabitur. Aug. de civ. dei.  stop to the waves of his ambition.  
And there can be no mixture or moderation in the eternity of the wicked; every thing shall be superlative, and in the extreme to them. There shall be no water in their fire, no correction in their judgement; No mercy in their misery, no proportion in their calamity. And it must be so,  
In regard of Sin, which is the fountain of their misery, which is a superlative evil; could we squeeze out the poison of asps, the venom of Serpents, and all those detested Creatures which are the abhorrency of mankind, into one draught, yet that venomous portion would yield a pleasant taste to the bitterness of sin. Sin is that which the Schoolmen say 
Ibi vidi omnia genera tormentorum, quorum minimum majus omnibus. Hugo Victor.  is totaliter malum, a comprehensive evil, that admits of no composition of good. And therefore as there is no moderation or mixture in the evil nature of sin; so neither in the everlasting punishment for sin. Sin is an unlimited, boundless, and superlative evil, and then conceive all the reprobates 
Ibi dolor intolerabilis, timor horribilis, foetor incomparabilis, & sic miseri motientur ut semper vivant, & sic vivent, ut semper moriantur Bern. in Psal.  sins digested into one lump, and wrapped up in one farthel; and what moderation can there be in hell? It is sin that is the flint from whence the fire of hell is struck; the womb of the monstrous pain of the damned; the superlative cause of superlative misery: Extremes in morals, breed extremity in punishment. Indeed here, in this life, God doth punish the wicked with moderated, and intermitted judgements; but this doth not arise from the nature of sin, which they are stained with, but this doth arise from the prevalency of God's mercy, which here is exercised, to render the impenitent sinner the more inexcusable; but in eternity all hopes and capacities of mercy or compassion are out dated and obsolete.  
In regard of the wrath of God, 
Nec dubium, quin ad fornacem Babylonicam, Dan. cap. 3. deducamur, inque typum oeterni illius ignis observemus Gerard.  which shall ever be the sign and season in hell. It is a superlative flame, and there shall be wrath without the least mixture or allaying of mercy. One spark of God's wrath is hotter than Nebuchadnezars furnace, were it 77. times hotter than it was. And so the Prophet, Isa. 33. 14. Who shall dwell with everlasting burn? Burn, not findgings, not scorchings; and burn in the plural number, and the everlasting is more terrible than the burn. One drop of the vials of God's wrath, which he shall be ever pouring out upon the damned, is multiplied misery; a pullulation of calamity, insupportable anguish, and torturing perplexity. If God 
Orcus' malorum omnium extremum. Plato.  lay his hand upon a sinner here, either in the agonies of his mind, or wracking distempers of his body, with what fury and madness is he ready to turn his own executioner, and to quench his frenzy in his own blood? Judas cannot hear the scriches, 
Coelestis ira, quos premit, miseros facit. Sen. Herc.  nor bear the throws of his tormenting conscience; but he must hasten his damnation by a self-dispatching murder. Thus if God do but pour out some drops of his indignation, and assault man primitiis irae, with the first fruits of his anger? And what then shall that wrath be which is unmixed, and consummate, whose flames are oiled with resolutions of showing no further pity? and such wrath shall 
Rev. 19 20. Infernus dicitur stagnum ignis, quia ut lapis mari, ita animae illic immerguntur. Anselm.  be the fuel of infernal torment; how miserable shall the caitiff Reprobate be, when he shall be drowned in an Ocean of such displeasure?  
Moderated afflictions come from a gracious hand, from a merciful correction, they are the souls pedagogy, and Tutor. Oftentimes such afflictions are the looking-glasses for sin; we may see our works in our wounds. And sometimes such gentle and mild castigations, they make sin more nauseate and distasteful; when sin seems to corrode and smart, being followed, and pursued by affliction. As Pharaoh 
Exod. 8. 8.  himself distasted his own neglect to let Israel go, being macerated with judgements. Nay sometimes mitigated afflictions are seasonable chains upon the offendor, to restrain 
Psal. 119. 6, 7.  him from further wandering and gadding.  
But the torments of the damned are sweetened with no gracious end, in reference to the Patient, but they proceed from a wrathful God, whose indignation shall not be attempered with any bowels of mercy, which is a star that shines not over the infernal house; no, but the damned shall lie in a Sea of tribulation, which shall not be corrected by one drop of compassion.   

CHAP. XI.  
Concl. 11 Mans eternal condition admits of no events or issues of Providence.  
NOW to clear this proposition, 
Universalis Providentia est, qua Deus creaturas omnes dirigit secundum arcanum instinctum, quem singulis in creatione indidit, & ita naturae ordinem a se positum conservat. Bucan.  ye must conceive that I do not annihilate that universal providence, by which all created beings are supported in their natures, and subsistencies; for from such providential influxes, neither are the glorious Angels, nor the glorified Saints to be excluded; but they are preserved by a common sustentation. In a word, there is a double Providence which ceaseth not for ever.  
1. Providentia sustentationis, by which all created beings are sustained in their power and nature till the Almighty speak abolition, and command annihilation, and by which those essences which God hath determined for eternity 
Heb. 1. 3. Nisi deus impulsum suum aeterna cura, & providentia prosequeretur, omnis natura rerum non consisteret. Pet. Martyr.  are supported; as men and Angels; for we must not, I say, exempt these renowned creatures from their dependence upon God; even when they shine in the most glorious sublimities, and when illustrious in their richest excellencies: for this is an everlasting truth, That there is unum independens, one independent being, and all other beings have their total reliance and dependence on him: and to assert the contrary is a most 
Vnum est primum mobile. Arist.  blasphemous reproach cast upon God himself. So that the most excellent creatures are maintained in their essence by the omnipotency and wisdom of God. And  
2. There is Providentia operationis, a Providence of operation; by which 
Deum omnia quidem regere, nil aliud est quam rebus omnibus communem influxum suppeditare. Pet. Mart.  the Lord doth not only support, but guide and rule all created beings, according to their determinate natures; that all their actions or natural propensions shall end and issue in the glory of the Creator. For as Divines 
Providentia non est nuda cognitio, sed efficientia. Isid.  observe, God's providence both here, and so for ever, is not only a bare inspection of that variety he hath form; but a continued and virtual influx, 
Creatoris potentia, & virtus causa est subsistendi omni creaturae, quae virtus, si aliquando cessaret rerum creatarum cessaret species, & omnis natura concideret.  by which the creature is enabled to move in the sphere of his own nature; for all beings would soon whither, and be dried up, did they want the animation of God's providential influences. All humane actions receiving life and power from a distilled virtue of God's universal providence; and so in heaven the most glorious inhabitants of it, shall be guided for ever, and maintained in their felicity, and purity, and praises by the necessary providence of God. I make not mention of this division of God's providence, as if it argued a diversity of acts in God; and they were two distinct Providences, but they are identical and the same in God; his sustaining providence being operative, and his operative sustaining: but only for explication sake, that we may view the varieties of the same perpetuated and eternised providence; which shall not cease, while God himself is independent, and his nature continues; which is certainly eternal. I say, from this government, rule, and influence of Providence eternity is not freed; and it is impossible it should, considering the everlasting relation the creature 
Act. 17. 28.  hath to the Creator, the fountain of its life and being. But to pursue the present Conclusion. All events and issues of Providence shall be outdated in eternity, and Providence shall cease:  
Ratione obscuritatis, in relation to the darkness and obscurity of it. There shall be no mysteries of Providence in eternity. No want of prayer 
Ibi quicquid nos nunc latet, manifestum erit. Aug. de trip. habit.  for the unmasking of Providence, and the unveiling of God's mind in his obnubilated dispensations. We shall not in eternity lie at God's feet, and cry, Lord, what is thy meaning in 
Gen. 37. 11.  this affliction, in this scourge, in this indulgence? what is the interpretation of the rods, or the roses of Providence? Providence in eternity shall 
Ezek. 1. 16.  not be a sun in a cloud, a taper in a 
Quod beati hic crediderunt, ibi videbunt, sui creatoris substantiam mundis cordibus contemplantes. Prosp.  dark lantern. Eternity shall take away the mask from the face of Providence. We shall not turn questionists in the thoughts of God concerning us, when strange and unexpected Providences, like the Angels, Gen. 18. 1, 2. to Abraham, come to our door. The Saints in glory shall not turn Skeptics, to observe the traces, Meanders, Labyrinths and bowers of Providence; but all things shall be clear to the glorified and perfected Saint, who shall see the whole intentions 
1 Cor. 13. 12.  of God concerning Man, written in text and golden letters. In God's 
O quanta felicitas Deitatis visioni inter Angelorum choros adesse perpetuo, si tanta transfigurata Christi humanitas duorumque societas sanctorum ad punctum visa delectat! Beda.  face his mind shall be apparent: whatever may amplify the joy, perfect the understanding, or enrich the apprehensions of the glorious believer, shall be unridled to him; or else his happiness was yet in its growth. And so the damned shall be fully acquainted with all the righteous, yet severe Providences concerning them; they shall now see, what Gods intent was to leave them to obduration and impenitency: when all his commands could not confine, nor his promise melt them, was it not for this, That 
Isa. 6. 9  their sins being ripe, they might be overwhelmed with everlasting calamity, and he might draw his arrows to the head, and eternally shoot at them? Not that God delights to contrive, or bring about the ruin of his creature; 
Ezek. 18. 23.  but the damned shall see the justice, righteousness, and wisdom of God in their perpetual executions; and they shall observe the clear design of divine Providence in all the difficulties and abstruses of it; which they could not unravel in this life.  
Providence shall cease ratione varietatis, in reference to its variety: the wheel of Providence shall not turn in eternity; the smiles and frowns of Providence shall cease, quod eundem, in reference to the same person; the upper nail shall not be lowermost. There shall be no inconstancy, flitting, and volubility in Providence. And as it is here, the Sunshines of Providence shall not be turned into a storm. Haman shall not be now in Court, and 
Est. 3. 1. & 7. 10.  presently on the gallows: the alternations and altercations of Providence shall cease. The changes, turn, and embroidery of Providence shall end in eternity. Providence in eternity shall not be as the Rainbow of changeable and divers colour; but it shall be a sky always full of storms or serenity; whose face is always of the same complexion: The reprobates always lying under the frowns, and the blessed lying under the embraces of Providence.  
Ratione disciplinae Providentiae, in reference to the discipline and instruction of Providence. The counsels of 
In gloria sapientia ex ipso fonte bibetur. Aug.  Providence shall cease in eternity; those sacred suggestions which here are often pictured in the complexion of a providence, shall be at an end. Providence as a Schoolmaster shall 
Mic. 6. 9  cease. God here indeed makes Providence 
Psal. 119. 67.  the Tutor of his people, and they are often bettered by doctrinal providences. God here educates his children in the School of Providence. Corrective Providences become corrasives to their lusts, and bounteous are made encouragements to their graces. Providence is oft the bellows of love, joy and thanksgiving, and not only calls for, but guides the exercise of the Saints graces: but in eternity providential instructions shall be at an end. Nor shall the Saints in glory, who are arrived at perfection and incapable of miscarriage, stand in need of the guidance and tuition of Providence. Nor shall the damned be capable of providential directions, they being past the happiness and hopes of recovery.  
Providence shall cease in eternity, ratione plenitudinis providentiae, in reference to the accomplishments of Providence; which shall no more be as the midwife to bring forth God's decrees; and to be the usher of God's counsels. All the discoveries and executions of Providence shall be outdated in eternity. Providence in eternity shall not be the interpreter of God's everlasting intentions; the womb to bring forth those determinations of God, which had their rise from eternity. Providence in this life is the herald of God's will, and denotes to us what his mind was from everlasting. Thus the Jews 
Act. 2. 23.  and Judas conspire together in a 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Greg. Naz.  cursed combination to deliver up our Lord Christ to death; which Providence did but explain to the world God's eternal determination, that Christ should die for sinners, and is but the execution of God's decree. Now executive Providence as it doth finish and unmask the intentions of God, shall be at an end in eternity; and it shall be said of God's decrees in our eternal estate, as Christ said when he was giving up the ghost, It is finished; 
Joh. 19 30.  so they are finished. In a word, the Saints 
In futura vita, dei & divinorum mysteriorum perfecta cognitio succedet; tunc plene & perfect intelligemus ea, ad quorum claram intuitivam notitiam in hac vita penetrare non potuimus. Gerard.  shall not fear the checks or changes of Providence, tremble at the arrests of it; admire the quintos actus, the last acts of Providence, shall not labour to read the cipher of Providence, or take pains to trace the prints and footsteps of it; but all shall be serene and clear to a Saint in glory; all God's decrees shall be legible in a fair Character. Providence is here oft a clouded firmament, but in eternity it shall be a clear sky. Nor shall the damned be capable of the smiles of Providence, which often here so captivated the wicked, that they did pretend a title to God himself. These providential prizes, which often bespangle the wicked in this life, shall cease and wear the mourning of eternal wrath. Nor shall the mistakes of providence find place in eternity; Providence shall not be wracked and tortured to speak the fancies of men, and made corrival with, if not superior to Scripture. It shall no more be the implicit faith of man, and panderized to men's sinful machinations: But all various, and uncertain issues and accomplishments of providence shall be at an end in eternity; now all providences, which are but the Alphabet of God's will, must cease in our everlasting estate.  
Reas. 1 Because the plot of all Providence is ended. All those interwoven, mixed, mysterious, yet efficacious Providences, which have been subservient to the conversion and happiness of a believer in this life, they are all finished in heaven. Manasses his prison, and the 
2 Cron. 33. 12.  brightness that shone about Paul; all 
Act. 9 3, 37, 39, 40.  these are consummate in glory. joseph's Providences, Peter Waldoes' Providences, 
Gen. 41.  shall all have their plot in eternity. What God aimed at in the strange circumferences, and rare circuits of Providence, for the advantage, and emolument of his people here, shall be all clear and visible in eternity; and the design of all the artifices of Providence shall be eternised. And so those ripening providences which fatten and sear the wicked for the slaughter of misery. Hamans' Providences, and those Prodences which waited on the ruin and destruction of Herod, shall all be finished in eternity, and the design of them consummate: those just, yet rare passages of Providence which often with a conviction confute and confound the wicked, shall cease in eternity, when the intention of them shall be eternally visible.  
God the fountain of all Providences communicates himself immediately 
Videbit Sanctus deum ad voluntatem, habebit ad voluptatem, fruetur ad jucunditatem. Bern.  in eternity: Providence is here man's prospective, the umbrage, and dark discovery of the mind of God; and poor man ghesseth at the will of God by reading Providence. But now God acts immediately in eternity, 
Heb. 12. 29.  without showing his mind in the lookingglass of Providence; God is an immediate flame of love to the Saints, and a flame of fire to the Reprobate. God useth in eternity no more the medium of Providence to ripen the sinner for ruin, or the Saint for glory; but all the Conduit pipes and conveyances of Providence cease, those effluxes of his will, God's bosom shall be open to the Saints: It is the face of God, not of Providence in glory.  
All Providences imply a mutability. We read of no Providences in this life, which have not been alterable and various, sometimes soured into a rod, and sometimes guilded with a smile. Now thus joseph's Providences which attended him, were the very embroidery of variation; we find him now fettered in a dungeon, 
Gen. 30. 20.  not illustrious in the Chariot. Such Providences which encompassed 
Gen. 41. 33.  Bellisarius that famous Captain, now 
Da obolum pauperi Bellisario.  the terror of the world, and presently interred alive in the coffin of poverty. Thus Providence in this life is the map of changes; the picture of mutability. But all change ceaseth in eternity, (as fully before). Here indeed promises are sure, but Providences are most uncertain. Jeremiah, Moses, Daniel, Job and other Pillars and Patriots of Religion have been the very tennisbals of Providence. Our eternity shakes off both the fears, and the hopes of uncertainty.  
The Word, which is the interpreter of Providence, shall cease in eternity; the more sure word, as the Apostle calls it, shall resign up its 
2 Pet. 1. 19  office, Verbum dei fiet visio dei, the Saints in glory shall not hear of God, but behold his face. They shall see verbum essentiale, the essential word. 
Joh. 1. 1.  Indeed the Gospel, Rev. 14. 6. is called an Everlasting Gospel  
1. In the Original of it: the Ideas which have been in the mind of God for ever concerning man, are written and recorded in the Gospel.  
2. In regard of the effect of it; the Gospel converts the soul to eternal life, and by the preaching of it, draws the believer to heaven, the place of everlasting joy; it is everlasting in the fruits of it: But yet the Gospel shall cease in eternity. 
Tunc plene, & perfect causas divinorum consiliorum, & operum intellegemus. Gerard.   
1. In reference to the instructions of it, the blessed in glory shall not need the discoveries of it; nor shall the damned enjoy them: eternity shall draw the curtain of all difficulty to the glorified ones; and there shall need no Gospell-dispensations, no Gospell-beams to scatter the cloud of ignorance.  
2. The Gospel shall cease in the conversion of it. No soul-converting Preaching in eternity, the transforming power of the Gospel shall be at end, the day of grace sets in the grave, and is buried in the night of death. And  
3. The Gospel shall cease in the comforts and cordials of it; the refresh of the Gospel shall be at an end in eternity, that honey that here is found in the strong, in the strength of a truth, or in the hive of a promise.  
And now if the stable, study, immutable word, that Gospel which is the inalterable rule of Saints, 
Rom. 3. 2.  the Oracles and irreversible counsels of God, if this word cease; how much more Providence which is oftentimes coloured with so many varieties, and is the womb of such multifarious uncertainty: So that we may reassume our former assertion, and say, that all issues, events, varieties and clouds of Providence shall all be swallowed up in immediate and clear appearances of immutable love, and inalterable wrath in eternity.   

CHAP. XII.  
Concl. 12 Mans eternal condition admits of no comparison.  
WE may say of eternity, what our Saviour saith of the Kingdom of heaven, Luk. 13. 19 To what may we compare it, or whereunto shall we liken it? What ever nature or reason hath compared eternity to, falls short of representing that vast Ocean, that bottomless depth, that endless state. Nature in all its wardrobe, and reason in all its capacities cannot emblematize eternity. What figure, globe, sphere, or Mathematical device can adequate, or measure out this endless and boundless state? It is like the day of judgement, unknown. And we may cry out concerning eternity, what the Apostle doth concerning the wisdom of God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, O depth! 
Rom. 11. 33.  All those pictures which antiquity with so much care and industry have drawn of eternity, do not draw it to the life, nor fully paint out the thing portrayed; and who shall look upon them shall hardly know eternities face. This endless estate, est naturae mysterium, & rationis opprobrium; it is a riddle both to studious nature, and reason in its greatest intellectual flourish. Aristotle the interpreter and secretary of nature, was so mistaken in fathoming eternity, that he makes the world eternal, which is but a body of perishing particulars. The Almighty asketh the question, Who can span the heavens, and tell the 
Isa. 40. 12.  full latitude and breadth of their curtains? And this question may be likewise proposed, Who can give a pregnant and full Hieroglyphck of eternity? Who can illustrate and explicate what it is, by some lively and full emblem? But not to wrong our serious Predecessors of their industry this way; I shall only inform you, that there were many things, that they represented eternity by: the principal I shall only cast my eye upon.  
Sometimes they made a ring the emblem of eternity, that as the Ring hath neither beginning nor ending, so neither hath eternity.  
Answ. But to this it may be replied,  
1. That only the eternity of God is 
Aeternitas est duplex;  represented by this emblem; for man's eternity hath its rise, though not its 
1. Perfecta, quae est a parte ante, & a part post, sic Deus est aeternus.  fall. But God is eternal, as neither being capable of a beginning, nor of ending, and therefore the Egyptians used to signify God by a circle; and the 
2. Imperfecta, quae initium habet, sed non finem; sic Anima, & Angeli sunt aeterni. So our Divines.  Persians thought they honoured God most, when going up to the top of the highest Tower, they called him the circle of heaven. And it was a custom among the Turks (as Pierius teacheth at large) to cry out every morning 
Mercurius Trismegistus vocabat Deum sphaeram intellectualem, cujus centrum est ubique, & circumferentia nullibi.  from an high Tower, God always was, and always will be, and so salute their Mahomet. Now therefore this emblem teacheth not man's eternity. But  
2. I answer, The Ring itself which represents eternity, is mortal; the golden Ring will shortly be a rusty ring; the ring is a fragile matter to represent eternity; that piece of dust will moulder into dust: the ring no more represents eternity, than the rude draught of a picture represents the vitality and beauty of vigorous man. We can no more by emblems paint out this bottomless state; then draw the effigies of a rational soul.  
3. The Ring though it is not broken of itself, but is an entire circumference, yet it may be broken by a superior power: Man can break the circumference, and deface the very form of it: But God's promise, and his past word hath made eternity indissoluble. Eternity is a duration, which neither will of itself crumble into pieces; nor falls it within the verge of any created power, to put a stop to it, or mel● it into a conclusion. And that there shall be no end 
Heb. 6. 18.  or impairing of it, God's word is irreversible; the divine Majesty hath determined eternity both to the Saint and the sinner: and it is he alone that can bury and dissolve eternity itself. It is with the eternity of men, as with Angels; Christ is the Mediator of their sustentation; the shedding of his blood hath purchased eternal joy for the Saints, and cries aloud for eternal misery on the sinner: God hath pawned his trust to support and supply eternity; 
Joh. 3. 16.  and therefore the indissolubility of eternity renders the Ring to be an imperfect emblem of it.  
Sometimes the Ancients have compared eternity to a Phoenix; whose young one ariseth from the ashes of its fire, so that there seems to be a specifical immortality; the urn of one Phoenix being the womb of another, and the ashes proving seminal.  
Answ. But this emblem likewise falls short of picturing out eternity, there are many deficiencies in this emblematical adumbration. As  
1. The Phoenix is immortalised by propagation, the ashes of the dam is the original of the young: Occasus 
Nec mors in vita nec vita in morte aeterna.  unius est ortus alterius, the ones ruin is the others rise. But now eternity is a constant state, not by propagation, not by accumulation, not by alteration, but by an eternised duration. New additions of times in eternity, 
Isa. 60. 15.  do not flow from the preteritions, and transiencies of former, as 
1 Pet. 5 10.  if one past age should leave another its successor, and eternity was nothing 
Omnium beatotorum felicitas erit continua, nunquam interrumpenda, & sempitterna, nunquam finienda. Ger.  but a family of ages in a lineal descent. No, but eternity is an uninterrupted perpetuity; everlastingness without stop, comma, or intermission. Eternity is not duration by multiplication, but continuation; the same person is everlastingly blessed, or damned: the same Saint in eternity becomes not a species by multiplication; but the same individual believer shall be clothed with personal happiness for ever, and his glory shall be a Phoenix for its rarity, but not for its multiplication.  
2. The Phoenix is renewed by a 
Christus primitiae & resurrectionis & interruptibilitatis & impassibilitatis nobis factus est. Damasc.  passive alteration; the living Phoenix is turned into ashes, and the birth is produced from those ashes, so that the death of the one is the generation of the other, there is ashes, and dying, and budding, all demonstrations of change and suffering. But eternity is 
Corporibus sanctorum non adaequabitur aurum, aut vitrum. Greg.  incapable of change (as before). Heaven shall not be the Saint's urn, nor the bosom of Christ their tomb; nor shall the glorious bodies of the Saints crumble into ashes, there shall be no passiveness seize on the persons, or the bodies of the Saints, no decays, or fading, deaths or damps; glory shall be a Phoenix which shall never turn into ashes. Nor on the other side shall infernal fire become funeral: nor shall the scorched bodies of the damned be incinerated or converted into ashes. So that now the emblem of the Phoenix is too dark an hieroglyphic of eternity.  
Sometimes the Ancients have compared eternity to the Sun, which keeps a constant course, and hath its uninterrupted revolutions; which courses the world, and every day returns to its due, and wont station: The Sun winds about, and fetches its large and vast circuits; and keeping an even, though swift pace, it returns at such a term of time unto the same stage from whence it took its rise: and therefore our predecessors observing the steadiness and constancy of the Sun's motion, have made it the bright emblem of eternity.  
But the Sun doth not paint out eternity.  
Answ. 1. The Sun hath its eclipses, its clouds, its various aspects: So that I may say, Mutability is one beam of the Sun. The historian reports that 
Procopius, and from him Pedro Mexia about An. 540.  the Sun gave not more light than the Moon, for almost one whole year in Italy, the sky in the mean time being clear and without clouds, or any thing to shadow the same. Thus the Sun is an alterable body. Nay in the very motion of it, which is chief the emblem of eternity, there hath been 
Josh. 10. 13.  stoppages and stays, and retrogradations. And the Scripture hath pronounced 
Amos 8. 9  a doom upon its glorious 
Joel 2. 31.  body, that it shall it be turned into darkness, and be entombed in obscurity. But now eternity, is an unmixed, invariable state (as before): there shall be no eclipse in glory, nor suspension of happiness; joy in eternity shall never stand still, or run retrograde. God himself who is the Saints Sun in heaven, is essentially immutable. No beams of light shall visit hell: nor clouds or eclipses darken heaven. There is too much variation in the Sun, so that it should paint out eternity.  
2. But further, there are many things considerable in eternity, besides the duration which the Sun's motion seems to be the emblem of. There is immutability, superlativeness, voydness of succession, joy, torment, the aggravation and varieties of both. Eternity compriseth more in the womb of it, than duration let out for ever, eternity is but as the cipher added to the sum of blessedness or calamity, it is always predicate of felicity or misery. It is not a naked abstractive duration; but is a concrete, in its significancy; and there is a great difference between the state and duration of eternity; What shall we be, and how long we shall endure, they are 2. Questions. And all these emblems do but paint out the bare continuance of eternity. A line of ages that hath no end.  
And this shall be a general answer to all the emblems considered complexively, and together: viz. That all these creature-representations, they are at the great day dissoluble; the heavens shall pass away, and the 
2 Pet. 3. 10.  element shall melt with fervent heat. The Phoenix ashes shall be scattered, and the Ring shall be melted in the general conflagration; but the great assizes shall but open the curtains, and see the general alarm of eternity: Men 
Heb. 9 27.  dying before are gone to their particular eternities: but after the grand and universal trial, when every thought shall be anatomised, and chined up, than nothing shall appear but eternity: And all the rivers of times shall be swallowed and drowned in that Ocean. All persons than shall sail for ever upon the Sea of joys, or calamitous eternity. After the day of judgement, all ages and centuries shall be fledged and leave the world, which shall be remaining; and the particular parcels of Time, shall be all summed up in the total of Eternity. So that now these emblems which represent eternity, themselves shall have an end; so that they are rather the shadows, than representations of eternity.   

CHAP. XIII.  
Concl. 13 Mans eternal condition admits of no revocation.  
THere is no sounding of a retreat, after we are launched into the Ocean of eternity; then there is no setting us a shore again, to re-act a new life in the world. When once the trap-door is let down upon us, there is no breaking 
Fugit irrevocabile tempus.  that prison-door; when we have once passed through that dark entry, and shot that inevitable gulf; there is then no more retirement back again from behind those dark hang to visit the shore of the world. Eternity locks up all backdoors against them that are cast upon that condition; and prevents all possibilities of flight or escape. Christ and his Apostles raised 
Joh. 11. 44.  indeed many from the dead, but it was 
Act. 20. 12,  in an extraordinary way, and their graves were forced open by the petarre and engine of a miracle. Eternity, whether it lands its passengers upon the shore of glory, or locks them up in the dungeon of misery, it makes their condition equally irreversible. Death is not a dream or a swoon; 
Facilis descensus Averni; Sed revocare gradum, etc. Hic labour, hoc opus est. Virg.  nor in this regard a sleep, to be awakened again in this life; but when once it hath closed the eyes of the departed patient, the deccased bids an everlasting farewell to all things here below; and enters upon a new but never ending condition. Pythagoras and his disciples speak much of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a transmigration of the same soul into many bodies; and that death only causeth the soul to change its tenement and habitation; but yet in this dream there is no mention made of the same body to be animated again, and reflourish in this life by a new resurrection. When the soul in death takes its flight, and leaves its loving mate the body, it shall meet no more with it, till the day of the general Assizes. The arrest of eternity, as it will not take bale, so neither will it suffer any evasion. Let not the voluptuous sinner please himself with a vain dream, that after death he shall return again, and gratify his sensual luxuries; his  shall be down in the grave; and being thrown into the Ocean of eternity, he shall get up above water no more. We may meet with Dives in the flames of death; but no 
Luk. 16. 23.  more at his banquets: the Zelanders 
Psal. 49. 19  motto, Luctor, & emergo, I strive, and get up, is a paradox in eternity. And what should make eternity cast its captives again upon the shore of the world?  
1. The sinner's sinfulness cannot demerit a relaxation, or a regaining of his liberty; when the soul by death, elapsed from the body, and fallen into torment, shall blaspheme God, exasperated by that misery it is tormented in; how can justice itself give that damned soul a dispensation for a reentry in its body again? And  
2. So likewise the Saints, when death hath broken the fetters of all their miseries here, and the grave hath swallowed all their moans and fears: how shall they return, to react all those tragedies, and martyrdoms, they broke through in this life? 
Psal. 44. 22.  God's paternal indulgence will not suffer them to put to Sea again. No, Eternity is like that cave, that whoever 
Soles occidere, & redire possunt, Nobis cum semei occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetua una dormienda.  entered into it, returned no more again. When once we are within the gate of eternity, the key is turned upon us; and no ransom or price shall be available to turn the lock again. And it must be so,  
1 In reference to the blessed.  
Reas. 1 They shall return no more to this life, when once cast upon eternity; Because their errand is then done, and they have accomplished that task, that God sent them into the world for. Indeed after death their works shall follow them, but they shall return no more to their work. They 
Rev. 14. 13. Sancti in coelo requiesoent a laboribus suis, nempe quia exexantla●i sunt in stadio hujus vitae. Par.  have made all those prayers, and shed all those tears, performed all those services, and underwent all those reproaches, they have suffered all those wounds, and broke through all those prisons, God had allotted for them in this life. The Israelites when they had undergone so many years of bondage, God then made way for them to enter Canaan: and the Saints, when like the Sun, they have broke through so many clouds; then they set sail on the Ocean of a glorious eternity. And what Christ said, when he was giving up the ghost; so may all the Saints say, It is finished. Their work 
Heb. 4. 9  is over, their task is done, their toil is past, and now eternity makes their bed in inexpressible glory and blessedness: the grave closeth the work of the Saints, and eternity gives them their wages; and when once they have (as when death seizeth upon them, they have) executed that message which their father hath sent them into the world to perform, have brought so much glory to the name of God, toiled so much with their own hearts, scattered so many perfumes 
Sancti in aeternitate sunt milites emeriti.  in the Church of Christ; then God gives them a dismission, and they shall lean their heads in the bosom of Christ for evermore. And therefore nothing 
Joh. 17. 24.  can occasion the Saint's reentry into the world, after once they have bid farewell to it, when the very end and intention of their stay here is fully accomplished.  
This would cast an insufferable damp and discouragement on the services, and sufferings of the Saints here; should there be a revocation in their blessed eternity. Should they be remanded to their prisons again, after they have escaped their goal by death; for indeed the world 
Hic via, superne Patria: as the Father speaks.  is but the Saint's prison, not his paradise, not his delight but his dungeon; and unkind lattice, or wall between Christ and him. Death is to the Saints, but as the Jailor, to open the grate, and set them free in everlasting liberty. Now I say, for 
Heb. 11. 13.  them to be shackled in the world again after death had filled off their chains; what is this but to cast a languour, and faintness on all their performances? Indeed that is a rational plea of the Apostle, 1 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 walk 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 himself suffer his Saints to lose his presence again, 
Rev. 3. 21.  when once he enjoys them in his everlasting embraces. After they are 
As Luther said to the threatening Emperor, 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 bottomless love of Christ to his people, which was written in the characters of his own blood, and broke out at every vein of his massacred body, will not permit those believers, whom death brought with the veil, and ushered into the presence of God, to be again banished into a tempestuous world. John, the beloved disciple, who now lies in the bosom 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 one's; so that Christ 
2 Cor. 5. 8.  again should expose them to the cruelty of the world; what infinite solecisms would such an assertion be the womb of? If we find 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 natural day, and their spiritual 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 spiritual 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 sealed 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 sinful caitiff 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 career in wickedness. No surely, when once the sinner is cast into the sea of eternity, he shall swim no more to shore. God will not revive the dead sinner, to obnubilate his glory with further deeds of darkness. Eternity shall not be, as Ionas his whale, when once it hath 
Jon. 2. 10.  swallowed up the sinner, to cast him up again upon the shore of the world.  
Death which is the inlet to eternity, is but the Lord's Sergeant to arrest the sinner to appear before him for his trial. It is but the sinner's 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 judgement: 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 again to their stolen morsels, they are sweet, nor be invited to Christ again, nor be capable of penitential brokenness; Nor of Gospell-grace, of gospel opportunities again. Eternity is an reversible and irrevocable condition: the soul once lost, and death having drawn the curtains, Redemption and restitution shall be a solecism.   

CHAP. XIV.  
Concl. 14 Mans eternal condition admits of no conclusion.  
ETernity is a Sun that shall never 
Non beatitudo esset sic ertum sancti non haberent, se ibi semper future's. Aug. de civet. dei.  set; a taper that shall never fall into the socket; a term without a vacation, a race without an end. When men in eternity have spent as many millions of ages, as there are atoms in all the beams 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 Vestal 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 bourn 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 wracked with. Gulielmus Peraldus Bishop 
Diaboli, & impiorum omnium credimus aeternae tormenta. Hiers in Isa.  of Lions 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 distil from their eyes but one small tear, and those tears should be added together day after day, they would at length far exceed the drops of the Ocean; for they have their number and their measure, and it is with God to say, so many are the drops of the Ocean, and no more; but the tears of the damned, exceed all number and measure. Alas! alas! How seldom do our thoughts cast anchor upon this serious meditation? how freely and willingly do we sin, and gratify the noisome titillations, and temptations of corruption, and so make ourselves guilty of eternal punishment; and in the mean time consider not, how immense, infinite, and incomprehensible a duration, eternity is. A word that is the fruitful womb of bottomless mysteries. Some likewise have endeavoured to explicate the infinite duration of eternity, by a vast mountain of sand, others by the Ocean, and a third sort by a schedule of parchment, which should be so long, as to encircle the whole earth, and this full of figures. But all these are but cloudy explanations of eternity; who can conceive our endless condition, to be a clock which being once wound up, shall never go down again? Indeed eternity is like a fountain, which 
Hic habent tam jucunda quam tristia finem, eumque celerrimum, illic seculis extenduntur utraque immortalibus. Chrysost.  is always overflowing, and yet loseth nothing of its fulnesie, or is dried up, or overtaken with emptiness. Time is like a blziang Comet, which amazeth the world for a while with its light, but presently falls down, and disappears; but eternity is like a 
Aeternitas est una dies continua, occasum non habens. Ger.  fixed star, which is not worn out with motion; but rangeth about the firmament in a glittering perpetuity. Indeed eternity is a day, whether pleasant or gloomy, serene or stormy, the doom of the wicked, or the delight of the Saints, which shall never be entombed in the grave of a night: In it, the passage of millions of ages do not precipitate or hasten an end. Astronomers observe concerning the Sun, that the nearer it is setting, the more speedy and swift its course is. But eternity admits not of either motion, speediness or setting. The poor mariner after vast circuits, and roving upon the wide Ocean; the Sea in all its cruelty, is at last so courteous to him, as to cast his weatherbeaten bark upon some coast or harbour; the unnatural waves dashing 
Aeternae Deus ●ss● jabet descendere poenae, Ire sub ardorem rabidae sine fine gehennae. Tert. de jud. dom.  it upon some shore. But the reprobate after he is clapped under the hatches of eternal calamity; when he hath passed through seas of God's wrath, floods of Satan's malice, storms of torment, and tempests of misery, and this for millions of ages; yet than he is as far from a shore to refresh him, a creek to shelter him, a night to hid him, or death (a miserable remedy) to strangle him, as at the first moment. How clearly and fully do the Scriptures depaint the everlastingness of our future condition; when the Scriptures inform us, how long the lease of future glory shall be? with what pregnant phrases do they explicate the thing intended? Sometimes 
Rom. 2. 7.  the future blessedness of the Saints is called Everlasting life; sometimes 
Joh. 3. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1 Cor. 15. 53.  a state of immortality; and sometimes heaven's glory is entitled, everlasting joy 
* Isa. 35. 10. & 61. 7. ; sometimes an everlasting Kingdom; and sometimes an eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. 4. 17. And sometimes an eternal inheritance, Heb. 9 15. So the Scriptures set out the 
2 Pet. 1. 12.  future condition of the Saints by an everlastingness; their glory being unfading, and immarcessible for ever; and their happiness being incapable and impossible to be overtaken, and smothered with a night, conclusion or period.  
And so the doleful accent of the Scriptures rings the knell of everlasting 
Mat 25. 21.  misery to the damned. Sometimes their future condition is called everlasting fire; 
Mat. 25. 46.  sometimes everlasting punishment, as if fire were too cold a torture, therefore punishment, intimating all kinds, methods, 
Mar. 9, 46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and sizes of misery. Sometimes their future execution is called a never dying worm; a worm which will never end its gnawing, as the Original; 
Jud. v. 6.  sometimes it is called everlasting 
2 Thess. 1. 9  chains; and lastly sometimes everlasting 
Post hanc mortalem vitam, super est alia, in qua totus homo, corpore & anima, vel in aeternum gaudebit, vel in aeternum cruciabitur. Chemn.  destruction. Thus the Scriptures abrogate, and disavow all end, or conclusion of man's future condition. In our greatest prospects our sight is confined, and after the view of some few miles, we can see no farther, but there is a stop to our most acute quick-sightedness. But in eternity we may look forward, and forward, and after multiplied ages, we can yet see no end. Imagination itself shall still row on, and never see any land. Those long lived Patriarches, mentioned Genesis the 5. chapter, after their long and tedious travels in this valley of tears, they at last fell down into their graves; and rottenness and stench hath long since surprised them: But when death hath brought us within the arrests and surprisal of eternity; we shall then live more millions of ages than the Patriarches did moments, and never find the  of a winding sheet, or thrust ourselves into the dark cottage 
Qui semel illuc, sc. in infernum ingreditur, ulterius egredi non permittitur; non exibis, donec persolvas novissimum quadrantem; quia semper erit solvendo, dum poenas sempiternas peccatorum luit peccator. Hier.  of a grave. Eternity is incapable of wound, or mortality. The reprobate, when death hath eternised his condition, may be ever praying to God to annihilate him, and wooing Satan to assasinate him, may be ever studying ways and methods to dispatch himself, and work his own death, and expiration; but he shall never find a cord to strangle his miserable immortality. And this shall be the triumphancy of the Saints happiness; their throne shall 
Mat. 16. 26.  never be transformed into a tomb. Ah! how should this cast the most contumacious, and stubborn sinner into a palsy, and shaking fit; till God settled his trembling soul, with some token of a joyous eternity? Alas! for what a small parcel of time, and inconsiderable a scantling of enjoyment; do most venture or lose their never-ending, but suddenly-surprising eternity.  
But more particularly, to debate and ventilate this forementioned conclusion: Can eternity at last have an end, in reference to man, (not to make any mention, or to speak of God or Angels) this end would be accomplished one of these two ways, either by annihilation, or dissolution.  
By dissolution: but this is immpossible in eternity. 
Scimus dei beneficio animam quoad substantiam suam esse immortalem. Chemn.   
1. The soul cannot die of itself, unless it whither by the command of a superior power; but of itself it cannot die; for in its own nature, it is immortal; its essence is eternal. One calls the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and it is 
Eccles. 12. 7.  a bud of eternity; the original of the soul speaks its immortal; God still 
Mat. 10. 28.  breathes into men living souls, and our souls come from the father of lights; God lights up souls in men, they bubble 
2 Cor. 5. 10.  forth from the fountain of Spirits, 
Act. 23. 8.  that spiritual essence. They are a 
Act. 7. 59  beam of the most glorious Sun. Our 
Mors saepe somno in Scriptures comparatur, Joh. 11. 11. 1 Thess. 4. 13. sed sciendum quod hic somnus homini mortuo attribuatur, non ratione animae quae est purus actus, sed ratione corporis. Chemn.  bodies were raised out of the dust; but our souls are of a more noble descent and original; the soul runs parallel to all eternity. There are strong and pregnant probabilities of the souls immortality, to a natural eye, to a Philosophical eye with common light. And  
2. To evidence the souls unperishablenesse; we may but take notice, how oftentimes in a languishing and consumed body, you have a most vigorous, well-complexioned and flourishing soul. Sometimes the soul is so acute, that it even cuts the sheath of the body in sunder; the body is oft in the wane when the soul is in the full, all which speaks the souls in mortality; so that naturally the soul cannot die. To this argument I might annex many more.  
3. As the testimony of conscience, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrys.  which discerns between good and evil, and often rejoiceth in the one, and trembles at the other, even when there is no humane witness, or fear of man to cause either. What is the reason that oftentimes when the sinner hath committed some villainous act, and the Sun itself hath not been conscious to it, but it hath been perpretrated with admirable secrecy; yet than the sinner 
Multa argumenta probant animae immortalitatem, 1. Dei cognitio, qua imbuitur, quia ad vitae sontem non pervenit vigor evanidus. 2. Praeclaris dotibus, quibus pollet anima, divinum aliquid ei insculptum esse clamitat, totidem essentiae immortalis testimonia, quot recta, justa, & honesta concipimus, quae sensus corporis latent, etc.  is broken upon the wheel, and tortured upon the wrack of conscience: doth not this clearly and pregnantly demonstrate, that there is a future immortality, and the soul shall be dragged to a fearful tribunal? why should the soul tremble at a sinful, if secret commission, could it be ascertained of a safe impunity? And happily the sin committed is a violation of God's law, and not man's; or it may be so clancularly acted, that the eye of man may be never privy to it. This and many other arguments, bring in their attestation for the souls immortality, and that unfadingnesse is essential to it. And therefore the assertion remaineth firm, that there can be no conclusion in eternity by dissolution in reference to the soul, for that is immortal. And  
2. Neither shall the body die, after the resurrection; this the Scriptures clearly affirm. I shall only cast my eye upon one pregnant and full place, 1 Cor. 15. 53. where the Apostle speaking of the manner of the Resurrection, saith, This corruptible must put on 
Memorandum est, quod Apost dicit demonstratiuè, Hoc corruptibile; hoc mortale, sc. corpus, aperte sic indicans, hoc & non aliud s●bstantia corpus, quod nunc mortale gestamus, immortal tandem resurrecturum. Par.  incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, speaking of our bodies. Then shall the persons of mankind be eternised in their subsistencies; nor shall death, or decay, eat or worm out their beings. But these shattered pieces of clay, our bodies, which here are but the sink of diseases, and have a thousand windows in them for death to creep in, after the resurrection shall fall asunder no more; God's decree shall infuse into them an essential immortality. And if we consider the bodies of mankind after the resurrection, as related to the Saints or sinners,  
1. As the rich cases of the souls 
Luk. 20. 36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  of the glorified Saints; they cannot die. Let that clear text give in its verdict, Phil. 3. 21. Who shall change our vil body that it may be fashioned like unto 
Cristus transfigurabit corpus in aliam figuram, non essentialem, sed accidentalem, ut sc. ex corruptibili faciat corpus incorruptibile, ex passibili impassibile, ex terrestri coeleste, A Lap.  his glorious body: observe here a rare change indeed, but no intimation of death; the bodies of the Saints, which here were the common subjects of pain, torment, and distemper, when past the resurrection shall outvie the Sun in glory.  
2. Nor can the bodies of the damned die after the resurrection; those deformed cages of more deformed souls shall never be blest with a dissolution. Divine wrath shall make the bodies of the reprobates, lapides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like those stones, which naturalists speak of, which do always burn. They shall be butts for the arrows of God's displeasure ever to be shot at: the smoke of the lake shall not smother them, nor the flames of hell consume them: not the least member shall be turned into cinders by everlasting burn. The torments of hell are 
Mat. 25. 46.  often called fire; whether figurative or 
Mat. 3. 12.  real, we shall not discuss the question, 
Mat. 25. 41.  but this we may conclude, that the bodies of the damned are more proper fuel for fire then the souls, 
Isa. 33. 14.  and everlasting burning will call for immortal bodies.  
Nor shall eternity have an end by annihilation. After the passage of millions of ages in eternity, man's person shall not be annihilated; the glorious Saints shall not be by divine power reduced into an empty nothing, those crowned personages shall not be folded up in a confused Chaos. Nor 
Poena infernalis est restis ex tribus c●ntexta funiculis, ex obscuritate tenebrarum, acerbitate poenarum, & diuturnitate miseriarum. Innoc.  shall the tortured Hypocrites be reduced into their primitive and original principles, or blow themselves up into an airy conception; a mere chimaera; for besides the absurdity of such a fond imagination, which hath no argument or reason to be founded or bottomed upon; for what should cause the Lord to dash in pieces his vessels of honour, or melt them into their materia prima, their primitive vacuity? heaven cannot harbour any sinful provocation. Or what should induce the Lord so 
Eph. 5. 5.  far to draw out his pity to the damned, as to command their torments to dispatch them, or cause their souls to evaporate? Hell is a Sodom which harbours no Lot in it, it is no place of pious inclination; among all the damneds cries, there is not one penitential groan. God may say to all the damned, what he said concerning Sodom, and yet yield no relief to them; to wit, if there be ten righteous among them, he will save the whole body of them. So that I say, there is no rational foundation can be conceived, that annihilation should be found in eternity: but not only so, but if we peruse the Scriptures, which are the established rule of our faith; we shall not find the least footsteps, or prints give light to any such imagination. In Eccles. 12. 7. the wiseman 
The soul upon its separation must return to receive sentence and judgement; God sent it into the body, and he may recall it, and judge it, for what it hath done in the body. Pemble.  speaks of the souls return to God, but makes no mention of the souls returning to nothing. Death indeed opens the window of the cage, for the soul to fly up to her Creator, to receive a sentence of absolution, or execution. But  
That there should be a time when the persons that are cast upon eternity shall be buried in a total abolition; or whither into a final extinction; the Scriptures are wholly silent. Arg. 1 Moreover how would this clip the wings of a Saints zeal, in his pious pursuites after the honour of God. And how would this prompt the presumptions of wicked men, in all sinful abomination; should the Lord after the passage of some spaces of time, extinguish, and put out the beings of the glorious Saints, and calamitous sinners? The sinner would grow audacious upon this account, that his miseries shall be but pro tempore, for a certain time and duration.  
Arg. 2 Nor would this be a supervacaneous argument, should it be urged, that God in the very Original copy of his intention in creating man, created him either to be his everlasting 
Creasti nos propter te, & irrequietum est cor nostrum, donec veniamus ad te. Aug.  favourite, to be partaker of those honours, and beatitudes he should shed upon him; or else to proclaim his justice in undergoing the torment, and woe of his eternal vengeance. It is inconsistent to the wisdom of God to create man, to communicate himself unto, and then annihilate him, to vote a design and to cross it; God is an eternal being, and must be enjoyed by an eternal being, which of all the creation, is Men or Angels. Nor is this to be overpast in silence,  
Arg. 3 That this is one observable and specifical distinction, that God hath put between Man and other Creatures, 
Psal. 49. 20.  that when other creatures die, and evaporate into nothing, Man only survives to all eternity. In Rev. 14. 13. the Spirit saith there, the Saints die, and their works follow them; what to do? unless as a Jury to give in their verdict for the Saints, that he may be enthroned in everlasting felicity. What need was there for the gracious actions and holy life of a Saint to follow him as a goodly train to God's tribunal, if this glorious inhabitant in heaven shall be taken asunder into its primitive nothing? That is a very pregnant place, Dan. 12. 3. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever: observe, for ever and ever.  
Arg. 4 And I might put the question without inpertinency;  
What reason is there more for the annihilation of man, after the transiency of certain ages, then for the annihilation of Angels? the glorious Saints are as pure as the good Angels, shining in as much royal perfection: 
Luk. 20. 36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and the damned sinners cannot imbrue themselves in more guilt, then evil Angels do. Now that the Angels shall be annihilated, in Scripture we find not the least conjectural probability. And for the close of this Argument 
Jud. v. 6.  we are now upon, let us but weigh that wish of Balaam, mentioned Num. 23. 10. O that I might die the death of the righteous, and that my latter end might be like his. Now I say, how vain, frivolous, and ridiculous would this wish be, should the curtains of eternity be drawn by an act of annihilation, could extinction stop the breath of eternity? and the vanity of this desire will appear in three things.  
There would be no profit in this request; Annihilation will bury all joy, even the happiness of millions of ages; should the glorified Saint be resolved into nothing, all his glory he did enjoy would be annihilated with him, annihilation would be the grave of all his former blessedness, and what profit can there be in the death of the righteous, if annihilation shall be the Sepulchre of that felicity, that death ushers the Saint into?  
There would be no wisdom in this request: For annihilation will smother all fears too. What need Balaam desire to shelter himself in the dissolution of the godly? Annihilation would strangle all those fears. Can an extinction befall eternity, the fires of hell would be but a sharp supper, as the Martyr said in another case. And could we fall into the tomb of annihilation, trembling and fear would be buried with us.  
This request would be ridiculous. For Balaam seemeth in this petition, to put a large distinction between the departure of the Saints and the sinner out of this world, death dealing with the hypocrite and the believer, as Pharaoh did with his Baker and his Butler, the one he restores, the other he executes. But now annihilation 
Gen. 40. 21, 22.  puts no difference, but makes all even alike. Where was the difference between righteous Abel and bloody Cain, famous Zion, and filthy Sodom, before the Creation; when all things were abortive in an empty nothing? Colours differ not in the dark, the most orient are not distinguished from the most pedantic; and therefore some Philosophers make light to be the ratio formalis, the specifical difference of colour: And so all things are of the same value in the night of extinction, or annihilation.  
But let me only subjoin, at the foot of the argument, these two things.  
It is inconsistent to the promise of Christ who hath signed all his promises 
Fiet in resurrectione ut in singulis beatis resurgentibus, mors abolebitur, & vita aeterna efflorescet. Alap.  which he hath made to his converts, and to believers, with the seal of everlastingness, that there should be any stop, or close in eternity: if Christ promise his Saint's life, it is everlasting life, Joh. 3. 16. if an inheritance, it is an eternal inheritance, 
Hic est finis mortis, redemptionis, & mediationis Christi, totiusque novi testamenti, a Christo instituti, ut sc. adipiscamur aeternam haereditatem a Christo promissam. Id.  Heb. 9 15. Nay the Apostle amplifies this argument in a rare phrase, 2 Tim. 1. 10. Who hath brought life, and immortality to light though the Gospel, he hath brought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, life and incorruptibility to light, which as learned men observe, is an Hendyadies, for life and incorruption in the text, is no more than 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; coheirs saith the Apostle in another place, Rom. 8. 17. Christ hath bought glory not for us and our heirs for ever, but for us and our souls for ever. The precious, free, 
Haereditatem terrae Canaan acceperunt Patres ex pacto legali. Hear 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 precious 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 threaten of Christ. Promises and threaten 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 Christ's promises, and impeach the justice and righteousness of his threaten.  
It is inconsistent to the merits of Christ. His merits are an unsuitable price for a temporary happiness, as they are unsuitable for an ordinary, moderate possession, (as before hath been demonstrated) so likewise for a temporary. Indeed as the least sin of man deserves eternal wrath; (for what can answer for the offence of an infinite God?) So the least drop of Christ's blood deserves eternal love. Shall Christ buy us only a lease paroll of happiness? 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 blood 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 Christ's 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 everlastingness 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 nominal, 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 always 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 itself. There are two words best express the happiness of heaven, life, eternal; both 
Joh. 3. 16.  which Christ hath bought for his. And faith in the blood of a Saviour, crownes the believer with both; if duration (as certainly it doth) doth shed a gloss, 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 express image of God the father himself? The Germane Emperors have a custom to be crowned with three Crowns, an Iron one at Milan, a Silver one at Aken, and a Golden one at Rome. And truly Christ shall crown all his glorified one's 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 gloriousness 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 Can there be an end in their eternity, there would be more fear than joy in heaven, more fear of a future loss, than joy of a present possession. What tremble would it beget in the Saint in glory, lest he should fall out of Christ's bosom? the thought of a departure would smother the Hallelujahs of heaven; nay, the very variety and sweetness of celestial happiness, 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 reinthrone himself in glory; how did the thoughts of his absence fill the disciples 
Joh. 16. 6.  hearts with sorrow? Their thoughts of the miss of that precious 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 than his own Spirit; the glorious, divine, consolatory, holy Spirit of Christ. Now I say, If Christ's 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 joys of heaven, could the Saints lo●e the sight of Christ in glory, or be snatched 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 loss, which draws 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 loss: In that they shall not hear the music, see the glory, enjoy the company, and be blest with the happiness of heaven; they shall not smell the perfumes of the bride-chamber: 
Mat. 25. 10.  But how would this loss be amplified, had they ever felt how 
Objectum divinae scientiae, sunt omnia quaecunque aliquam habent entitatem, aut quomodocunque veris entibus conveniunt.  soft the embraces, how pleasant the smiles of Christ are in heaven? In 1 Cor. 13. 12. the Apostle saith, In heaven we shall know as we are known; that is, not only perfectly, but everlastingly; for as the Schoolmen say, God knows all things from eternity to eternity by one individual act: So than the impossibility of any distaste or unpleasantness in glory, clearly removes all conclusion in the Saint's eternity.  
And could there be a conclusion of the Saints joy in glory; it would proceed from one of these three reasons.  
1. That some default of the Saints should disinherit them, and God in point of justice did shut up their eternity: (but that there can be any miscarriage in glory, I have at large shown it is impossible.) Or  
2. There was a deficiency in the power of Christ to stretch out the beings, and lengthen out the joys of 
Joh. 5. 19  the Saints to eternity; but this is equally blasphemous and impossible. For by Christ all things were made, 
Col. 1. 17.  and by the same power of h●s they are sustained in their beings, and forms they were cast in, in their creation; 
Omnia opera ad extra totam respiciunt Trinitatem.  and to question the omnipotency of Christ, is to rob him of his divinity; his omnipotence being an incommunicable property of the Godhead. Now let him lay aside the profession of Christianity, 
Heb. 1. 3.  who shall with any doubtfulness 
Opera ad extra sunt indivisa, seu omnibus personis communia. Wolleb.  call in question the deity of our blessed Redeemer. Or  
3. There was a defect in the love of Christ, and so their happiness sunk into a conclusion, and was over-taken with a period. But to show the inconsistency of this, that there should be any defect in the love of Christ to his glorified one's; let these three things be weighed in the balance.  
1. Let us but consider how tender the compassions of Christ are to his people 
Isa. 63. 9  here, how he commiserates their afflictions, 
Heb. 4. 15.  weighs their temptations, 
1 Cor. 10. 13.  orders and methodizeth his own dispensations 
Jsa. 40. 11.  to them: that all his 
Rom. 5. 10.  transactions with them may breathe nothing but love, and mercy, and indulgence. 
Ab aeternofuit erga nos ita aeffectus Christi, ut nos ad aeternam salutem elegerit, in tempore crearit, & redemerit, ac perpetuo regat, & servet non sua, sec nostra causa. Zanch.  How tender was Christ in leaving a Comforter when he must departed; making many promises to be on the file to support and relieve his fainting mambers, when need shall be? how doth Christ never take the rod in his hand, step behind the hang, but when the offences and miscarriages of his people necessitate him unto it? Now all these rarities are but branches from the same root of love. Ah! how tender, gracious, spiritual, precious, superlative, constant and beatifical is the love of the Lord Jesus to his people in this life! And shall his love to his Saints in glory faint, or be eclipsed with a wane or decay; when now he hath his people in his own embraces? Can no miscarriages, relapses, and failings quench the flames, or stop the ebullitions of Christ's love to his people here, and shall a languor or damp surprise it, when they are purged from all spot and wrinkle, and shine in the immaculate 
Eph. 5. 27.  beauty of purity and perfection?  
2. Let us consider, that in heaven Christ enjoys the fruit of all his love; the birth of his death, the issue of his blood, the result of his sufferings, and the music of his groans, and that is, he sees his own spouse, his Saints enthroned in glory. The end of all his passions, and of all the Saints afflictions, the scourge he endured, and the rods they often lie under; was glory at the last. And now after the travel of his foul, and the trial of theirs, they are arrived at heaven, shall the pulse of his affection beat faintly, or his loves be surprised with decay? In heaven our marriage with 
Rev. 19 7.  the Lamb is consummated when we are entered into the bride-chamber, and shall the wedding day, (for the felicities of glory, are but an eternal wedding day) slacken, or invalidate the transcendencies of Christ's affection?  
3. And then let us take notice how clearly the Scriptures paint out the eternity of his love to his people. I shall only comprise one Scripture, 
Jer. 31. 3.  within my consideration, Joh. 13. 1. 
Quid sibi vult illa particula, sc. in finem dilexit eos: hoc est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, semper dilexit, & hoc signum magnae dilectionis ponit. Chr.  Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end; observe there, unto the end, that is, for ever, as the Hebrew hath it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever, which is the same, as the learned observe, with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eternally: to the end, which hath no end, to the end, (i. e.) to perfection. Now perfection supposes perpetuity; that cannot be perfect which is not everlasting, glory itself is perfect, because eternal. Christ loves his people to the end, that is, to the end of their capacities of enjoying his love, which is for ever; as long as they have beings 
Dilexit eos in sinem, (i. e.) in tantum eos dilexit, ut eos dare voluerit, summum & maximum bonum quod dari potest homini, sc. vitam & be atitudinem aeternam. Carthus.  to be sweetened with his love: and he loved his to the end, that is for ever, because he loved them; he that is all love; the fountain, and spring of sweet and divine affection, he loved them to the end, who knows not how to break off love from his people. Jesus Christ is the everlasting original of love, and his love cannot suffer a diruption, or period, being planted in his breast. As Musculus observes, Haec est vere divina, & germana dilectio, quae non flaccescit sed ad finem usque constans perseverat, & talis amoris origo, radix & causa in Christo est. In a word, the love of Jesus Christ when fixed upon, and centred in a believer, shall not be either allayed, or intermitted, but shall break forth into visible, and real expressions of it to all eternity.  
And as there shall no period stop the process, or put an end to the eternity of the blessed; so neither shall there be a conclusion in the eternity of the damned, they shall hang in chains for ever, and never go away, or die in their fiery chains. Their miseries shall never find a grave or be quenched in a long looked for expiration. Indeed their sins soon fade and whither in their sweetness, but never shall die in their torment: the rose of their sin shall soon shed; but the worm of their sin shall not so soon be strangled, they shall not be so happy as Saul was to fall upon their 
1 Sam. 31. 4.  own sword, but they shall cry out as the Roman Emperor in his torment, 
Jer. 8. 3.  and Nero in his despair, for one to kill them, and none shall be found. It was an usual saying of a bloody 
Cremabit ad dictos ardens semper gehenna & vivacibus flammis vorax poena, nec erit unde habere tormenta vel requiem aliquando possint, vel finem. Cyprianus.  Emperor, that when any had laid violent hands on themselves, to take away their own lives, whom he designed to torment; he usually said, They had escaped him; but there shall be no such way found for the damned to escape the eternal vengeance of God. They shall have no instruments by them to dispatch themselves. Death, which is here the horror of the wicked, and the very thoughts of which fills them with trembling, and seizeth on them with paleness, and clammy sweats, shall in hell be their courted advantage; and nothing shall be more pleasant, and desirable; but as sinners studied all ways, and evasions to escape the stroke of death here: so all their artifices and contrivances shall not find death in eternity. This shall be poison in their cup of trembling, they shall never see the bottom of it. The fit of their torment shall be intolerable; and yet they shall never give up the ghost in it. Pain shall wrack them, but not waste them, shall corrode and afflict them, but not consume them. The Saints that lie under the 
Rev. 6. 9, 10.  altar, and cry, How long Lord, holy 
Servabuntur cum corporibus suis animae infinitis cruciatibus ad dolorem, & erit sine fructu dolor poenae, inanis ploratio, & inefficax deprecatio. Cypr.  and true? They shall be heard at last, and be clothed with white and glorious robes; but the reprobates shall after millions of ages, cry, How long Lord, how long? pity our torments, slacken our misery, compassionate thy flaming creatures; but all their moans shall be nothing available, but God's wrath shall break out afresh for evermore, the burn, let sinners remember are everlasting, Isa. 33. 14. Diseases here in this life, and tortures they are but the harbingers of death; the stormings and violent assaults of those pieces of clay we carry about us: And this is oftentimes some relief to the afflicted patient; that the more violent the distemper is; the more hopes he hath, that death will suddenly free him from the malice, and the violence of his disease. But in the misery of the damned, their torments are but the supplies of death, shall but feed their executions; they shall ever be torn with the pangs of death; but never be buried in the silence of it. Ah! how should this break the adamantine spirits of impenitent sinners, never to find ease or end, hope or help, consolation or conclusion? always to be gasping, by reason of extremity, and yet never give up or breathe out the last gasp?  
And it must be so,  
Reas. 1 It is inconsistent with God's justice, to cease punishing, while sinners cease 
Ibi sc. in coelo, nec est deformitas sed omnium conformitas, ibi nec est iniquitas sed una semper aequitas. A lard.  sinning; now in hell they shall sinne eternally, curse themselves, cry out against Satan, blaspheme God, belch out their reproaches against all the attributes of the most high. As it is part of the blessedness in heaven, never to sin, so it shall be part of the misery of hell, ever to sin; the fires of hell shall inflame their ulcerous hearts, not humble them, their sin shall eternize their torment. What should restrain or check the rancorous spirits of the damned: the heart-subjugating spirit of the Lord, shall never visit that stews of sin, nec incubare inferno, nor more upon the fires of hell. It is reported of the Apostate Julian, that hellish enemy of the Gospel; that being wounded, he takes his blood, and in contempt throws it up towards heaven, and cries, Vicisti Gal aee, thou Galilean haste overcome. And this shall be the everlasting practice of the damned to be throwing up dishonours even into the face of God himself: so that their constant blasphemy shall perpetuate their insupportable extremity.  
It is inconsonant to the truth of God, that any end should befall miserable eternity; for he hath spoken it, nor can he recall it, that the miseries of the damned shall never be quenched. 
Mat. 25. 46.  God hath enrolled his decree of eternal doom to the wicked in his everlasting Gospel, Mat. 3. 12. and many other places; and his determinations are irreversible; who can interline in God's counsels; or blot out, or alter his everlasting resolutions? Not one title or iota 
Mat. 5. 18.  of his wi●● shall be obsolete or pass away. And there are two reasons, why God hath set down his decree of eternal misery to the damned.  
1. For caution: the more dreadful any decree of God is, the more cautionary; great fires are more avoidable than sparks or smothered flames; when all the Beacon's flame together, we are more certain of, and so more prepared for the enemy's approach. God records this sad determination; not that men should shipwreck themselves upon it; but that they might avoid it: sands are more dangerous, than rocks, because less visible; God hath registered this doom, that it might be a visible caveat.  
2. For vindication of Gods own justice; that sinners might not think to cloud the name of God with dishonours, and yet escape with a temporal execution; God hath decreed, they shall smart for their sins for ever, they shall be always reaping the miserable fruits of their sinful folly; the whole will amount to thus much: Let sinners by this consideration be fired out of their security; let them study what it is to lie on the wrack for ten thousand millions of ages; but what is is that to eternity? And let them speedily prevent their eternal misery, by a serious, real, and temporal penitency.   

CHAP. XV.  
Concl. 15 Mans eternal condition admits of no conception.  
MAN cannot fully conceive it, grace may believe it, but reason cannot fathom it. Man may apprehend it, but not comprehend it. As Moses did the Lord, see 
Exod. 33. 23.  the backparts of it; this is one of those things, that in this world we cannot bear. In the fathoming of eternity, acuteness is but ignorance, ingenuity stupidness, and the largest latitudes of knowledge are but purblind. If all Aristotle's reason could not 
Haec aeternae vitae faelicitas, nobis in hac vita est incomprehensibilis, si de accurata, quidditativa, & scientifica cognitione agatur. Gerard.  find the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the small river Euripus, what then can it do to sound the Ocean of Eternity? What the Apostle saith of the natural man in reference to spiritual, 1 Cor. 2. 14. that all cannot receive them; may be well said in reference to eternity. It is with the Prospect of eternity, as with the eye to the Ocean, it may see the surface of 
Concipe animo statum vitae illius, quantum homini concipere datur, nam juxta rei dignitatem nobis sermo nullus adesse potest, ex iis tamen quae audimus, seuper aenigmata conjecturam quan●ulamcunque faeiemas. Chry.  it, but not its bottom; some glimmering knowledge we may have, sed quis intima vidit? who ever saw the inside, and end, and bottom of it? As the blind man, Mat. 8. 24. I see men as trees walking; so we may glance at eternity with an imperfect sight, gathering some few weak parcels of the knowledge of it. When the great Apostle Paul was carried up to the third heaven, to see a landscape of glory, and to take a view of those transcendencies heaven was enriched with; at his return, with what astonishment 
2 Cor. 12. 2. etc.  doth he make his relation, and tells us indeed, he can make no full relation; those beatifical sights he had been blessed with, were not to be drawn by the pencil of the most rare and fluent Oratory, he heard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such words as are not to be repeated. It is a great contest among grave and learned writers, what these words should be, which neither Paul could express in his best oratory, nor yet would in point of duty, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it was not convenient, saith the text. Gregory the great, supposeth that these secrecies were many discoveries of the nature, gifts, qualifications, and glory of the Angels. Dionys. conjectures that Paul saw the glory of Christ, and heard many things here altogether unknown. Theod. saith, Paul saw the beauty of heaven, heard the music, and the joys, numerosam, & modulatam hymnorum coelestium, of the inhabitants of glory. Others opinionate, he heard many things of Predestination, and the calling of the Gentiles. But what fell within the glorious view of the Apostle, or was suggested to him in this extraordinary revelation is uncertain, and shall not be discussed; Hic certo nibil dici potest, cum Paulus ipse ea siluerit, as the learned man observes. But from the whole this inference may be deduced, That the glories that do attend the Saints eternity are a sphere above the apprehensions of humane understanding. Eternity to come, is like Providence 
Ezek. 1. 15.  here, it is a wheel within a wheel; it is a state veiled with mysteries: like a Picture with the curtain drawn before it. I speak ratione nostri, in respect of us, who are in via, as the Father speaks, 
In vita aeterna dei essentia non quidem sensibus verum animo seu ment cognoseetur a beatis. Martyr.  in our travel to eternity. There is nothing in future eternity that lieth liable to our consideration, which hath not brought forth many debates, differences, several conjectures, and tremulous probabilities even among 
Divina essentia ab angelis, aut beatis videri non potest. Alcuinus. Chrys. Theop.  the most eminent Patriots of learning. How it is debated at this day, whether the Saints shall see the essence of God in heaven, or else some circumambient glory; whether we shall know one another in happiness, and so our joys receive a fresh tide from that perpetual fellowship: whether we in heaven shall see God, oculis corporis, aut mentis, with a corporal vision, or 
Ignem gehennae corporeum esse non ambigo, in quo certum est corpora cruciari. Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Damasc.  only with an intellectual apprehension.  
And so on the contrary hand, how it is debated among learned men, whether the fire of hell be material or metaphorical; on the sad emblem of of the heat and force of God's displeasure; whether there be corporeal worms in hell or no. Basil and others say, they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. A kind of worms casting poison, and eating flesh; and others interpret these worms metaphorically; and say, by worms are understood, morsus conscientiae, the corroding tortures of conscience. And so there are multiplied controversies which do arise in men's apprehensions of our future eternity. Eternity it is the seed of difficulties, the womb of mysteries, the scandal of learning, and the very reproach of knowledge itself. Indeed some dawning knowledge of this future state seems to rise in the minds of men. But how to grasp scientiam quidditativam, as Gerard saith, the full, satisfactory and plenary knowledge of it; this is too large a circumference to be comprised in our intellectual sphere; the tired thoughts of man cannot travel to the end of this knowledge. We must do with eternity, as Geographers do with Countries, they describe in their Maps and Globes; for large and spacious Countries, they only set down the situation, and bare name of those Lands: so must we for a full apprehension of our eternal estate rest in a twilight speculation. What understanding furnished with all the auxiliary helps of learning, experience, natural vivacity, nay with grace itself, while in this life, can unriddle these things, viz.  
That millions of ages should pass away in eternity, and yet not one moment wasted or elapsed. That in the passage of thousands of millions of years there should not be the least variety or mutation, no accidental or unexpected occurrences; and which is most inccomprehensible, that there never fall out an end; no night, no grave, no breaking up, no conclusion; that eternity should never be terminated with a close or period. Here our diseases have their heights, terms and ends, either in the recovery and restorement, or else in the death of the patiented; the grave buries all distempers. And so likewise our delights, harmonies, and musics, they have their set times and periods; and they either vanish in themselves, or else are buried in our own apprehensions; and our lives which are the stage upon 
1 Joh. 2. 17.  which both are acted, they after the transition of a few winged spaces of time, faint away, and are emtombed in the dust, and death draws the curtain between us and all our possessions. But now in eternity the understanding may be ever enquiring after, and searching for an end, a sunset, some event, or issue to fix and anchor upon: but still the sea of everlastingness opens wider and wider, and all period flieth away, as death from the damned, and there is no bottom for the plummet to give a glace of any approaching Land. This is that which puts a mask and veil upon the face of the richest understanding, and turns that sun into darkness.  
That inscription which the vain and Idolatrous Athenians did engrave upon their altar, which they dedicated to their God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to their Unknown God, may in a great measure 
Act. 17. 23.  be attributed to eternity; Aeternitati ignotae, to unknown eternity. Eternity is the amazement, not the prey of knowledge; we may admire, believe, foretaste, and prepare for it, but we shall not fathom or comprehend it, while we are locked in the lower room of this world.  
Nor are there some Reasons deficient, why eternity cannot be fully comprehended by us in this life.  
Reas. 1 God hath expressly said, that the possessions of eternity are inconceivable so the Apostle, 1 Cor. 2. 9 Neither 
Isa. 64. 4.  have entered into the heart of man, the 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Nilus.  things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Those riches which are attendant upon the happiness of the Saints; they are above the computation of the most noble understanding; nor can the large conjectures of the mind sound the bottom of them. They are as the Apostle speaketh, divitiae imperserutabiles, unsearchable riches, 
Ephes. 3. 8.  such riches as reason heightened with industry and grace cannot find out the value, not search to the end of them. And so the miseries of the wicked, they transcend all imagination; the most serious, large, and well-composed thoughts cannot suppose the extremity of them; how much heat is enclosed in one spark of God's wrath. God himself to stop the proud and presumptuous thoughts of man, hath himself given it in, that the loves and losses of eternity are above the reach of our most superlative conceptions. Can we span the heavens, and give in the true dimensions of them, count the stars, and set down their number how many individuals they amount to; or tell how many drops the vast Ocean is composed of; how many waves the Sea is curled with; or can we give the exact number of all the atoms that are in all the beams of the Sun? And yet if all these impossibilities of knowledge, fell within the verge of our understandings; the mysteries of eternity were still wisdom's riddle, the disgrace of all intellectual capacities. Aristotle saith, 
Arist. Ethic.  that the Will can velle impossibilia, will and desire impossibles, which how true 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Greg. Nys.  that is I shall not dispute; but of this I am sure, and God himself hath affirmed, that the understanding cannot intelligere aeternalia, understand the things of eternity, (I speak of a full and accurate knowledge). But the mind dressed with all ornaments of accumulative learning, and let holiness be the Pilot of it, must strike sail, when eternity is the theme of it; God in this particular hath by his own word put a stop to man's curiosity.  
That eternity cannot be fully conceived and comprehended by us, doth not only arise from the mysteriousness and superlativenesse of that state, 
Eccles. 1. 8.  the joys and griefs of it being beyond our suppositions, but likewise that we only have a superficial knowledge of it, ariseth from the weakness and obscurity of man's understanding. Our poor purblind understandings cannot fathom such a depth. This candle of the Lord, 
Prov. 20. 27.  as the wise man calls it, burns in the sock et, Adam's fall hath put a thief in this candle, and our continual sins damp the light of it. Our intellectuals are like a star in a cloud, or a taper burning 
De illa ineffabili laetitia, & mansione aeterna, nunc ex parte narrantes tanto nobis evangelizautmus, tanquam si quis ex pelago maris aquae gustum digito suo potest auferre. Ephrem.  behind the curtains. What we might have done, had not Adam's fall caused a perpetual eclipse in our understandings by the interposition of it, is uncertain; but what a faint and fallacious knowledge our minds are now possessed with, is sadly visible; the light of our understandings being but as the light of a glow-worm: the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 13. 12. We see but through a glass, and darkly too, what a dimness, and duskishness surpriseth, and in a catarix upon the choicest understanding? So that the mind of man is masked with mistake and imperfection. That eternity falls not within the view of our knowledge, is not only so objectiuè, objectively, from the transcendency of it; but subjectiuè, subjectively, from our own inability, there is a weariness in our intellectuals. Our understandings are to be considered in reference to eternity, as our eye in reference to the siars; that we see not those glorious 
Job 8. 9  bodies more clearly and according to their  proportion: this ariseth not from any disappearance of, or cloud before them, but from the weakness and faintness of our sight, there is an ocular inability. Eternity receives the greatest cloud from our shattered knowledge. Let us but consider our understandings;  
1. As being dark, clouded and veiled with much ignorance.  
2. As being fallacious, easy to be seduced, and miscarry in their apprehensions. 
Prov. 3 5.   
3. As being imperfect, falling short of that glorious sight, they were created with.  
4. As being capable of receiving continual shadows, and being overcast with the commission of new sins, and lastly as being finite, and so crowded into a small room: How impossible then can these darke-lanthornes guide us to the full knowledge of eternity? No more than we can see the whole world, uno intuitu, in one view by the help of a perspective. Indeed grace and industry are the 
2 Pet. 3. 18.  best cure for our weak, and faint understandings; but while grace here is of so low a stature, how can knowledge be gigantique? grace and knowledge always bearing a proportion.  
God leaves eternity not fully visible here, to excite and inflame grace in a believer: that faith and love might shine in a greater flourish. The be 
1 Joh. 3. 2.  liever in this life shall never know how great the Summer of his felicity shall be; there is more behind the curtain, than that Saint which is most acquainted with God can discern. Those that dig in a mine, their hopes of wealth 
Bona regni caelestis, dicere, vel cogitare, vel intelligere ut sunt, nullus potest carne vestitus; multo et majora & meliora sunt, quam cogitentur, vel intelligantur. Regnum namque dei omni fama majus, omni laude melius, omni scientia iunumerabilius, omni gloria, quae putatur, excellentius. Aug de trip. habit.  and leisure whet and fleet their industry. And there are many reserves in eternity, which are magnetic, to draw out the orient graces of the Saint; and these inflame the Saints inquisitions. Faith and hope sail to eternity with a full career, as to rich, but yet not fully known beatitude; that which remains in the dark is but graces noble incentive. The desire after natural knowledge so inflamed that ingenuous Roman, that he lost his life in searching after the cause of Vesuvius his sulphureous vomits, why that hill should be the womb of such flaming ejections; and how doth this animate even grace itself, and supply it with more vigorous conquests and strength, that the believer cannot see the end of his happiness, cannot sum up how much the interest of his glory comes to? This portion behind which our understandings cannot see to tell out, is a rare encouragement, and puts life 
Heb. 11. 1.  into our vivacious grace; this plumes and inflames grace, and this makes faith to swell, to consider what eternity will be, what felicities it will be the fruitful womb of. And so inconceivable 
Hujus poenae potentiam, nulla vox exponerè, nullus poterit sermo explanare; nihil est in●ebus corruptibilibus quod conferri possit incorruptibilibus sive bonis, sive malis. Non est dubium quin id quod nulla temporis mensura circumscribitur, nulla etiam creata ment comprehenditur. Aug.  miseries which the damned shall be overwhelmed with, naturally and genuinely, they are like beacons upon a hill, or lanterns upon a watchtower, for caution and prevention; but however they aggravate the fears and amazements of wicked men, sinners here cannot fathom the torments of their execution; how sharp and smarting and penetrative their miseries shall be, they know not the worst of their punishment; this is a worm to the wicked here; there are bitter, but yet concealed calamities behind. Unbelievers in this life, cannot imagine, or in their most sorrowful conceptions apprehend, what wounds, how sore, how deep, how intolerable the scorpions of Gods eternal wrath shall make, when twisted into his scourge. There is more calamity reserved for the reprobate, then either he will believe, or can conceive.  
This is one of those arcana divini imperii, those secrets which God hath locked up in his own knowledge, nor will communicate to inferior beings. As the day of judgement is one 
Rom. 8. 18.  of the times and seasons, which is not given us to know. Some things there 
Sicut infans in utero matris conclusus, de pulcritudine hujus lucis nihil novit; sic & in hujus vitae tenebris de aeternitate nil possumus perfecti, aut solidi scire.  are, the knowledge whereof is shut up in the breast of God, nor shall his mind therein be opened, until the accomplishment and fulfilling of all things at the great and last day, wheraof the full knowledge of eternity is one great considerable counsel. Nor doth God in this cast a disrepute, or disrespect upon his people here below, as if they should wholly be shut out of his counsels, for this the Psalmist contradicts: 
Psal. 25. 14.  But there are three reasons, why God is pleased to conceal some things from his people here.  
God would always leave his people in a longing posture, that the heat of their desires, and the fervour of their industry might not be dampt. God keepeth and reserves many mysteries, to give fire to the prayers, and animation to the graces of his people. God will not give in to his Saints a full history of all his intentions and decrees that he may find work for his people. This life is a Place of appetite not satiety. Can the Saints fill and quiet their ambitions here, they would sail no further to seek another coast; but here is no place of satisfaction. God hath many things written in such a cipher and character, that here we may long to interpret, but cannot unriddle them.  
To keep his Saints humble, God hath his reserve of counsels: Can 
Quemadmodum imbecillior est visus quam ut ad stellas pertingat, sic intellectus noster infirmior est, quam ut coelestia gaudia plene percipiat. Ger.  the people of God see all with an open face, this would feed and foster their pride and presumption, as if they were the privy counsellors and secretaries of God himself: God covers many things in his own wisdom, to teach man the lesson of his own darkness, and imperfection. The riddles of nature limit and keep down the boasts of Philosophy, and so God draws the curtain in a great measure here, to fix men's eyes on the cloud of his own disability. Paul, when he was 
2 Cor. 12. 6.  acquainted in his rapture with inexpressible revelations, God sends him Satan, to be a thorn in the flesh to statuminate and confine his thoughts, that they might not exceed their due station. These mysteries which God keeps in his own breast do but unravel man's weakness, and they are a clear demonstration, what an infant in knowledge our understanding is; God doth in this smother those thoughts of man, which otherwise would prove immoderate and exorbitant.  
God doth reserve many things from the full knowledge of man, to set a gloss on, and to enhance the future glory of his Saints. That though here there may be a film upon the 
1 Cor. 13. 12.  eye of their understanding; yet in heaven God shall be a sun to chase away all clouds; and all Gods everlasting decrees, secret counsels, and 
Tum justi omnia scient, quae Deus fecit scienda, tam ea, quae praeterita, quam postmodum sunt futura. Anselm.  sacred determinations shall be in a fair print, and Jesus Christ shall be the interpreter. This shall be one part of the Saints blessedness hereafter, they shall be as free from the cloud of ignorance, as from the spot of impiety. And in Gods concealing many things, whereof the full knowledge of eternity is one, he doth but raise the market of glory itself.  
And now at last, the imperfect Anatome of our eternal estate is finished, and in it hath been made good, what hath been asserted in this last conclusion; (to wit) that our knowledge of eternity here in this life is but faint and faltering; and the unskilfulness of him that hath undertaken the description hath but thickened the cloud, and encompassed the argument in hand with greater difficulties. But if any light hath broke forth from the weak discussion of this point, so that eternity may be any thing more apparent or visible; his imperfections shall not wholly annihilate his happiness. But the sum of all shall be this, Eternity is a superlative, identical, never-ending condition; whether it set us upon the throne of glory, or see us fastened to the wrack of eternal calamity.  
Applicat. And now lest the picture of eternity may be razed out of our thoughts, after it is drawn; let the memory of it be kept fresh and lively in a close Application, which shall run in two streams. The first part of the Application shall be more general as taking in within its circuit the whole body and corporation of man; it shall be to all universally. But the second part shall be more particular, either as relating to the Saints being the fullest argument of their joy and triumph; or else referring to sinners, as being the saddest word in their doom. Eternity is the torture, and poison of their highest extremity.   

CHAP. XIII.  

Use of Exhortation.  Branch 1 FIrst let this exhort us all, To fill our thoughts with Eternity. Let this word always lie floating on our meditations. It is recorded of Philip K. of Macedon, that he gave a pension to one, to come to him every day at dinner, and to cry to him, Memento te esse mortalem, Remember thou art but mortal; and this should always ring in our ears, Memento te esse immortalem, Remember thou art immortal: thou hast an eternity to spend; thou hast an everlasting condition to succeed. All our thoughts should be always drawn as so many lines to this centre. As the Psolmist he did never 
Psal. 139. 18.  awake, but he was with God, his meditations fastened 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 David's picture, to make eternity the sphere 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 hoist sail 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 than posteth to a setting. Our lives here, let them be the pageants of never so many temporal felicities; they are but a short dying groan; and are always launching into the vast Ocean of eternity. When we observe our own corporal distempers and indispositions, than death is but scaling the walls, which being broken down, the soul flieth to eternity; when we 
2 Cor. 4. 17.  observe the fleet pace and swift career of time, how the several parcels of it slide away in an inobservable velocity, one hour 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 always 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, 
Nigher.  He could never go forth, but he always supposed he heard the sound of the last trumpet, and the Angel crying, Surgite mortui, & venite ad judicium, Arise ye dead, and come to judgement. It is strange to consider how men rally up their thoughts, and muster them, to prosecute their baseness here below; with what eagerness and studiousness they methodise their earthly affairs; how do they live and clog their reasons and understandings with a multiplicity of occurrences? how do they put judgement, and memory, and conscience itself upon the 
Act. 5. 2▪  wrack, to put to usury their advantages, and in the mean while seldom 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 inquire, 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 carcase, flock to eternity, and there be always hover and brooding till we get a sight of an eternal crown.  
But now to set home this argument, and to invite your meditations to this necessary problem and subject, to chain your thoughts to vast, boundless eternity; a Sea we must all sail in, whether rough or pleasant: I say to further this design, 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 suitable 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 muddy profits of the world; how 
Psal. 63. 6.  they disgrace and discredit their own souls, those pieces of divinity in their breasts, with frothy, carnal, and earthly contemplations. How many are there, who put only pebble in the beautiful casket of their understanding, study dross, and dung, and that which the Apostle calls loss, are 
Phil. 3. 8.  versed about their inaminate comforts, their corn, their wine, and their oil: what is this but to carry rubbish and rags in a Chariot? But the most adequate and noble study of the soul is eternity; to be always sounding and fathoming that Ocean: how shall my soul far for ever? what will be the portion of my eternity? what will God settle on me for everlasting? Plato's Treatise, De immortalitate animae, of the immortality of the soul, spoke 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, than eternity, and those things that are attendant upon it?  
What a low degeneracy is it, for men to corrupt and putrefy 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 drossy contemplations, but debase 
Nec in rebus caducis aeternitas complacere potest. Bern.  himself into the vileness of an idol, undervalue and uncoyne himself, blot out God's image and superscription, and write in the image and inscription of earth? he doth as it were turn himself into brass, and iron, and reprobate silver; the soul whose heat and studies are vented and wasted upon these sublunary things, doth but slain its original, and cast a damp upon the divinity of its own nature.  
Now how low and sordid these meditations upon terrestrial and drossy 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 mere parenthesis. These outward things they are nothing to our purpose. We are travelling towards eternity, and to fix our thoughts on these crackling thorns, is but a mere digression. It is strange to observe how 
Mat. 6. 33.  men vex their own thoughts, plot, contrive, foster, and commence their designs for these outward things, which shall never fall into the account, no further then as they aggravate the guilt of a sinner, the joy of a Saint, in the improvement or mispending of them. The question is, whether thou hast gained an interest in Christ, got thy sins blotted out, or hast had the beatifical sight of a smile from God. For the trash and chaff of the world, who required, will God say, these things at your hands? what are all these things to thy soul, thou studious worldling? It is eternity should take up all our Contemplations, how thou shouldest far for ever; to spend our thoughts on these earthly enjoyments, is as to go to law for another man's right, or intrude ourselves into his controversy.  
To fill our thoughts with these outward things, it is to stop our meditations from our home. The wise men followed the star, and we should pursue eternity, thy home O soul, thy mansion, thy portion for ever. This 
Mat. 2. 10.  should be the Contemplation of a Christian, how soft Christ's bosom, how glorious his face, how sweet Gods smile; what those felicities are that are reserved for the Saints? But to fill our cogitations with extrinsecals, is but the alienation of our thoughts, an unnatural diversion. When the poor travaller surveys 
Heb. 11. 13.  many Countries, his thoughts and contemplations, they are oft at home, and settled on his own coast. Our meditations should always be sailing toward our home, and let not the world and its flatteries obstruct or stop our Career.  
The thought of these outward things, unfit the soul for eternity; how unprepared is a worldly man for his eternal estate; how loath to leave the twig, and fall into the Ocean of eternity? As the rich man in the Gospel; with what regret, and reluctancy 
Luk. 12. 20.  of spirit, when he is casting upon eternity, doth he cry out, Farewell my dear enjoyments, those pleasant darlings of my soul; I say, with what reluctancy and contraction doth he then think of eternity, when he is entering upon it? how ghastly is the face, and how unwelcome the arrests of eternity? Nothing is more dreadful to this imprudent miserable wretch, then to look from the mast of this life down into the Ocean of eternity. What clammy sweats, and sad affrightments doth now the thought of an everlasting condition create? These worldly and drossy meditations how do they unhindge the soul; and make it jar and discompose it for its entrance upon eternity. But then man acts most nobly and in a genuine spear, when his contemplations fly forward to eternity, and are descrying that boundless Sea. Now to close this first particular, let us but observe a double proportion between eternity and the understanding of man.  
Eternity it is vast, unmeasurable and incomprehensible, every considerable in it, is unlimited, and unconfined (as before hath been discovered), and so the understanding of man is filled with vast apprehensions, it only (the Angels excepted) can fathom what God is, survey the excellencies of his nature, attributes, glory, and can conceive what a rare creation the Angels are, how fine spun the Angelical nature, what a rare thread the soul; only man's understanding can read God's counsels, and bottom his everlasting decrees, when revealed, and make holy and serious animadversions on them; thus the understanding can raise itself, and call within its view the most noble and generous speculations. Now eternity which compriseth not only the transcendencies of beings but enjoyments; how exactly proportionable and analogical to such a glorious lamp as man's understanding is, especially when snuft and increased by grace?  
Eternity is such a state which is not fully intelligible in this life, but still leaves something within the vail, and behind the curtain; and how doth this fit the ambitions of men's understandings, which are always 
Eccles. 1. 8.  unsatisfied in their inquiries; but still are prying into more and more abstruses. The wise man observes of the corporal eye that it is unsatisfied in this life, how much more the intellectual? The mind of man is pregnant and operative, and as the Bee of the soul is always wand'ring for some prey of future knowledge. This then, (not further to amplify the argument) let it be a golden spur to us, to enrich our minds with constant and serious thoughts of eternity; as being the most sublime and suitable study of the soul.  
The study of eternity, is a most seasonable study. Our lives here 
Initium hujus abitionis est in nativitatis nostra hora, & singulis momentis & horis propius accedimus ad scopum, quem ipsa morte attingimus. Chemn.  they are but as candles in the wind, which every blast may blow one; they are as glasses, that every knock may batter and break; what more fragile and brittle then the life and continuance of man in this world? Every affliction, every distemper, every day may see it entombed in death; and observe its funerals. And therefore what 
Jam. 4. 14.  more proper, what more seasonable, then always to fix our thoughts on eternity, which is our state behind the curtain? what more apposite then to be peeping within the vail? There is no stability in this life, no uncertainty in the other; we will descry the Sea we are to sail in; ah! why not eternity we are every moment entering upon? Thou knowest not how soon thou shall be cast on this shore, yet a little while and eternity shall swallow thee up; therefore what more seasonable than always to anchor our meditations here? It was a grave speech of him, who said, Tota vita est meditatio mortis, our whole life is but the meditation of death. But I say, Our whole life should be a meditation of eternity; this is always seasonable to consider, What shall we do, whither shall we fly, what preparations are made, what enjoyments are provided, what shelter, what honour for the poor soul to eternity? It is not what we are here, whether we are wrapped up in sores or solaces, whether we act Jobs misery or felicity; but what shall we do, and what shall we be for ever? And can then the thoughts of eternity be at any time unseasonable? no more, than our prayers to God, and our visitations of the throne of 
Act. 12. 23.  grace. Every moment may put a period to our possessions here, and see them all withered into nothing, and therefore what fare is at home, how am I provided for eternity? what lands, what leases in glory? what treasures have I blanckt up in heaven? The poor tenant at will, waits still at his Landlords door for a lease; that he may 
Vniversum vitae nostrae carriculum viae conferatur, & mors est ultima hujus vitae lin●a, quae nobis januam aperit ad aeterditatem.  have something certain, some security he shall not be cast out of his dwelling the next hour: In this life we have no lease, nothing certain, therefore think on eternity. Ah! how few, amongst men, which are every moment ready to be turned out of the tenements of their bodies, are looking after and contemplating of eternity? here should be that centre of all our heat, animosities, studies, designs, and meditation. The poor traveller cares not for his Inn, but what is his home; and yet foolish men, more mind their Inn, this world, than their home. It is now thy day, sinner, to think of eternity, this day is declining, and when concluded, thou shalt ever feel, but never contemplate more on eternity: 
Heb. 9 27.  Here is our Term, shortly comes an everlasting Vacation of misery or happiness: Now is the season to ruminate on, and revolve the state of eternity. Can it be ever unseasonable to mind thee of thy soul, of God, of the blood of Christ, of the work of grace? All these things have a tendency to eternity.  
Let us but take a short view of the foolishness of most men, how foolish creatures they are; how ready and easily willing to forfeit and lose their seasons. Man in his infancy saith, It is not yet time to think of eternity, I am but a bud newly visible in the blossom, in the immaturity of my age; I have taken newly a lease of this life, (Infant, let me tell thee, thou hast none) I am newly come upon the stage of the world, and therefore to vex or discompose my thoughts with a future eternity, is not a duty but a solecism; thus man in his unripe years' locks out the thoughts of an everlasting condition. And man in the beauty of his youth, he suspends his thoughts of eternity; lest those grave and serious contemplations might embitter those pleasures he drenches himself in; he shuts out those unwelcome 
Eccles. 11. 9  guests which would interrupt the harmony and music of his mirth. The young man he conjectures that to think of eternity is a hysteron proteron, and so he looks on it as a vain anticipation; it is too soon in the morning of his age, to think of the evening of eternity. And man in his full age, looks on himself, as too strong and vigorous to fall into eternity, and in his own vain presumption, supposeth that he could wrestle with, and foil death itself; his veins are full of blood; his bones are full of marrow, his body is full of strength, and he prides himself in the encrasie and healthful temperament of his constitution; and therefore for him to think of eternity, is to cast himself upon an unseasonable and unnecessary toil: thus the strong man bolts all such meditations out of door. Nay man in his old and decrepit 
Avaritia senectuti naturalis. Arist.  age, when he feebly and faintly walks upon the crutches of decay; he is then more agglutinated and chained to the world, how tenacious are then his desires, ambitious his pursuites, and how close his embraces of the things of this life; and when his eternity 
Gen. 4. 7.  as well as his sin lies at his door, how doth he banish eternity out of all his thoughts, and makes his brain but a Mine of dirty contemplations? Thus all ages of men look upon the serious, solemn and sober thoughts of eternity, but as a piece of unseasonable melancholy, and overbusy intrusion into their otherwise-imployed designs. And so poor man is swallowed up in eternity, before he hath seriously considered it: the poor Ant guided only by a sensual instinct, thinks of a future winter, and so accordingly prepares and lays in for it; shall the Ant think on a winter, and not thou stupid man on eternity, the never sinking condition, never failing or ending estate of thy soul? as the wise man saith, Learn policy and wisdom from 
Prov. 6. 6.  the poor Pismire. Nay let this knowledge of the poor Ant condemn and check the imprudence of Christians, the Ant is not sure of Winter, but may die under some foot or other, and yet the Ant thinks of it; but thou art as sure of eternity, as thou art of thy soul in thy bosom, that must be cast upon, and was created for it. Is not this folly below the beasts, and the most inconsiderable of them too? Ah then, let the seasonableness of the study fix your thoughts on eternity.  
Eternity is the most rational study of man. We must conceive as the Philosopher 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  saith, That man is an incorruptible creature, and therefore to be contemplating on that duration, which is most suitable to his being, is most proportionable. So many of the Philosophers have spoken darkly of eternity, that there should be such a state and being, but have been at a stand, what should attend that being. Man is created to eternity, and death is his change, not annihilation; and therefore it is against the nature of reason itself, to fix our thoughts on any object below eternity.  
Arg. 1 How rational is it, for our contemplations and thoughts to be sailing on this Ocean, when all our gains or losses are to be weighed in the scales of eternity, that makes our losses intolerable, and that makes our gains inconceivable? No loss is considerable but as eternal, nor advantage remarkable but as everlasting. Eternity ponderates our losses, and enriches our gains. Why 
Mat. 16. 26.  is the loss of the soul so amplified by Christ; but as it is created immortal; and its life cannot be taken away? Temporal disadvantages they are but a gentle blast; but eternal, are an insupportable storm. Job himself encompassed with so many losses, the loss of children, friends, goods, health, credit; insomucch that his poverty was proverbial; I say, Job himself, who was the skeleton and anatome of misery, his right and entail to a blessed eternity being not cut off, cannot be denominated truly miserable. It is eternity that is the poison of misery itself, and is the edge of all calamity.  
What is the reason, that Christ prefers the beauty of a flower, and that none of the most rare neither, a Lily, before all glory of Solomon, 
Mat. 6. 26.  which was so great that it was the world's wonder, and the Queen of Shebaes' amazement? I conceive, that this may be one among others, the fadingnesse and transiency of it. Solomon's glory was but a blazing star, which making a glorious show for a while, suddenly disappears, and vanisheth. It is eternity that maketh glory 
2 Cor. 4. 17.  itself weight, and which puts a sting into misery and infelicity.  
Reason should guide our thoughts unto eternity, as that which is the rest and quietation of our thoughts. While man's thoughts and disquisitions are after the satisfaction of their lusts or the things of the world, how full of restlessness and disturbance; how full of tumult and confusion? They are like the dreams of Pharaoh 
Gen. 41. 8.  and Nabuchadnezzar, which distracted 
Dan. 2 3.  and troubled the spirits of those Princes. Should we cast our eye only on that example of Ahab, 1 King. 21. 4 when he would grasp the Vineyard of Naboth into his possession, and being denied, with what anguish of spirit, and torture of mind doth he cast himself upon his bed, and there leaves himself a prey to the perplexities of his disquieted mind; he throws himself upon the bed, which was his bed of thorns, and denies to eat, he refuseth the common commands of nature itself.  
And indeed, Convulsion fits and agonies wrack the thoughts of covetous and ambitious men; how restless their designs? how unsatisfied their desires? there is a perpetual tempest in their cogitations. Absalon and Achitophel those twines of ambition, 
2 Sam. 16. 21.  with what amazement and hurry do they pursue their traitorous conspiracy? Sin and earth, they are the quicksilver and disease of men's thoughts, they are the very earthquake of men's meditations. But eternity 
Psal. 104. 34.  is the centre and rest of the souls Contemplations. As David saith of God, that his meditations of him were sweet. In conversing with eternity, our thoughts meet with a harbour, there is something to stay, and stop, and satisfy the ambition of the soul; there is God the portion, Christ the rock, heaven the refuge, joy the music, and everlastinguesse the triumph of the believer.  
Nay, there is some contentment in viewing and contemplating on the eternity of misery: As it is the triumph of God's vengeance and wonder of his justice, the woeful reward of sin, the souls pregnant and lively caveat, the lantern to guide the soul to avoid the rock, and escape the bottomless gulf of endless perdition; there is something in eternity to settle and compose the meditations of man. The world and lust they are but the Maze and Meander of men's thoughts. What care do men take? what hazards 
Eccles. 2. 22, 23.  do they run? what pains of body, plotting of brain, conflicts of passions, biting of conscience, disrepute among men? Any thing, and every thing will men undergo to acquire the vain vexations of the world, or the filthy satisfactions of sin. Amnon 
2 Sam. 7. 2.  grows lean, is vexed and sick for his sister. Thus men torment their own minds for these outward or sinful enjoyments, make themselves perpetual drudges and servitors to the times, fawn, flatter, comply, couple, strike in with the instruments and authors of their hopes, hazard their salvation and consciences to swim 
Adorare vulgus, jacere ●scula, & omnia serviliter pro imperio. Tacit. Hist. And I may too, pro peccato.  through all to their adored haven, whether the paint of the creature, or the pleasure of a sin. These concussions and confusions attend the distempered thoughts of man, when they have either outward things, or lust for their object. But eternity allays all tumults in our meditations, when the soul bethinks itself, Where shall I lean my head, where lodge my soul, where find my home, where build my nest for ever? these thoughts shed a serenity on the spirit of man. As Christ saith, Mat. 11. 28. that those that came to him shall find rest for their souls, and those that fix their contemplations on eternity shall find a bottom, shall find ground to anchor their thoughts upon; here is the Nil ultra, the pillar our meditations cannot sail beyond, therefore reason may attract our thoughts to be much on eternity.  
Eternity it is the study of grace, more than of reason. All the graces of a believer, they have an eye to eternity. Repentance turn the soul to God to prevent and eternal loss of God's presence; the eye of penitency is toward eternity; the eye weeps for sin here, that it may not weep by sin in eternity; here the penitent drenches himself in tears, that in his everlasting condition he may not be 
Mat. 8. 12.  drowned in misery; here he is weeping 
Luk. 13. 28.  with brokenness of heart, that hereafter he may not be weeping with gnashing of teeth. And here indeed he fills his eyes with tears; that hereafter in eternity God may wipe away all tears from his eyes, Rev. 7. 16. And so love is inflamed upon the point of eternity, because the Saints shall lie 
Isa. 35. 10.  everlastingly in the arms of Christ. Who will not love that husband, that shall crown his Spouse with everlasting joy? Indeed the love of a Saint to Christ, is but the imperfect relation, and dark picture of Christ's love to a Saint; Christ's love is eternal, Joh. 13. 1. and the Saints love breaks out towards Christ, because his love is eternal. Eternity as it is put into Saint's portion, it is the bellows of the Saints love, it fans and oils those flames: What can be more incentive to the believers affection, then that Christ shall endow him with everlasting possession? It is the Everlasting crowns the gift of Christ, and fires the love of a believer. For ever, for ever, to have his soul sweetened with the pleasant smiles of the Lord Jesus, 
Can. 5 7.  and always to lie in his soft and beatifical embrace, how sick of love, must this make the Saint! The grace of love likewise principally glanceth its eye upon our future eternity.  
Faith acts immediately upon eternity, 
Heb. 11. 16.  as the Apostle speaks, It is the 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theod.  evidence of things not seen, Heb. 11. 1. that is, those things that are within the vail of eternity. Faith it doth bring down, those felicities a believer shall inherit hereafter, to him here below, and puts the believing soul in perfect possession. Faith is the eye of the soul, by which we peep through the curtains of mortality, and take a view and foretaste of heavenly things. This glorious grace hath that rare power, that it can either sublimate the soul and carry it up into the bosom of Christ, or bring down Jesus Christ as a bundle of myrrh into the bosom of a believer. Eternity is the very prospect of faith, it is usual Pisgah sight. Faith takes the soul, as the Lord did Moses, and gives it a view 
Exod. 31. 1.  of Canaan. Here lies the difference between 
Fides est credere quod non vides, cujus veritas & merces est, videre quod credidisti. Aug. in Joan.  the eye of faith, and the eye of sense, the one is circumscribed by a present view, we see only what is before us; but faith can take a survey of eternity itself, and lay a present claim to a future inheritance. The 
Fides divina credit quae non videt; & quae nullo sensu assequitur, & credit infallibiliter, sive praeterita sunt, sive praesentia, sive futura. Par.  excellency of this grace is remarkable in this, it can draw the Arras from before the glory of heaven itself. We sail upon the Ocean of eternity here, already, in the bark of faith.  
In a word, this grace presentiates eternity, and looks on our future condition as already attained to, in all its considerables, it lays the soul in the everlasting arms of Christ by its vigorous and undaunted acts: thus faith is a grace that doth cast an immediate eye upon the S●a of eternity.  
And Hope its tendency is wholly towards eternity, and the rare possessions thereof. It is the rational dispute of the Apostle, that hope must cast an eye upon a future condition, for saith he, Hope that is seen is not hope; 
Rom. 8. 24.  that is sense, not the grace of hope. That is a pregnant place, Col. 1. 5. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, observe heaven is made the proper place and seat of hope. And res sperandae, the things hoped for, are called hope, as in the before cited place. So glory is sometimes annexed to hope, Col. 1. 27. And sometimes salvation, 1 Thess. 5. 8. And hope is called a blessed hope, 
Heb. 6. 18.  Tit. 2. 13. A hope of future beatitude and blessedness. And sometimes hope is united to eternal life, Tit. 3. 7. The very centre and stage of hope is eternity. It looks beyond this life, and being fledged by lively acts and exercise, it makes its nest in eternal felicity. Observe that reviving argument of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 15. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable. Observe, I say, hope flies beyond this 
Spes nostra penetrate & pervadit ipsum coelum, ipsamque coelestem gloriam. A Lap.  life, and treads down the limitations of it, if in this life only. Hope anchors upon eternity, casts its anchor within the vail, Heb. 6. 19 Pareus observes that this phrase, Alludit ad sanctuarium 
Interiora sunt ipsa dei visio omnis gloria, & beatorum opes. Id.  templi, quod velo separatum a reliquo templo, coelum praefigurabat. Eternity is the prize of hope. Hope is here in the bud, but is blown in eternity. Everlasting blessedness is the shore hope sails to; the crown hope aims at. It is that only which quiets the patiented, yet springing expectations of a Saint.  
And so Joy, its triumph is in eternity, 
Ex beatifica dei visione, quae est summum beatorum in vita aeterna praemium orietur in cordibus sanctor 'em ineffabilis latitia & exultatio. Ger.  which is the noonday of joy. The Saint's joy is in its harvest in glory. And therefore the Apostles phrase is full, 1 Pet. 1. 8. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Heaven is the palace of joy, and eternity is the day of the Saints everlasting nuptials. And the Apostle Judas couples the presence of God's glory and joy together, Judas v. 24. 
Isa. 61. 7.  In the presence of his glory with exceeding 
1 Joh. 1. 4.  joy. The believers joy here is but the 
Gaudebunt▪ electi propter loci amoenitatem; propter jucundam societatem, propter corporis glorificationem, propter mundum quem contempserunt, propter infernum quem evaserunt. Bonav.  softer-musick, and his joy in heaven the fuller harmony. This joy of eternity, Mat. 25. 21. is called, The joy of our Lord, because God shall fill the souls of his people with this joy, by himself, not by his creatures, by his immediate presence, not by the interposition of creature-contributions, riches, delights, etc. God being the highest and infinite good, the sweetest pleasure, and the most pleasant sweetness shall spring to the Saints by his presence inexpressible joy. So the grace of joy it swells here, and is as a river posting to the sea of a joyous eternity.  
Thus all graces have their design 
Gaudebunt sancti infra se de coeli & creaturarum pulcritudine; intra se de corporis & animi glorificatione; juxta se de hominum & Angelorum associatione. Lud.  in eternity, they all hoist sail on this Ocean. Every grace hath its peculiar relation to eternity, and it is in fieri till it be perfected in eternal glory; it is in the womb till it be delivered by eternity, which is the aim and the consummation of all grace. Dost thou study thy own grace, thou wilt be always quoting eternity. In a word,  
The thoughts of eternity establish grace; grace would seem a tedious and a burdensome thing, but that it is travelling towards eternity, glory is the seal of grace: this makes faith 
Jub. 19 25,  and hope resolute as shortly both to be landed in eternity, and there to be enhanced into a nobler form, faith to be turned into vision, and hope into fruition: this settles the waver of grace, of love, patience and zeal, that in eternity they shall be resolved into glory; and these divine qualifications 
2 Tim. 4. 8.  shall be transformed and nobilitated into perfection. Grace would be the trouble, not the triumph of a Christian, were it to be buried for ever, and entombed in the dust; but the eternity to come melts away all the fears and hesitations of grace.  
Thus the thoughts of eternity quicken grace; Men act faith and love lively and vigorously, as eyeing eternity: It is feathers to the arrow of grace. How doth the soul clasp about Christ with the kind and strong embraces of faith; as knowing it shall 
Gal. 2. 20.  be enthroned in his bosom for ever? It's Constantine's motto, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, In this overcome. This flings sparks into a gracious heart, thy patience shall triumph in eternity. Grace and faith 
1 Tim. 6. 12.  fight undauntedly; eternity holding the crown before them; this is bellows to the fire of grace, it shall be enshrined in eternal fruition. The sun of eternity doth shoot up the flower of grace, putteth heat into the flames of zeal and love itself; to believe on God by courageous faith, suffer for him with invincible patience, act for his glory with fired zeal, all this is but suitable; because the soul shall enjoy God for ever. It is the for ever, the long lease of heaven, (if glory may be stained with the name of lease) turns every grace into a springing 
Psal. 103. 5.  eagle; this for ever, puts spirits, animation and life itself into the graces of a believer.  
The thoughts of eternity render grace more lovely and amiable. A poor believer casting his thoughts on a future eternity more prizeth one dram, the least degree of grace, then as many worlds as omnipotency can create, than all the excellencies of the whole creation, could they be accumulated into one heap. One the the most imperfect degree of grace will secure the soul for ever; snatch it out of all the storms of eternal wrath, will bolt hell gates, and keep down the trap-door of a miserable eternity, that the poor soul shall not be ingurgitated in endless calamity.  
There are two things amplify the riches of grace, and ennoble it to an inestimable value: The Divinity of its 
2 Pet. 1. 4.  nature; and the eternity of its being; for grace cannot be annihilated, but melted, or rather raised into glory. The Philsopher Bias rejoiced in this very sentence, Omnia mea mecum porto, I carry all about me. And so the poor believer rejoiceth in this, he carries faith, love and grace about him; which are the choicest riches, and which will be not only his rescue, but his renown to all eternity. The poor Saint concludes, all the excellencies 
2 Pet. 3. 9, 10.  of the creature shall crumble into the same dust with me, but one dram of grace shall not leave my soul to see corruption. If I am stripped of 
Qui fidem & gratiam semel habet, eam amittere non potest. Benef.  the  I wear, and put on the same putrid garment which Job did on the dunghill, when he was clothed with sores; yet having but the least measure of grace, I shall triumph for ever; my grace is my jewel, which I shall not lose for ever. Eternity sheds a beauty on grace itself. Grace is the fiery chariot to carry up the Eliahs to glory; and it is the glory, the eternal felicity that sets the price on the fiery chariot of grace. For could the same expiration stop the breath of grace and our lives together; how low would the market of grace be? I mean, versus hominem, in reference to us.  
But again,  
Eternity is the state of grace's perfection. Grace before it comes to eternity, is like silver before it is coined. Eternity is the Mint to coin grace with the most glorious image and superscription. Grace in heaven hath 
1 Cor. 13. 12.  its last hand, is flowered into perfection, is dissolved into the pearl of superlativenesse. We should always think on eternity upon this account, as there our graces shall be refined into 
In coelo erit absque nube amaenitas, & absque nocte claritas, & absque labe puritas. Guliel. A lard.  the highest power and purity; eternity is the proper study of a gracious heart, in the point of his graces. How sweet should this Contemplation be to the Saint! though here often his love hath its winter in his breast; yet in eternity it shall be fire ad octo, and a flame that hath neither the smoke of corruption blended with it, nor yet any allaying of imperfection. In eternity grace is drawn to the life, wants no degrees, no measures, no reflections, grace here is polished with glory.  
In eternity there shall be the coronation of grace; grace shall be crowned 
Rev. 3. 21.  with glory. Every gracious soul shall be as Esther, made Queen in eternity. God's everlasting smile shall recompense, and honour the grace of a Saint. All the graces of a Saint in 
Gen. 40. 43.  eternity shall be as Joseph, advanced from a prison to a throne, from the dark prison of the body, to a place of pure and rare perfection. The graces of a Saint here are like a star imprisoned in a cloud; but in heaven shall be as a star, or rather the Sun in a clear and glorious sky. Eternity shall crown and inaugurate faith and love with the perfect sight of God, who was the sole and constant object of all their actings and exercise here.  
Eternity is the explanation of grace. We shall never know fully the value, and power of grace; What were its designs here, what the meaning of it; how rare the beauty of holiness is, till we come to eternity. (And if I could drag your thoughts from the lees they are settled upon, to centre in eternity.)  
Consider, in eternity the reason of the Saints patience under the shot of trouble; their zeal when flames were 
Dan. 3. 17, 18.  their reward; their undaunted faith, winged hope, flaming love, their rowing against the stream, and slighting the Comet of honour; their despising 
Heb. 11. 25, 26.  the delicacies, and soft temptations of pleasure; their repudiating the silver bait of riches, will fully be known in eternity: that will expound all this, and be the comment of the strange and vigorous acts and exercises of grace. In eternity we shall know why Job had rather abide his torment, then leave his faith: Why Abraham should rather destroy his Son, then displease his God; and Moses entertain affliction, then court temptation; eternity shall be the interpretation of all.  
In eternity we shall know the reason why Daniel would rather incur 
Dan. 6.  a Praemunire, then lay aside his usual orisons and prayers, though but for a day or two; and why the Martyrs rather kiss their chains with a joseph's kiss, than their Christ with a Judas his kiss; and why Paul would 
2 Tim. 4. 6.  rather be a Martyr for Christ, than 
Act. 13. 11.  a God to the people: all this in eternity shall be unfolded in a plain explication.  
In a word, Eternity shall unriddle all the designs, intentions, exercises, heights, fights, resolutions, ambitions, and conquests of glorious grace. Thus eternity is a gracious, as well as a noble, rational, and seasonable study. But  
Fill your thoughts, designs, and meditations with eternity, which is the most profitable study; this serious study is the womb of multifarious advantages. Can ye always be glancing at, and thinking of eternity; ye would find the Philosopher's stone, to turn all into gold. The solemn thoughts of eternity would cure the soul of many usual distempers, which frequently do attend it.  
Advant. 1 This would be the check of sin; were men more mindful of eternity, they would be less passionate after iniquity. Would the soul once begin to reason, May not this 
Non tanti emam poenitere. Dem.  sin damn my soul to eternity, and render me the subject of everlasting wrath? And will the sweetness of my present lust countervail scalding lead, burning pitch, boiling oil, empoisoned arrows in my soul for ever? Those furies and torments, unmixed calamities, and superlative miseries, that the damned scrietch and cry under for evermore? Will the poor helpless thoughts of a transient lust or pleasure of an unconscionable or inordinate action, will these miserable comforters and naked shadows any way solace me under the scorching wrath of God? Thoughts of eternity would strangle the thoughts of sin. Our corrupt nature is the poison of temptation; but our meditations of eternity would be poison to temptation. Joseph makes the enquiry, when assaulted by his lascivious Mistress, How can I do this and sin against God? 
Gen. 39 9  And every tempted soul might make this answer to all temptations, How can I yield to this, and murder, and assassinate my soul to eternity? The thoughts of eternity would divorce the soul from the lustful embraces of sin; and look on those painted Jezabels as the everlasting troublers of the soul. Let the tempted patiented always look upon sin in the multiplying glass of eternity, and conclude, this sin, which my corrupt judgement perhaps calls venial may blast my hopes, stop my ambitions, check my desires, destroy my comforts, and ruin my soul for ever.  
Can we, or did we set sail for eternity in our Contemplations; how much  
1. Treachery, such as Absalon, Joab, 
2 Sam. 3. 27.  Judass treason was inconsiderable 
2 Sam. 16. 2.  to it; 
Mat. 26. 49.   
2. How much filthiness;  
3. How much guilt to condemn the soul for ever;  
4. How much madness would be found in every sin: Surely could we paraphrase upon a future condition, pain without ease, and torment without end, it would make us sound a retreat to all our darling enchantments of sin. What benefit will it be to remember the amorous and adulterous bed, when we shall take up our lodgings, (not our rest) in a bed of eternal flames? Will Belteshazzers 
Dan. 5. 2, 3.  riots, and sacrilegious prodigalities sweeten or purfume the stench and torments of hell to him? Nay the very thoughts of a blessed eternity would unriddle the poison, unmask the infinite evil, and chine up the multiplied mischiefs of sin; glory itself would be a lookingglass 
1 Cor. 6. 9, 10.  for us to see the deformity of sin in. Sin that monster of evils, which can shut heaven gates against, and darken the beatifical vision to the soul; which can raise a wall of separation between the soul and God 
Isa. 59 2.  himself.  
Indeed our future estate well weighed in the balance of serious meditation, would be as an Angel in the way to stop transgressors from travelling in the road of sin. Ah! how would such thoughts as eternity 
Numb. 22. 25, 26.  would engender, raise a nausea, and distaste in the soul against the most pleasing cheats of sin. Let us but observe the dismal effects of the hand-writing on the wall, which sin procures; sin which is now a rose in thy bosom, will be a dagger in thy heart for ever. Ah! remember the for ever.  
Indeed sins sinfulness and contamination 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. ad prop. Antioch.  is best drawn by the pencil of eternity. In all thy overtures with sin, and pleas with temptation, let eternity be the umpire: What rage and holy passion would such thoughts produce and procreate? Put but thy finger into the fire of eternal wrath by sacred and serious Contemplation, and then sin if thou canst; thou wilt then either throw away thy faith, or thy sin. I conceive the sinner rocks these thoughts asleep, before he courts and embraces the offers of corruption. A poor sinner upon second thoughts, lest by sin he shall provoke an infinite Majesty with a twoedged sword 
Psal. 7. 12.  in his hand to make everlasting wounds 
Jer. 48. 2.  in his soul, will hardly adventure the gratifying his sweetest lust: If thou wouldst at any time cast a chain upon thy corrupt heart, to restrain its liberty in sin, draw eternity into the counsels of thy soul.  
Thoughts of eternity would allay and mitigate our inflamed desires after the delights and delicacies of the creature. They would correct the inordinacy and distemper of our passions after them; were these meditations greater inmates with us, we should not grow sick for Naboths Vineyard; 
1 King. 21. 4.  and as Eve, lose a world to gain an Apple. Did we think of eternity, we should fall upon such reasonings as these, and plead with our souls in their strength; viz. What advantage doth Dives reap now of all his delicate morsels, his rich fare, the elixirs of all his banquets? What taste hath Cleopatra of her dissolved jewels? Or Heliogabalus of all those vast and various preparations, those unheard of sensualities he drowned himself in? Doth the sensual and effeminated sinner 
Fallax felicitas, ipsa est major infelicitas. Aug.  who is shut under the hatches of eternity; relish any of those varieties which he sinfully pleased himself with here? doth any delightful smatch refresh him from all his luxuries and profuseness in this life? Do the rich 
Da domine, ut sic possideamus temporalia, ut non perdamus aeterna. Bern.  man's barns now relieve him in his eternal famine? How would such thoughts as these embitter the sweet dalliances of the world? When we turn sensual in our pleasurous enjoyments, we remember not eternity. What tears did David's Adultery, when he sinfully gratified his corrupt temptation, squeize from him here; how did he water his couch with his tears, that he had defiled with his lusts? The thoughts of eternity would 
Voluptatem vincere est voluptas maxima, nec ulla est major victoria, quam ea quae a cupiditatibus refertur; qui enim hostem vincit, fortior est altero, qui cupiditates fortior est seipso. Cyp. de bono Pud.  put a mask before all the beauties, and blend bitterness with all the luxuries, and cast a rust on all the riches of the world; would sour all creature-satisfactions, and take their taste from them; nay such solemn thoughts would wrinkle temptation itself. Did we sometimes penetrate into the Sanctum sanctorum of such thoughts, how much art, paint, imposture, witheredness and fugacity should we see in the complexion of the most flourishing contentments? Then the very quintessence of the 
Qui amant voluptates non possunt affici dee, & rebus divinis: Voluptates enim spirituales quae animum erigunt ad coelestia, contrariae sunt carnalibus, quae animum deprimunt. & effeminant. Theoph.  creature, would grow stolen and curdle into vanity. The Dagon of all created excellencies would fall down before the thoughts of eternity. These contemplations would anatomize the world in all its varieties; and find out all the veins and arteries of its cheat and delusion; we should look then upon all our pleasures as what really they are, fantastic but dangerous dreams. Eternity ruminated on would soil the colour of the fairest courtships of the world; it would draw off our hearts from all sublunary satisfactions. Ah! my eternity, my eternity; What shall become of me for ever? When the soul shall seriously ask itself, what real advantage, what soul-satisfaction, what stable or solid comfort is wrapped up in these creature-possessions? but above all am I the more interessed in God's favour, assured of sins pardon, or fit for my eternity by these pleasing enjoyments? Or rather are not these delights I enjoy, the damps of my grace, the infections of my desires, the temptations of my soul, the traitors without the wall of my heart, Satan's weapons, and varnished spies and obstructions to mysterious thoughts of eternity? how would, I say, such a question as this, put seriously and closely to the consciencience flat the taste of the most sweetened delicacies?  
Serious and frequent thoughts of eternity, would be cordials and counsellors in all our troubles. This would sweeten 
2 Cor. 4. 17.  and take off the bitterest potion of affliction and calamity, there is an 
Isa. 54. 8.  eternity to come. Those flames I am 
Mat. 10. 28.  now scotched by, shortly death will turn into a smoke, and then I shall sail upon the pleasant sea of a glorious eternity. This everlasting condition 
Melior est modica amaritudo in faucibus, quam aeternum tormentum in visceribus.  to come, it takes out the core of every affliction: It doth as Edward the firsts Queen did to him, it sucks the poison out of the wound of every trouble; it cuts every calamity of the stone. The poor Saint thinking of eternity concludes, I am passing through a sudden storm to an endless calm, through a tempest to an everlasting tranquillity, through a rough Sea to an eternal harbour.  
There are three things sweeten affliction;  
1. The pleasure of a promise, Isa. 43. 2. The promises are the believers bladders to swim through the highest waters of Marah of miseries. They are 
2 Pet. 1. 4.  precious, not only in their futurition, as they shall be dissolved and melted into reward; but as they are present balm in the wounds of affliction, precious balsam to a groaning and troubled Saint.  
2. The smile of a God, that cannot only mitigate affliction, and allay the pain of it; but transform the Serpent of misery into a blossoming rod of consolation; the favour and smile 
Psal. 119. 67.  of Christ cannot only pair 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 itself, 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 moment's fruition of eternal joy shall take away the smell of all our troubles here; the very memory of these flashes of affliction shall not remain in eternity, unless it be to enlarge the ecstasy of joy. In all thy flames of trouble remember eternity: what is this tear, this sigh, this single groan of misery, to an Ocean of satisfaction? when I shall sail upon a sea of boundless and endless mercy. This moment, as the Prophet speaks, Isa. 54. 8. this flash of lightning to an endless state? When I have passed millions of ages in a blissful everlastingness, will this transient recollected? What darkness or woe doth Jeremiahs' dungeon, or Jobs 
Jer. 38. 6.  dunghill cast upon their glorified souls; 
Job. 2. 8.  now shipped 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 gladness to swim above the water of affliction.  
There are four Questions one should ask 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 fathom their own hearts, search their own ways; and observe what is it that jars their prosperity, and the harmony of it. This is the first Question, What is it that springs a leak in my happiness?  
2. Quest. 2 What is the end of these thunderbolts, these troubles which now are fallen upon me, and seized upon me as an armed man? What aim, what errand have these miseries? The rod speaks 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 God's 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 spiritual good? How shall I make it ancillari gratiae, wait on my souls felicity? How shall I turn this misery into gold, by a rare Chemistry? 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 spark, to an everlasting condition? How inconsiderable this gentle and short gale to a perpetual estate? Am I in Christ? Is my everlasting estate sure? Is the bond of God sealed to me? Am I enroled in the new covenant? Hath Christ left me his blood 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 shortbreathed affliction, to my endless, boundless, and bottomless felicity?  
Nay, the very thoughts of eternity, would yield some comfort to the wicked in their calamities here, in that they would reinforce 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 myself into the sweets of Christ's bosom, I shall fall into the flames of God's 
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 souls 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 storm, 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 womb 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 think of our future eternity, it would be a good cure for all our frothiness, drowsiness, carelessness, formality, coldness, indifferency, infrequency, extravagancy in duty: Such thoughts would inflame the heart, raise the mind, fire the spirit, set on work the affection, nay spiritualise and sublimate the body itself in holy services. As Archimedes who was so intent on his Mathematical studies, that he heard not the Soldiers when they came to his study-door to kill him. Ah! what intention, heat, bend and abstraction of mind would these contemplations produce? Dost thou complain poor soul, of thy coldness and deadness in duty? cast thy thoughts on eternity; Canst thou sleep on the scaffold or on the block? remember, thou rowest and runnest for thy life; nay, for thy eternal life; if thou givest God any rest now, he will give thee no rest hereafter: what sedulity, diligence, holy passionateness, importunity, and violence would these serious meditations fill and bespangle duty with? Thou now actest (soul) for eternity, storm heaven now, or thou are undone for ever; yet a little while, and thou shalt pray no more for ever; the thoughts of our everlasting estate, would make us turn Anchorets in duty, and scale heaven itself, with holy and impetuous importunity.  
There are four things are great spurs to duty.  
1. Obedience to our liege Lord. 
Cant. 2. 4.   
2. Communion with our dear husband.  
3. Increase of our precious graces. And  
4. Especially; the thoughts of our everlasting condition. These would wing our duties. Ah! what hours do we spend in vanity? But do we pray and cry as for our everlasting condition? Serious and cool thoughts of eternity would easily cut the vein, and wash off the paint of formality in our services: and let this come in to reinforce the argument: Our communion with God in duty here, is but glory itself in the swadling-cloathes; and our enjoyment of God above, is but communion sublimate. With what irresistible force doth thirsty Samson 
Jud. 19 18.  send up his prayers to heaven, that God would quench his thirst, and not his life; his life, I say, which was but a twinkling taper that would soon fall into the socket, how should our prayers be plumed and fledged that wrestle for eternity? Why stand ye idle Christians? will not a few drops of holy sweat here, be sufficiently compensated with everlasting delight?  
Eternity well studied will be an invincible argument to seriousness and circumspection in life. It is with men, as with Mariners in the Ocean, if they be thrown overboard; there is no recovery; here is a few paces to walk; and then we come to an endless condition. Observe the serious phrase of the Apostle, Seeing then that all these things shall be 
2 Pet. 3. 11.  dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness? observe, What manner of persons? Can 
Beatos vocat Christus homines electos study & zelo gloriae fervidos, ardore salutis flagrantes. Par. in cap. 11. ver. 12. Mar.  not we tread even for a few paces? now walk purely, now act zealously, now live fruitfully, ye are going to eternity; observe our lives, what a narrow passage they are to eternity; how narrow a ford, how small a river to launch over; what not live piously a few hours?  
I commend not the anchoret life of many, for man is, as the Philosopher saith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a communicative and sociable creature; and the capacities of doing good are especially to be found in a community; yet certainly those deceived souls minded eternity; they were willing by austerity to prepare themselves for their everlasting condition. Ah! how severely should we live, we are going to a bottomless estate. Christ asketh the question to his drowsy disciples, Will not ye watch with me one hour? so 
Mark. 14. 37.  may I say, Will ye not walk strictly for a few moments? ye shall presently be on the shore of everlastingness; what not keep close to God for a little little time? We walk not over a bridge but with great care and circumspection. What is our life but only the short narrow bridge to eternity?  
Indeed eternity might bribe our sanctity and holiness upon this account, We shall find all our prayers, and tears, holy and close walking with 
Rev. 14. 13.  God put to usury in eternity. Our lives are but like candles in the socket; and cannot ye watch, work, weep, pray, act and live holy, while this faint light is out. Our life is compared to a race, and those that run do neither stop, nor sleep, nor fall, nor step▪ aside, because the race is but once, the prize is for ever: our race is but once, and it is a short; Ah! So run that ye may obtain. The 
1 Cor. 9 24.  thoughts of eternity, would cause us to make a covenant with our tongue, as David did, Psal. 39 1. With our eyes, as Job did, Job 31. 1. with our palate and taste, as the wise man counselleth us, Prov. 23. 31. and summon the whole man to a grave, and solemn deportment. Our lives are but a short Winter's day, which will soon be shut in; and cannot we a little follow the lantern of God's word, the Sun 
Psal. 119. 105.  of God's glory, the guidance of God's Spirit, the winter day will soon be buried in the darkness of a night; but eternity knows no evening. The poor sentinel watches carefully, undergoes the terrors of the night, the frightfulness of the dark, the fears of an alarm, the unkindness of the seasons cheerfully, because he knows he shall soon be relieved; Ah! watch and pray, keep your 
Luk. 21. 36.  guards, and shortly ye shall be relieved for ever, and be swallowed up in eternal victory. And this argument will receive strength, if we consider but three things.  
1. If we miscarry, we are lost for ever; if we walk not holy, live piously, tread evenly, non ratione perfectionis, sed ratione sinceritatis, not in reference to perfection, but sincerity, we are thrown overboard into a sea of endless misery; and will the flames of eternal wrath and indignation, be proportionable to a few transient miscarriages? and let us remember we shall never react this life, Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed, saith the Prophet; yet a few moments 
Jon. 3. 4.  and the miscarrying womb of this life, may not only be abortive and barren, but in travel of pain and misery for evermore. Now live according to rule, lest ye die for ever according to justice.  
2. All our holiness shall be rewarded for ever, non ratione meriti, sed ratione gratiae, not of merit, but of grace; and every tear in the bottle, every prayer on the file, every accepted service 
Rev. 14 13.  and every perfumed duty shall be remunerated with advantage: the sacrifices of believers washed clean in the blood of Christ, shall wear the laurel of everlasting felicity. Every spark of zeal, every act of grace, every regular pace that the Saint takes, shall 
Psal. 56. 8.  come in for a child's part in glory; why doth God bottle, if he would bury the tears of a believer?  
3. In eternity we shall be incapable of unholiness; there fears of error, or fall shall be obsolute. There can be no by-paths in Paradise. In this life 
Erimus in coelo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Naz.  is the place of thy pious fears, holy cares, religious tremble, lest temptation draw thee into the snare of sin. In glory temptation itself is spurious 
In aeterna felicitate similes deo erimus, haec similitudo nunc incipit reformari, quam diu homo interior de die in diem renovatur, secundum imaginem ejus qui creavit eum, sed ad illius eminemiae perfectionem quae tunc futura est, quid hoc aut quantum? Aug.  and reprobate, no sinful suggestion lodges within the veil. Unstained purity there is in an everlasting spring. And therefore now study holiness, walk circumspectly, act grace, flame in love to Christ; contract that rare and salubrious sickness, to be sick of love with Jesus Christ, Cant. 5. 5. and remember eternity is at the door, and then all regulation of steps is at an end. In hell there is no rectitude, in heaven no obliquity. In eternity there is no pendulousnesse, or wavering, or possibilities of this uneven walking; but the Saints enshrined in glory shall flourish for ever in an unspotted beauty. Now here (dear Christian) walk and watch till the Sun of this life be turned, and then eternity shall put an end to all ambiguity. What is one pace, one step to a million, ten hundred thousand millions of miles? or what one severe, modest, serious, pious glance to our whole life here? no more is our holy life here to eternity. A little short scene of piety here, and then for heaven, where Godliness shall put on the spotless and rich attire of glory for ever. 
Phil. 1. 27.   
Thoughts of eternity will be our encouragement in conflicts against corruption. Now thou fightest for eternity, if this lust, that corruption reign, thou art undone for ever. Observe the phrase of our Saviour, Rev. 3. 21. To him that 
Rom. 6. 12.  overcometh will I give to sit in the same throne with me; to him that overcomes. What life, vigour, rage against lust would eternity in the meditations of it infuse? How would the tempted patiented cry out, Thou bloody, truculent lust, seekest the life, of my eternal soul; the poor assaulted patiented might (assisted with grace) strangle the most headstrong corruption, with such meditations as these, This barbarous lust may lose me an immortal crown, mask God's face to me for ever, may cause to be pronounced a sentence of everlasting: divorce 
2. Tim. 1. 10.  between Christ and my soul, clap me in fiery, and everlasting chains, and leave me a prey to the dilapidations of eternal wrath. Thou fightest (dear professor) against lust, and the 
2 Tim. 4. 8.  conquest is of an everlasting concernment; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. J. Badresh.  the throne, the crown, the life, the love, the kingdom of eternity is the prize. And now poor combatant is thy duel with lust, if thou get the victory, 
Gal. 5. 17  thou shalt wear the laurel of blessedness, and triumph for ever: thy loss, or thy conquest is eternal. It is with the battle between lust and the soul, as it was in the fight between Caesar and Pompey, Pompey's loss was for ever, and Caesar's victory set him in the throne. Let every fight Christian remember eternity lies at the stake; and let this be prepended, there is no recruiting in the grave, no rallying of thy scattered strength; the battle ends with thy life. What passion would the damned show against those lusts, that are now worms and Scorpions in their consciences, and shall be so for ever, were they again to enter and begin the fight? how would they as Samson in his anger against the Philistines, 
Jud. 17. 30.  summon all their spirits, muster all their strength, and gather together all their vivacities, to pluck down the house upon the head of their corruptions? The thoughts of eternity should be to a Christian, as despair is to a coward, should make himself magnanimously puissant. The Historian reports, that the Roman Soldiers, when they heard the word (Quirites) they received a kind of new life, and they doubled the files of their valour: the word eternity should double the guard of our force and wrath against corruption. Is it not more noble, manly, Christian, by a holy strength, and in a pious resolution to tread down lust here, then in an effeminate desperation to weep over it, and curse it to eternity? Do but see how bloodthirsty, and sanguisugous every lust is in the glass of eternity. Lust in the soul is but the Devils spy, Satan's ambush to betray the soul to a miserable eternity: one of the truest glasses of all sin is everlastingness, there ye may see it to be the Devil's pander, a spark of God's wrath; Nature's imposthume; which if not broken, kills for ever, the souls harlot; and if not crushed, and crucicified, the womb of never ending calamity. And let me recruit the argument with these three considerations.  
1. Lust, what a sordid prize for eternity? Our Saviour makes it a piece of impolitic weakness to exchange the soul for the whole world, 
Mat. 16. 26.  and yet the world is a system, and 
Quam stultus est qui cum aeterna jactura post hanc vitam, pauxillum bonorum temporalium corradit, & retinent, cum possessio rerum in hoc seculo obtentarum, nihil ipsi post hoc seculum prodere, neque animam semel perditam ternents bonis redimere possit. Chemn.  large body of God's creatures, a mass of excellencies and varieties, how fragrant the roses, sweet the musics, savoury the delicacies, glittering the honours, and ravishing the adulations and applauses of the world; and yet Christ brands this for inexprimable folly to purchase this glorious world with the loss of an immortal soul. But how mean a prize for eternity is a base corruption, which is, as the Schoolmen speak, totaliter malum, all evil, more bitter than wormwood, destructive then poison, terrible then death, tormenting then hell, more deformed than deformity itself? One sin acted in a moment could destroy a world which God himself was six days in the creation of it. Wilt thou lose eternity for a lust, which is a firebrand of hell, the very incurvation of nature?  
2. Observe the very remembrance of a satisfied lust, will add torment to eternity: how cutting will that speech of Abraham to Dives be, Luk. 16. 25. Son thou hadst thy good things here. Sinner thou hadst thy lustful satisfactions here, thy ambition, thy 
Prov. 28. 8.  Avarice was surfeited here, thy sensualities were gratified here, thou hadst thy stolen morsels, and thy pleasant baits, thy beloved, chequered, bosome-corrptions here in this life, therefore now thou art tormented. This will be 
Luk. 16. 25.  oil in the sinner's flames, the recollection of that poison of Asps, viz. sin, that they did so pleasantly and greedily drink up. This than will be gravel in their belly, a thorn in their eye, a dagger in their heart, and torment in their bones, and fire in their bosom. Olim haec meminisse dolebit. Sin in the remembrance of it, will be an everlasting ghost to the reprobate, will keep the wound, raze the sore open, the corture quick, the wrack in the extremity.  
3. Consider what vast disproportion there is between the pleasure and misery of a lust, its delightfulness is transient, 
Rom. 5. 17.  a perfume that quickly will evaporate: how soon did our first Parents eat their fruit; but the world to this day cannot rid itself of the miserable consequence of that woeful banquet. As a lease is not writing an hour, but the tenor of it will not be worn out in many years: the satisfaction of sin is suddenly abortive, in the twinkling of an eye; but the weight, the guilt, the indictment, the condemnation, the torment of it, is eternal. Ah! how 
Act. 12. 23.  marcessible the rose of sin; how sharp and durable the rod, that will be turned into an everlasting Scorpion!  
Now therefore, (not to spin out 
Quia deo nos totos & omni nostra debemus, certe in infinitam ejus majestatem injurii sunt, & aeternam mortem merentur, qui vel in minima re sanctissimam ejus voluntatem transgrediuntur.  the argument in hand any further) how should there be sudor & sanguis, sweat and blood drawn out against every corruption; what prayers, sighs, tears, struggle, wrestle against the inhumanity of sin, and cruelty of lust? canst thou hang in chains with flames scorching thee for ever?  
Indeed the thoughts of eternity might put a stone into the sling to strike dead Goliah-lusts: What for sin to damn me for ever, totally and finally to disinherit me, and exclude me my Father's presence to all eternity? Never to see his face more? Rally such thoughts as these against the onsets of corruption. As Caesar said in a battle he fought against one of Pompey's sons, at other times he fought for honour, but then for his life. Ah soul! thou sightest for thy life, thy Christ, thy portion, thy God, thy soul, thy eternity. Now watch, cry, weep, contest against every sin, thy everlasting condition waits upon it.  
Advant. 7 The thoughts of eternity would inflame our love to Jesus Curist. He hath brought immortality to light: What argument 
2 Tim. 1. 10.  of love would this be to the believer; he will crown me with unwithering glory; with diamonds that 
Joh. 3. 16.  shall never receive damp; the River of his blood shall bring me to an Ocean of joy. Eternity of joy is but the purchase of Christ's death, he hath 
Luk. 22. 29.  bought a lease of glory that will never expire; we may magnify the Lord Jesus for our endless, bottomless happiness that is to come, how sweet my Saviour who can immortalize my honour, and transform it into a neverdying dignity. Every glance of eternity should spring new and more lively affections in us to Jesus Christ: should warm the heart with more impetuous love. Our blessed eternity 
Suscepit tristitiam nostram, ut nobis largiretur laetitiam suam. Aug.  is the primogeniture of Christ's merits, the rich result of his sufferings, the glorious masterpiece of his philanthropy, his love to mankind. Joh. 3. 16. Christ saith there, God so loved the 
Omnia perpessus est, ut nos ab omnibus liberaret; timuit, ut nos a timore liberaremur; doluit, ut dolores a nobis abessent. Cyril.  world; so, as to send Christ, his beloved, to make a crown of immortality to set on the heads of his people. How should our hearts bubble forth in sacred adorations of, and divine affections to Christ, the great Patron of eternal happiness, who hath found out for us a mint of glory, that shall enrich us for ever. If at any time thou find thy love to Christ decline, be in a swoone, or surprised with some cold distemper, look down upon the sea of eternity, and this ice will turn into a flame. Let all believers say, Thanks be to Jesus Christ for eternity.  
And consider Christ hath bought eternity by temporal sufferings, and yet without any injustice,  
1. For his sufferings were equivalent to eternity, though not in the duration, yet in the magnitude of them: what agony, what torment 
Isa. 63. 3.  was our Saviour wracked with, when he supposed his Father had forsaken him, My God, my God, etc. his soul 
Mar. 14. 33.  was heavy to death; how deep were his 
Videmus quam graves dolores, & angores etiam piis, quandoque sensus irae divinae incutiat, cum tamen non pro aliorum, sed pro suis tantum peccatis doleant, & iram dei sentiant, cumque in poenis illis deus non effundit totam iram suam, Isa. 78. 38. Infinitis ergo modis major fuit moestitia in Christo, in quem peccata mundi erant conjecta, & in quem totam iram suam Pater coelestis effuderat. Gerard.  wounds, how weighty his burden, how full of trembling his cup, when he lay under the mountains of the guilt of all the elect? Therefore what was wanting in time and duration, was made up abundantly in weight and measure; How bitter were his tears, how painful his sweat, how sharp his encounters, how dreadful his death, insomuch as he seems to decline the end of his coming into the world; and he supplicates his Father to take off the fine and release him from his engagement; nature in Christ himself seems to sink under the future massacre, that God decreed, Act. 2. but man acted; so that easily ye may discern the time of Christ's suffering will be compensated with the terror of it, do but compute how many vials of Gods inexpressible, insupportable wrath Christ drunk of, and the question is at an end.  
2. For a second reply to this question, let it be considered, the blood of him which was shed was the blood of him that was God as well as man, Act. 20. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the pure blood 
Heb. 12. 24.  of the omnipotent deity, so that the 
Eph. 1. 14.  divinity of Christ sheds an unreckonable mass of merit on his blood shed; which hath purchased; as many rare prerogatives for the Saints here, viz. justification, sanctification, adoption, grace, supports, strength, the Comforter, etc. which are the precious pledges of future and greater happiness; so likewise, which is the sum of all, Eternity of glory with himself. And 
Cant. 5. 5.  how should this argument set our hearts on fire in love to the Lord 
Cant. 1. 13.  Jesus, and make him lie as a bundle of Myrrh and Camphire between our breasts? And we might well inquire, why might not heaven set with the Sun; and our glory be overshadowed with a sudden night?  
1. Our duties are short, momentary and transient, we are quickly weary 
Gal. 6. 9  of welldoing: the golden chains of duty, how soon do we shake them off as being burden some shackles, and unpleasant to the delicate flesh?  
2. Our affections to Christ are shortbreathed, quickly cold, the pulse of our spiritual love soon beats faintly: and a sudden languour surpriseth our most divine Anhelations. And  
3. Our life is short in which we act for God, fight against lust, serve Jesus Christ, 
Jam. 4. 4.  and are as flaming torches of zeal 
Isa. 2. 22.  and light in the world; and yet after 
Psal. 39 6.  this transient exhalation the Saints are 
Nemo tam Divos habuit faventes, Crastinum ut posset sibi polliceri: Res deus nostras celeri citatas turbine versat. Sen. in Thyestes.  crowned to eternity; Vnde bone Deus! All this must be scored on the account of Jesus Christ. He hath added eternity to our lease of happiness: what exertions of divine love should these considerations procure, how should they melt and overcome the soul, dissolve it into affectionate admiration, & wound it with wonderful affection, and make us not only his soldiers in magnanimous puissance; but his spouses in conjugal embraces, to use the phrase of the holy Ghost? how should the thoughts of eternity makes us look on Christ as the fairest among women, 
Cant. 5. 9, 10, 11.  the chiefest of ten thousand, whose head is as fine gold, whose eyes are as the eyes of 
Sane Christus solus, lacte lotus dici potest, quia solus candidus, & albus inse, & alios dealbans, & candidans, a nullo tamen nisi a seipso dealbatus. Del-rio. in Cant.  doves by the rivers of waters, whose cheeks are as the bed of spices, as sweet flowers, whose lips are like lilies, drooping sweet-smelling myrrh, etc. and so forward, as the Spouse there draws the effigies and picture of our dearest, sweetest, most lovely, most loving Saviour. And always in the same beauty would Christ appear to our souls, did they make eternity their study and contemplation.  
Advant. 8 The thoughts of eternity would swallow up our solicitous care for the supplies of the creature. What shall we eat, or what 
Mat. 6. 31.  shall we drink, or what shall we put on? such thoughts, I say, would 
Quid sericum? quae regum parpura? quae pictura textricum? via haec floribus comparari possunt. Hier.  drown these impertinent questions; they would indeed bring men in a better esteem and liking of Providence; for what are all our provisions here? they are but corn for the way, Gen. 42. supplies for travellers for to bring them to their journeys end. But the great Question is, Am I provided for eternity? to spend here, and to starve for ever; to have wine here, and no water as Dives, to eternity, why do I wrack my spirit? my candle will go out, if not by want, yet by disease, and then comes eternity. Our Saviour in Mat. 
Job. 7. 1.  6. urgeth many rare arguments to 
Omnia si perdas, animam servare memento.  stifle and smother the vain carking care of men; and to those may be superadded this one more; What are all these provisions to eternity? there is my life, this short breath here below is but a dying groan, a giving up the ghost. Man is in a consumption from his birth, and all creature-comforts do but patch him up for a while, piece a ragged piece of flesh; and yet the frenzy of men is strange, how 
Luk. 12. 33.  do they torture their spirits to find a Mine for the present supplies, but eye not, nor take care for provisions for eternity? Who lays up for the famine of the soul? Our heads are filled with cares in pinching, and necessitous times, how we should live in the world; when we should be more inquisitive how we should out of the world, when death hath landed us in eternity; for what matters it, how short the stock of our preparations is here, where we are breaking up house and departing every moment? A man that cometh to an Inn, if he meet with hard fare, course lodging, harsh and churlish usage, he is not perplexed nor disquieted, for it is but for a night, and he shall away next morning. Our securest and strongest habitations 
Jon. 4. 7.  here below, they are but as Ionas his gored, but for a night. 
Aeternis inhianti, in fastidio sunt omnia transitoria. Bern.   
But now the great question is, What glory we have banckt up in heaven, what treasures we have laid in there, what riches, what revenues we have stored up in unmouldring eternity? what dost thou lay in for a tottering life, or wrack thy thoughts to shore up the falling sinking temple of thy body? All thy cares are but as the putting in of a little pin into an inch of candle, which will suddenly fall into the socket. Carke for thy soul for an interest in Christ, how thou shalt live to eternity, that 
Mat. 6. 33.  is a condition, that understands not 
Primo spiritualia, posterius temporalia, omnes lahores, & actiones nostras a regno dei ordiamur. Par.  the language of death or a Sepulchre. The life of man here is but a span long, short and swift, then turn the stream of all thy care to unmeasurable eternity. Here (in reference to eternity) care as much as thou wilt, summon all thy thoughts, use all means, contrive all thy designs, torture thy intellectuals, be as solicitous, as studious, as laborious, as full of holy fear, of spiritual tremble, as thou mayest, rise as early, go to bed as late as thou pleasest; and all this is but rare policy and rich ingenuity. In this to eat the bread of carefulness, is the way to feed upon Manna for ever.  
Did we but enlarge our Contemplations on our everlasting estate; with what a holy indifferency would our souls be possessed, whether our cruse of oil run or no, no further than what might supply our short journey, our short step to eternity; how light then would the heaviest gold weigh in the balance of our judgements? we do not usually hang our Arbours with Arras or Tapestry, because the flourishing boughs which make them soon whither and decay. And why should we spend our choicest strength, our most vivacious spirits, our most precious time, to preserve, every, and make delightful that temporal life, which every moment may be extinct and blown out? All those creature-accommodations, riches, delights, etc. which are the bribes of our cares, the tormentors of our thoughts, the wrack of our mind, they are but as the diet, and the banquets of a condemned prisoner, they only keep him alive till the sad day of his execution. Like Belshazzars riotous banquet, 
Dan. 5. 2, 3, etc.  which was not so much the preparations of his festival, as of his funeral; for, as historians report, he was slain that very night. The thoughts of eternity would banish many unnecessary cares from the solicitous and unsatisfied soul. And let this double consideration surprise your thoughts.  
1. Our care for the world, is nothing to our errand into the world. Thou wert not created to study the lump of clay thou carriest about thee, but to glorify thy Creator, to be the 
Gal. 2. 20.  herald of his praise, the engine of his glory, the witness of 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 work God sent thee into the world for, to advance the fame of his Majesty, adore the eternal being and to publish the transcendency 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 task and the toil of thy care and animosities.  
2. Nor is thy care for the world any thing to eternity. Thy eternal condito●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 find none, not a drop of water to cool nor to cherish. The rich man shall not find his barns in eternity, though happily with much care and sweat he obtained the filling of them. Nero shall not find his Crown in his everlasting condition, though he tortured both brain and conscience to wear the imperial laurel. Eternity explodes all creature-enjoyments, the Saints in glory shall live at a higher rate than the mean and perishing provisions of the world. 
1 King. 17. 6.  Elijah doth not want now a Raven to be both his cook and his caterer. And the damned in their endless misery, shall want the crumbs that fell from their own tables.  
In a word, cark for thy soul, professor, think of the gulf of eternity. This mouldy bread thou carest for will be no food there. Our everlasting condition hath not to morrow, no years of famine or plenty; therefore provide for thy everlasting soul; get thy name engrossed in the lease of glory with God's hand, and the Spirits seal to it; and then Providence will either spread thy table here, or bring thee to thy Father's house, where thou shalt keep an everlasting festival. And let this additional consideration come into the account, viz. That those outward enjoyments, which men's cares are fixed upon, and many are so solicitous to gain and achieve, may occasionally prove the unhappy murderers 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 mind, blind the understanding, 
Dan 4. 30. 2 Chron. 26. 16.  wantonise the spirit, inebriate 
Luk. 12. 21, 22.  the affections, sear the conscience, 
Luk. 18. 23.  and hearden the heart of the possessors of them, and open (quatenus instrumenta, as instruments) the floodgates of eternal wrath upon them? Then the whole amounts to thus much, that eternity well weighed will cure the frenzy and distraction of men's 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 do other professions hold forth and acknowledge? The Jews look for a Messiah to come, as if the way to heaven were yet to be found out. The Turks have a tradition and frantic opinion, that wicked men at the great day, shall carry their sins in satchels after their Captain Cain, and such like ridiculous inventions. Divers of the Pagans suppose another temporal life to succeed this, and therefore give their dead , and money and other appurtenances to bear their charges there. Only the Christian profession can unriddle the mystery of eternity. How many thousands shall taste of eternity of misery, that never heard of an eternity of being; this perpetual estate is only written in a Christian character; the knowledge of Christ is our only conduct to the 
Mar. 16. 16.  knowledge of eternity. Gospel's 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 shore, 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 guileful 
Non est desperatio, aut metus gehennae in purgatorio; est carentia divinae visionis. est poenasensus inflicta: est poena ignis. Bell.  yet gainful inventions? Only the doctrine of the Gospel unmaskes the riddle of our boundless and bottomless eternity, gives us a map of heaven, draws a landscape of glory, opens to the believer the wardrobe of eternal beatitude, Rev. 21. 16, 17, 18, 19, etc. And in Evangelicall story how lively are the flames of hell described; how clearly the pains, horrors, despairs, everlasting doomsday is set down, and at large deciphered? And they said to the rocks, 
Rev. 6. 16.  and mountains, Fall on us, and hid us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. Thus only the Christian faith gives a prospect of evernity; which is one of the articles of its belief.  
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 itself, and put the soul upon inquiries after it. How would our everlasting condition well studied, frame us to a serious, patiented and joyful 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 hoist sail upon that sea, he had been long in the meditation of. Nay, what wrestle 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 endless state well balanced in a serious, and continued meditation would make the soul restless, and in a constant motion till death, which originally is a curse as being the fruit of sin, were turned by God into a blessing, and had the stamp of Christ upon it; how would the soul be unsatisfied, till it saw death clothed 
2 Cor. 5. 8.  with the arms of Christ, as his Herald to go before him into the Court of glory; till he observed death to be only the golden bark to bring the soul to the shore of a blessed eternity. And such meditations would make the soul to keep Court every day, to call conscience to the bar, and to arraign irregular thoughts, to put 
Job. 14. 14.  the heart upon more recluse searches, and all to facilitate death, and to sweeten the approaches of it. When a soul seriously and in its coolest thoughts considers eternity, how doth it look on death as its greatest Crisis, 
Mors ultima linea rerum.  that which will turn the scale one way or the other, either land the soul safe in an eternal rest or harbour, or shut it 
Psal. 49. 8.  within the grate of everlasting imprisonment, from whence there is no redemption? Such seasonable contemplations 
Tota vita est meditatio mortis:  would fill the soul with cares, solicitousness, preparations for, expectations of, reckoning upon death; as the Swedish King before the day of battle, what ordering of his army, encouraging his Soldiers, multiplying his prayers, pouring out his tears before God, he knew not but he might die the next day. So eternity well contemplated would make us weigh, dive into, study the nature of death, the original, the suddenness, the certainty, and above all the consequence of it, it kills or cures for ever.  
In a word, the study of eternity will make death,  
More familiar to us: we cannot study the Sea of eternity, but we must contemplate on the wind of death, which is but the stile over which we go either into the wilderness of misery, or into the green pastures of happiness. Our daily Contemplations of our everlasting condition, would make death a household servant, which is the common road to eternity (as more hereafter). Death would not be strange in its stroke, were it not so in our meditations; thoughts of eternity step beyond death. And to familiarize death, would be the womb of these three great advantages.  
1. Were death familiar to us, it 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist.  would break the force of death, and take away the horror and terror of it, the stroke would not be so grievous, so frightful, so full of execution, dangers the more invisible the more intolerable, the burden is the lightest that is well poised beforehand. Sinners that put fare off the evil 
Amos 6. 3.  day, as the Prophet speaks, how tremblingly, and with what horhour do they behold the ghost of death?  
2. Were death familiar to us, it would arm us against death; we prepare more rigorously for the enemy in the field, then for the enemy in the ambush. Men fight not a duel without a Second; nor should we meet death without our armour, a pardon in our bosom, an interest in Christ, the great seal for glory and heaven. Therefore men so little prepare for death, because they so little think of death; it is so little in their provisions, because it falls not in their contemplation. But did we meditate on eternity, those very thoughts would be a constant passing bell in our ears, a death's head before our eyes, and alarm to our souls; the thoughts of death and eternity being inseparable. But this familiarising of death it would unmask the ambuscado of it, and for●●e us against it. Have I found thee O my enemy, as the 
1 King. 21. 20.  King said. And  
3. Were death familiar to us, it would strangle many fruitless and frothy thoughts and designs; hear the passingbell; when thou lookest upon the gaudy picture of the world, cast an eye upon the deaths-head. Remember that sentence, Luk. 12. 20. This night thy soul may be taken from thee. Had we a deaths-head in our study, our coffin, our winding-sheet, it would smother many a carnal design, sinful contrivance, vain dream of the world, peevish resolution, and frothy Contemplation.  
The thoughts of eternity would make death more expected. We should not 
Mors sanctorum non interitus, sed introitus. Chrys.  only think of death, but wait for it; as the Prisoner for his keeper to open the prison-door; as the Sentinel for the morning, or the poor tired watchman for the dawning of the day: such thoughts look on death, as the traveller doth on a muddy plash at the entrance of a famous City. Observe jacob's speech, Gen. 49. 18. when waiting the good hour of death, I wait for thy salvation O Lord. This is the ford the 
Felix ante obitum nemo supremaque funera. Ovid.  Christian is to pass over, the narrow and slippery bridge. The contemplative Christian, whose meditations pray upon eternity, doth but wait when the clock will strike, when death will come, that is the alarm to eternity; Death is but a Watch with an Alarm. Death is but the 
Rev. 6. 8.  pale horse which carries every one out of this world into an everlasting state. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dlato.  So the confiderate Christian winding up his meditation to this bottomless state, is always upon his watchtower, when the postern gate of death will open; as the passenger waits at the shore side for the Packet boat, so is death to mankind.  
The thought of eternity would make death more facile, and easy, and pleasant. 
2 Cor. 5. 1.  When mortal diseases batter this tabernacle of clay we carry about us, viz. our bodies; meditations of eternity, look on Christ now storming the body to take the soul. As one in an enemy's Garrison rejoiceth to see his own party coming to storm the Town and release him. All death pangs (saith eternity well studied) do but launch the soul into the Ocean of eternity, these distempers open the gate to eternity; they rend the vail of the temple of the body, and let fly the soul to eternity; death to the contemplative Christian, is not so much his storm, as his stile; not so much his tempest, as his triumph; in death, the Saint cries Victoria. The wicked wretch, whose cogitations have 
1 Cor. 15.  fled from eternity, nor ever would sail on that sea; with what difficulty doth he wrestle and struggle with death? How is he dragged to dissolution, as to execution; how would he bribe, stop, suspend, and divert the stroke of death, could all his 
Quando impii moriuntur, in inferno posi●i sunt, & mors depascit eos. Ger.  strength, allies, greatness, and revenues purchase it? There is nothing more terrible, ghastly and frightful to him, than the dreadful apparition of death; and the great reason is, because he hath set the screen of sin and the world between him and eternity; this makes him he will not to the block, he is arrested by death, he is passively the patiented of death; the sinner, I say, who hath not minded 
Psal. 49. 14.  his everlasting condition, nor laid up for it, he falls into the arrests of death. But the Saints, whose word all his life time hath been eternity, and who hath been in all his conversation pronouncing this shibboleths, he falls into the embraces of it, he may be said, as Christ was, Joh. 10. 15. To lay 
Morte tabernas nostras pulsante non terremur.  down his life, to lay down his head upon the cushion of the grave, and sweetly to sleep being rocked to it by death. Now what sweetens and facilitates death to a believer? only he hath studied eternity, and hath got the scarlet thread in the window, eternity 
Josh. 2. 18.  is assured to them. The Saint whose heart is landed at the stairs of eternity before, when he comes to die, he doth but as the Sun break through a cloud to shine both gloriously and eternally; and indeed the body of a Saint is but the dark cloud, the curtain drawn before his shining soul. Rally therefore, and muster up all your thoughts, and let them meet with eternity; this is the way to perfume the winding sheet, to strew flowers on the coffin, and to make death itself smile, and become a pleasing presage to a more pleasing crown.  
The thoughts of eternity would make death more welcome. I long, saith the Saint, whose heart before is in heaven, to come to the stage of eternity; he 
Phil. 3. 20.  is in a longing fit, impatient as the longing woman, and smiling with joy 
Rev. 22. 20.  and triumph on approaching death; cries, welcome that parting blow that brings me into the everlasting embraces of my dear Redeemer.   

CHAP. XVII.  

Use of Exhortation.  Branch 2 The next branch of the Use shall be, That we would make sure of Eternity.  
THere are two great ends, Why the womb delivered us into the world; the one is to adore an eternal being; the other, to obtain eternal life; and where the first is rightly performed, the second is infallibly accomplished. It was a good question the young man proposed, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? 
Luk. 10. 25.  And indeed the answering of this question calls for all our cares, fears, troubles, time, duties, industry and what ever falls within the verge of our highest and most extended capacities. Things that are most precious, we most secure, and expose to them to the least hazard, our jewels are locked up in our cabinets, our gold sealed up in the coffer. Now the excellency of man is his soul, the excellency of the soul is life, and the excellency of life is eternity, and with what ambitions should we grasp the diadem of a blessed eternity? What artifices did 
Si peccandum est, pro corona est peccandum.  Absalon use to secure his Father's throne to himself? he lies with his Father's Concubines in the sight of the people, 
2 Sam. 16. 22.  a most odious practice. What 
2 Sam. 13. 9  ways did Ammon use to secure his beauteous Sister for his lustful embraces? he bolted out all that might interrupt his unnatural incest. What 
Luk. 12. 20, 21.  thoughts did the Rich man take to secure his plenties, the overflowing abundance of his fruits? he erects new barns, and leaves not his Corn either a prey for the birds, or a morsel for the Gleaners. And the Barbarous Turk he kills all his younger Brethren, and sacrifices them to his bloody ambition, that he might secure the Crown to himself. And shall we be 
Omnia ei salva sunt cui salva est aeternitas.  less solicitous in our fears, cares, our holy policies, and sacred stratagems to secure etetnity, that everlasting blessedness which is the supreme gift of God, the reward of Saints, the honour of Angels, the rich provisions of heaven, and the total of all Christ's merits and bloody passion? How canst thou (dear Christian) be satisfied, or thy heat chilled, and ambitions surfeited, till thou hast obtained the reversion of a glorious eternity, and God hath entailed on thee a crown of 
2 Pet. 1. 10.  immortality? Review with thyself the bowels of God's pity, the voice of Christ's blood, the desperateness and activeness of Satan's malice, the shortness and uncertainty of thy own life, the accusations of thy guilt. Nay the very present glory of the triumphant Saints, all call upon thee to make sure of eternity. Canst thou sleep on the main mast, with the dreadful Ocean under thee; or take up thy lodgings in the enemy's field? What dost thou else, when thou hast nothing to show for eternity? Consider thy danger and disadvantagein this. Those who can clear up no propriety in a blessed eternity, may be considered under a double notion.  
I. As sinners; and with what a multitude of dangers is every Christlesse soul encompassed? He is but as a wanderer in the wilderness, who may be a prey for every beast; he is out of all protection. God may suffer,  
1. Satan to destroy him; had not Job been a righteous man, his disease 
Job 2. 4.  probably had been his death, and Satan had not only been his tormentor, 
The danger that every wicked man is in.  but his executioner; every wicked man is Satan's prisoner, and who knows how soon he may be his prey?  
2. God may suffer the Creature to destroy him, as the Lion did the Prophet, 
1 King. 13. 24.  the Bears the children, and the 
2 King. 2. 24.  worm's King Herod in all his magnificent 
Act. 12. 23.  pomp. Every creature is up in arms against a wicked man, and wants only the word of commission to fall on and destroy him. God's wrath, and his wretchlessness can turn the perfumes of the world into poniards, as the Pope who died with joy.  
3. God may suffer him to destroy himself, as Judas did, and to become his own assassinate. It is only the untired, boundless patience, and infinite long-suffering of God, that keeps the wicked man's knife from his own throat. Every sinner, did not God's mercy throw a chain over him, he would make his grave in his own wounds; he would with Saul fall on 
1 Sam. 31. 4.  his own sword, or like the Jailor 
Act. 26. 27.  be ready to fall a sacrifice to his own bloody distemper. For God withdrawing his providential care from a sinner, what should hinder, but that nature itself should become a stepmother?  
4. God himself may destroy a wicked man by an immediate execution, as he did Aaron's two sons; 
Leu. 10. 2.  these unhappy brethren who were brethren not only in nature, but in iniquity and misery, who as they came from the same womb, so they found the same death; I say, these brethren offered up strange fire but once; but a sinner is continually offering the strange fire of his lusts, and therefore God himself may break him in pieces as a Potter's vessel.  
5. And lastly, God may suffer good men to destroy him. As Phinehas, who quenched the lust of that adulterous couple Zimri and Cosbi with their 
Numb. 25. 14.  own blood. The good man's zeal and the bad man's 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 thief 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 sinner's danger.  
And so for the disadvantage of a pendulous, doubtful, wavering Christian, that can show nothing for eternity; how doth this ambiguity, and unsatisfiedness 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 engender, what tears doth spring, and veil the heart with perpetual 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 ask the question, as the Spouse in another case the, Spouse asketh, Did 
Cant. 3. 3.  ye see my beloved? so our enquiry should always 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 thyself, sleep not till God hath mortgaged 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 eternal 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, etc. sweeten affliction, 
Jam. 2. 2.  put a comeliness on the blackness 
Cant. 1. 5.  of trouble, make Christ's yoke not only easy, but pleasant and complacential.  
In a word, How would a certainty of eternal glory make the Saints condition here, even while he 
Gen. 47. 9  writes Pilgrim, to be truly Angelical?  
Now to reinforce this Argument, that I may bribe your industry, to get something under God's 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 womb delivered thee 
Quod dicitur nudus revertar illuc, intelligitur in illum statum quem habuit in utero matris. Aquin. in Job cap. 1.  enriched 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 unclothing, 2 Cor. 5. 4. We that are in this tabernacle d● groan, being burdened; not that we would be unclothed, that is, not that we would die. I say, Death is an unclothing, because it pulleth off all outward things from a man, it pulls off his raiment, his riches, his land, his honours; yea death uncloathes the very bones, our flesh quickly wears off in the grave. There was little difference between Job on the dunghill, and Job in the grave, in point of poverty, only that dunghill kept him a prisoner fettered with various miseries, and the grave loosened him, and enfranchised him to eternal liberty. Death will rob and strip thee of all thy glittering titles, flourishing revenues, pleasing dalliances, and sweetest, most endeared relations, will impoverish thee of all thy claims and fruitions thou didst sport and pride thyself 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 robes of Princes, and the rags of beggars, the Gallants bravery, and the peasants russet, and the Courtier's luxury, and shall cast them all into an equal 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 interdum 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 Natural history, complains, and doth as it were chide with nature itself, for turning man into the world in such a helpless forlorn condition, as if men were dealt more hardly with, than any other creature, the birds of the air, 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 womb doth not (as before was hinted) deliver us more helpless, naked, forlorn, than death doth make us, or the grave shall find us. Death shall fully Absalon's beauty, and spoil Herod's bravery, shall destroy agag's delicacy, and put an end to all Solomon's temporal felicity; death is a worm 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 unsearchable, 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 Righteousness, 
2 Tim. 4. 8.  the honours of heaven we shall 
Et ibi vita sine morte, veritas sine eriore, felicitas sine perturbatione.  find for ever. Neither death nor confusion shall make the triumphant Saint look pale, or whither 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 Angel's blessedness consists in this, that they 
Mat. 18. 10.  are confirmed in their eternal happiness; 
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 settled for ever in their triumphancies; I say, this is one of the chiefest pearls in the Crown. Now let us strive after, and make it our great plot and design to obtain this Angelical happiness. Let the nobleness of the argument be a golden spur to you to pursue this service. It is the Angel's happiness to be confirmed in a glorious eternity; and let it be your solicitousness; it is their felicity, let it be you duty. Those blessed Spirits, who never eclipsed Gods glory with one single offence, rejoice in this, that they are sealed to a blessed eternity. And shall not we endeavour after, pray for, draw out all our designs to attain the accomplishment of that happiness, which runs 
1 Tim 5. 21.  parallel with the felicity of the unsinning Angel's viz. to get a bond for 
Luk. 20. 36.  heaven. This is, to wit; (to make sure of eternity) to be in an equality with the Angels.  
Arg. 3 A third plea may be to promote this duty, To lose eternity is not only a naked privation, a mere loss, a disappointment only of happiness. When we lose heaven; we do not only as the mariner 
Mat. 25. 12.  lose our good wind, which 
Mat. 16. 26.  would bring us to the harbour, but the loss of eternity compriseth all 
Jon. 14 16.  varieties of misery; privative miseries, the loss of God, of Christ, of the 
Poenae damnatis secundum corpus, & secundum animam infligentur. Corpus quidem poenis variis quoad omnes sensus afficietur, & anima secundum omnes suas potentias cruciabitur. Gerson.  soul, of the Comforter, of the Saints company, of what we have enjoyed, of what we did enjoy, of what we might enjoy; positive miseries, torment of soul, anguish of mind, agonies of conscience, exquisite, dilacerating, corroding torture of body, (as more ●ully hereafter). The loss of eternity it comprehends accumulative, exaggerated, multiplied, pullulated calamity: Misery from God, from S●tan, from the good Angels, from ourselves. As Condemnation doth not only deprive the Prisoner of the liberty of his person, the credit of his name, the enjoyment of his possessions, the refreshing of his friends; but it exposes him to the burden of his chains, the reproach of the world, and to the torment and shame of a sudden execution. And therefore let this fire your hearts to secure eternity, else ye will be exposed to as many varieties of misery, as there are sparks in the surnace, or wounds in your own conscience. The loss of eternity includes all possibilities of future misery. David complains he 
Psal. 44. 22.  was killed all the day long; but in losing eternity we shall be killed to all eternity.  
Arg. 4 Let this incentive be added, The neglect of this duty of making sure our eternity: It disappoints the end of our creation, the offers of grace, the promises of the Gospel, the voice of Christ's blood, the calls of heaven, and the constant courting and incitation of the Spirit within us: All these with an unanimous voice cry out to the soul, let your first work be to secure your everlasting condition, the methods 
Luk. 19 42.  thods of divine Providence, the sweet 
Rev. 2. 10.  yet several varieties of Gospel's dispensation, 
Joh. 3. 16.  the striving, patience, waiting, 
Luk. 22. 29.  importuning of God himself, cry out, Make sure eternity. The promises of God are nothing but bonds for eternity; the offers of grace invite us to eternal glory; the rules, counsels, directions by a holy manuduction lead us in the way to eternity: therefore the Gospel itself is called eternal, Rev. 6. 14. And this omission of this duty will cast a reproach and defamation on all the indulgence of divine compassion.  
Arg. 5 And lastly consider, this duty of securing eternity, is not only plausible, but feasible. Smiles from God may be had, an interest in Christ may be gained, a work of grace may be acquired, 
Rom. 8. 16.  some token, some pledge of God's love may be purchased, some internal 
Eph. 1. 4.  testimony and witness may be suppena●d 
2 Cor. 1. 22.  by prayers, and tears, and expectation, some privy seal, private bond for eternity may be found out; and therefore let all thy capacities be 
De electione sua unusquisque nostrum securus esto, securita e non carnis sed spiritus, non sensus & experientiae, quae est alterius vitae, sed fidei qua pe●severamus in charitate Christi ad finem. Polan. Synt.  wound up, heart, hand, time, talents, strength, to get a bond for eternity. The Apostle, 2 Pet. 1. 10. calls upon us, to make our Calling and Election sure.  
Now Election is our eternity a priori, and Glory is our eternity a posteriori, the one before the creation of world, and the other after the dissolution of it. God, I say, imposeth it upon us as our duty, to make our election sure; and therefore our election to 
Psal. 84. 11.  eternity, and our possession of it may be made sure: God lays not commands on us which imply impossibilities: No, but as election, so glory may be ascertained; the spring of mercy is in election, and it bubbles out in calling, and runs to and fro in obedience and faith, and at last it loseth itself in the Ocean of glory. So that its possibility of accomplishment should be a good inducement to duty, and how sweet a smile from God gained at last, (as most certainly it may be, unless the default lie in us) which God shall mortgage to thy soul, for thy security of eternal blessedness will be, I may admire, but not depaint or describe.  
And that this branch of the exhortation may not be incomplete, let me carry the torch before you in some few directions.  
Dir. 1 Be earnest in prayer: Prayer perfumed in the blood of Christ, hath the key of the Treasury door, where all blessings are stored up. It is an omnipotent duty, so God himself saith, Isa. 45. 11. Concerning the works of my hands command ye me. The Prayer of faith can draw the curtain from before God's face, scatter the cloud between him and the soul, cause God to hold forth the sceptre of grace, and can induce 
Rom. 5. 5.  Jesus Christ to shed a dew of love upon the soul, fervent, invincible, importunate, believing, irrefistible prayer, can as it were take the ring from off Christ's finger and put it upon the suppliants. This Protomartyr Stephen, 
Act. 7. 53.  when he was breathing out his last breath in holy prayer, God draws the curtains of the heaven and shows him his glory, and Christ at his right hand. Prayer as it can banish that scrupulous muntinie of the soul, so it can make way for a soul-satisfying smile. And pray for these three things.  
1. A soft heart. 
1 Pet. 3. 16.   
2. A serene conscience. And 
1 Tim. 1. 5.   
3. A spirit fired with zeal. This threefold cord hell itself cannot break: these three divine characters are Christ's mark for glory; the pledges of that love he will be drawing out to eternity.  
To assure thy eternity,  
Dir. 2 Labour after a real and rich faith, a faith which continually breaks out, and sparkles forth in vigorous acts, and the spark 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 Philosopher's 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, wrestle, and exercises of his faith, with the loss of his estate, the malice of a Devil, the cursing and cursed temptations of his wife, the scoffs and hypocrisies of his friends; he at last breaks out into a triumphant assurance, I know my Redeemer lives, and 
Joh 19 26.  that with these eyes I shall see him, etc. 
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 find some evidence for thy everlasting condition, study holiness, and exactness of life. Thou canst not walk with a trembling heart, even foot, and watchful eye, and yet miscarry; I speak not of a moral unblameableness, but of an evangelical holiness, that is, when we study to tread surely, and walk 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 echo of Election, Holiness the blossoming of happiness, 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 walk closely with God, we draw a map of heaven, we live more like Angels then Men, we are as corporeal Angels, we enjoy heaven upon earth two ways:  
1. In a pure conversation.  
2. In spiritual consolation. 2. Pet. 1. 8. In a holy life, we follow Christ in the same track to glory. Thou 
1 Cor. 11. 1.  mayest read thy eternal life in thy 
Prov. 24. 16.  spiritual, and see Vestigia beatitatis in vestigiis sanctitatis. I speak of holiness 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 God's smile, and your own crown in the glass of a holy life, and so thou mayest assure eternity to thee, by beginning heaven before thou comest to heaven.  
Dir. 4 If thou wouldst have something to show 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 climb 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 work upon them; as the Mariner in the dark night, that he may find whether he be near land or no, throws down his plummet, and happily he observes himself near the shore, but it is not by his eye, but his plummet; throw down the plummet, make a curious, narrow, impartial, diligent search into thy own soul, and see what humility, what self denial, what sin-abhorrency, what affectionateness to Christ, what ravish of the Spirit, what love to the Ordinances, what zeal for God's glory, what contempt of the world, what sympathy with the afflictions, and desires after the society of the Saints, etc. And if thou findest any impressions of grace, any spiritual work, any saving, savoury, 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.  work of grace, thou shalt sit in the throne with him, and enjoy the weight of glory; the work of grace foreruns the ways 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 joins grace and glory together, as indeed they are individual 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 eternal 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 ●st & victoria certa. Polan.  Labour after not only a patience under, but a joyfulness 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 Christ's Cross with gladness, and not wearisomeness: therefore Martyrdom in the 
Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruse Christi, crux est scala heatae aeternitatis. A Lap.  primitive times was called Corona Martyrii, the Crown of Martyrdom, the Cross 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 drink of the cup of gall with him, we shall likewise drink of the cup of gladness with him; if we fall into the Martyr's fire, we shall likewise enter into the Master's joy; when a believer is filled with alacrity in suffering, it is probable he sees the crown before him, as Paul, Col. 1. 24. Wherefore we rejoice 
Col. 1. 24.  in our sufferings; and why? one great 
Paulus ostendit quomodo se gerat in afflictionibus, non solum animo sorti, sed laeto & alacri. Dau.  reason was, those Martyrdoms stormed heaven for him. The troubles and wounds of a Saint here, they are those scars, which shall be his trophies for ever, and his sighs shall be turned into everlasting perfumes. So that one means to secure eternity, is to labour after life, courage, magnanimity and alacrity in sufferings, which are those bloody badges of Christ, which he will cure and crown with eternal felicity; if thou followest Christ in via arctiore in a rough way, thou wilt find him in patria uberiore, in a glorious home. Therefore do not decline, shift, find out methods for the evasion, and escape of necessary afflictions.   

CHAP. XVIII.  

Use of Exhortation.  Branch 3 The third branch of the Use will be, That you would entertain a right notion of Death as an inlet to Eternity.  
WE must look upon death, as the common passage, as the Postern gate to eternity, the straits to the Ocean; the Heathens they fancied concerning death, that after death there was Charon to waft them over the River Styx, etc. But this is most certain, 
Mors est vehiculum morientis.  that death only lands the soul upon the coast and shore of eternity, it is only the short bridge to an everlasting condition. It is but the twinkling of eye when man dies, but he awakens either in eternal woe, or welcome. Death only is the dying 
Mors non est obitus sed abitus.  patient, either Sledge or Chariot to carry the Prisoner, or Courtier to misery, or everlasting felicity.  
Indeed, some men's passage is more rough than others; some men die with more torment, and pain, and distemper than others, but yet death is but the common road to eternity. It is strange to observe what notions most men have of death.  
Some look upon death as the debt of nature, that common engagement 
Job 1. 1.  which every one must discharge, and 
Job 14. 14.  for which death will arrest every one of us. And so men suppose that having paid the debt, they are clear for ever, as if there were no eternity behind the hang. And therefore they pant not after a Christ, nor search the rolls of heaven for a pardon, nor wrestle with God for a smile; but conjecture that surrending according to death's summons, there is an end of all their troubles and triumphs; they confine all their care and heat to cocker and supply a subsistence here, and when they come to die all their debts are paid. What stupid ignorance are most men infatuated with, to suppose that because death gives them a discharge of their life, it should therefore give them a discharge of their sins? Let such desperate sinners conceive, that death immediately will clap up their souls in everlasting darkness, and at the resurrection their sins shall drag their worm-eaten bodies from the gaol of the grave to receive the sentence and doom of a miserable eternity; and 
Mat. 5. 26.  they shall find death, not to be the discharge, but the beginning of their debt, and that it shall deliver them into such pursuivants hands, 
Mat. 18. 28.  as will be plucking them by the throat to all eternity.  
Others look on death as the grave of all their troubles, the very exit of all their perplexities; they wait for the good time, and do imagine that after 
Mors corporalis est privatio vitae corporis facta per animoe se parationem ab illo propter peccatum. Polan.  all their restlessness, heats, disturbances, disappointments and agonies in the world, they shall take up their Inn, or rather their home in the Sepulchre, and shall lie as free from trouble, as their marble statues, the coffin shall entomb all their vexations; they suppose they shall go to bed, and to rest in their winding sheet. Ah! do such vain men conjecture, the sin which is the great Promoter, Wolf, Lion, Tiger of the soul, will cease its pursuites when the sinner comes to the grave, or will be bribed by the rhetoric 
Heb. 9 22.  of a worm? Sin to a wicked man is like a tormenting disease to the poor helpless patient, which will not be enchanted with good words, but will be at the heels of death, as the messenger of God's wrath, to lay hold upon the soul immediately, and non-suite it to everlasting loss and misery. These deluded sinners, who suppose that death will crucify all their troubles, and obliterate all their calamities, do but take up their rest in a shadow, death shall not rock their souls asleep, though it cast their bodies into a temporary swoon.  
Others look on death, as a thing of course, and they cry, we must all die sooner or later. And it is the inquiry of the world when any die, more what he hath left, then where is he gone; the inquest is rather after his wealth, than his soul. Most men look upon the setting of their lives, as we do upon the rising of the Sun, as a thing common and inobservable. And is this all, deluded Sinner? It is true, when the Modus moriendi, the way of dying, is strange and prodigious, than greater impressions are made; but otherwise the thing itself is but the subject of a talkative discourse. But let the Vulgar of the World steep their thoughts in this meditation; death determins us to the throne, or the wrack for ever. It is either Christ's herald to proclaim concerning the deceased Saint, Thus shall it be done unto 
Esth. 6. 11.  the man, whom the King delighteth to honour, as Haman cried before Mordecai: Or else it shall be the Sergeant of God sent to arrest the sinner without bail or mainprize to under go the stroke of eternal vengeance.  
In a word, let us ralley up the follies of most men into these four ranks:  
1. The sick patient, he cries out for death, to take him out of the furnace of his torment, that his disease and distemper may be at an end. But let me tell the Patient, if he is sick of sin, death will be a bad Physician, it will heighten his disease: turn the rod into a Scorpion, will turn the mild soft distemper, imagine it in the highest torture the Patient undergoes, into a miscellany of all torments, let them be boiled to the height.  
2. The discontented sinner, whose disappointments and losses in the world fill him with agonies and perplexities, he hanging upon the Cross, stretches out his arms to embrace death, and supposeth that it will ease him of all his pangs and vexations; but fond sinner, death to the wicked, is but a Goal delivery, and how fretful wilt thou be, when thy soul shall be disappointed to eternity?  
3. And the old, decrepit, bedrid sinner, whose body is a common hospital; who hath a bundle of diseases, and a system of distempers about him, who hath more diseases than veins; so that if Galen had lost any disease to treat on, he might find it in him; he courts and calls for death, and waits for one issue more, among all the rest, an issue out of the world. But doth such rheumatic, phlegmatic, decrepit, frantic sinners suppose death will be a crutch to keep them from falling into hell? Surely those diseases which attend nature in the socket, in the declension of it, if grace have not cured them, death shall turn them into insupportable maladies.  
4. And the tired worldling who hath gone himself out of breath in the pursuance of world affairs, he looks upon death as a quiet and retired chamber to rest in. But let such a one consider, if in all his pursuites he hath not followed an interest in Christ, and made that the object of his sweat, he shall take up his lodging in a bed of eternal flames.  
Not to amplify the argument further, Death doth not strangle the sinner, or stifle the Saint, but only serries them both over to eternity. But it shall land them at a different place, as may be manifest upon the review of these particulars.  
And first let us observe what death is to a believer.  
Death is the believers change, his alteration, not his execution, his transplantation, not his dissolution, When 
Job 14. 14.  a believer dies, God doth but take a flower out of the wilderness, and plant it in his Garden, or take a rose out of the field, and put it in his bosom. joseph's change from the Prison to the 
Gen. 42. 12.  Throne, from being a Prisoner to become a Prince; and Jobs change from 
Job. 41. 39  the dunghill to a reduplicated condition, were but the pregnant prefigurations of the Saints change by death. It doth only change the copy, the state, the countenance of a child of God, and make him who looked pale with trouble and misery here, look fresh with glory and beauty for ever. Death to a Saint only turns the scale, 
2 Cor. 4. 17.  and makes it weigh down with a weight of eternal glory. As the Moon after its change comes to its full; so death it placeth the poor, inconsiderable, derided, scoffed Saint, whose body it may be is covered with sores, and soul beleaguered with agonies, and name with reproaches, and estate with losses, in the throne of boundless felicity, and sets the Crown of immortality on his head.  
Death is the last day of a believers nonage; whilst the Saints live here, they live upon a Pension, the allowance of providence, they are under age; but death brings them to receive their portion, and therefore heaven is called an inheritance. Death is the last day 
Si tanta & tam suavis est a●●ha, quam deus hic suis largitur, quanta erit hareditas ipsa, quam suo tempore praestabit? A Lap.  of the Saints Apprenticeship, it manumits the Saint to eternal liberty. Here all the Saints are like Jacob, they serve for their Ruchels, and death puts a period to their servitude, to all their long, groan, sighs, to all the harshness they endure, all the toils they sustain, all the bread of adversity, 
Observa quod Christus non dicit, ut serviant mihi Sancti, sed ut videant gloriam meam. Musc.  and water of affliction they feed upon.  
In a word, Death frees the believer from all, not only his labours, but from his mean allowances, as he is an heir under age, an heir of promise (observe the word promise) and puts him in possession of the full transcendent revenues of everlasting, neverdying honour and glory. Death is the Saints Secretary to write his releaseth.  
Death brings the Saint into the same presence-Chamber with Jesus Christ; 
Joh. 17. 28.  it opens the door for the Saint to come in to God, and a conclave of Angels: the life of a Saint here is but an unkind wall, an injurious lattice between Christ and him; now death breaks down this wall, and opens the wall for the Saints entry to lie in the everlasting embraces of Jesus Christ, it 
Cant. 2. 14.  plucks up the hedge that the Saint may 
Mors piorum nihil allud est, quam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Christum; laetabatur Patriarcha Jacobus, cum videret currum a filio Josepho missum; & nos contristabimur quando coelestis Joseph currum nobis mittit quo in coelum evehamur? Ger.  go over to his beloved, it draws the curtain that the believer may have a full view of the beauties of Christ, it doth as it were pluck the mask from the face of Christ, to present him in his sweetest loveliness to the Saint. Death takes away all obstructions and impediments of an absolute and entire fruition of the Lord Jesus; while we are here, we may receive a letter from Christ now and then in Gospel's communion, but death lodges us in the bosom of our precious friend. Death is the fiery chariot to bring us to the Court of Christ.  
Death is the rest and cessation of a believer from all his disquieting, and tumultuous disturbances in the world, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the quiettation of a Saint. A learned man observes, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, rest, is the same with that which the Hebrews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 refrigeration or refreshment. And so death indeed, is nothing but the unlading of a Saint of all his burdens, the closing after the sunset; it lays the body of a believer in a sweet sleep for a while, and brings his soul into the banqueting house of 
In altera vita deus sanctos ab omnibus miseriis liberatos, in vera & prepetua quiet, laetitia, gaudio, & gloria constituet. Chemn.  eternal felicity. Here the poor believer is scorched sometimes with the heat of God's wrath; sometimes with the storming of Saints malice, sometimes with the boiling of his own corruptions, and sometimes with the toils of the affairs of the world; but death takes the Saint out of the heat, 
Sed in Christo, iis qui in ipsum credunt, mors est somnus, quies & refocillatio. Id.  and brings him into the cheering shade of endless happiness. The Saint's dissolution shall unchain him from all his distemperatures and oppressions he was fettered with here, and shall lay him at rest in the refreshing, ravishing bosom of Jesus Christ.  
Death is the messenger of Christ, to bring the Saint news of an eternal victory; the Herald Christ employs to usher the Saint to the throne. Here lies the indulgence of the Lord Christ, and one precious fruit of his blood, That death which was the effect of sin, the monster from the womb, part of the curse which sin drew upon the head of mankind, is now blossomed into a rare blessing, and is under Christ the Saint's best friend, the honourable Ambassador of Christ to tell the Saint of an approaching crown.  
But now let us traverse the dark side, and see under what woeful notions we must paraphrase upon the death of the wicked.  
Death to the wicked is an inlet to eternal wrath, it opens the sluices of divine indignation, it pours out and unstops the vials of God's displeasure upon the reprobate soul; those drops of anger which here in this life, sometimes blasted and scorched the sinner, death turns into a perpetual storm, and sets the reprobate as a mark for God to shoot all his arrows of displeasure against him. Here indeed in this life, the fiercest anger God draws out 
Hab. 3. 2.  against a sinner, is full of mixtures of mercy and pity, is attempered with bowels and compassion; hath its intermissions and breathing times, hath its pauses and stops; but death shall cast 
Rev. 6. 17.  the sinner into the furnace, whose heat shall not be allayed by any mitigation.  
Death to the sinner is his particular doomsday, the firstday of his dreadful account; as soon as ever death divorces 
Heb. 9 27.  vorces the soul from the body, and gives 
Seneca & Philosophi aiunt; Mors homini natura est non poena, immo vero ipse dico; mors homini poena est, non natura. Corn. A Lap.  the parting blow, God passeth an immediate sentence of eternal death upon the widowed soul, and the Lord gins the execution of the deceased sinner, which shall never be overtaken with a close or end. Then the sinner shall begin to reap the fruit of all his evil ways, and passively discharge every particular debt. Then all the wounds of a wicked man's conscience shall fester, and rankle with intolerable pain, and Gods executions shall find out every vain thought, and die it in the blood of the soul, death immediately 
Mors est peccati comes, filia, & stipendium.  in its stroke summons the sinner to the bar to receive the sad sentence and doom, which shall be to all eternity in the execution; vengeance doth but wait for a sinner till the clock of death strikes, and then it seizeth on him, as an everlasting prey.  
Indeed the soul being the nobler part of man, and so the more blame-worthy as casting itself away upon the account of sin, and likewise being the principal agent in all offences, for the poor body is dragged and animated by the soul to all miscarriages, that gives life and will, and love to all corporcall iniquities, the body of itself being but a dead piece of clay. I say, the soul being thus the grand agent in all sin, it receives its doom first, and falls under its woeful execution, and death doth cast it upon the spikes of immediate and everlasting ruin.  
Death to the sinner is the ultimate period of all his comforts, all his good 
As the Poet saith, Mors ultimalinea rerum; and I may in reference to the wicked, solaminum too.  days are buried in the grave with him. No lightning of comfort follows the thunder of his death: when once the sinner dies, there is no hope left, of ever enjoying again a smile from God, applause from the world, refreshment from relations, supplies from the creature, sweetness from ordinances, or ever lying in the shade of any relaxation. In dying the sinner's sun is set, with all its beams of mercy and consolation, the darkness of the night of death, as 
Joh. 9 ●.  death is called sometimes, shall bury all colour of satisfaction or ease to the sinner.  
In a word, to close this Chapter, Death in the general, is not man's conclusion, but his initiation to joy or torment, rather the budding then the withering of his being. In death the 
2 Cor. 5. 8.  soul is neither must out, nor rocked asleep; death is but the Alarm of the soul to triumph or tribulation. Death is not a gulf, but a gale, not to drown the dying patient in, but for him to pass through; it can no more bury the soul, than the grave could detain the body of Christ. Finally it is man's summons, which citys both Saints and sinners before God, the courtiers to attend and wait on his throne, and the prisoners to here and undergo their doom.   

CHAP. XIX.  

Use 2. of Terror.  AND if our future condition be eternal, What terror should it strike into the hearts of all wicked men? What do ye mean fond sinners? Can ye hang in fiery chains for ever? Remember your everlasting 
Mat. 3 12.  condition, your eternity, the unquenchable fire. Can ye undergo a fit of the stone for a thousand years? Or lie upon the wrack for a million of ages? Can ye lie upon the points of needles for more ages than there are atoms in the Sun, or drops in the Sea? Can ye suffer scalding lead in your wounds, in the raw gashes of your consciences for such a duration? And what is this cold picture of misery to the damneds eternity? Look with amazement 
Eph. 3. 17.  on your future calamity, unless by faith you hid your souls in the 
Mat. 25. 41.  wounds of Christ. Pray consider, how dolefully will that dismal voice sound, Go ye cursed into everlasting fire▪ The Martyrs fire turned them into 
Quam tristis▪ vox est, judex cum dixerit, Ite!  ashes, but the damneds shall not, they shall be scorched with everlasting flames, be ever in the act of execution. Can 
O aeternitas, aeternitas, tu sola ultra omnem modum supplicia damnatorum exaggeras.  ye endure, ye delicate, soft, effeminated sinners, who now cannot endure the buffeting of gentle blast of wind; I say, can ye endure to be stung with Serpents for as many ages as there are hairs on your heads; or to drink the poison of Asps, for as many centuries as there are sands on the shore, if ye can go on in your licentious vanities. Tell 
Quis dicere valeat, quae impiis, & male viventibus tormenta sunt praeparata. Cassianus.  me sinner, when thou hast spent millions of years in torment, what an agony will it be to recollect thou hast not spent a moment? Shouldest thou lie to eternity on a bed of down, how tedious, how wearisome would it be, how then canst thou lie on a bed of flames? How wretched sinner canst thou hear the doleful knell of an 
Adesse intolerabile, Abbess impossibile.  everlasting funeral? And will those transient glances of sin and pleasure thou hast enjoyed here, make eternity spend the more delightfully; shall thy enjoyments, the bed and the banquet, thy lust and luxury, in rumination of them be any pastime in hell? Remember if thou art Christlesse, thou art to be pressed to death for ever, for ever. And therefore awaken, ye drowsy and secure sinners, lest suddenly ye fall into infinite death. Is it not more noble and plausible to swim in tears, then melt in flames? The Saints under 
Potior est p●●nitentia, quam poena.  the Altar cry, How long Lord, holy and true, Rev. 6. 10, 11. But they shall wear white garments; but how dolefully shall the damned cry, how long? 
Nec qui torquet, aliquando fatigatur, nec qui torquetur, aliquando moritur. Bern.  Their tragedy shall never be acted, their painful wounds shall increase as fast as they are made. Let those voluptuous sinners, who please themselves with varieties of musics and harmonies here, and as the Prophet speaks, who chant to the sound of the Vial, and invent to themselves instruments of music, Amos 6. 5. ask themselves the question, Whether they can hear the scrietching, roar, and cursed blasphemies of a damned crew for ever.  
Now to prosecute this particular use, I shall handle it under two general heads:  

1. I shall open the extremity.  
2. The eternity of the damneds torment.   
For the extremity of the sinners future misery, it will be demonstrated, if ye will cast your thoughts on these five things considerable.  
Consider the universality of the damneds misery, and that under a 
Duplex damnatorum poena est in gehenna, nam & mentem urit tristitia, & corpus flamma. Bern.  double notion. There is a twofold universality in the Reprobates calamity.  
1 An universality of the Patient; every part of the damned shall undergo insupportable torment, every artery, and vein in their bodies, every faculty and power in the soul, shall be excoriated, and tortured with the pincers of God's wrath.  
2. The souls of the reprobate which have been chief in sinning, shall be chief in suffering; and as the joys of the soul surpass the pleasures of the body, so shall the misery of the soul, the calamity of the body. But let me give you a more particular anatomy of the souls torment.  
1. The understanding shall be cruciated 
Poenae damnatis secundum corpus & secundum animam infligentur. Corpus poenis variis quoad omnes sensus afficietur, anima secundum omnes suas potentias cruciabitur. Gerson.  and wracked, in that now it more clearly sees its vanity, observes the sweetness of Gospel-mercy, and the preciousness of the offers of grace. Now the understanding observes too late, how dreggish and drossy those lustful embraces, sinful dalliancies, worldly profits and delicacies were, he hath lost heaven and the soul for. Now it sees more clearly how beautiful Christ was, how tender his bowels and melting his compassion, against which he spurned with so much refractory stubborness. Now it animadverts how much of hell was wrapped up in the pill of the most plausible sin, too late it observes the hand of the Devil in every temptation; and God in wrath shall wipe all dust away from the glass of the Reprobates understanding. And what Scorpions will such animadversions be to the perplexed and pained understanding?  
2. The Will too shall be upon the invill of misery; how will it then macerate the wills of the damned, that now it hath no pleasure to feed upon? No sins to cherish or pursue, no grace or favour to abuse or withstand.  
The will of the Reprobate that here was too free in its embraces of sin and vanity, in hell, in eternity shall be fettered and chained to a necessity of despair and blasphemy. The damned shall will nothing but self-destruction and murder (which yet shall be impossible) and God-provocation, how to un throne Christ, crucify the Angels, and if possible drown the Saints triumphant in the same deluge of horror and confusion with themselves. The wills of the Reprobates shall be as so many vultures to make every thing a prey.  
3. The affections of the reprobates shall be tormented even in this, in having 
Affectus, animae pedes.  nothing desirable, and they which have been the feet of the soul, shall be the fiends and furies of it. And although here they bathed themselves in the sweets of sin, and the creature (For ah! How did Ammon 
2 Sam. 13.  love his Tamar, Judas the bag, and 
2 Sam. 16. 1, 2.  Absalon the crown?) yet these very desires in eternal misery shall be the vermin, the plague, the horseleeches of the soul. With what horror shall the understanding behold its cursed and viperous affections, which drink up the poison, that now causeth so much smart?  
4. And the memories of the damned, those woeful treasuries of all opportunities lost, all mercies slighted, time misspent, sins committed, favours abused, 
Infandum reginajubes renovare dolorem. Virg.  shall be scorched and wracked with the wrath of God; those dismal registers and records of God's justice, and the souls own folly, shall keep fresh, vigorous, and lively, the torments of the damned in a constant reviewing of the causes of them. And then all things acted in the flesh shall come into mind, and fall within the hold of this cursed repository, the memory. Nay those very sins that on course, without study or artifice had been forgotten by the sinner here.  
5. So the conscience shall not only be a thousand witnesses, but a thousand Devils to the damned, shall be a perpetual worm, corroding lacerating, 
Mark. 9 48.  and branding the reprobate; then its wounds, and checks, and scrietches shall be screwed to the height. It shall in eternity be awakened from 
2 Tim. 4. 2.  all its searedness, stupidity, and 
Continuus erit conscientiae remorsus, & assidua peccatorum perpetratorum ruminatio in anima. Chemn.  swoons, and shall feed its own torments, it shall not sleep in hell. All those artifices, and wiles that the unconscionable sinner hath used to bribe, flatter, and smother conscience, shall cease and fail in eternity. There the pangs, agonies, convulsion fits, and 
Dan. 3. 19  perplexities of conscience, which here as firebrands were a present hell to the ghastly sinner, shall as Nebuchadnezars furnace, be turned into a hotter flame. In the everlasting condition of the damned conscience shall neither be gagged nor charmed, but shall be 
Vermis rodens est morsus conscientiae perpetuus & continuus ex peccatorum recordatione or tus, rabida quaedam displicentia, & infructuosa poenitentia, angor cordis maximus, & nunquam interruptus. Ger.  an everkilling Basilisk to the reprobate, and its tempests shall never be blown over, as earthquakes never cease. The sinner which sinned away all conscience here, and seared it by habitual and constant wickednesses, shall find it in hell, and it shall be sensible and tender enough, and the wounds of it shall be ever kept open to receive the impressions of divine wrath. It shall reverberate● all the sins of the damned upon the raw soul.  
And now here I am enforced necessarily to dilate myself something, and to open to you, what a corroding, painful worm the conscience shall be to the tormented reprobate. I shall only paraphrase a little upon this morsus conscientiae, aching, tearing, gnawing, biting of conscience, and delineate this rigorous disease in some few particulars.  
Conscience in hell, it shall remember all its sins, those thousands and millions of evils, which here it may 
Omnia mala in memoriam recipiet conscientia. Orig.  be never fell within the glance or eye of our strictest observation, those thousands of ranks of guilt shall appear; not only those internal corruptions, those vipers which lodged in our breasts here and never broke the prisons, but those extrinsecall abominations, deeds of darkness which clouded the sun itself. All then shall arraign the soul at the bar of a tortured 
Luk. 8. 17.  conscience. Here the caitiff miscreant is sometimes eased by oblivion, but then all his vanity and violence shall stand as so many ghosts before him. Conscience shall be but as the clear glass to see all his deformities. One sin shall not be behind the curtain, shall not be annihilated or concealed; the Damned sinner shall not do to his sins, as Rachel did to her 
Gen. 31. 34.  Gods, hid them with a lying excuse. No, conscience in eternity shall give up all, the whole beadroll of sin. Those numberless numbers of evils, which would silence all Arithmetic to give the total sum of them, shall particularly and singly not only be observed and animadverted by conscience, but give fresh and everlasting wounds to the tortured miscreant. Every wanton glance, proud look, lose gesture, vain thought, unprofitable word, every transient if unholy imagination, shall not only be within the sad prospect of conscience, but be continual tortures to it.  
Conscience, in the damneds eternity, shall remember all its sins in their greatest aggravations. Then conscience shall 
Luk. 19 42.  feel what it was to refuse Christ, to neglect heaven, to pride the body, and lose the soul. Every extravagant thought in ordinances, those Term times for the soul, every misspent minute shall be screwed to the highest. Then will come in, what funshines, what 
Heb. 2. 3.  showers, what offers, what means, what manna the prodigal and frantic sinner hath trampled upon. The conscience shall see all its guilt in bloody colours, in their just amplifications; not as here they are palliated by Satan, and misrepresented 
Gen. 3. 5.  by the world, curiously and cunningly extenuated by the sinner self. Every sinful then be known to the conscience to be able to damn the soul, dishonour the infinite God, and shut men out of glory; and sin shall then be aggravated with two dreadful examples.  
1. Of Satan's Angels, how sin, and for aught we know, but 〈◊〉 sin, discoloured their glory, and sank them into perpetual contempt and misery, and this will lash the conscience with Scorpions.  
2. Of the misery of eating one apple by Adam, and that it should ingulf all posterity in one common desolation, this likewise will fetch blood from conscience.  
Then indeed shall all sins against 
Scholastici docent morsum vermis, long superare ustionem ignis. Ger.  mercy, means, menaces, light, love, checks, chide, prayers, protestations, appear in their genuine colours to the sacrificed and tortured conscience.  
The Conscience, viz. in eternity, shall remember all its sins as mixed with God's wrath. All the sins of the Reprobate shall be as Samsons foxes having 
Jud. 15. 4, 5, etc.  firebrands at their tails. Here the sinner remembers sin notionally, and God seems to conniv●●● them, but in eternity every sin shal● 〈◊〉 remembered, and it shall be big with vengeance. Every sin shall fall on and storm conscience fired with God's indignation, shall be a granado, a fireball in the soul. All recollected sins, (as all the sins of ●●e damned shall be recollected) shall be envenomed with punishment; every vain thought shall have its sting, its bullet in it, and every idle word edged with God's wrath shall excoriate the soul.  
Then conscience shall remember every sin as unpardonable, as being for ever incapable of forgiveness and remission. Conscience shall then look upon every sin as died in grain, that shall never 
Vermis conscientiae tripliciter lacer abit, affiget memoria; sera turbabit poenitentia, & to quebit angustia. Innoc.  lose its colour, its blackness, its bloodiness, as that guilt which shall never be entombed in oblivion. Of all the sins the consciences of the damned shall be burdened with, not one, the least of them shall either fall out of the remembrance, or the revenge of the Lord. The massacred conscience shall look upon all its guilt, as unremovable for ever. Not one sin of ignorance shall ever be overpassed; the close venereal sin shall never lose its poison; but the conscience shall see its self ever to be tortured with the vultures of its own sins. Here indeed in this life, the awakening of conscience is a singular mercy, and a rich privilege, and it doth accelerate and hasten the sinner to fly to the City of refuge, 
Phil. 3. 9  the blood of Christ, whereby he may be freed from his stinging Serpents, his sins, and cured of the intolerable wounds of conscience; but the awakened conscience in the eternity of misery shall look on the deluge of its guilt, as that not one prop of it shall fall, or ever be dried up.  
But I cannot yet put a stop to my Contemplation on this subject, viz. What a worm conscience will be in 
Animus aeger, & ●ale sibi consci●s semper est ●nfernus. Luth. ●i diabolus non ●aberet malam conscientiam ●sset in coelo. Id.  hell? and the rather, because it may be the discussion of the woeful misery of the conscience of the damned in eternity, may awaken the Conscience of some Reader here.  
Further to amplify the misery of the tormenting conscience of the Reprobates, let be considered,  
The intimacy of these gripes. The soul shall be put into an everlasting agony. Conscience is a bosom friend, Erinnys 
Et quantum spiritualia bona excedunt corporalia, tantum & spiritualia mala.  in cord, a flame in the spirit. It is the fury in the closet. Oftentimes here the conscience is on the wrack, when none but God is the spectator of that misery; but in eternity conscience shall be fire in the inward man, a soul torment; it is not supplicium carnis, but supplicium cordis, not the punishment of the skin, but of the soul. And this aggravates the torment of conscience, it shall cruciate, fester, and wrack the more noble, more spiritual, more capable, more sensible and apprehensive part of Man; the soul can drink in more punishment and more fully feel the burden and weight of it. Its capacities are more extensive, which is easily discernible in that it can enjoy the beatifical presence of God himself. Ah! what measures of torture can this sublime piece of immortality take in?  
The conscience of the damned is to be considered in the continuedness of its torment. No sleeping moment. 
Nec mo●●●ur vermis, nec m●ratur, sed semper corrodit peccatorem.  It shall be an ever awaking Lion, always devouring, yet never kill. No rest, no ease, no slumber, no pause shall mitigate the pain of conscience in miserable eternity. These Scorpions of sin and guilt shall be ever tormenting the conscience. No intermediate quiet; the storm is perpetual, no vacation. In hell there shall be darkness, 
Quocunque aspicias obviabit peccatum. Basil.  but no sleep. Conscience shall be always a flaming torch.  
The conscience is to be considered in the justness of its torment. Ah faith conscience, I might have been in glory, installed in eternal beatitude, but my sins have righteously crushed me into these flames. And this will be the very poison of conscience itself. The sinner suffers not as a Martyr, but as a malefactor; 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 calm, how full of peace and joy were their consciences? they were as crystal seas within them; and the reason was, because they died not for their sins, but their sanctity, as the witnesses of God's truth, and not as 
Act. 24. 16.  the stains of Christ's Gospel; but this shall be the sting in the worm of conscience to the damned, they reap the miserable fruits of their own sinful deserts. This will inflame the reckoning the loss of offered grace: And now the wind shall ever blow contrary, they die justly, as the prisoners of God's wrath, and not as the heralds of their own innocency.  
The torments of the conscience of the damned are to be considered in the infiniteness of them. The soul shall be lashed with sin and guilt, which is all venom and rancour. Sin is the sharpest sword when edged with God's 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 lashed with a scourge made up of the cords of innumerable sins. Ah! who knows 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 paleness of face, anguish of spirit, trembling of knees, terror of heart did the hand-writing on the 
Dan. 5. 2, 3, 4, etc.  wall, the repercussion of an evil conscience cast Princely Belshazzar into? 
Neque ullum erit peccatum quod non proprium suum ibi habeat cruciatum. Ger.  what furies will the reflections of conscience be, when awakened in everlasting and irrecoverable misery?  
The conscience of the damned may be considered in the innumerableness of its torments, when every sin shall fetch blood at the soul. Compute the evils of one day, how many thousands it is stained with, and what then are the sins of man's life? and yet every sin shall have its full blow, (as before was hinted). Every sin in specie, in the kind of it, Pride, Excess, Covetousness, 
Rom. 2. 9  Formality, etc. and every sin in individuo, individually considered, every act, ebullition, nay conceiving of Pride, Vanity, hypocrisy, etc. 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 crowned and themselves wracked, the Saints living in the embraces of Christ, and themselves lying under the wrath of the Lamb, and it may be both lived under 
Mat. 8. 11, 12.  the same means, enjoyed the same mercies, were wet with the same Gospel's showers; this likewise shall keep open the wound, that when others are arrived at the harbour, they are shipwrackt upon a woeful eternity.  
The torments of the damneds consciences may be considered and enhanced upon this account, in the consideration of their own madness 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 embittered with various troubles; the greatest jollities of this world are soured and overtaken with many disturbances; our sweetest musics jar, all delights below have their distasteful pauses; 
Prov. 13. 14.  and how will this torture conscience to undergo the frowns of a God, the loss 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 scorched in the flames of eternal vengeance. Can I, as a skilful 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 torn with intolerable torments and anguish. Those curious pieces of workmanship, 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, than here they were of plots, those forges of covetousness, 
Ad patiendum societatem carnis expostulat anima ut tam plene per eam pati possit, quam sine ea plene agere non potuit. Idem.  lust, ambition, etc. which oftentimes in this life were tortured to beat out and accomplish wicked and facinorous designs, shall feel the inexpressible surprisals of Gods everlasting displeasure, and their sinful imposthume which they laboured with here, shall break into eternal 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 sweetened with the perfumed glove, and enriched with the sparkling diamond, which here could not think to grasp corruption, shall be burnt with the hot iron of God's eternal indignation. Those hands of the wicked, 
Isa. 33. 14.  which here were the boisterous executours of Will and Passion, the common receivers of bribes and usury, the manual instruments of manifold wickedness, shall feel the corroding pain of eternal flames.  
3. The feet of the reprobate, which here have been swift in running to mischief, as the wiseman saith; which 
Prov. 6. 18.  have chanted after the vial, as the Prophet speaks; which have often 
Amos. 6. 4.  posted to execute the commands of the inordinate will and sinful affections, which have pleased the wanton soul in its measures and dances, shall in eternity be fettered with the burning irons, and bear the shackles of ever-flaming wrath, and be copartners with the rest of the body in a common execution.  
4. The heart of the reprobate, which here hath been desperately wicked, hereafter in eternity shall be intolerably tormented. Here it hath been the cage of uncleanness, and hereafter it 
Jer. 17. 9  shall be the furnace of misery, and every lust it hath harboured, shall be 
Jer. 5. 27.  turned into a Scorpion, an Asp, a 
Mat. 15. 19  Fury; here it was the sink of all those venomous principles the sinner acted by; and hereafter it shall be the Sodom which shall be ever consuming 
Gen. 19 per tot.  with fire and brimstone, and those very corruptions which here chequered the sinner, shall hereafter cruciate him; and what here was his pleasure, shall in hell be his torture. And so all parts of the body shall be wracked in a perpetual conflagration. Then all the haughty looks of a sinner shall be taken down. How little will the flames of hell respect the loveliness and beauty of those bodies which here they were painted with? but as death and the worms did not reverence the feature of their delicate bodies, so neither will the flames of eternity spare their comeliness. And let these three things be subjoined to this Argument.  
All the parts, nerves, arteries, every parcel and member of the body of the damned after the resurrection, shall be all tortured together, not by way of succession, of priority or posteriority. Here indeed diseases run from one part of the body to another, and as some parts are full of, so others are free from pain: But no part of the bodies of the reprobate shall escape the seizure of God's wrath, and hell flames; the vengeance of God shall be searching, 
Mat. 25. 41.  and tear every vein of the damned. 
In ignem aeternum est totaliter, non tantum corpus, sed & totum corporis.  All the members shall suffer in a common destruction. There shall not be one sinew unstretcht, it shall not be with the members of the body, as with the sentinels, that one should relieve another; but as there shall be no relaxation, so no exemption.  
All the parts of the body shall be tortured with the extremest pain. Indeed happily here some parts of the body have been more forward and froward in sin than others, but in eternity every part shall be pullied up, and screwed with the extremest rigour, and in the most insufferable perplexity. As the Father speaks, Adesse erit intolerabile. The most choice, tender, delicate parts of the body, which here, it may be, should not suffer the discourtesy of a gentle blast, shall in hell 
Nunquam dei oculos, memoriam, manus, effugere posset pecator. Theoph.  be excoriated and unboweled by unspeakable and inexorable severity. Those sost and curious parts of the body which the mimic Dames and proud Gallants of the world have indulged, and enshrined in so much bravery, shall in eternity suffer the most bloody, tragical and everlasting execution; nor shall the Lady's vail, or the Courtesans mask secure their beauty, when they shall have no other lookingglass to see themselves in, but the glass of God's severe and eternal wrath, but the bodies of the most dissolved and effeminated sinners shall be wracked with a general torture. Here age and diseases can wrinkle their loveliness, and in eternity wrath and vengeance shall take away all ease and mitigation.  
All the parts and members of the bodies of the damned shall be tortured, without the least consumption of them: Miseries shall not waste them, shall corrode them, but not consume them. Here diseases do not only tyre the spirits, but waste the body; the face loseth its colour, the stomach its appetite, the knees tremble with feebleness, and the flesh melts away. But though every part of the body in eternity shall be parched and scorched with consuming fire, yet nothing of its 
Heb. 12. 29.  strength, or capacity to endure torment shall for ever be abated; for could the parts of the body sink, and gradually consume, the whole in time would fall into an extinction, which is a felicity, God will never give the grant of to the damned reprobate.  
And as all the parts of the bodies, and faculties of the souls of the damned, shall be tortured with misery for ever: so all the senses shall bear their part in the inexpressible doom. Those galleries which men so delightfully walk in here, those windows and perspectives of the soul, through which the sinner often espies the Bathsheba whose beauty enthralls him; those senses which sinners have so studied to bribe and gratify, Esau his taste, Gen. 25. 30. Herod his ear, Act. 12. 23. Ammon his eye, 2 Sam. 13. 6. etc. I say, these senses, which have been the inlets of sin, the eye of Pride, the taste of drunkenness, the hearing of curiosity, vanity and error, etc. Those senses which have been the spies of temptation to find out the bait, the panders of the heart to gratify its lusts and ambitions; the 
Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prins fuit in sensu. Arist. & alii.  false and treacherous sentinels of the soul, shall in the dungeon of eternity not only be imprisoned from their pleasant liberty, and recreative satisfactions they here enjoyed; but be filled and fed with those miseries and distastes which are most noisome and abominable to their susceptible capacities: as more particularly,  
1. The sight shall be cruciated and afflicted with many ghastly and distasteful objects, Nihil nisi tremendum, 
Oculi cruciabuntur Daemonum aspectu. Ger.  nihil nisi horrendum, nihil nisi eavendum, objectum erit visus. Nothing but tragedies and tragical executions, the wounds and wastes, the torments and tribulations and terrous of themselves and others, shall be the everlasting object of the damneds view. The rolling 
Quoad visum, est ibi luminis privatio, quod delectabile est oculis videre. Gerson.  eye of the wanton sinner, which often fed itself here with beautiful objects, whether complexioned in a face, or painted in the rarest prospects of the creature, shall see nothing but what shall be the fountain of horror and amazement. And the bloudshot eye, which diseased, hath looked upon every object with malignity and envy, shall see nothing but the perpetual slaughters of doomed malefactors. And  
2. The hearing of the damned, which 
Quoad auditum, est ibi sonus horribilis, gemitus miserabilis, & blasphemia execrabilis. Id.  it may be here, was often raised and ravished with exquisite musics, and pleasing harmonies, which oftentimes committed sensual idolatry with the the Vial and Lute; or happily the receptive of errors, and blasphemies, or other perturbant affairs, for which soul-work was laid aside, shall be everlastingly tortured with the groans, frights, cries, moans, scrietches, revile and blasphemies of a damned society. That delicate ear which was so curious in its musical apprehensions, will then take up Jeremiahs' wish, Jer. 9 2. that it were in a wilderness to hear nothing but the ruffling of a few leaves, or the murmuration of a few streams. How dolefully will those self-cursing accents of the reprobate crew sound? How mournfully the pitiful, yet fruitless lamentation of the cast and condemned sinner? How tragical the roar which shall be drawn from their inexpressible torture? And  
3. The smell of the Reprobates which here was so choice in singling out its fragrancies, and oftentimes the nosegay was laid in the bosom; I say, that 
Rev. 14. 10.  smell which sometimes perfumed itself in an odoriferous bed of flowers and roses, shall everlastingly be offended with the sent of sulphur and brimstone, and that distasteful and noisome smell which the imprisoned reprobates shall evaporate. Heliogabalus that Sardanapalus 
Petrod' Mexia in Imper. Hist.  of Rome, who here could not bathe himself but in waters sweetened with perfumes; shall have nothing in eternity to refresh that sense, but the stench of God's eternal wrath. And  
4. So for the taste, the critical  of sinners which here was so rare in its inventions, how to please and 
Quoad gustum, ab synthium, amarus cibus, Item fell draconum potus, uva illorum uva fellis, & potus amarissimus fel draconum, vinum eorum, & venenum aspidum insanabile.  intoxicate itself, which often hath been nonplussed which dish in the feast, which dainty in the banquet to seize and pray upon; which sometimes hath been at a controversy, whether it hath pleased the Drunkard or the Glutton most, shall in eternity drink and taste nothing but the cup of trembling, the vials of God's wrath, the poison of Asps, the vomit of Serpents, and the spirits of Satan's malice. And  
5. The touch which here was gratified with softness and effeminacy, and was indulged with the finest coverlets, which could not endure the smart of a wound, the unkindness of a storm or the intolerableness of a spark, shall be tormented with the most penetrative 
Mar. 9 48.  and wracking torments, with 
Quoad tactum ibi est ignis urens, vermis corrodens, aestus insuperabilis, & frigor intolerabilis, Gers.  flames which have intolerable heat, but no light, and with all those tortures which with most exquisiteness can afflict that sense. That sense which the Philosophers call the most common, shall in the eternity of the damned be the common capacity of insupportable misery. And thus for the first universality, that of the Patient.  
But further to draw this Map of misery, I shall unfold and fall upon a second universality, viz. That of Punishnent. Not only every artery of the body, every faculty of the soul, (I speak in reference to the damned) every exertion of the sense, shall live in an everlasting execution and Martyrdom, (if I may use the word) But every imaginable misery, omnigenous, 
De poenis excogitari non potest quod ibi non erit. Greg.  multifarious, innumerable calamities shall seize upon every particular. The soul in its full capacities shall drink in all soul-torment, and the body all corporeal tortures. Every division of both (if the soul may be parceled) shall lie under multitudinous extremities. Ah! Consider this 
Psal. 10. 22.  all ye that forget God.  
But not to traverse only universals, 
Non mihi si linguae centum essent, oraque centum, Omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possem. Virg.  and to glance only at the torments of the damned in general; the usual allotment and division of these pains are cast by Divines into three heads:  

1. The punishment of loss.  
2. The punishment of sense.  
3. The punishment of separation.   
But the first and the last, may seem to be coincident.  
The punishment of loss, consists in the deprival that the damned undergo, 
Mille gehennas ponai, & nihil tale est, quale est excludi a gloria dei, & odio haberi a deo. Chrysost.  in regard of the presence of God, and the unspeakable joys of heaven; and this Divines have called the worst punishment, and so indeed it must be, because the good the reprobates are deprived of, is infinitely 
Absentia Christi quoad visionem, omnia alia tormenta superat, & omnibus poenis intolerabilior est. Aug.  more valuable, than the pains the damned undergo can be considerable. The loss of God is infinite, in reference to the object; but the torments cannot be infinite, because a finite creature undergoes them. But only to touch on this sad particular, besides the loss of God, the damned shall lose,  
The blessed society of Angels, those first essays of creating power, the masterpieces of the whole fabric of 
Vbi non habet locum dei gratia, ibi nec obtinet gratiosa Angelorum praesentia. Luth.  the world; those pieces of purity which never were deflowered with a sin, The Courtiers of heaven, Dan. 7. 10. The comforters of Christ himself, Mat. 4. 11. The ministering Spirits who 
Sicut fumus apes, & faetor columbas abigit, sic Angelos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Basil.  wait on the Saints here, as the Spouse of the Lord Jesus. And this is intolerable misery; and one particular of the damneds calamity. As the Angel was not here their ministration, so not in eternity shall he be their companion. Here the Angel did not officiate to them, nor hereafter shall he associate with them.  
The rare and rich society of the glorified Saints. The damned shall not 
Mat. 8. 12.  be blessed with that glorious association▪ 
Mat. 22. 13.  The joys, perfections and persons 
Justi in manu Dei erunt, peccatores in loco Diaboli, justi cum Deo, peccatores cum Satana. Cyril. Alex.  of the glorious Saints shall not yield a happiness to the imprisoned reprobates. The glorified Saints which here were the derisions; shall not in eternity be the companions of the wicked, which here was their scorn, shall not then be their society. Those pieces of immaculate perfection shall not be overshadowed with the sight, much more with the communion of one reprobate miscreant. The sinner that here avoided, shall not in eternity be blessed with the company of the Saints.  
The joys, rest and quietness of heaven, all those felicities which bespangle glory itself; whatever blessedness arches heaven, they shall be excluded 
Mat. 21. 13.  the feast, turned out of the Court, expelled the bride-chamber, shut out of 
Mat. 25. 12.  Paradise; and the screen of God's 
Job 20. 26.  wrath shall stand everlastingly between them and the festivities of glory. The reprobates shall never see Paradise in 
Nec sol, nec luna, nec stella videbitur una. Leon.  the Landscape of a single glance, unless it be to accumulate their infelicity. Their souls shall not be refreshed with the dews of celestial happiness. God in the full passage of eternity shall not once draw the curtain to refresh the damned with a transient view of that glory, which shall for ever encompass his Saints.  
I might here superadd, their exile and banishment from the harmonies and hallelujahs of heaven, those seraphical musics which are the everlasting redundancies of the Angel's obedience, and the Saints joy. And  
I might likewise take notice of the damneds exclusion from the refreshment of common pity and commiseration. The reprobates in eternity shall not 
Prov. 1. 26.  have the Levits' courtesy, the refreshment of a compassionate look; they shall eternally be banished all moaning 
Psal. 92. 8.  language, they shall never hear the 
Ipsimet damnati sese invicem odio prosequentur, ac miseriis suis mutuo insultabunt. Ger.  sounding of the bowels of man, nor be indulged with the compassions of God. I say, these things might be enlarged, but this punishment of loss, which the damned shall be afflicted with, will more clearly appear, when the gain, the felicities of heaven shall come into debate and discussion.  
I now fall upon the punishment of sense, consisting in all those actual torments which the damned shall undergo, which as David speaks of God's works, Psal. 40. 5. Many O Lord my God, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hom.  are thy wonderful works. And as Nestor spoke of the miseries they endured at the siege of Troy, so I may say of those calamities, they are not more grievous for their nature, then numerous for the account. As the Father comprised all in one short sentence, Ibi nihil aderit boni, nihil aberit mali: But I shall comprise those chief punishments which shall consume and torment the damned under these few heads.  
They shall be tortured with the scorching heat of fire, mentioned in many places of Scripture, Mat. 18. 9 Mat. 3. 12. Mar. 9 48. Luke 16. 24. etc.  
Now for the handling of this particular, I shall dispatch it in these three things;  
1. Quest. Whether this infernal fire be material or no?  
Answ. Answ. There are many who seem to affirm it, and use many arguments 
Gehenna illa, quae etiam stagnum ignis & sulphuris dicta est, corporeus ignis erit, & cruciabit corpora damnatorum. Aug. de civ. dei.  for the assertion. As  
1. In the articles of faith, we are to adhere to the letter, unless evident and necessary occasion draw us from a literal interpretation. Now these miseries are often called fire Mat. 15. 41, etc. And  
2. To this fire is ascribed sulphur, flames, wood, Isa. 30. 33. Now the Word would not give such properties to immaterial fire.  
3. The bodies of men cannot be more tightly tormented, then with fire: one spark is exceeding dolorous. And Nebuchadnezars furnace, was but a type of hell, and therefore there is no reason to recede from their opinion.  
And then on the contrary part, it is urged,  
1. That corporeal fire can make no impressions on a spirit, as the Devils and the souls of men are. All agents, 
Daemonas & animas ●ationales, non aliter cruciari igne corporeo quidam asserunt, contra suam voluntatem quam quod in eo detineantur tanquam in perpetuo carcere. Thom.  as Philosophers observe, do act on a capable object; now spiritual substances are not so to material agents.  
Now to this it is answered,  
1 Our souls here are often afflicted in corporeal distempers, Et corpore afflicto anima ipsa dolet.  
2. Although coporeall fire do not act on the soul by a physical and natural power; yet God can infuse a power into fire as the instrument of his wrath and vengeance, even to scorch and sing the souls of the damned. Though fire cannot do it, as Divines observe, Virtute physica, tamen virtute hyperphysica. And it is a good observation a learned man, that Talis est cujusque rei natura, & actio, qualem Deus creator Omnipotens eam vult esse; si corpora damnatorum urantur, & non consumantur, nun illud est miraculum? Et quomodo dicitur ignis contra naturam agere, cum agat voluntate Dei? that is, The nature and the action of every thing is such as the Almighty creator will have it, and commands it to be; if the bodies 
Alii dicunt, si ignis infernalis esset materialis, tum extingui posset; sed resp. sicut corpora damnatorum etsi comburuntur, tamen non consumuntur, sic & ignis inferni, etsi se exerit in damnatorum poena, tamen non extinguitur: Vtrumque ergo est per miraculam.  of the damned are burned and not consumed, is not this a miracle? as the bush, Exod. 3. in the beginning. And then how can that fire be said to act against its own nature, that acts according to the will of the God of nature? and therefore it may be asserted, that the fire of hell may reach the souls of the damned if God give it a command, or impose on it a quality and power so to do.  
Now to clear the whole in a word, The infernal fire may be considered two ways;  
1. Ratione sui, in reference to itself, and so it cannot have any power on a spiritual substance.  
2. Ratione agentis principalis cujus est instrumentum, in regard of the principal agent whose instrument it is: and so it can act upon spiritual beings, and make the same painful impressions, as it would do upon corporal. But not further to amplify the controversy, that saying of St. Augustine is 
August.  remarkable, Cujusmodi ignis infernalis est, hominem scire arbitror neminem, nisi forte cui Spiritus divinus ostendit; (i. e.) None can know what this fire is, of what kind, of what power, unless extraordinarily the Spirit of God reveal it to him. And another piously, Let us earnestly importune the Lord, that this knowledge whether the fire of hell be material or not, be never manifested to us by experience.  
Quest. 2 And it would not be any great digression, if we should examine the difference between our fire and infernal fire, wherein the vast diversity lies.  
Our fire can be extinguished; the hottest flames can be put out by the greatest streams; the holy fire of the heart, love, cannot be quenched, no not by many waters, Cant. 8. 7. but 
Job 20. 26.  the fire of the hearth can be extinguished, 
Deut. 32. 22.  the greatest conflagrations will either die of themselves, or be quenched by an exterior power. But the fire of hell is an everlasting flame, tears cannot quench it, blood cannot allay it. Can the damned weep an Ocean, they could not extinguish one spark of this fire.  
Our fire must be maintained by continual supplies of fuel; take away the pile of wood and the fire goes out; but the fire of hell shall not be 
Isa. 30. 33.  fed with wood, but with wrath, God's indignation shall be an everlasting supply to hell's conflagration; the breath of his mouth shall be both bellows and fuel to the infernal fire.  
Our fire it consumes and kills the body, and causeth the life of the patiented to evaporate with its own smokes; It turns flesh into ashes, and incinerates the Martyrs body; but infernal fire, urit & cruciat, sed non extinguit, it shall burn but not bury, afflict but not annihilate, or change the nature of the bodies of the damned. Those flames as they shall be preserved by a miracle, so shall the bodies they torment not consume, nor smoke choke thed amned. Hic ignis nec extinguit, nec extinguitur; as he said.  
Our fire cum vi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with its burning and afflicting power, sheds and casts a light and illumination. Our flames are but burning torches, and scorching candles; they be objectivum Visus, as well as Tactus, the object of sight as well as feeling; the fire hath its beams as well as the sun, though it enlightens lumine tenebricosiore, with darker rays. But the infernal fire 
Mat. 25. 30.  is void of all light or brightness, 
Comburentur damnati igne urente, sed non lucente.  there is utter darkness. And the reason is; for light would be the womb of comfort, it brandisheth pleasure, to the beholder, how do we admire the Moon though it shines with a borrowed light? and with what wonder do we 
Eccles. 11. 7.  gaze on the stars those illuminated diamonds, as being the bright tapers of heaven. Now could the tormenting flames of hell be radiant, and scatter that darkness the damned shall be thrust into, they would procure more happiness than the reprobate shall ever enjoy: light is a blessing that shall never visit the infernal coasts.  
Our fire always burns ad eundem modum, according to the quantity of the supply and the fuel it seeds upon; but the infernal fire shall burn diversimode, after a different kind according to the demerits of the reprobate, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah 
Mat. 10. 15.  then, etc.  
Our fire differs from the infernal in the exquisiteness of the heat: 
Noster ignis est est ignis pictus ad magnum. ignem Polyc.  were all the combustibles of the whole creation turned into one flame and fire, they would not contain so much vehemency and fervour 
una scintill● ignis infernalis magis affligit, quam si parturient mulier mille annos in suis continuaret cruciatibus. Bern.  in them, as one spark of infernal fire: and the reason is, our fire is fed and increased by the supply of inanimate creatures, wood, oil, flax, pitch, etc. but the fire of hell is fed by the wrath of the living Almighty and eternal God. As fire in the chafindish, is not to be compared to fire in the furnace.  
Our fire may be useful for heat, for comfort, for the preparing of food, etc. but the infernal fire shall 
Act. 28. 1, 2.  be purely, totally, everlastingly tormenting. And to distinguish between our fire and the fire of hell, the Scripture always adds some epithet and title to hell fire when it is mentioned; as sometimes it is called hell fire, 
Non propter pe●●o●●s comburentes, sed propter eorum immortalitatem in igne. Isid.  Mat. 5. 22. sometimes a furnace of fire, Mat. 13. 42. and sometimes it is resembled to the Babylonish furnace, Dan. 3. not for the persons that were in it, for they were holy and precious, but for the immortality of those who were cast into it. Sometimes hell fire is called a lake of fire, Rev. 19 20. where the abundance of it is denoted. So that the Scripture distinguisheth our fire from the infernal always by some attribute or other. But  
Quest. 3 Supposing this infernal fire should not be material, but metaphorical, yet the phrase would import thus much:  
To show the exquisiteness of the torments of the Reprobates: nothing more intolerable than fire, we cannot endure one spark of it. If Martyrs have endured the flames not only with patience but ease, as it is reported Baynham and others did, this hath been miraculous. In fire every spark is a single torment, and one flame is but a multiplied misery. The height of God's wrath is compared to fire; to torment with 
Heb. 12. 29.  fire, is the extremity of man's malice. And so the Marian persecution was the most cruel, because it was fiery; We in our Land burn Wives which destroy their Husbands, that being one of the highest impieties. The rage of Nabuchadnezzar 
Dan. 3. per tot.  was prosecuted with a fiery furnace that was prepared as the most tragical instrument to pursue his displeasure.  
To show the consumptivenesse of this misery. Fire is a devouring element, turns the most beautiful fuel into ashes in a moment; so the torments of hell shall eat, corrode, and consume, but yet never dispatch. They shall consume the hopes, the happiness, the joys and the very persons of the damned, yet not so as to kill, its consumptions shall be repaired again, as the wound in the flesh is stopped up when healed.  
To show the unnaturalness of the misery. Fire how many ways useful, it is an element that is absolutely necessary, one of the supports of the world. How useful was fire to the Israelites, Exod. 13. 21. when God went before them in a pillar of it? The Spirit itself is called fire, Luk. 3. 16. Fire is an antidote against the kill invasions of the sharp Winter. It makes the dead flesh of the creatures, which otherwise would be noisomeness to us, and not our food, to be genuine and savoury diet for man, and yet hell's misery is called fire: here the servant becomes indeed the tyrant, the slave becomes executioner, what was for help is now for torment.  
To show the penetrativenesse of the misery. Fire is of a penetrating nature, 
Lam. 1. 13.  pierceth and windeth itself into the narrowest chinks, and so these pains shall pierce usque ad ipsius animae essentiam, to the very nature and essence of the soul.  
To show the suteblenesse of the misery, the in●ernall fire of hell answering the internal fire of lust, these flames those fires. The wicked man 
Retaliatio est poenae ad formam culpae.  here hath burnt with ambition, lasciviousness, insatiable desires after the world and the creature, and there he 
Job. 4. 8.  shall burn in everlasting miseries, in miseries which are called fire.  
And thus much for the first torment, which shall seize on the Damned, shall be cast into inextinguishable fire, Mat. 3. 12.  
I now fall upon the second great torment, which shall cruciate and afflict the damned, and that is, The 
Mat. 8. 12, 13.  extremity of cold. Strange it is, yet most 
Mat. 13. 50.  infallibly, Scripturally true, That the damned should be punished not only with diversities, with contrarieties of pains, is it not, because as Physicians observe, the pain is greater in the Antiperistasis; that as they say, when contrary humours meet and struggle together in the body as two meeting torrents, than the pain is most intolerable. Surely this is one great reason, Mat. 25. 30. There Christ saith, In hell there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; weeping from heat, the pain of fire; and gnashing of teeth, from the extremity of cold; so Haymo, Remigius, Hierome, and others.  
Obj. But here it may be objected, That cold should be a mitigation of the former pains, cold being a remedy against heat; Luk. 16. Dives petitions no more, 
Luk. 16.  no better cure for his torment in the flame, then that Lazarus should dip the tip of his finger in water and touch his tongue to cool it.  
Answ. But as for this, it is a parable, and therefore according to the rule in the 
Poenae damnatorum erunt acerbissimae, & intolerabiles; erit ibi poena ignis, & secunda est vermis, tertia foetor, & quarta maximum frigus. Bonav.  Schools, not argumentative, being stretched beyond its scope and end. And to the other Aquinas answers, That it shall be no mitigation at all of the pain of the damned, in regard it shall not be by the changing and the transmutation of the body from its former disposition and passion, but by bringing a new passion upon it, the old remaining, which it doth, saith he, per actionem spiritualem, by a spiritual action; for by its natural action, being contrary to heat, it quenches it and mitigates the pain of it, but by its spiritual action, which it hath from the principal agent, God's justice, whereof it is the instrument, and whereby it doth act and prey upon the body, it doth not; so that learned and acute Schoolman. Indeed this shall be a great additional to the Reprobates misery, they shall ever be parched in intolerable heat, and yet spend an eternal winter; and the misery of chillness and coldness is insupportable. Cold here how doth it benumb the joints, dead the spirits, shrivel up the body? how doth it cast the body into an universal swoon, it pains the members, and if rigorous, endangers the life; as in some Northerly nations in the world, the cold is a common distraction; and how shall the frosts of hell disjoint and torture the bodies of the damned for ever?  
The third intolerable punishment of the reprobates shall be famine and 
Luk. 6. 25.  hunger, a most insufferable misery▪ 
Quinta poena damnatorum erit fames maxima, in inferno namque est tanta inopia, ut neque guitam aquae damnati poterunt habere. Bonav.  In the 24. of Jeremiah there are three great plagues mentioned, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Famine, Pestilence, and the Sword; Famine is enumerated as one of those soarest calamities. And so Ezek. 14. 21. it is reckoned one of the four judgements there. Famine it wastes the strength, enfeebles the knees, soils the beauty, altars the frame of nature; it makes the child look wrinkled, and furrows the clearest complexion, it makes man a walking ghost, the picture of misery, the monster of deformity, and this is one cord in the overflowing, and everflowing 
Isa. 28. 15.  scourge that shall scarify and torment the damned. David, 2 Sam. 24. 13. when he was put to that sad choice, what punishment and rod to lie under, he rather casteth himself upon the dispatching destruction of the Plague, than the lingering calamity of Famine. Famine makes man his 
Lam. 4. 9  own homicide, assassinate and vulture. 
Mat. 23. 27.  What our Saviour called the Pharisees, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hom. Od.  is most true of those whom famine hath surprised, they are but whited Sepulchers. And this is one of those vials of wrath the damned shall be ever drinking of. Hunger and thirst like to wild horses shall be always tearing in pieces the tortured reprobates. Then shall they cry, ah for a drop of water, for one of those spare dishes that our nauseated stomaches did disdain the sight of.  
The fourth insufferable torment, shall be bonds and imprisonment, Mat. 
Impii in singulis membris igneis constringentur catenis.  12. 13. And this punishment is not fuller of pain then shame, not more branded with anguish than reproach. The damned shall always be the prisoners of God's wrath, roaring in their fetters, crying in their shackles, begging mercy with a fruitless importunity out of the grate of their eternal dungeons. Diogenes being asked what was the best thing in a man's life, answered liberty. And he in the Comedy, compares a Captive to a bird in a cage. Now the damned shall be deprived of that glorious privilege liberty; they shall be chained to, and in their torments for ever. No 
Act. 12. 4.  Angel shall open the iron gate for them, they shall live or rather die 
Vincula illa non ex ferro, sed ex igne sunt inextinguibili. Chrysost.  the perpetual slaves of God's wrath. Here they abused their liberty, hereafter they shall not enjoy it; their freedom in sin here, shall fetter them to misery hereafter; there shall be no liberty, either for comfort or escape. Here they were chained to their lusts, and in eternity they shall be to their losses. They shall be bound hand and 
Luk. 16.  foot: to omit the piercing torment of 
Catenis reprobi constringentur, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad bene operandum demonstrare.  their straightness, they shall be everlastingly incapable to help themselves, or break their loathsome prison. The justice and wrath of God shall pinion them to the stake of execution for ever.  
The fifth punishment shall be, that intolerable stench which shall for ever offend and afflict the damned, those sulphureous fumes and distasteful 
Rev. 19 20.  smoke which shall arise from the lake of fire, how shall they render the miseries of the damned, exquitely more miserable? Paradise itself was not more odoriferous in all the varieties of its fragrant plants, especially when refreshed with the sweet waters of heavenly dew, (for before Adam's fall, the dew was but pearly perfume) than the dungeon of hell that dark cage of the damned miscreauts, shall be intolerably suliginous, and it shall be the sink of all offensive scents and ejections, the common dunghill of putrid evaporations.  
The sixth punishment is darkness, that obscurity the damned shall for 
Job 20. 26.  ever be buried alive in, they shall be 
Tunc coacti in tenebras exteriores mittentur, qui nunc interioribus voluntarie delectantur. Greg.  overwhelmed with the shadows of an eternal night; they shall not see again that Sun which here they clouded with their sins; their deeds of darkness shall turn into the doom of darkness. The Egyptian darkness mentioned Exod. 10. 22. and the Cimmerian darkness so famed by ancient writers are but the dark hieroglyphckes of infernal darkness; they shall lie, I mean the reprobates, in palpable darkness.  
In a word, the damned shall be punished with a threefold darkness.  
1. Tenebris privationis. They shall never see a glimpse, either of the light of the Creature, or of the brightness of glory▪ or of the irradiations of God himself; the curtain shall be drawn between them and the least dawning of light for ever. No star 
Diabolus princeps tenebrarum, infernum qui est regnum tenebrarum tanta obfuscat caligine, ut luci naturali ad eum non pateat aditus. Ger.  shall arise or cloud break to shed any lustre; no glow-worm light shall appear, they shall not be blest with the dreadful aspect of an eclipse.  
2. Principe tenebrarum. The Prince of darkness shall be their everlasting companion. He who hath traded in the dark, assaulted with dark temptations, who leads to darkness, who dwells in the dark and abominates all light, shall for ever be a fury to the damned. And  
3. Tenebris interioribus, with the darkness of mind. The reprobates shall enjoy no more knowledge than what shall amplify their torment, they shall be cursed with a blindness of mind, an ignorance of God, a spiritual mist and cloud. The Sun of righteousness shall not rise upon them, nor bless them with one beam. No pleasing knowledge shall be set up in their minds. No savouring discoveries or light. Damnati in extrema falutaris 
Damnati erunt merae tenebrae.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inopia versabuntur, destituentur luce cognitionis divinae. They shall not sparkle with any divine knowledge. Here their understandings were filled with erratas, and in eternity they shall be filled with blots.  
I should further mention the horrors and griefs that shall perplex the damned for ever; but I will no further wade in these bitter waters, nor stretch the argument to a further terror, but will leave these few beacons fired, to be a serious and an epidemical caution to all prurient and unawakened sinners.  
There is yet a third universality to amplify the damneds misery, and that is, the universality of the persons tormenting. And those are,  
God, who shall scourge the Reprobates by immediate executions. He shall in reference to the damned, not only lay claim to revenge, and say, Vengeance is mine, but repay himself 
Heb. 10. 30.  the interest of all his patience and long-suffering. He shall be a consuming fire, Heb. 12. 29. Non tantum instrumentaliter, not only by employing instruments, but shall strike with his own sword. More particularly, God shall torment the damned,  
1. By masking his own face, and drawing the curtain between them and the beatifical vision; after the 
Cant. 3. 1.  sentence of death is passed in the damned, they shall never see Jesus Christ more.  
2. By shutting the door against them: they shall not only be deprived of the sight of the bridegroom, but they shall not enter into the bride-chamber; the door of all happiness 
Mat. 25. 12.  shall be locked everlastingly against them, they shall never be made happy with the sight of an Angel, of a glorified Saint, it may be, one that here was flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone.  
3. By pouring contempt upon them; God shall deride their tears, 
Prov. 1. 26.  reproach their cries, neglect their lamentations; he shall laugh at their calamity, and despise their trembling fears; their moans shall be his music, and their groans his delight: he bids them farewell with a Goye cursed, Mat. 25. 41. and that shall be the language they shall have for ever.  
4. By emptying the Vials of his severe vengeance upon them for ever. Wrath is terrible, but vengeance is implacable. God shall be pouring out divine, unmixed, just yet dreadful, intolerable wrath upon them 
Rev. 14. 10.  for ever; wrath not allayed with any pity, or mercy, suspense or mitigation, the least spark of which could turn the whole world into a common flame.  
Satan shall torment the damned; he that hath been their parasite, their pander, their Angel of light, who hath so often alured, courted, bribed and solicited them, by soft and gainful, frequent and vigorous temptations, shall be their everlasting Jaoler and executioner; he shall make and keep open their wounds for ever. And this is reward, he shall compensate them, for rejecting the commands of God, forsaking Christ, and slighting their souls, and it may be, at the suit of his temptations.  
And Satan shall be to the Reprobates,  
1. A malicious enemy, their pain shall be Satan's pleasure, their lamentation his satisfaction, (if he is capable of any.)  
2. A powerful enemy, who can fetch blood at every stroke, he is a fallen Angel. And one Angel could destroy 185. thousand in a night, and Satan's power for mischief is not abated.  
3. An implacable enemy, whom neither 
Heu, heu quales sunt Angeli infligendis poenis destinati, quam immites, & truculenti! Cyr. Alex.  tears nor blood can reconcile, who hath no pity, no bowels, no relenting; whom no rhetoric can soften.  
And 4. An eternal enemy, who will never be wearied with managing his executions.  
In Satan Silla and Caesar meet, chose famous Romans; the one was ●alled the bloody, the other the perpetual dictator; Satan shall be a bloody and a perpetual tormentor.  
The damned shall be their own tormentors. What passion, rage and frenzy shall they express against themselves! how shall they tear their own wounds! In what miserable despair shall they curse their own vanity, neglect, sinfulness, their wicked hearts and licentious companions, and madness in refusing Christ and a Crown offered! how shall they turn Devils, Judass and saul's to themselves! How shall they abominate and loath themselves as the spawn of folly and fanatical frenzy! Then shall their consciences lash and torture them, their understandings burden them, their memories cruciate them, in gathering up all the parcels of their sinful precipitancy. They shall breathe out revenge against none more than their own selves; and with what thirst shall they desire to massacre their own souls!  
The damned shall be tormented by their companions in misery; thei● scrietches, and cries, and execrations how dolefully shall they sound! We cannot here endure the groans of a tormented patient, whose disease wrings from him bitter lamentations; how shall the Reprobates undergo the bloody blasphemies of the tortured miscreants! The damned 
Homo homini lupus, et homo homini daemon.  shall be as Wolves and Devils one to another. Job in the midst of his calamity curseth the day of his birth. 
Job 3. 1.  Blasphemy, yelling and cursing, shall be all the music of hell; Shimei 
2 Sam. 16. 7.  shall find cursing enough there. The tender and delicate sinner, which here could not endure the cry of an infant, or the moan of an afflicted Saint, in eternity shall be saluted with nothing but groans and terrible schricks to eternity.  
And now I have done with the first part ●f the extremity of the damneds torment, viz. the universality of it. I now fall upon the second part, the height and exquisiteness of it.  
And this I shall demonstrate,  

1. Comparatively.  
2. Positively.   
For the first, The Scripture hath emblematised and painted out the miseries of the reprobate, by many sad, but full comparisons, I shall only glance at some few. And  
I. Sometimes the Scriptures compare the pain and torment of the damned, to the pain of a woman with child. And this pain is the most 
1 Thess. 5. 3.  intolerable, what scrietches, and 
Gravis est poena damnatorum, propter tormenti acerbitatem, gravior propter dolorum diversitatem, gravissima propter suppliciorum aeternitatem. Carthus.  tears, and cries doth it wring from the travailing patient. It is most exquisite,  
1. In the the Original of it; It was the first curse of the female sex, Gen. 3. 16. Gerard calls these pains Dolores acutissimos, the most cutting pains. Nay  
2. When the Lord would express the soarest pains and miseries, he compares them to the torment of this travel, Psal. 48. 6. Isa. 13. 8. God by this pain, would give us an instance, and a map of the soarest misery. And observe this pain,  
3. In the suddenness of it; it seizeth on the pregnant woman unexpectedly, sometimes before time, sometimes after time, sometimes in the midst of affairs, and the greater the misery is, by how much the more sudden it is in the surprisal.  
4. Consider this pain, in the extremity of it, unspeakable; what strange roar and cries it fetches from the Patient?  
5. In the dangers of it, what diseases 
Gen. 35. 18.  and deaths it brings forth? It 
una gehenna scintilla magis cruciat damnatos, quam si faemina in dolore, & partu, mille annos continuo perduraret.  was the saying of Hecuba, Mallem decies in acie stare, quam semel parere, She had rather stand ten times in the midst of a battle, then bring forth once; so great are the dangers this pain casts the patiented on. But  
II. Sometimes the Scripture compares the miseries of the damned to Torments, so Luk. 16. 23. a word full of horror and amazement, a phrase which implies all misery boiled to the height; the wound in the pain of it, wrancled and festered calamities; this word torments seems to leave a piece of the sword in the open wound; they are misery screwed and pullied to the highest severity. But  
III. Sometimes the Scriptures compare the miseries of the damned, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rev. 22. 18. to 
Luk. 12. 48.  plagues and stripes. Stripes the punishment of a Slave. The most inconsiderable drudges and prisoners lie under the Strappado, stripes and scourge; this is Non domini sed servi castigatio, not the punishment of the Prince but the Vassal.  
2. The most exquisite torment, when every single stripe make the succeeding more tormenting: and so likewise plagues, not diseases, but the fruit of God's sudden and saddest wrath.  
There are many other comparisons the Scriptures are fruitful in, in which the miseries of the reprobate are lively depainted, which I purposely omit.  
But now, the exquisiteness of these torments will further appear, if we consider them Positively. And here could we reckon up all those extremities of torture, that cruel Tyrants and the enraged enemy have executed upon those whom they have attached, and brought into their power; all those miseries were but the burning with a cold iron, if paralleled with the damneds calamity. Should we peruse the Histories of the ten primitive persecutions, which were bloodied with so many deaths and tortures, they were a calm report to those executions the reprobates shall be overwhelmed with. These lingering deaths which barbarous Tyrants inflicted on the magnanimous Martyrs, when they did wiredraw their pains and extremities, and did imbrue their ravine and malice in the tedious martyrdoms of those Sainted Angels, were but a rude draught and imperfect map of the woes that shall crush the damned to eternity. All those tragedies were but like the painting of a bloody fight in a lively picture.  
Let us but a little particularise the births of man's cruelty as they have been wreaked on their fellow creatures, and it may something delineate the torment of the reprobate. Should we mention how some in this life have been wracked upon a wheel, and beaten with soar stripes, as Machabeus was; observe the conjunction of the misery. Others bound about a Globe, and their skin flayed off, as Machir was. Others broken in a mortar. Others fried in a pan. Others roasted. Others hanged and flayed. Others their tongues cut out. Others sowed up in the skins 
Sic in Neronis persecutione.  of wild beasts, and then worried to death with dogs. Others thrown to Lions, and bears and Tigers. Others cast into a hot lime-kilne, and afterwards thrown into a scalding bath, as Phocas Bishop of Pontus was. Others hung by the hair of the head, and 
Heb. 11. 37.  then scourged. Others pressed, and 
Which is a catalogue of miseries, a short book of Martyrs and Martyrdoms.  others stoned to death. Others thrown from rocks and broken in pieces. Others starved. Others choked with smoke. Others their flesh torn with the claws of wild beasts. Should we 
2 Cor. 11. per initium.  mention Lawrences' gridiron, Paul and Peter's Crucifixion, isaiah's sawing in 
There is a map of Paul's calamities.  sunder; or take notice of the impaling which the Turks use, the lingering poisons which the Italians use, the scarpins and breaking on the wheel which the French use, the smothering and strangling, a form and barbarous custom among us. Should we mention Ravilliackes torments; which Duke Serres observes, came nearrest to 
Du Serres  the miseries of hell; this intolerable torment of some corporal diseases, the Stone, the Strangury, etc. yet all these summed up in a total sum, were but a cold representation of the damneds extremities.  
And there are four Reasons for it;  
1. They are tortured by an infinite 
Heb. 12. 29.  agent, by God. 
Omnipotentis justitia futurorum praescia, a mundi origine ignem inferni creavit. Greg.   
2. They are punished for an infinite guilt.  
3. They shall be tormented for an infinite duration.  
And 4. They shall have no comfort to allay, no hope to extenuate, no ease to mitigate their miseries.  
And thus much for the second thing, viz. the height and exquisiteness of the torments of the damned.  
And that which in the next place may amplify the extremity of the reprobates 
Illis ululatus & planctus, gemitus & mugitus continue sonant, simulque clamor ubique confusus attollitur, quem dira vis tormentorum exagitat, & incendii arsura extorquet. Cassianus.  torments, may be the continuedness of them. In hell there shall be no intermission, no rest, no pause; the iron shall always burn, the fit shall always be on the reprobate; the execution shall neither be reprieved nor interrupted. The wrath of God shall be a stream, Isa. 33. 30. There was some intermission in the sins of the ●icked here, but there shall be none in their sufferings. The painful wound shall be everlastingly renewed. There shall be no abatement, or suspending, mitigation in the disease that shall wrack the reprobate, (as was hinted before concerning conscience in particular). The furnace of their misery shall always burn with an equal heat. God's wrath shall not in the least be pacified, nor Satan wearied, nay the damned shall not be tired in cursing and crucifying their own souls. They shall never be so happy as to say, we thank God we have now a little ease. But I shall dilate no further, only let this be considered. It is impossible it should be otherwise, when only the smile of God, and the blood of Christ can alleviate and extinguish those flames, which the damned shall be everlasting strangers unto.  
That which further amplifies these infernal miseries, is the efficient cause of them, which is the Almighty, upon the enforcement of sin. And how doth this multiply the pain, that God which is so gracious and sweet,  
1. In his name, which is spelle● 
Exod. 34. 6.  with the golden letter of mercy and compassion, who is known by the title of Gracious, Long-suffering, Merciful, 
Numb. 14. 17.  etc.  
2. So mild and good in his Attributes. 
Vbi not andum Deum irae suae terminum ponere, Misericordiae nullum. Riu. in Exod.  Only one attribute of justice among all the rest; he hath wisdom to contrive, Love to appoint, Power to perform, and faithfulness to renew happiness to the creature that waits on him. His attributes all smile, unless justice provoked; the justice of God is among his attributes, as the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, 
Gen. 3. ivit.  was among the trees of Paradise, which if ye touch not that one property to excite it, all the rest will yield pleasant and savoury viands; all the rest shall be the delight of the soul; there is but one sword, one rod among all the tutelary and beatifical properties.  
3. So good in his nature. God is essentially good. Love and goodness is not his qualification but his nature, as the Apostle, 1 Joh. 4. 16. God is love. Compassion and mercy are not so much the effects of God, as Dei ratio formalis, his essence.  
4. So sweet his works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every work of the Creation, every particular action, every single determination was filled with righteousness and goodnesses. God is essentially and communicatively good, ratione sui, ratione effectus, as one observes. And  
5. How gracious is the Lord in his Son, who sacrificed himself for us, and 
Rom. 5. 10.  bled love at every vein, who was mankind's Martyr, the common salvation of believers, and whether his affections to us, or sorrows he underwent for us were more numerous, is very questionable! And  
6. How sweet is God in his Spirit, who is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Advocate, 
Joh. 14. 16.  the Comforter, the Substitute of Christ, whose graces beautify, 
Joh. 16. 7.  influences purify, supports strengthen, joys refresh, and testimonies rejoice the believing soul, and whose internal confirmation and attests cause the court of heaven to begin here.  
Now all these particulars being summed up, and digested together, how intolerable will the miseries of the damned appear to be, and all their calamities shall spring from this God provoked, and shall be the repercussion of his inflamed justice. A. It is the Lord to whom goodness and mercy is not only habitual but natural, who, being incensed shall wreak his wrath in the blood of the Reprobate for ever.  
And now having thus paraphrased upon the extremity of the Infernal torments, I now cast my eye upon their Eternity.  
Obj. Obj. But here the sinful caltiffe objects. He cannot apprehend that the bowels of the Lord should be everlastingly restrained, so as never to sound again, God hath not created them, eternally to destroy them. God will at last be entreated, They cannot fancy their miseries never to be shut up, and put out, they cannot see to the further end of them. Joseph though he 
Gen. 45. ●.  may for a while refrain his love, yet at last he must break out, and weep upon the necks of his brethren; and surely God is 
Dum satagunt Deum perhibere misericordem, non verentur praedicare fallacem. Greg. Mor.  infinitely more compassionate and affectionate than Joseph could be, and therefore he cannot always brand and torment his poor creatures with shame and confusion; He will at last remember that they are but dust, weak and frail. He will consider their souls are his own breath, 2 Gen. 7. and their flesh is not brass nor their bones iron, God will surely remember his ancient loves at last.  
Ans. Now to reply to this vain and frivolous objection, which the Misericordians, as some call them, flatter and deceive themselves with; I shall though it be fully and learnedly performed by others, give this short and brief answer, if possibly by it undeceive these poor deluded Miscreants.  
But first I must inform you, that these Objectours fortify themselves with many arguments, to indulge those hopes they conceive of a stop to their future miseries.  
Arg. 1 They argue and reason from the greatness of God's love, who, as he is infinite in power, so likewise in goodness; and Infinite love cannot destroy the poor creature for ever.  
Ans. 1. I reply with Augustine; this 
Jam. 2. 13.  goodness doth belong ad vasa misericordia 
Objecta divinae misericordiae is futuro seculo non sunt damnati sed beati. Ger.  non irae, to the vessels of mercy, not wrath. God is infinitely good, but this goodness shall be only extended to the sons of promise: God's justice and his mercy must be harmonious, and not interfere; Mercy must be given to them, to whom it belongs, and judgement to whom it belongs. 2. Arg. 2 It was this Infinite love wicked men despised.  
God makes degrees of punishment, 12 Luk. 48. some shall be beaten with many stripes, others with few. Ans. It is true, our Saviour in this place, asserts a diversity of punishments in hell, but he doth not subvert the eternity of hell; though there may be degrees in reference to the measure, yet there shall be no diversity 
Illud (pancis) non sinem, sed diversitatem supplicii declarat. Basil.  in regard of the duration. 2. As some answer, this is spoken none absolute, not absolutely, but comparatively, in reference to the Christ-rejecting, Ordinance-despising, Grace-slighting sinner; Every sinner shall not drink equal draughts of God's wrath, but all eternal.  
The Objectour argues, Arg. 3 that his sins and miscarriages are pro tempore, not only small, but transient, for a few months, a little time, a shorth breathed life; not the tenth part of one day with the Lord, which is a thousand years; as the Apostle observes, and therefore, saith the 
2. Pet. 3. 8.  sinner, to lie on the wrack for ever, for the transient glance of a little sinful pleasure is such injustice, God cannot be charged with.  
Ans. We are to conceive that crimes are not to be weighed according to the 
Non temporis longitudine, sed impietatis magnitudino peccata sunt punienda.  time of the commission, but according to the nature of the crime itself, which is amplified or extenuated according to the quality of the person offended. Even in temporal and civil courts of Men, few crimes but they deserve punishment of a longer continuance than the commission of them; to think therefore that the punishment of sin should be proportioned according to the time wherein it is perpetrated, what greater folly? Some faults deserve 
Dic quae Dementia major Bapt. Vant.  imprisonment, some proscription and banishment; Now how shall the party peccant be exiled, and remain in durance no longer than the sin for which he was banished was in perpetration? Murder is soon committed, shall the punishment in respect of time be accordingly? And to bring it nearer to our purpose,; what infinite, intolerable, Everlasting calamities do so many thousand sins committed by a vassal, a subject, a worm, a grasshopper, a pure nothing, compared to God, against Almighty, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Independent Majesty deserve? Eternity itself is too short a space for God to revenge himself on sinners, those petulant and contumacious shadows. But I shall no longer wrestle with the vain cavils of fond sinners, who, because they cannot find Repose in the bosom of Christ; think to make their bed in a fancied indulgence, and build their hopes on a pleasing dream: But I shall draw up my thoughts in asserting the truth, viz. that the damned must necessarily be tormented to Eternity, in a few considerations.  
The first confirmation shall be taken from the Scripture, 16. Luk. 26. And besides all this between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would come from hence to you cannot, neither 
Sed revocare gradum, En. Virg.  can they pass to us that would come from thence, Here, in this scripture this truth is cleared; there is no shooting of the gulf to heaven, for the damned; there is no rising of the sun in the Horizon of hell: that is an Everlasting stoppage between the damned sinners and the glorified saints.  
Let us consider the gate of blessedness is ever shut against the reprobate, as Mat. 25. 12. God shall never unlock to them. 
13. Luc. 25. Clausae erunt portae; per quas, aut consolatio, aut minima spes liberationis possit intrare.  1. The gate of grace. 2. The gate of mercy and pity. 3. The gate of indulgence. 4. The gate of repentance. 5. The gate of Hope, 6. The gate of Comfort. All ease, rest or consolation shall be barred up for Ever.  
Let us consider the perfect opposition between the saints and the sinners: Now the saints shall rest for ever. 4. Heb. 9 and so the sinners shall be on the wrack for 
Constat quod sicut finis non est gaudio bonorum, ita nec tormento malorum. Greg. Dial.  ever; the saints joys and the sinners groans shall both be without period: the saints pleasure and the sinners pains shall never be shut up; neither shall death bury the one, nor extinction the other.  
Consider how God hath coupled the damned with the fallen and sinful Angels. 25. Mat. 41. and their doom is eternal Jud. 6. Now as they shall make up one cursed company, and damned crew, so shall they for ever taste the same wrath from the sinne-revenging God: I shall not determine the measure, but assert the duration.  
Observe the sin of the damned cries for eternal vengeance, it is infinitae malitiae, of infinite evilness, and therefore it merits eternal punishment. Now fin is infinitely evil many ways.  
In regard it is an offence against an infinite God, to strike an inferior Man is matter of arrest; to strike the King matter of death: and how infinitely above a poor worm (as the greatest Potentate is no more) is the great God? How infinitely is Majesty above vanity? and so the supremest Magistrates are compared to Jehovah: Now every sin is a fight against God, and it being not infinitely punishable, because poor man cannot endure it, what is wanting in torment must be made up in time.  
In its privation, by sin the soul loseth an infinite good; sin robs the soul 
59 Isa. 2. Christi meritum est infiniti valeris, si hoc perdit peccator.  of God himself, sin is the great thief, it shuts the soul out of the presence of God; it steals away the heart of God from a sinner, it makes him bankrupt of the most transcendent possession, which is God in Jesus Christ.  
In reference to the infinite enlargement of it, for the desire of sinning remains 
Nunquam vellet peccare definire peccator, immo vivere vellei, u● semper posset. Bern.  still in the sinner; Et si peccator in aeternum viveret in aeternum peccaret, the wicked man if he lived eternally, he would sinne eternally: Now the desire of sinning is sin in God's account, and therefore that being eternal, so must the punishment be. And as one observes, Homo semper peccavit in suo aeterno, ideò semper punietur in Dei aeterno. The sinner always sinned in his eternity, therefore he shall be always punished in God's eternity.  
Sin is infinite in point of destruction, the sin of the sinner destroys an immortal, an eternal soul; a soul created for eternity,, to be the Everlasting companion of God himself; to be crowned as well as endued with immortality: and upon that account the sin shall be punished eternally. The destructive power of sin is of everlasting concernment and it therefore shall subject the sinner to Everlasting punishment.  
Wicked men must be punished eternally, because of the impenitence of the sinner. If repentance never be made then release can never be had: Penitence forerunneth pardon, the tears of the sinner usher in the smiles of the Saviour: now repentance cannot befall the sinner in eternity.  
Because Repentance turns to a reconcileable God, looks on an embracing Saviour; The Prodigal, The penitents pattern, runs to a meeting Father: but in eternity all possibility of reconciliation with God escapes the damned: their day 
Quando istinc excessum fuerit, nullus jam locus poenitentiae; hic Vita aut amittitur, aut tenetur, hic saluti aeterne providetur. Cypr. Ille judex sc. Deus, nec gratia praevecitur, nec misericordia flectitur, nec pecunia corrumpitur, nec poenitentiâ, aut satisfactione mittigatur. August.  is past, their term is ended, and now they must for ever behold with amazement God, as an angry Judge, but never again as a reconciled Father: Christ who only can betrothe God and Man together, was rejected by the sinner here; and he shall never offer himself again, after death hath shut up both the day of grace and nature together.  
2. Repentance is a grace, Now all spiritual qualifications and habits, all grace is a star that shall never shine in the darkness of of Hell, in the shades of the Reprobates eternity; the works of the Spirit shall not lie in the womb of misery, that is impossible (as before was suggested.)  
3. Sin in hell shall be aggravated, not crucified, shall be envenomed by a more violent blasphemy, and not wounded and weakened by a serious and savoury penitency. Now impenitency for sin leaves the sinner to eternity of misery. For  
Sin is a wound, which if not cured is mortal,, or rather immortal, and will cause eternal death: the slightest wound if not healed, festers and wranckles and kills, and so doth unrepented sin for ever.  
Sin is a Fall, in which if there be no rising, it is perpetual; sin casteth the soul upon punishment, which if not removed, is everlasting.  
Sin is a thief; It steals God's love, Christ's sufferings, heavens joys from the soul, now if their be no restitution, and no pardon be acquired for the theft, it deserves death; & that death for sin must needs be perpetual, because the guilt still remains unsatisfied: 
Rom. 6. 13.  Now if the theft of a piece of money deserves a temporal death; what death doth the theft of God's glory demerit? Let us but cast up the Account.  
Sin is a chain and a bond: And therefore we read of Captivity and slavery of sin; of being led captive by lust: now if 
2 Pet. 3. 6.  the person that is bound be not loosed, he remains bound for ever: Can the chain 
Isa 6. 18. Vincula insoluta manens. Bern.  break itself, or the cord untwist itself, and ye know sins are called the Cords of Vanity: Now only Repentance can file of these chains, which is impossible to the damned in eternity, (as before).  
Sin is a sale; by sin the soul sells itself to Hell, Satan and misery: Ahab sold himself to sin, & sin sold Ahab to wrath: Now 
1 King. 21. 20.  if no ransom be made, than the sale remains for ever; and only Christ can pay this ransom, in whose merits the Reprobate shall never interest himself. And though the sale may be made in a moment; for how few sinful days do the damned sell themselves, yet the force and the end of the sale is for ever. Thus ye see, sin must be eternally punished, in reference to the impenitency of it.  
The sinner must die eternally, in respect of the ingratitude of sin: the obligation of every sinner is eternal; for as a creature he is obliged to serve God eternally; so God being the fountain of his being and sustentation, all man's service is but a small retribution, for this life which streams from God. Now every sin breaketh this obligation, and there can be no reparation for this breach; but only in Christ, to whom the reprobate hath no title; Now therefore the obligation being forfeited, the punishment must be adequate to the obligation, which was eternal: And man once sinning, and so breaking this obligation, he acts now no more as God's creature, but as God's enemy, and so all his actions being sin, not duty, he is Everlastingly punishable.  
The sinner shall not only be everlastingly punished upon the account of his own sin, but in regard of God too.  
1. In regard of the dishonour, that one, the least sin casteth upon the glorious Name of God. Every sin casteth a triple dishonour upon God: 1. In its malignity, as being most contrary to the pure, unspotted, perfect nature of God; his justice, his righteousness, his holiness. Sin is as contrary to the Nature of God, as light to darkness, hell to heaven, nay infinitely More. 2. In its obstinacy, it opposeth the Commands of God, slights the will of God; contradicts the designs of God. And 3. principally in its choice: the sinner in sinning, chooseth a base lust, a venomous sin, a crooked Way, a sordid corruption; before the glorious, precious,  good; the Lord himself; who is summum bonum, & summa felicitas.  
2. In regard of the Magnificence of God. Shall a poor worm, a painted sepulchre, a gaudy nothing, Annullity dressed with flesh, for so man is comparatively to the Almighty: I say, shall such a pedantic dream as man is, kick and rebel against the most glorious, incomprehensible God? the Great Sovereign of the Universe? and doth not this fasten the sinner to eternal torment?  
3. In regard of the Justice of God, Pure Justice exacts and requires eternal punishment, and will pluck the sinner by the throat for ever: and in the eternity of the wicked; there shall be summum jus. Justice with the sourest looks, the most dreadful frown, and the sharpest edge; there shall be justice inexorable, implacable in its greatest rigour, and severity, such as tears shall not mollify, or blood satisfy.  
And lastly the sinner shall be punished to eternity; for the pleasure of the Saints, They shall be delighted to see the enemies of Christ overwhelmed with eternal Misery: God's justice in heaven shall be as 
Vide non indutum veste vuptiali ex sponsali dome exemplum, & nemipro illo intercedentem; & sic de decem talentum habente, & quinque stultis. virginibus. Crysost. I●. 66. 24.  pleasing to them, as any other Artribute: They shall behold with delight decorem divinae justiciae; the beauty of God's justice. How would the Saints here rejoice, to see the Turk, the Pope, the bloody implacable Enemies of the Gospel buried in ruin and confusion? much more when they shall be perfect, and lie in Christ's bosom: And as Gregory observes; Although the just in glory, by the goodness of their nature be merciful; yet being conjoined to the justice of God, in such a 
Cap. 20.  rectitude, they cannot be moved with any compassion at all towards sinners: They shall rather loath and abhor them.   

CHAP. XX.  

Use 3. of consolation.  AND now at last I fall upon the third and last improvement of the proposition our future eternity; and that is: This flows with unparallelled comfort and consolation to all the saints; this Truth is a mine, a mass, a spring of happiness to them: Their felicity to come shall be for ever. it shall 
Haec Haereditas Sancti est vita, & incorruptio & regnum, & coaterna cum Deo babitatio. Hilar.  never fade nor receive damp. Their spring shall know no autumn, nor falling of the leaf of glory; no declension or abatement No, not for ever. The sun of their blessedness shall never set, or be eclipsed: Let the saints remember with delight and complacency this one word Eternity. Duration is the life of Happiness. A tottering crown is but an honourable misery; the best flowers, are fond sweetnesses because dying. Gold is but dross, because 
1 Pet. 1. 18.  corruptible, what is the lease of the greatest revenues, which will soon expire; but the saints happiness shall be immarcessible, their crown is made of immortality: This shall be the blessedness of the glorified ones, that after they have passed millions of ages in glory, one moment of their happiness is not shed; The saint shall ever spring with fresh felicities, and shine in an everlasting flourish and renown. The Ocean of their joy shall know no bottom. When 
3. Rev. 21.  they have sat in the same throne with Christ for millions of centuries, the entail of their honour shall be as firm as the first moment. There shall no tediousness, interruption, or close, deflower or surprise their joys for ever. The smiles and light of God, and of Christ gloriously arrayed with the humane nature, shall spring everlasting hallelujahs in the saints, And the Spirit, The Comforter, shall shed an eternal 
14. Rev. 2. 5. Rev. 8.  dew of refreshment and delight on them. And the Angels shall join their harps in their everlasting and sacred felicity. In a word,  
The saints shall enjoy their Being for ever; They shall live for ever in the Arms 
17. Hos. 3. Quid vita illa beatius est, quod illic pauperiem non metuas, aut morbum. Chrysost.  of Jesus Christ. There are three things destroy the life of Man; 1. Externall Violence; 2. Internal distemper; and 3. Sin in an extraordinary Manner; as Herod, and Aaron's sons &c. Now none of these shall surprise the glorified saint; sin, Satan, sorrow that Cerberus of mischief shall be excluded the Bride-chamber. The saints in glory are confirmed in their existence and life: nothing in misery shall Kill the damned, nothing in Heaven shall destroy the blessed. The Apostle ascribes incorruptibility to the bodies of the Blessed, 1 Cor. 10. 53. And the soul claims right to immortality by descent, upon the suit of its own Nature. The life of the saints in glory 
John 17. 3.  shall be an inextinguishable lamp. The saints in heaven shall weep no more, much 
Rev. 7. 16.  less die no more. The life of the saints is the stock on which all their felicity grows, 
Resuscitati similes Angelis qua non nupturi, quia nec morituri, sed transituri in statum Angeli cum per indumentum incorruptibilitatis. Tertul. Erimus similes Angelis, & fulgebimus sicut ipse sol. And.  and the main pillar of all their happiness, by which it is supported, and could that taper be put out, all their enjoyments would be entombed in silence and darkness. Their beings are the susceptive capacities of all their honours, and beatifical fruitions, and therefore they must be immortalised with a perpetual spring and Vivacity: and in this, the Saints shall run parallel with the Angels, their lives shall be enriched with the same perpetuity, and perennity.  
The Saints, the glorified Ones; those Patterns of perfection, shall inherit their joy for ever, their ravishments. The joys of the wicked here, is like the crackling of thorns; but the joy of the blessed hereafter 
Psalm 16. 11.  shall be as the shining of the sun, excepting 
Eccles. ●. 6.  its setting and eclipses: It were not fullness, but emptiness of joy, was it not eternal. The sight of God shall tune their hearts into everlasting rhapsodies. Their 
Revel. 4. 8.  praises and triumphancies shall be the births of their joy for ever. The saints shall 
Psal. 96. 10.  rejoice, as long as God shall smile, and ravish them with a pleasant countenance, which shall be to eternity: God shall be a perpetual spring of life and of joy to the 
Visio. Dei omnium bonorum, & gaudiorum coelestium sons est. Ger.  Saints. The Saints shall Everlastingly rejoice, for the indulgencies of God, for the possession of the Husband, for the society of the Angels, those joyous and glorious Spirits; for their escape from misery and Everlasting Calamity: Every glance of God's eye, Every sight of his will, every smile from Christ's face, every touch of the Angels harps, every distillation of the Spirit's Comforts shall spring fresh joys to the glorified ones. And the joys of the Saints must be subscribed with Eternity; if we either cast our eye on, 1. the confirmation of the Elect in good. Or 2. the duration of God's mercy and love, John 13. 1. Or 3. the perfection of their own 
Exultabunt Sancti in gloria, videbunt Deum & gaudebunt, laetabuntur & delectabuntur, & fru entur gloria, & in felicitate jucundabuntur aeternâ: Non labescent, non senescent, non putrescent amplius. Cypr.  happiness, which could not be attained, unless the joys of the blessed were wound up to eternity: Nay the very nature of our eternal condition, which admits no succession, no vicissitude, no fading, no waist, speaks these joys eternal, and demonstrates them Everlasting.  
The Saints shall enjoy their Father for ever, John 14. 2. Christ saith he, is going home, to prepare us Mansions in our Father's house; And this is Enough; we shall see our Father when we die, as Jacob said concerning his son Joseph before he died, we shall enjoy him for ever. Elisha as Elijah was departing from him, cries, My 
2 Kings 2. 12. Quando veniam & apparebo ante faciem tuam. O dies nesciens vesperam, & nuilum timens occasum. Aug.  Father, my Father. Now the saints shall ever lie in their Father's bosom; They shall see the father of all their mercies, and they shall be banished his sight no more. Then shall the Saints fully and perfectly see how tender the bowels of a Father are, Isa. 49. 19 how soft the compassion of their gracious, wise, indulgent, careful and bountiful Father is: And God shall unriddle to the Saints all the traverses and circuits of his own Providence, and how fatherly his love and care was, though often it had the mask of mysteriousness, the reward of affliction before it. And what a 
Ibi erit omne bonum, & non erit aliquid malum, & ibi erit quicquid voles, & non erit quicquid noles. Erit gaudium super gaudium, gandium vincens omne gaudium extra quod non gaudium.  fountain of blessedness will this be, that the Saints shall no longer cry out, Our Father in a penitential petition and prayer, but shall everlastingly feed and prey upon Paternal Smiles, and lie in Paternal Embraces; They shall for ever converse with their Father, not on their Knee, in a strange Land, but with their eye in their Father's Court.  
The saints shall enjoy their husband for ever: the bride shall eternally enjoy her Bridegroom, the beloved of her soul: 
22 Rev. 17.  here the saints were sick of love for Jesus Christ, 5. Cant. 5. and that  shall be satisfied with his company for ever. This life was an unkind wall, an injurious lattice between Christ and the Saint, and death having broke down this discourteous wall of separation, the saints shall always bathe themselves in the loves of 
17. Jo. 24.  Christ's presence: Eternity shall be the eternal wedding day of Christ and his spouse. How doth the poor believer here 
Cant. 17. 3.  complain, 1. Sometimes of frowns and unkind looks; the smile is clouded and vailed. 2. Sometimes of absence, Christ 
Cant. 5. 6.  hath retired and withdrawn himself. And 3. Very often of various and different behaviour, now loves, now distaste. But in Eternity Christ shall ever look pleasingly and ravish the Saint with a grateful countenance; There shall be no divorce, nor disunion, nor local separation. Christ and his Members shall be ever together in the same Bride-chamber, the Saints shall enjoy eternal espousals: no fear of retiring or absence. And how pleasing a prospect will Christ be to his friends (for so the 
Jo. 15. 15.  Saints are called;) when the Saints shall everlastingly see him wear his Incarnation-robes.  
The Saints shall enjoy that purity for ●ver. In heaven they shall not be subject to 
Nulla ibi existit malitia, nulla carnis miseria, non inimici tentatio, non peccandi libido, immo nec malè agendi facultas. And.  the rape of a Temptation, nor to the assault of a sinful onset. This shall be glory in its Noon-tide, the blessed shall ever shine in unblemished perfection. Their garments shall be as unspotted as their glory. In Eternity their hearts shall not be traitors; nor their eyes the panders of their treacherous hearts. Their perfection shall be fair as the Moon, as it was said of Christ, Cant. 6. 10. Untainted and undeflowred for ever. No sinful tincture or shadow of pollution shall bespecle their illustrious purity: No fear of apostasy, or the loss of uncontaminated perfection, and the reason may be, because heaven cannot lodge the least natural or sinful defilement. it being the sacred Court of God's immediate presence, where the eyes of the Lord shall not nor can be offended with 
Eph. 5. 27.  the rising of the least deformity. And duration shall not engender temptation. Lot, though he lived long in Sodom without any taint, which is recorded; yet he could not long abide in the Cave without Incest. But the glorified Saint shall remain for ever, 
Gen. 19  and shall not be stained with the least degeneracy.  
The blessed shall enjoy their Comforter for ever. That sweet spirit shall eternally refresh them, with constant diffusions of 
Jo. 14. 16.  of joy and consolation, and refresh them with perfumed gales of unspeakable gladness. Then, viz. in eternity the saints shall enjoy the Spirit in a more ample, heroical, and magnificent manner. 1. Ratione plenitudinis, in points of fullness; the Spirit shall bathe the Saints arrived, with glory in seas of comfort; They shall drink at the spring head, and accept the gracious invitation of Christ, to drink abundantly, 5. Cant. 1. 2. Ratione immediatae praesentiae: The Saints in Eternity shall not only feel the operations, and rejoice in the conduct and comfort of the Spirit; but shall with ecstasy enjoy 
Jo. 16. 13.  and admire the glorious presence of the Holy Ghost; and see him with delight and ravishment face to face, 1 Cor. 13. 12. and 3. Ratione permanentiae, the Blessed shall enjoy the Spirit, not as they do here, sometimes with full tides of comfort and lively impressions and increases of grace, and at other times as beating faintly in the soul, and casting an uncomfortable look on the impoverished believer; nay sometimes 
Eph. 4. 10.  as chased away with grief, (though it cannot totally and finally leave the soul in point of grace, as might largely be demonstrated) but the saints in eternity shall enjoy the Spirit for ever, with rich redundancies and overflowings of peace, joy, comfort, and serenity; nor shall that emplying spring abate. And all the corrasives, bondage, checks and smarts of the Spirit, which here were wholesome and necessary, shall wholly cease in the blessed Eternity.  
The Saints shall enjoy the Knowledge of what they desire, for ever. There shall be no imperfection or oblivion in eternity And the Blessed shall know what ever is adequate to, or fit for the sphere of humane Capacity, not by discourse, but by intuition, intuitiuè, as the Schoolmen 
Omnis in hac vita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & Deo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est verbum defectivum, sed in vita fuiura est verbum perfectivum.  speak. And the Saints shall be acquainted with all Divine Mysteries; Christ doth, as some friends who reserve secret things to a Meeting, not trusting them in a Letter. Indeed Christ opens much to his people here, he doth unbosom himself, as the Psalmist speaks, Psalm 25. verse 14. But in Eternity, all Masks and Clouds, and Curtains shall be drawn: Those Mysteries which here did rather raise, then fill the Appetite, shall be uncased to the Believer in eternity, and these secrecies may be ranked into three heads.  
1. Those incomprehensible Mysteries, which are above, but not against nature, as the Mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation etc. These shall be no difficulties, nor Mysteries in heaven.  
2. Those supernatural Miracles which had the object in the creature, as how God created the World, the Nature of those Miracles Christ and the Apostles wrought and effected; and all those wonders which are bounded in the creature.  
The Miracles of love, which here are the Astonishments of Mankind; as, how Gods redeemed fallen and lost Man; all the wonders of Providence; all the most intimate effects and workings of God's love shall be evidenced. In a word, the Blessed in heaven shall know all things cognoscible to man, not partially, not obscurely, 
Hic modicum è multo cognoscimus.  not at a distance, but perfectly, clearly, and closely: And in all these and infinitely more inquiries shall the Saints in glory be fully satisfied. The Saints shall see the will and heart of God without a perspective or looking-glass.  
The Blessed shall enjoy, their company for ever: They shall for ever see the courtiers of heaven; the creature in its best attire, their godly relations, the Angelical beauties: Nor shall that innumerable 
Heb. 12. 22. Ibi, sc in coelo, cum myriadibus Angelorum laetos & festos id agemus, in omni felicitate, gloriâ gaudio, jubilo, & triumpho. Alap. in Hebr.  company of of glorious Angels, and glorified Saints, which do, as it were bespangle heaven itself, as they are perfected by the presence of God, ever be vailed or disturbed with sorrow, for the departure, funeral, or extinction of one of that rare society: No falling stars shall shine in glory: And, to draw up all, and close up the whole Treatise, Every particular Saint in Eternity shall receive Everlasting delights from that perpetual communion he shall have with the most perfect creatures, God's Fiat, his Omnipotent Word produced; and the Pure Angels and Blessed Saints incorporated into one Eternal society, as many stars joined together, shall make one glorious and Everlasting Constellation.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.    

BOOKS Printed for Jos. Cranford at the Phoenix in S. Paul's Churchyard.  
THe Practice of CHRISTIAN PERFECTION wherein several Considerations, Cautions, and Advices are set down for the Perfecting of the Saints and Completing them in the Knowledge of Christ Jesus by Thomas White Minister of God's Word at Anne Aldersgate. London.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the Sum of Practical DIVINITY Practised in the Wilderness, and Delivered by our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount being Observations on the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Chapters of S. Matthew; to which is prefixed PROLEGOMENA or Preface, by way of Dialogue; wherein the Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scripture is vindicated from the Calumnies of Anabaptists and Papists: By Thomas White, Minister of God's Word at Anne Aldersgate. London.  
ANIMADVERSIONS, or the Rabinical Talmud of RABBI John Rogers: Wherein is Exammed his Doctrine, as of the Matter of a Church The Duty of Separation The Subjects of Church Power. Form of a Church The Duty of Separation The Subjects of Church Power. etc. By Zach. Crofton, Minister of God's Word at James Garlick Hythe, London.  
A PRACTICAL DISCOURSE of PRAYER: Wherein is handled the Nature, the Duty, the Qualifications of Prayer, viz. ejaculatory, Public, Private, and Secret Prayer; with the Necessity and Engagements unto Prayer, together with sundry Cases of Conscience about it: By Thomas Cobbet, Minister of God's Word at Lyn.  
Refreshing STREAMS flowing from the Fullness of JESUS CHRIST: Held forth in several Sermons; by William colvil sometimes Preacher at Edenburg.  
JUS DIVINUM Ministerii Evangelici; or the Divine Right of the Gospel-ministrey. Published by the Provincial Assembly of LONDON.