If you been a dog, a toad, or a serpent

(Thomas Doolittle, "How we should eye eternity, that
it may have its due influence upon us in all we do.")

If you lose your health—you might recover it again;
if you lose your estate—you might get it again;
but if you lose your time—it is gone forever!

You are as near to heaven or hell—to an eternity
of joy or of misery—as to your grave!

Suppose you were to live a thousand years of
pleasure upon earth—and after that pass into
an eternity of pain and torment. Would you not,
when there, cry out against your own folly—that
you should purchase a thousand years of pleasure
at so dear a rate—as to endure everlasting
burnings for them?

Better for you, if you been a dog, a toad, or
a serpent; than you should lie in an eternity of
pains in hell—and be forever miserable!

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment,
 but the righteous to eternal life." Matthew 25:46