Mathematicians have never attempted to measure eternity,
or the duration of the world to come. Here the finite mind has no idea of
eternity but by succession of ages, and yet succession belongs to time, not
to eternity.
Days, weeks, and months, are nothing there; years, ages
and generations are lost there; hundreds, thousands, and millions are no
more there; times, eras, and determinate durations are forever gone there;
all is fixed, all eternal there! There is no first and last, sooner and
later, in eternity; for though Abel, with respect to time, was sooner
plunged into perpetuity, yet no sooner than the saints that shall be alive
at the last day, with respect to eternity.
The saints are like so many guests assembling to a feast,
some are set down, some sitting down, some standing ready to sit down, some
entering the door, and some at a little distance from the house, yet all
come in due time for the feast. Adam, Enoch, and Elijah, are set down at the
banquet of love; the prophets and apostles are set down at the
marriage-supper of the Lamb; some are entering the door of bliss, and many
are on their way there; but they shall all come time enough to the divine
entertainment which shall satisfy all the guests in the mansions of glory.
Alas! with what desperate madness am I chargeable—who am
thus taken up with transitory trifles, and neglect the realities of the
everlasting world? When I consider the vanity of all earthly greatness, I
cannot help concluding, that such as pursue after it are intoxicated with
poison more dangerous than that of the tarantula; which makes men die by
dancing; as the one effects the soul, the other only the body. But even if
the pleasures of this world were real and solid, yet they are so transient,
that they are not worthy our pursuit. O how wise they are for earthly
trifles—but how foolish for eternal realities! For what man, to appear
in all the majesty and grandeur of a king for a day, would forfeit his
estate, and spend the rest of his miserable life in poverty and reproach?
And yet for vanity, for trifles of a day, we throw ourselves away for
eternity!
I look forward a few years, perhaps a few days, and see
myself in eternity: but I cannot look still more forward, and see myself out
of eternity into another state. O Eternity! I am to be in you forever; and
why should you not be in all my thoughts? You shall shortly overtake me; why
then should I chase you from me, or flee away from you?
It matters not much to him who is going but out of one
door into another, whether it be in a summer heat, or winter-blast—since a
few steps finish his journey. Nor should it much more concern him who enters
by the gate of death into the palace of the great King, his mansion for
eternity, whether it be under the sun-shine of prosperity, or the bitter
blast of adversity; because the one cannot profit him, nor the other pain
him there. And our journey, from our coming into this world, until our going
into the world of spirits, though we should reach the age of Methuselah, is
performed sooner with respect to eternity, than our going from one room to
another in respect of time. Now, my moments are numbered, and precious; but,
O that blessed state when numbers are no more!
No incursions there on the adoring soul, from the world,
or from vanity, from sin, Satan, or the flesh. No weariness there, where my
adorations are not measured by minutes, cramped by corruption, or cut short
by bodily indisposition. But when I have stood an ardent adorer before the
throne for ten thousand years, I shall be as vigorous in my love, as active
in my adorations, as in the first moment I began the work of angels, the
employment of heaven.
Now vain thoughts mingle with my contemplations,
distractions with my devotions, impertinent rovings with my most importunate
prayers; unbelief resists my faith, carnality is a clog to the heavenly
mind, corruption a dead weight on the soul, and the things of time a
hindrance to all. But then I shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of
the sons of God.
Once a great king made a great feast for his nobles for a
hundred and eighty days; nothing less than a royal treasury could support
the expense of such an entertainment. But the King of kings shall feast and
satiate all his mighty angels, all his chosen people on his own undiminished
fullness through eternity itself! Here is bliss without ceasing, abundance
beyond all bounds, and possession without end! No matter, then, how long I
live in this present world; for whenever the lamp of life expires, the sun
shall rise and shine forever! "In Your presence is fullness of joy! In Your
right hand there are pleasures forevermore!" (Psalm 16:11)