This shews us, that when we enquire what our life is, we must think of something higher than the vigour of our blood, the gaiety of our spirits, or the enjoyment of sensual pleasures: since these, tho’ the allowed signs of living men, are often undeniable proofs of dead Christians.
When therefore we would truly know what our life or happiness is, we must look at nothing that is sensible or temporal. We may as well dig in the earth for wisdom as look at flesh and blood to see what we are, or at worldly enjoyments to find what we want, or at temporal evils to see what we have to fear.
We must therefore, if we would conceive our true state, our real good and evil, look farther than these dim eyes of flesh can carry our views. We must, with the eyes of faith, penetrate into the invisible world, the world of spirits, and consider our order and condition among them; a world which, as St. John speaks, hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. For it is there, among eternal beings, that we must take an eternal fellowship, or fall into a kingdom of darkness and everlasting misery.
XI. *Christianity is so noble in its ends, so extensive in its views, that it has no less subjects than these to entertain our thoughts.
It buries our bodies, burns the present world, triumphs over death by a general resurrection, and opens all into an eternal state.
It never considers us in any other respect than as fallen spirits, it disregards worldly distinctions, and proposes nothing to our fears but eternal misery, nothing to our hopes but an endless enjoyment of God.
This is the great, the important condition, in which Christianity has placed us, above our bodies, above the world, above death, to be present at the dissolution of all things, to see the earth in flames, and the heavens wrapt up like a scroll, to stand at the general resurrection, to appear at the universal judgment, and to live for ever, when all that our eyes have seen is passed away and gone.
XII. *Take therefore upon thee a temper suitable to this greatness of thy condition. Remember that thou art an eternal spirit; that thou art but for a few months or years in a state of flesh and blood, only to try whether thou shalt be for ever happy with God, or for ever miserable with the devil.
Thou wilt hear of other concerns and other greatness in this world. Thou wilt see every order of men, every family, every person pursuing some fancied happiness, as if the world had not only happiness, but a particular kind of happiness for all its inhabitants.
But when thou seest this, fancy thou sawest all the world asleep: the prince no longer a prince: the beggar no longer begging, but every man sleeping out of his proper state; some happy, others tormented, and all changing their condition, as fast as one foolish dream could succeed another.