The worme that never dyes, and the fire that never goes out.
The Kernell of truth is not the lesse sweet though wrapt up in the shels and husks; Beyond all question therefore Christ Jesus foretels most sure and inconceiveable plagues to all that know not God, and obey not his glorious Gospel: And by this Worme that never dyes, and this fire that never goes out, declares a torment to be inflicted upon both men and devils which shall be extream like fire which shall be universall upon the whole sinfull creature, no part exempted, which shall be also eternall, never dying, never ending, yet we may adore Gods righteous judgements and (working out Salvation with fear and trembling) make sure of a Jesus a Saviour to deliver us from the wrath that is to come.
The meditation of death.
In the next place (my deare Love) let us downe together by the steps of holy meditation into the valley of the shadow of Death. It is of excellent use to walke often into Golgotha, and to view the rotten skuls of so many innumerable thousands of millions of millions of men and women, like our selves, gone, gone forever from this life and being (as if they never had life nor being) as the swift Ships, as the Weavers shuttle, as an arrow, as the lightning through the aire, &c.
It is not unprofitable to remember the faces of such whom we knew, with whom we had sweet acquaintance, sweet society, with whom we have familiarly eaten and lodged, but now growne loathsome, ugly, terrible, even to their dearest, since they fell into the jawes of death, the King of terrors.
And yet they are but gone before us, in the path all flesh must tread: How then should we make sure, and infinitely much of a Saviour, who delivers us from the power, and bitternesse of Death, and Grave, and Hell, who is a resurrection and life unto us, and will raise up and make our bodies glorious, like his glorious Body, when he shall shortly appear in glory.
It is further of great and sweet use against the bitternesse of Death, and against the bitter-sweet delusions of this world daily to thinke each day our last, the day of our last farewell, the day of the splitting of this vessell, the breaking of this buble, the quenching of this Candle, and of our passage into the land of Darknesse, never more to behold a sparke of light untill the Heavens be no more.
3 Terrible uncertainties.
Meditations of death powerfull as to many heavenly purposes.
Those three uncertainties of that most certain blow, to wit, of the Time when, the Place where, the Manner how it shall come upon us, and dash our Earthern Pitcher all to pieces, I say the consideration of these three, should be a threefold cord to bind us fast to an holy watchfulness for our departures, and a spur to quicken us to aboundant faithfulnesse in doing and suffering for the Lord and his Christ, it should draw up our minds unto heavenly objects, and loosen us from the vexing vanities of this vaine puffe of this present sinfull life.