Unseen Things To Be Preferred To Seen Things # 4

Unseen Things To Be Preferred To Seen Things # 4

2. Now consider the infinite disparity between the invisible things and the visible things - as to DURATION. This is the difference particularly intended in the text: "For what is seen is temporary - but what is unseen is eternal." 

The transitoriness of visible things, implies both that the things themselves are perishable - and they may soon leave us; and that our residence among them is temporary - and we must soon leave them!

And the eternity of invisible things implies quite the contrary: that the things themselves are of endless duration; and that we shall always exist to receive either happiness - or misery from them!

Before we illustrate these instances of disparity, let us take a view of TIME and ETERNITY in themselves; and as compared to one another.

TIME is the duration of creatures in the present earthly state. Time commenced at the creation, and some six thousand years of it have since elapsed. And how much of time yet remains - we know not.

But this we do know: that the duration of the world itself - is as nothing in comparison of eternity. But what is our personal duration, when compared with the duration even of this world? It is but a span, a hair-s breadth; sixty, seventy, or eighty years - is generally the highest limit of human life, and it is by far the smallest number of mankind who arrive to these upper limits. Most people die like a flower blasted in the morning, or at noon; and we have more reason to expect that this will be our fate - than to hope for a long earthly life. The short span of time we enjoy in life - is all the time we really have; we have no more property in the rest of time - than in the years before the flood! Beyond out brief span - is eternity. ETERNITY! We are alarmed at the sound! We are lost in the prospect!

Eternity with respect to GOD - is a duration without beginning - as well as without end. Eternity, as it is the attribute of human nature, is a duration that had a beginning, but shall never have an end. This eternity is inalienably entailed upon us poor, dying worms! Let us survey our inheritance.

Eternity! It is a duration that exceeds all number and computation: days, and months, and years, yes, and ages, are lost in it - like drops in the ocean! Millions of millions of years, as many years as there are sands on the seashore, or particles of dust in the globe of the earth, and these multiplied to the highest reach of number - all these are nothing, when compared to eternity!  They do not bear the least imaginable proportion to it - for these will all certainly come to an end! But eternity will never, never come to an end! Eternity is a line without end! Eternity is an ocean without a shore! Alas! What shall I say of it! It is an infinite, unknown something, that neither human thought can grasp, nor human language describe!

Now place TIME in comparison with ETERNITY - and what is it? It shrinks into nothing, and less than nothing! What then is that little span of time in which we have any present interest? Alas! It is too diminutive a point to be conceived! Indeed, properly speaking, we can call no part of time our own - but the present moment, this fleeting now!

Future time is uncertain - and we may never live it; the breath we now inspire may be our last!

And as to our past time, it is gone - and will never be ours again. Our past days are dead and buried, though perhaps guilt, their "spirit" may haunt us still. And what is a moment when compared to eternity? The disparity is too great to admit of comparison!

Let me now resume the former particulars, implied in the transitoriness of visible things - and the eternity of invisible things.

Visible things are perishable and may soon leave us. When we think that they are ours - they often fly from our embrace. Riches may vanish into smoke and ashes - try an accidental fire. We may be thrown down from the pinnacle of honor - and sink into utter disgrace. Our friends are torn from our bleeding hearts by the inexorable hand of death. Our liberty and property may be wrested from us by the hand of tyranny, oppression, or fraud. In a word, there is nothing which we now enjoy - but we may quickly lose!

On the other hand, our miseries here on earth are temporary. The heart receives many a wound - but it heals again. Poverty may end in riches. A blemished character may clear up, and from disgrace we may rise to honor. We may recover from sickness. And if we lose one comfort - we may obtain another.

But in eternity - everything is everlasting and unchangeable! Happiness and misery are both without end - and the subjects of both well know that this is the case. It is this eternality and perpetuity, which completes the happiness of the inhabitants of heaven; the least suspicion of an end - would intermingle itself with all their enjoyments, and embitter them; for the greater the happiness, the greater the anxiety at the expectation of losing it. But oh, how transporting for the saints on high, to look forward through the succession of eternal ages, with an assurance that they shall be happy through them all, and that they shall feel no change - but from glory to glory!

~Samuel Davies~

(continued with # 5)