Unseen Things To Be Preferred To Seen Things # 5

Unseen Things To Be Preferred To Seen Things # 5

This is the bitterest ingredient in the cup of divine displeasure in the future state - that the misery is eternal! Oh, with what horror does that despairing cry, "Forever! Forever! Forever!" echo through the vaults of hell!

Should we consider all the ingredients and causes of future happiness and misery - we would find them all everlasting. The blessed God is an inexhaustible and perennial fountain of bliss! His image can never be erased from the heats of glorified spirits - the contemplation of the great God will always be obvious to them; and they will always exist as the partakers and promoters of mutual bliss. On the other hand, in hell the worm of conscience never dies, and the fire is never quenched! Divine justice is immortal. Malignant spirits will always exist as mutual tormentors, and their wicked habits will never be extirpated.

And now, need I offer anything further to convince you of the superior importance of invisible and eternal things - to visible and temporary things? Can a rational being be at a loss to choose, in so plain a case? Can you need any arguments to convince you that an eternity of the most perfect happiness - is rather to be chosen than a few years of sordid, unsatisfying delight? Or that the former should not be forfeited - for the sake of the latter? Have you any remaining scruples, whether the little concerns and mortifications of a pious life - are more intolerable than everlasting punishment? Oh! It is a plain case! Why then, does the infatuated world, lay out all their concern on temporal things - and neglect the important affairs of eternity?

Will you choose the little sordid pleasures of sin that may perhaps not last an hour, or at most, not many years - rather than everlasting pleasure of the sublimest kind? Will you prefer to endure intolerable torment forever - rather than endeavor to be holy here on earth for a short time? What does your conduct, my friends, answer to these questions? If your tongues reply, they will perhaps for your credit give a right answer; but what does your prevailing disposition and common practice say? Are you not more thoughtful for time - than eternity? Are you not more concerned about visible vanities than invisible realities? If so, you make a fool's choice indeed!

When we pass out of this temporary state - we enter upon an everlasting state. Our souls will always exist, exist in a state of unchangeable, boundless happiness - or misery. It is but a little while ago, that we came out of a state of eternal non-existence, and into being; but we shall never relapse into that state again. These little sparks of being shall never be extinguished! They will survive the ruins of the world, and kindle into immortality! When millions of millions of ages are past - we shall still be in existence! And oh! in what unknown region? In that endless bliss - or of interminable misery? Is this the most anxious inquiry of our lives?

It must be our chief concern to end our present pilgrimage well. It matters but little whether we lie easy or not - during this short night of existence - if so be we awake in eternal day. It is but a trifle, hardly worth a thought - whether we are happy or miserable here on earth - so long as we are happy forever hereafter! Why then - all this hustle and bustle of mankind about the fleeting things of time? Oh, sirs, Eternity! Solemn, all important eternity is the only thing that deserves a thought!

II. The INFLUENCE of Seeing Things Aright

I now come to show the great and happy influence  a suitable impression of the superior importance of invisible to visible things, would have upon us. This I might exemplify in a variety of instances, with respect to saints - and sinners.

When we are tempted to any forbidden pleasures - how we would shrink away with horror from the sinful pursuit - had we a due sense of the misery incurred, and the happiness forfeited by it!

When we find our hearts excessively eager after earthly things, had we a suitable view of eternal things - all these things would shrink into trifles hardly worth a thought, much less our principal concern!

When the sinner, for the sake of a little present ease, and to avoid a little present uneasiness, stifles his conscience, refuses to examine his condition before God, casts the thoughts of eternity out of his mind, and thinks it too hard to attend on all the means of grace - has he then a proper estimate of eternal things? Alas! no! He only looks at the things that are seen. Were the mouth of hell open before him - that he might behold its torments; and had he a sight of the joys of paradise, they would harden him into a general insensibility to all the sorrows and anxieties of this life, and his inquiry would not be whether these things required of him are easy - but whether they are necessary to obtain eternal happiness, and avoid everlasting misery!

Without deep impressions of eternity on our hearts, and frequent thoughtfulness about it - we cannot be prepared for it.

And if we are not prepared for it - oh, how inconceivably miserable is our case! But if prepared, how inconceivably happy!

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen - but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary - but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).

~Samuel Davies~

(The End)