Holy FATHER, Draw Us Closer To YOU, Now. AMEN.

All will be pure, unmingled happiness--
or pure, unmingled misery! 
PLAY AUDIO!  Download Audio
("Life's Shortness and Vanity", A funeral sermon by Samuel Davies)

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment--
but the righteous to eternal life!" Matthew 25:46

In this present world, our good and evil 
are blended. Our happiness has some bitter 
ingredients, and our miseries have some 
agreeable mitigations. 

But in the eternal world, good and evil 
shall be entirely and forever separated! 
All will be pure, unmingled happiness--
or pure, unmingled misery! 

But what gives infinite importance 
to these joys and sorrows is--
that they are enjoyed or suffered 
in the eternal world, and they are 
themselves eternal. Eternal joys! 
Eternal pains! 

Joys and pains that will last as long 
as the King eternal and immortal 
will live to distribute them! 

As long as our immortal spirits 
will live to feel them! 
Oh what joys and pains are these!
And these eternal joys or pains, my friends--
are awaiting every one of us! 

These pleasures, or these pains--
are felt this moment by all our friends and 
acquaintances who have died before us! 
And in a little, little while--
you and I must feel them!
Alas! What then, have we to do with 
time and earth? Are the pleasures 
and pains of this world--
worthy to be compared with 
eternal pleasures and pains? 

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" 

The enjoyments and sufferings, 
the labors and pursuits, the laughter 
and tears of the present state--
are all nothing in comparison. 
What is the loss of an estate, 
or of a dear relative--
compared to the loss 
of a blissful immortality? 

And if our heavenly inheritance is secure--
what does it matter, even if we should 
be reduced into Job's forlorn situation? 
What does it matter, even if we are poor, 
sickly, racked with pains, and submerged 
in every human misery? Heaven will 
more than make amends for all!

But if we have no evidences of a title 
to Heaven, the sense of these transitory 
distresses may be swallowed up in the fear 
of the horrible miseries of eternity!

Alas! What does it avail--
that we play away a few years 
in mirth and gaiety, 
in grandeur and pleasure--
if when these few years have 
fled, we lift up our eyes in Hell, 
tormented in eternal flames! 

Oh what are all these transitory things--
to a candidate for eternity! 
An heir of everlasting happiness--
or everlasting misery!

If we spend our immortality 
in eternal misery--
what sorry comfort will it be 
that we laughed, and played, and 
frolicked away our few years upon earth!

As Christians, we are to be nobly 
indifferent to all the little amusements 
and pleasures of so short an earthly life.

"Then they will go away 
to eternal punishment--
but the righteous to eternal life!" 
Matthew 25:46 

   ~  ~  ~  ~