Eternity

From this morning's Grace Gems Puritan devotional:

"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 unto glory!

"On the other hand, 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!

"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 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 sinful pleasures?"
- Samuel Davies

Come Thou Fount

We don't often hear the entire hymn, and it is powerful:

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.