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Postscript: What is Important?
"How hot and eager are men's affections after the world! and how
remiss and cold towards things eternal! they are careful, and troubled about
many things; but seldom mind the great and necessary matter... 'Lord, this
hath been my manner from my youth,' may the carnal minded man say; 'I have
been labouring for the meat that perisheth; disquieting myself in vain,
full of designs and projects for the world, and unwearied in my endeavors
to compass an earthly treasure; yet therein I have either been checked and
disappointed by Providence, or if I have obtained, yet I am no sooner come
to enjoy that content[ment] and comfort I promised myself in it, but I am
ready to leave it all, to be stripped out of it by death, and in that day
all my thoughts perish: But, in the mean time, what have I done for my soul?
When did I ever break a night's sleep, or deny and pinch myself for it?
Ah! fool that I am! to nourish and pamper a vile body, which must shortly
lie under the clods, and become a loathsome carcase: and, in the mean time,
neglect and undo my poor soul, which partakes of the nature of angels, and
must live for ever.'"
-- John Flavel (1627-1691)
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