cancel my debts and trespasses against Heaven, which I can never do in Hell-fire, in all the years and times to come hereafter. Let such who have liv’d (as I) in all manner of wickedness, consider what Eternity is, which may make them return like the penitent Prodigal. What then is Eternity? It is a Circle running back into it self, whose center is every where, and circumference no where, that is to say, infinite: It is an Orb that hath neither beginning nor ending: Or it is a Wheel, _Volvitur & volvetur in omne volubilis evum._ A Wheel that turns, a Wheel that turned ever: A Wheel that turns, and will leave turning never. Eternity is like a year, continually wheeling about, which returns again to the same point from whence it began, and still wheels about again. It is an ever-running Fountain, whither the waters after many turnings flow back again, that they may always flow. It is a bottomless pit, whose revolutions are endless. It may be compared to a snake bowed back unto it self orbicularly, holding its tail in its mouth; which in its end doth again begin, and never ceaseth to begin. What is Eternity? It is a duration always present; it is one perpetual day, which is not divided into that which is past, and that which is to come: Or, it is an age of ages, never expiring, and never changing: Or, more properly, it is a beginning continuing, never ending, always beginning, in which the blessed always begin a blessed life, in which the damned always die, and after all death and strugling therewith, always begin again to die. As Hell-torments are eternal, so will the conscience be perpetually tormented with deep and horrid despair for the life past: Their worm shall not die. The Poets of old alluded to this place notably, in that Fiction or Fable of _Tytius_, whom _Virgil_ feigneth, that a flying Vulture every day gnaws and tears his Liver, which is every night again repaired and made up, that every day the Vulture may have more matter to prey upon. What is this Vulture, but the worm I speak of? and what is his Liver, but the conscience always gnawn and tormented? Not only this (as he that preacht my Funeral-Sermon told me) but all the torments of the damned shall never have end, because there can be no place for satisfaction: For although these inexpressible torments shall continue many millions of years; yet shall there not one hour, no, nor one minute of respite be granted: Let us then be no longer forgetful of our selves, and so degenerate into beasts, but seriously to consider our end, and what shall come after. All men are in the way of Eternity, but I am now almost at my journeys end: I sit on the Stairs of Eternity, expecting when one small thrust shall plunge me into the bottomless pit, where one hours punishment shall be more grievous (as _Thomas a Kempis_ saith) then 100 years here in the bitterest of torments: There they are tortured for infinite millions of ages, & are so far from finding an