Thursday, January 4, 2018

I have seen minute-glasses: glasses so short liv’d! If I were to preach upon this text (“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matt. 6:21), to such a glass, it would be enough for half the sermon, enough to show the worldly man his treasure, and the object of his Heart, to call his eye to that minute-glass, and to tell him, “There flows, there flies, your treasure, and your heart with it.” But if I had a secular glass, a glass that would run an age; if the two hemispheres of the world were composed in the form of such a glass, and all the world calcined and burnt to ashes, and all the ashes, and the sands, and atoms of the world put into that glass, it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his treasure, and the object of his heart is. A parrot ... will sooner be brought to relate to us the wisdom of a council table, than any Ambrose, or any Chrysostom, men that have gold and honey in their names, shall tell us what the sweetness, what the treasure of heaven is, and what that man’s peace, that hath set his heart upon that treasure.

... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. V, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon CXXXVI, p. 435 (see the book; see also Matt. 6:19-21; Isa. 33:6; Matt. 13:44-46; Luke 12:34; 2 Cor. 4:18; more at Heart, Heaven, Historical, Man, Peace, Preach, Sermon, Treasure, Wisdom, World)

 
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Last updated: 01/02/18

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