Thank You Thomas Doolittle

If I say the word "Monergism" and that doesn't ring a bell with you, it should. It is, as far as I can tell, the most comprehensive site anywhere in the world on resources for growing in your walk with Jesus. You could hang out on this site for a lifetime and not even come close to digesting all the resources they have pointed you to.

So I'm looking through their RSS feed for yesterday and I came upon this link to a sermon by Thomas Doolittle. Who is Thomas Doolittle you ask? I have no idea. I did however come upon this brief paragraph over at this blog:

Thomas Doolittle (1630-1707) was an English Puritan pastor of the 17th century.  At his death, in 1707, at the age of 77, he was the last surviving pastor of the Great Ejection of 1662 (when more than 2,000 ministers were forcibly removed from their pastorates by the English government) to die.

Anyway, Thomas Doolittle over 300 years ago knew that the name of my church plant would be Eternity and he felt compelled to write an essay helping me share the vision of why the name Eternity is a great name. At least that's how I like to look at it J Here's an excerpt of the sermon I came across yesterday:

The reason moving believers to keep a steadfast eye upon things unseen, and to look off from things seen—is the eternal duration of the one, and the short continuance of the other: "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen—because the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The good things in this world which are seen—as riches, pleasures, honors—are things of time, and only for time; therefore we are not much concerned whether we win or lose them: and the bad things in this life which are seen—as poverty, imprisonment, persecution—are at longest but for a short space; and therefore we are not much concerned whether we endure them, or are freed from them. But that which adds weight to the things in the other world now not seen by the men of this world, and draws our eyes toward them, and keeps them fixed thereon—is the eternity of them.

Are we pleading with our people in our churches to focus not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen? Are we encouraging them to ponder forever? In short, are we pointing them towards Eternity?