Samuel Rutherford (Letters, 377, 378):
Let not salvation be your by-work or your holiday's talk only, or a work by the way. For men think that this may be done in three days' space on a feather bed, when death and they are fallen in hands together, and that with a word or two they shall make their soul-matters right. Alas! this is to sit loose and unsure in the matters of our salvation. Nay, the seeking of this world, and of the glory of it, is but an odd and by-errand that we may let slip, so being we make salvation sure. Oh, when will men learn to be that heavenly-wise as to divorce from and free their soul of all idol-lovers, and make Christ the only, only One, and trim and make ready their lamps, while they have time and day! How soon will this house skail, and the inn, where the poor soul lodgeth, fall to the earth! How soon will some few years pass away! and then, when the day is ended, and this life's lease expired, what have men of world's glory but dreams and thoughts? Oh how blessed a thing is it to labour for Christ, and to make Him sure! Know and try, in time, your holding of Him, and the rights and charters of heaven, and upon what terms ye have Christ and the Gospel, and what Christ is worth in your estimation, and how lightly ye esteem of other things, and how dearly of Christ! I am sure, that if ye see Him in His beauty and glory, ye shall see Him to be all things, and that incomparable jewel of gold that ye should seek, howbeit ye should sell, wadset, and forfeit your few years' portion of this life's joys. O happy soul for evermore, who can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the weighty glory of the one with the light golden vanity of the other!