are twofold. This
life cannot be that, since none can reach that but by death,--that
is, by ceasing from _this_ life. This life is just to eat, drink,
sleep, endure, bring up children, etc., in which all moves on
successively, hours, day, year, one after another: if you wish now to
apprehend that life, you must banish out of your mind the course of
this present life; you must not think that you can so apprehend it,
where it will all be one day, one hour, one moment.

Since then in God's sight there is no reckoning of time, a thousand
years must be before him, as it were, a day. Therefore the first man,
Adam, is just as near to him as he who shall be last born before the
last day. For God sees not time lengthwise but obliquely, just as
when you look at right-angles to a long tree which lies before you,
you can fix in your view both place and parts at once,--a thing you
cannot do if you only look at it lengthwise. We can, by our reason,
look at time only according to its duration; we must begin to count
from Adam, one year after another, even to the last day. But before
God it is all in one heap; what is long with us is short with
him,--and again, here there is neither measure nor number. So when
man dies, the body is buried and wastes away, lies in the earth and
knows nothing; but when the first man rises up at the last day, he
will think he has lain there scarcely an hour, while he will look
about himself and become assured that so many people were born of him
and have come after him, of whom he had no knowledge at all.

This, then, is St. Peter's meaning: the Lord does not delay his
promise as some scoffers let themselves imagine, but is
long-suffering; therefore should ye be prepared for the last
day,--for it will come soon enough to every one after his death, in
that he will say, "lo! I have but just now died!" But it comes upon
the world all too soon: when the people shall say, "there is peace,
no danger threatens," it shall break forth and come upon them, as St.
Paul says, I. Thess. v. And with so great a noise shall the day tear
its way and burst forth like a great storm, that in a moment must all
be wasted.

V. 11, 12. _Since then all this must pass away, how careful should ye
be in all holy conduct and a Godly life, that ye wait for and hasten
to the coming of the day of the Lord._ Since ye know this, that all
must pass away, both heaven and earth,--think how ye shall be
prepared to meet this day, by a hol