Describing the glory that is our God in syllables is an impossible task, but the great wordsmith Jeremy Taylor in a sermon on the Holy Spirit makes a noble attempt:

For what power of human understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God, that two natures - one finite and the other infinite - could have been concentered into one hypostasis or person...

that a virgin should be a mother...

that dead men should live again, that the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the sun, blessed as the angels, swift in motion as thought, clear as the purest noon...

that God should love us, as to be willing to be reconciled to us, and yet that himself must die that he might pardon us...

that God's most holy Son should give us his body to eat, and his blood to crown our chalices, and his Spirit to sanctify our souls, to turn our bodies into temperance, our souls into minds, our minds into spirit, our spirit into glory...

that he, who can give us all things, who is Lord of men and angels, and King of all the creatures, should pray to God for us without intermission...

that he, who reigns over all the world, should, at the day of judgment, "give up the kingdom to God the Father," and yet, after this resignation, himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously...

that we should be justified by faith in Christ...

that charity should be a part of faith, and that both should work as acts of duty and as acts of relation...

that God should crown the imperfect endeavors of his saints with glory, and that a human act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance...

that the wicked, for the transient pleasure of a few minutes, should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains...

and, after all this, that all Christian people, all that will be saved, will be partakers of the divine nature, of the nature, the infinite nature, of God, and must dwell in Christ, and Christ must dwell in them, and they must be in the Spirit, and the Spirit must be for ever in them?

Be still my beating heart....

Henry Vaughn comments that "this short time was not given us in vain...but that in time eternal life should be our care, and endless rest our industry."

 Paul (with a little help from the King James) puts it this way in Ephesians 5, "Redeem the time, because the days are evil."

 And then Vaughn sets forth the task of righteous living in specific, even measurable ways, with an intentionality that would make the Apostle James smile. The rebellious, he claims, feel uncomfortable whenever righteousness becomes specific, who, he says, "god's mild laws for chains esteem." (they don't like any restrictions, just unbridled freedom).

 Undeterred, Vaughn exhorts his wife Therasia to join him.....

 To love our God with all our strength and will;

To covet nothing, to devise no ill

Against our neighbors; to procure or do

Nothing to others, which we would not do to

Our very selves; not to revenge our wrong;

To be content with little; not to long

For wealth and greatness; to despise or jear

No man, and if we be despised, to bear;

To feed the hungry; to hold fast our Crown;

To take from others naught; to give our own;

These are his precepts: and (alas!) in these

What is so hard, but faith can do with ease?

He that the holy Prophets doth believe,

And on Gods words relies, words that still live

And cannot die; that in his heart hath writ

His Savior's death and triumph, and doth yet

With constant care, admitting no neglect,

His second, dreadful coming still expect:

To such a liver earthly things are dead,

With Heav'n alone, and hopes of heav'n he's fed;

He is no Vassal unto worldly trash,

Not that black knowledge, which pretends to wash,

But doth defile: A knowledge, by which Men

With studied care loose Paradise again.

Commands and titles, the vain world's devise,

With gold, the forward seed of sin and vice,

He never minds; his aim is far more high,

And stoops to nothing lower than the sky;

Nor griefs nor pleasures breed him any pain,

He nothing fears to lose, would nothing gain;

Whatever hath not God, he doth detest:

He lives to Christ, is dead to all the rest.