1 John 2:25

And what is the promise? Let us see what He hath promised. Is it gold which men here love much, or silver? Or possessions, for which men lavish gold, however much they love gold? Or pleasant lands, spacious houses, many slaves, numerous beasts? Not these are the wages, so to say, for which he exhorts us to endure in labor. What are these wages called? "eternal life." Ye have heard, and in your joy ye have cried out: love that which ye have heard, and ye are delivered from your labors into the rest of eternal life. Lo, this is what God promises; "eternal life." Lo, this what God threatens; eternal fire. What to those set on the right hand? "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." To those on the left, what? "Go into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Thou dost not yet love that: at least fear this.

Remember then, my brethren, that Christ hath promised us eternal life: "This," saith he, "is the promise which He hath promised us, even eternal life. These things have I written to you concerning them which seduce you." Let none seduce you unto death: desire the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise? Let it promise what you will, it makes the promise perchance to one that tomorrow shall die. And with what face wilt thou go hence to Him that abideth for ever? "But a powerful man threatens me, so that I must do some evil." What does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, torments, wild beasts: aye, but not eternal fire? Dread that which One Almighty threatens; love that which One Almighty promises; and all the world becomes vile in our regard, whether it promise or terrify.

"Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that He hath promised us." For haply thou mightest ask about the wages, and say, Behold, "that which I have heard from the beginning I keep safe in me, I comply therewith; perils, labors, temptations, for the sake of this continuance, I bear up against them all: with what fruit? what wages? what will He hereafter give me, since in this world I see that I labor among temptations? I see not here that there is any rest: mere mortality weigheth down the soul, and the corruptible body presseth it down to lower things: but I bear all things, that "that which I have heard from the beginning" may "remain" in me; and that I may say to my God, "Because of the words of Thy lips have I kept hard ways." Unto what wages then? Hear, and faint not. If thou wast fainting in the labors, upon the promised wages be strong. Where is the man that shall work in a vineyard, and shall let slip out of his heart the reward he is to receive? Suppose him to have forgotten, his hands fail. The remembrance of the promised wages makes him persevering in the work: and yet he that promised it is a man who can deceive thine expectation. How much more strong oughtest thou to be in God's field, when He that promised is the Truth, Who can neither have any successor, nor die, nor deceive him to whom the promise was made!