could be done; and the least recompence I could make, would be to ask you pardon for it, and leave you to enjoy the comforts of life securely for the future, to live on as long as you can, and let death come when it will, without being looked for; but I apprehend a great deal of danger in such deceitful and flattering hopes, and that is the reason why I dissuade you from it. For,

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1. The hope of long life is apt to make us fond of this world, which is as great a mischief to us, as to expose us to all the temptations and flatteries of it: that we must die, and leave this world, is a good reason indeed, why we should live like pilgrims and strangers here, as I observed before but few men, who hope to live three score years, think much of this; tho' it be comparatively short in respect of eternity, yet it is a great while to live, and a great while to enjoy this world in; and that is thought a very valuable happiness, which can be enjoyed so long; and then men let loose their desires and affections, endeavor to get as much of this world as they can, and not only to taste, but to take full and plentiful draughts of the intoxicating pleasures of it: and how dangerous this is, I need not tell any man, who considers, that all the wickedness of mankind, is owing to too great a fondness and passion for this world.

And therefore if we would live like pilgrims, and sit loose from all the enjoyments of this world, we

must remember, that our stay is uncertain here, that we have no lease of our lives, but may be turned out of our earthly tenements at pleasure: for what man would be fond of laying up great treasures on earth, who remembers, that this night his soul may be taken from him, and then, whose shall all these things be? What man would place his happiness in such enjoyments, which for ought he knows, he may be taken from to-morrow? These are indeed melancholy and mortifying considerations, and that is the true use of them; for it is necessary we should be mortified to this world, to cure the love of it, and conquer its temptations; for if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him: for all that is in the world, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but of the world.

2. As the hopes of long life gives great advantage to the temptations of this world, so they weaken the hopes and fears of the other world: they strengthen our temptations and weaken us, which must needs be of very fatal consequence to us in our spiritual warfare. All that we have to oppose against the flattering temptations of this world, are the hopes and fears of the world to come; but the hope of long life sets the next world at too great a distance to conquer this: what is present, works more powerfully upon our minds, than what is absent; and the farther any thing is off, the less powerful it is.

To make you sensible of this, I shall only desire you to remember, what thoughts you have had of another world, when the present fears of dying have given you a nearer view of it: good Lord, what agonies have I seen dying sinners in! How penitent, how devote, how resolved upon a new course of life, which too often vanish like a dream, when the fear of death is over; what is the reason of this difference? Heaven and hell is the very same, when we are in health, as when we are sick; and I will suppose that you do as firmly believe a heaven and a hell in health, as in sickness; the only thing then that makes the thoughts of the other world so strong, and powerful, and affecting, when we are sick, is, that we see the other world near us, that we are just a stepping into it, and this makes it our present concern; but in health, we see the other world a great way off, and therefore do not think it of such near and present concern; and what we do not think ourselves at present, concerned in, or not much concerned in, how great and valuable soever it be in itself, will either not affect us at all, or very little. Thus while bad men place the other world at a great distance from them, and out of sight, they have no restraint at all upon their lusts and passions; and good men themselves, at the greater distance they see the other world, are as much the less affected by it ; which damps their zeal and their devotion, and makes them less active and vigorous in doing good.

And there is so much the more danger in this, because men look upon the other world as farthest off, and so are least concerned about it, when the thoughts of the other world are most useful and most necessary to them; in the heat and vigor of youth, men are most exposed to the temptations of flesh and sense, and have most need to think of another world, and a future judgment; but those who promise themselves a long life, see death and another world, so far off, while they are young, that it moves them as little, as if there were no other world.

And though one would think, that as our lives waste, and the other world grows near, so we should recover a more lively sense of it, yet we find it quite otherwise: when men have been used to think the next world a great way off, they will never think it near, till it comes; and when they have been used to think of the other world without any passion or concern for it, it is almost an impossible thing, to give any quickness and passion to such thoughts; for when any thoughts, and the passion that properly belongs to such thoughts, have been a great while separated, it is a hard thing to unite them again; to begin to think of that with passion and concern, which we have been used for thirty or forty years to think of without any concern.

3. Another dangerous effect of flattering ourselves with long life, is, that it encourages men to sin with

the vain hopes and resolutions of repenting before they die : when men are convinced, that if they live and die in sin, they must be miserable for ever; as I believe most profest christians are, as I am sure all must be, who believe the gospel of our Savior; there is no other possible way to ward off this blow, and to sin securely under such convictions, but by resolving to repent, and to make their peace with God before they die: they flatter themselves a while, and enjoy the sweets of sin, and gratify their youthful inclinations, and learn the vanity of the world by experience, as their forefathers have done before them, and then they will grow as wise and grave, and declaim against the follies and vanities of youth, and be as penitent and as devout and religious, as any of them all.

Whoever considers the uncertainty of human life, if he should hear men talk at this rate, would either conclude, that they were mad, or merrily disposed, but could never guess, that they were in their wits, and in good earnest too: but if we will allow men to be in their wits, who can promise themselves long life, when they see every day, how uncertain life is: (and if we will not allow such men to be in their wits, above two thirds of the world are mad) this gives a plain account, how men may resolve to sin, while they are young, and to repent when they are old: for it is only the flattering hopes of long life, that can encourage men in a course of sin men, indeed, who do

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