“And now, my dear child, I pray, I beseech you, I conjure you, my loved son, consider what there is of felicity in this world, that can compensate the hazard of losing an everlasting easy being; and then deliberately weigh, whether or no the delights and gratifications of a vicious or idle course of life are such, that a wise or thoughtful man would choose or submit to.  Again, fancy its enjoyments at the height imagination can propose or suggest (which yet rarely or never happens, or if it does, as a vapour soon vanishes); but let us grant it could, and last to fourscore years, is this more than the quickest thought to eternity?  Oh, my child! fix on that word, eternity!  Old Hobbes, with all his fancied strength of reason, could never endure to rest or stay upon that thought, but ran from it to some miserable amusement.  I remember to have read of some man, who reading in the Bible something that checked him, he threw it on the ground; the book fell open, and his eyes fixed on the word eternity, which so struck upon his mind, that he, from a bad liver, became a most holy man.  Certainly, nothing besides the belief of reward and punishment can make a man truly happy in his life, at his death, and after death.  Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing that is right; for that shall bring a man peace at the last—­peace in the evening of each day, peace in the day of death, and peace after death.

“For my own part, I apprehend, I should not much care (if free from pain) what my portion in this world was,—­if a life to continue, perhaps one year or twenty, or eighty; but then, to be dust, not to know or be known any more,—­this is a thought that has something of horror in it to me, and always had; and would make me careless, if it were to be long or short; but to live, to die, to live again, has a joy in it; and how inexpressible is that joy, if we secure an humble hope to live ever happily; and this we may do, if we take care to live agreeably to our rational faculties, which also best secures health, strength, and peace of mind, the greatest blessings on earth.

“Believe the word of God, the Holy Scriptures.  What most hinders faith, I am persuaded, is ignorance of God’s true nature.  Look up to the firmament, and down to the deep, how can any doubt a divine power?  And if there is, what can be impossible to infinite power?  Then, why an infidel in the world?  In His Gospel the terrors of God’s majesty are laid aside, and He speaks in the still and soft voice of His Son incarnate, the fountain and spring whence flow gladness.  The idolatrous heathen perform their worship with trouble and terror; but a Christian, and a good liver, with a merry heart and lightsome spirit:  for, examine and consider well, where is the hardship of a virtuous life? (when we have moderated our irregular habits and passions, and subdued them to the obedience of reason and religion).  We are free to all the innocent gratifications and delights of life; and we may lawfully, nay, further