Be pleased to use the noble Faculties of your Souls in ferious Reflections on their fpiritual and immortal Nature, and then confider with your felves whether the choiceft of thofe your Enjoyments, which are material and corporeal, fading and perishing, can give them fuitable, adequate and permanent Satisfaction; call to mind how vain all thefe Things will prove, and how they will stand your Souls in no ftead at those Seafons when they will have the greateft need of Support and Comfort, when you fhall be under Trouble of Confcience, or under the Apprehenfions of approaching Death; if you ever felt the Stings and Terrors of Confcience, thofe torturing Agitations of unquiet Thoughts, which the Senfe of Guilt and the Fear of Hell are apt to create, could you then receive any true Confolation from all your Riches, Pleafures and Honours? Were you not then fenfible that there is a ftri&t and immovable Juftice, which all the Gold and Silver in the World can never bribe? Could you relish any Sweetnefs or Savourinefs in your Mirth and Jollity, and moft refin'd fenfual Delights, when the Almighty did write bitter things against you, and shot his Arrows into your Soul? Had you any great Satisfaction in hearing the honourable Titles Men gave you, when in the mean time your own Confciences call'd you Reprobates?

But fuppofe you never had Experience of the Terrors of Confcience, and poffibly in the midft of the many stupifying Charms of a voluptuous Life never fhall, yet the Time will inevitably come, and you know not how foon it may happen, when you fhall conflict with the Agonies of Death, that King of Terrors, at which Hour of Extremity your Souls will require a stronger Cordial than any that can be extracted from the very Quinteffence of Earthly Joys; if you fhall then have one prepar'd for you that is compounded of the most precious Ingredients the whole World affords it will give you no Relief; for

what are all the Treafures, Delights and Glories of this World to a dying Man, who is juft leaving them, and fhall never enjoy them any more? The magnificent Palaces, ample Revenues, numerous Attendance, ftately Equipage, and largest Stores of him that lyes languishing on his Death-bed, will no more fupport. him than the Landskip of them in the Hangings can do it; had you therefore now the fame Opinion of the World, and the Things thereof, in the Time of your Health, youthful Vigour and Profperity, which you fhall have hereafter, when your fainting Spirits, cold Sweats, altering Tongues and expiring Breath, will hake you fenfible of your fudden Departure, you would then with a generous Contempt pafs over and difregard all the Allurements of Earthly Grandeur, and not be enfiar'd by any of its moft glittering Temptations; you would then keep your felves unfpotted from the World, and not fuffer its most exquifite Pleafures or its highest Honours and Advantages to bear fuch a Sway over your Affections as to draw you into any Sin; this would help you to fubdue and mortify all that inordinate Love of the World, which is inconfiftent with the Love of God, and make you abhor the Thoughts of facrificing your Souls to any fenfual Gratifications or worldly Intereft; this would wean you from thofe feculent Delights and Entertainments of the Animal Life, which fink and deprefs the Spirits of Men, and retard their Motions towards God and Heaven; fuch a Conviction of the World's Vanity would make you fearch after fome higher and more excellent Object, to fatisfy the ardent Defires and vaft Capacities of your immortal Souls, and being no longer dazzled with the fplendid Shew of corruptible Riches, fading Pomp, and perifhing Pleasure, you would firmly fix your Hearts on that fupream and all-fufficient Good which is immutable and eternal.

II. Secondly,

II. Secondly, After you have taken this true Profpect of all Sublunary Vanities, whofe tranfient Nature the very Eye of Senfe may in a great measure difcern, my next Advice and humble Requeft to you is, that you look up to the Things above, that you labour by an Eye of Faith ftedfaftly to behold the great, future, and (to that of Senfe) invisible Things of the other Life, ftriving, fo far as you can by the daily Confideration of them, to make them familiar to your Minds. Faith is the most effectual Inftrument or Means whereby a Christian conquers the World, defpiling all its prefent Charms in Comparison of the infinitely greater Joys and Plea fures in the future State. What foever is born of God overcometh the World, and this is the ViEtory that overcometh the World, even our Faith, 1 Joh. 5. 4. Every true Child of God gets above the Temptations of this World in the Strength of that Faith, which gives him full affurance of, and fets his Heart upon, another and better World; a firm Belief of the holy Religion the Son of God has reveal'd from Heaven, and a certain Hope and Expectation of the endlefs and unspeakable Happiness he has promis'd to thofe that hall embrace and practise it, doth more than ballance the Difficulties of overcoming the World, with all its tempting Pleafures or Advantages.

Now to establish your Minds in a ftedfaft Perfuafion concerning the great Things of the other World, which the Gofpel promises to them that believe and obey it, you may do well to read fome of thofe excellent Treatifes publifh'd among us, wherein the irrefragable Proofs and Evidences of the Truth of Chriftianity are clearly and fully laid down; thofe of you who have condefcended to perufe the former Part of Youth's Grand Concern, may perhaps have receiv'd fome Satisfaction from the Arguments I have there very briefly touch'd upon in the Third Chapter, Page I 2

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121, where I have endeavour'd to fhew what infallible Affurance the Apostles and firft Chriftians had that Jefus Chrift, the Author and Founder of our Religion, was the very Son of God, whom we have the highest reafon to believe in every part of that Revelation he has brought from Heaven, and what indubitable Records thereof have been faithfully tranfmitted down to us in the Books of the New Testament; if therefore by the ferious and unprejudic'd Confideration of any fuch Proofs and Arguments you get your Minds fully poffefs'd with a ftedfaft Belief of the Gofpel of Chrift, and particularly with an undoubted Perfuafion of the Certainty and Excellency of that Life and Immortality which is brought to Life by the Gofpel, that endless and incomparable future Reward therein moft clearly promis'd, you will eafily refuse and reject any prefent Temporal Enjoyment that shall make you hazard the Lofs of the diftant, greater and eternal Felicity.

Nay, Faith will make the diftant and future Reward become prefent to the Mind, and give it fuch lively Ideas of the Things that are fpiritual and invisible as if they were really feen, that the Prospect of them may animate and fortify you against the Power and Prefence of the moft inviting fenfible Allurements; for Faith, as the Apostle tells us, is the Subftance of things hop'd for, the Evidence of things not feen, Heb. 11. 1. it is fuch a Certainty of thofe Things we hope for as is hardly inferior to actual Poffeffion, it hath fo great a Confidence in God, that the believing Chriftian affures himself of all God's Promifes and Threatnings as infallibly as if they were already perform'd; if Faith be strong and vigorous it will reprefent to the Mind the Things of which we have no Demonstration from Senfe or Human Reafoning as really and truly as if they were before our Eyes; thus it is the Evidence, the Revelation, or Difcovery of Things not feen; and it is alfo the Subftance, the firm

and

117 and stable Expectation, and, as it were, the very Being of Things not yet in Being, but in Hope; now when Faith fupplieth the want of Prefence, Poffeflion, or Sight, apprehending Things abfent as if they were prefent, and Things unfeen, which God hath revealed, as if our Bodily Eyes beheld them, it is by this means that it overcomes the World, the Force and Prevalency of whofe Temptations chiefly arifeth from the Presence or the Nearnefs of the Pleafures of Senfe and all Earthly Enjoyments, while the great Things of the other Life being abfent, at a distance, and not fully believ'd, are little regarded; for Men would not give themselves up to the World and the Flesh, and neglect God and their Souls, and the Life to come, if by a true Faith they really faw, and had actually prefented to their Minds, the immenfe and eternal Things of the other World, as the Things and Enjoyments of this Life do prefent themselves to their Bodily Senfes.

Put the Cafe that God for an Hour or two fhould open Heaven and Hell before your Eyes, and permit you in the moft fenfible manner to fee and obferve how Things are in the other World, to view the Saints above in all their Glory and Blessedness, and to be Eye-witnesses of all the Torments of the Damn'd in their infernal Prisons, to hear the joyful and triumphant Hallelujahs of the one, and the lamentable Outcries of the other, and to be aflur'd from them both that all this Happiness on the one fide, which is the Reward of Piety and Virtue, and all that Mifery on the other, which is the Punishment of a finful and vicious Courfe, is eternal, would not fuch a Sight as this moft deeply affect you as long as you liv'd, and enable you to refift the strongest Temptations this World with all its prefent Pleafures, Profits and Honours can possibly offer to you? Could you after this, while the Impreffions fuch a Profpect had made are ftill upon your Mind, adventure knowingly to do any

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thing