The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

Answ. Suppose but the truth of the Gospel proved, yea or but the Immortality and Retribution for Souls hereafter, (which the light of Nature proveth) and then we may well say, that this Objection savoureth more of the Beast than of the Man: A Heathen can answer it though not so well as a Christian: Seneca and Plutarch, Antonine, and Epictetus have done it in part. And what a dotage is it to call things present, Certainties, when they are certainly ready to pass away, and you are uncertain to possess them another hour? who can be ignorant what haste Time maketh,¹ and how like the Life of man is to a dream? What sweetness is now left of all the pleasant cups and morsels, and all the merry hours you have had, and all the proud or lustful fancies, which have tickled your deluded fleshly minds? Are they not more terrible than comfortable to your most retired sober thoughts? and what an inconsiderable moment is it, till it will be so with all the rest? All that the World can possibly afford you, will not make Death the more welcome, nor less terrible to you; nor abate a jot of the pains of Hell. It is as comfortable to die poor as rich, and a life of pain and weakness and persecution, will end as pleasantly as a life of Pomp and wealth, and pleasures. If it be no unreasonable motion of a Physician to tell you of blood-letting, vomiting, purging and strict diet, to save your lives, nor any hard dealing in your Parents, to set you many years to School, to endure both the labour of learning and the Rod; and after that to set you to a seven years Apprentice-ship, and all this for things of a transitory nature; since God deserveth not to be accused as too severe, if he train you up for Heaven, more strictly and in a more suffering way, than the flesh desireth. Either you believe that there is a future Life of Retribution, or you do not: If not, the foregoing Evidences must first convince you, before you will be fit to debate the case, whether sufferings are for your hurt or benefit: But if you do believe a life to come, you must needs believe that its concernments weigh down all the matters of fleshly interest in this World, as much as a mountain would weigh down a feather:

Answ. Suppose but the truth of the Gospel proved, yea or but the Immortality and Retribution for Souls hereafter, (which the light of Nature proveth) and then we may well say, that this Objection savoureth more of the Beast than of the Man: A Heathen can answer it though not so well as a Christian: Seneca and Plutarch, Antonine, and Epictetus have done it in part. And what a dotage is it to call things present, Certainties, when they are certainly ready to pass away, and you are uncertain to possess them another hour? who can be ignorant what haste Time maketh,