A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons…

Especially knowing, that your last Breath wafts you into an unalterable Estate. What Journeys and Presents were heretofore made to the Oracles, to assure the Votaries concerning the Event of some temporal affairs! and how many do now Hazard their Souls by seeking to Necromancers, to know the success of their Marriages, Voyages, and such like; and yet a miscarriage in these things is remediable, there may be some alleviation in them, there may be some end of them: but you are launching into the Ocean of Eternity, and are at no certainty, whether it be eternal Happiness, or eternal Misery. What an anxious and uncomfortable State must this be? If you were not loose in your belief of future things, you would be restless in this condition: you owe your Ease to your Lethargy; if you were not half Infidels, you would be more than half distracted. Which brings to mind the course which some Eminent persons among the Heathens ^ctook, they durst not ⟨p. 256⟩dye sober, but drank great Draughts o• Wine, saying, That no voluptuous person can go in his Wits into an invisible Estate▪ With what poor comfort must that man dye, that must cry out with that Old Philosopher; I dye in great doubt, and know not whither I am going; yet out the Soul must go, ready or unready. Then will the careless sinner gnash his Teeth for rage at his slothful and sinful life, which he hath spent as a Tale that is told. Then will he have time enough, to curse all the worldly business, or wicked Company, that hath devoured his precious time, and left his Soul to shift for it self for ever.

Especially knowing, that your last Breath wafts you into an unalterable Estate. What Journeys and Presents were heretofore made to the Oracles, to assure the Votaries concerning the Event of some temporal affairs! and how many do now Hazard their Souls by seeking to Necromancers, to know the success of their Marriages, Voyages, and such like; and yet a miscarriage in these things is remediable, there may be some alleviation in them, there may be some end of them: but you are lanching into the Ocean of Eternity, and are at no certainty, whether it be eternal Happiness, or eternal Misery. What an anxious and uncomfortable State must this be? If you were not loose in your belief of future things, you would be restless in this condition: you owe your Ease to your Letargy; if you were not half Infidels, you would be more than half distracted. Which brings to mind the course which some Eminent persons among the Heathens