The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity…

O Friend, think of this now, how wilt thou do to dye? If thou shouldst leave this life, in the service of thy lusts, thou art thus irrecoverably lost. Thou art miserable beyond all expressions, beyond all conceptions; If Job because of some temporal calamity cursed the day wherein he was born, and the Messenger that brought tidings of his birth, and desired to dye rather then to endure it, whom wilt thou curse, or rather, whom wilt thou not curse, when under the sense of eternal misery? surely thou wilt seek for death, but not find it, dig for it, but twill flee from thee. Though Judas could make himself away, out of the Hell he had on earth, yet he cannot out of ⟨p. 56⟩the Hell he hath in Hell, When thou diest, thou art stated by God himself, and there is no appeal from this Judge, nor reversing of his judgement. It is the observation of the School-men, that what befell the Angels when they sinned, that befalls every wicked man at Death; the Angels upon the first act of sin, were presently by God himself stated in an irrecoverable condition of misery; so wicked men, upon the last act of their lives, are sixth as to their eternal woeful estates; It is appointed for all men once to dye, and after Death the judgement.

O Friend, think of this now, how wilt thou do to dye? If thou shouldst leave this life, in the service of thy lusts, thou art thus irrecoverably lost. Thou art miserable beyond all expressions, beyond all conceptions; If Job because of some temporal calamity cursed the day wherein he was born, and the Messenger that brought tidings of his birth, and desired to dye rather then to endure it, whom wilt thou curse, or rather, whom wilt thou not curse, when under the sense of eternal misery? surely thou wilt seek for death, but not find it, dig for it, but twill flee from thee. Though Judas could make himself away, out of the Hell he had on earth, yet he cannot out of ⟨p. 56⟩the Hell he hath in Hell, When thou diest, thou art stated by God himself, and there is no appeal from this Judge, nor reversing of his judgement. It is the observation of the School-men, that what befel the Angels when they sinned, that befals every wicked man at Death; the Angels upon the first act of sin, were presently by God himself stated in an irrecoverable condition of misery; so wicked men, upon the last act of their lives, are fixt as to their eternal woful estates; It is appointed for all men once to dye, and after Death the judgement.