Puslapio vaizdai
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THE

CONCLUSION.

THUS he lived, and thus he died in the three and thirtieth year of his age. Nature had fitted him for great things, and his knowledge and observation qualified him to have been one of the most extraordinary men, not only of his nation, but of the age he lived in; and I do verily believe, that if God had thought fit to have continued him longer in the world, he had been the wonder and delight of all that knew him; but the infinite wise God knew better what was fit for him, and what the age deserved. For men who have so cast off all sense of God and religion, deserve not so signal a blessing as the example and conviction which the rest of his life might have given them. And I am apt to think that the Divine Goodness took pity on him, and, '. seeing the sincerity of his repentance, would try and venture him no more in circumstances of temptation, perhaps too hard for human frailty,

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Now he is at rest, and I am very confident enjoys the fruits of his late, but sincere repentance. But such as live, and still go on in their sins and impieties, and will not be awakened neither by this nor the other alarms that are about their ears, are, it seems, given up by God to a judicial hardness and impenitency.

Here is a public instance of one who lived of their side, but could not die of it: and though none of all our libertines understood better than he the secret mysteries of sin, had more studied every thing that could support a man in it, and had more resisted all external means of conviction than he had done; vet when the hand of God inwardly touched him, he could no longer kick against those pricks, but humbled himself under that mighty hand; and, as he often used to say in his prayers, he who had so often denied him, found then no other shelter but his mercies and compassions.

I have written this account with all the tenderness and caution I could use, and in whatsoever I may have failed, I have been strict in the truth of what I have related, remembering that of Job, "Will you lie for God?" Religion has strength and evidence enough in itself, and needs no support from lies, and made stories. I do not pretend to have given the formal words that he said, though I have done that where I could remember them. But I have written this with the same sincerity that I would have done, had I known I had been to die immediately after I had finished it. I did not take notes of our discourses last winter after we parted; so I may have, perhaps, in the setting out of my answers to him, enlarged on several things both more fully and more regularly than I could say them in such free discourses as we had. I am not so sure of

all I set down as said by me, as I am of all said by him to me; but yet the substance of the greatest part, even of that, is the same.

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It remains, that I humbly and earnestly beseech all that shail take this book in their hands, that they will consider it entirely, and not wrest some parts to an ill intention. God, the searcher of hearts, knows with what fidelity I have writ it but if any will drink up only the poison that may be in it, without taking also the antidote here given to those ill principles, or considering the sense that this great person had of them, when he reflected seriously on them, and will rather confirm themselves in their ill ways, by the scruples and objections which I set down, than be edified by the other parts of it; as I will look on it as a great infelicity, that I should have said any thing that may strengthen them in their impieties, so the sincerity of my intentions will, I doubt not, excuse me at his hands, to whom I offer up this small service.

I

I have now performed, in the best manner I could, what was left on me by this noble lord, and have done with the part of an historian. İ shall, in the next place, say somewhat as a divine. So extraordinary a text does almost force a sermon, though it is plain enough itself, and speaks with so loud a voice, that those who are not wakened by it, will, perhaps, consider nothing that I can say. If our libertines will become so far sober as to examine their former course of life, with that disengagement and impartiality, which they must acknowledge a wise man ought to use in things of greatest consequence, and balance the account of what they have got by their debaucheries, with the mischiefs they have brought on themselves and others by them, they will soon see what a bad bargain they have made.

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Some diversion, mirth, and pleasure is all they can promise themselves; but to obtain this, how many evils are they to suffer? How have many wasted their strength, brought many diseases on their bodies, and precipitated their age in the pursuit of those things? And as they bring old age early on themselves, so it becomes a miserable state of life to the greatest part of them; gouts, stranguries, and other infirmities, being severe reckonings for their past follies; not to mention the more loathsome diseases, with their no less loathsome and troublesome cures, which they must often go through, who deliver themselves up to forbidden pleasures. Many are disfigured, beside, with the marks of their intemperance and lewdness; and, which is yet sadder, an infection is derived oftentimes on their innocent but unhappy issue, who, being descended from so vitiated an original, suffer for their excesses. Their fortunes are profusely wasted, both by their neglect of their affairs, they being so buried in vice, that they cannot employ either their time or spirits, so much exhausted by intemperance, to consider them; and by that prodigal expense which their lusts put them upon. They suffer no less in their credit, the chief mean to recover an entangled estate: for that irregular expense forces them to so many mean shifts, makes them so often false to all their promises and resolutions, that they must needs feel how much they have lost that which a gentleman, and men of ingenious tempers, do sometimes prefer, even to life itself, their honour and reputation. Nor do they suffer less in the nobler powers of their minds, which, by a long course of such dissolute practices, come to sink and degenerate so far, that not a few whose first blossoms gave the most promising hopes, have so withered, as to become

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incapable of great and generous undertakings, and to be disabled to every thing, but to wallow like swine in the filth of sensuality; their spirits being dissipated, and their minds so benumbed, as to be wholly unfit for business, and even indisposed to think.

That this dear price should be paid for a little wild mirth, or gross and corporal pleasure, is a thing of such unparalleled folly, that if there were not too many such instances before us, it might seem incredible. To all this we must add the horrors that their ill actions raise in them, and the hard shifts they are put to, to stave off these, either by being perpetually drunk or mad, or by an habitual disuse of thinking and reflecting on their actions, (and if these arts will not perfectly quiet them, by taking sanctuary in such atheistical principles, as may at least mitigate the sources of their thoughts, though they cannot absolutely settle their minds.

If the state of mankind and human societies are considered, what mischiefs can be equal to those which follow these courses? Such persons are a plague wherever they come; they can neither be trusted nor beloved, having cast off both truth and goodness, which procure confidence and attract love; they corrupt some by their ill practices, and do irreparable injuries to the rest; they run great hazards, and put themselves to much trouble, and all this to do what is in their power to make damnation as sure to themselves as possibly they can. What influence this has on the whole nation is but too visible; how the bonds of nature, wedlock, and all other relations, are quite broken: virtue is thought an antique piece of formality, and religion the effect of cowardice or knavery; these are the men that would reform the world, by bringing it under a

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