Serro. CXXXIII. a'r/jèrent Ends ofgoodandbad Men: z. o ofanother Life, is but Wifilom fa/fly fo called 5 becaufe it is prepofterous, and be- gins at the wrong End, and proceeds upon a falfe Suppofition; and wrong Scheine of Things ; and confequently our whole Life, and all the A&ions and Defigns of it, do run upon a perpetual Miftake, and falle Statings of our own Cafe; and whatever we do purfuant to this Miftake, is foolifh in it felt, and will be fatal in the Iffüe and Confequence of it. For he that takes it for granted, that there is nó God, and that the World is not governed by the Providence of anySuperiour Being, but by Chance; that his Soul dies with his Body, and that there is no Life after this : He that pro- ceeds upon thefe Principles, is free from all Fetters and Obligations ofConfci- ence, and bath no Reafon to regard any Rule of Right and Juftice, or Virtue and Goodnels, farther than they conduce to his own Eafe and Pleafure, his Convenienceand Safety in this World ; he hath nothing to do, but to contrive his own prefent Happinefs, and to live as longas he can ; and becaufehe knows helnuft die, to compofe himfelf to undergo it as contentedly, and to bear the Pain of it as chearfully and patiently, and to a& this left Part as decently as he tan, being fecured by his own Principles againft all future Mifery and Danger, becaufe Death makes an utter End of him. This is a very confiftent Theory, and hath but one Fault, that it is not trué at the Bottom, and will fail us when we come to lay our whole Weight upon it. It is juft as the Prophet defcribes, the Staf of the broken Reed of Egypt, whereon if a Man lean, it will go into his Hand-andpierce it. Such are the Prin- tiples of Infidelity, to all that truft in them ; when they fhould Rand us in molt fread, and when we come to lean hard upon them, they will not only fail us, but go into our very Heart, and pierce it with (harp Pain and Anguifh: In the Days of our Health and Profperity, the Spirit of a Man may bear up it felf by its own natural Force and Strength ; andfalle Principles are like Anticks in a Building, which- feem to crouch under the Weight of an Arch, as if they bore it up, when in Truth they are born up by it. Butwhen thefe Men fall into any great Calamity, or Death makes towards them in good Earneft, then is the Trial of thefe Principles, of what Strength they are, and what Weight they will bear; and we commonly fee, that they do not only fail thofe who truft in them; but they vanifhand difappearlike Dreams and mere lllufionsofthe Imagination, when a Man awakes outof (Jeep; and the Man that was born up by them before with fo much Confidence, can now feel no Subftance and Reality in them; he cannot now be an Atheift if he would ; but God, and the other World, begin to be as great Realities to him, as if theywere prefent to his bodily Eye. And now thePrinciples of Infidelity 'are fo far fromminiliring any Com- fort and goodHopes to him, that they fill him with Horror, and Anguifh, and Defpair; and are fo far from quieting his Mind, that there is nothing but Storm and Tempeft there. The Wicked is driven array in his Wickednef : but the Righ- teous bath Hope in his Death. The Wicked, that is, the Sinner, the hardned and impenitent Sinner, is driven away; which mayeither fignifie the fudden and vio- lent End many Times of bad Men, they are carried away as it were by a Tempeft, anfwerable to that Expreflion, Prov, so. 25. As the Whirlwindpaffeth, fo the Wicked is no more: Or elfe the Word may lignifie, to be call down andde-, je&ed; and then it imports that Trouble and Defpondency of Mind, that An- guilla and Defpair, which arifeth from the Guilt of a wicked Life. Is driven away in his Wickednef ; the Word in the Original is, in his Evil, which may ei- ther refer to the Evil of Sin, or of Afkli&ion and Calamity, and it will cone much to one in which Senfe we take it. According to the firft Senfe of the Word Evil, the Meaning will be, that the Sinner, when he comes to die, is in great Trouble and Defpondency of Mind, becaufe of his wicked Life; hash no Comfort, no good Hopes concerning his future State, according to that other Saying of Solomon, Prov. t t. 23. The ExpelPation of the Wicked is Wrath. If we take the Word Evil in the latter Senfe, for the Evil of Affli&ion and Calamity, then theMeaning is, that bad Men,when they fall into any great Evil and Calamity, more elpecially upon the Approach of Death, lt , (for that, as the laft and greate of
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