Bishop Burnet, in his excellent book entitled the Pastoral Care, (page 173, of the fourth edition,) says, "A clergyman ought to give no encouragement to men, who have led a bad course of life, to hope much from a death-bed repentance; yet he is to set them to implore the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, and to do all they can to obtain his favour. But unless the sickness has been of long continuance, and that the person's repentance, patience, and piety, have been very extraordinary during the course of it, he must be sure to give him no positive ground of hope, but leave him to the mercies of God. For there cannot be any greater treachery to souls that is more fatal and pernicious than the giving quick and easy hopes, upon so short, so forced, and so imperfect a repentance. It not only makes those persons perish securely themselves, but it leads all about them to destruction, when they see one, of whose bad life and late repentance they have been the witnesses, put so soon in hopes, nay by some unfaithful guides made sure of salvation. This must make them go on very secure in their sins, when they see how small a measure of repentance sets all right at last: all the order and justice of a nation would be presently dissolved, should the howlings of criminals and their promises work on juries, judges, and princes. So the hopes that are given to death-bed penitents must be the most effectual means to root out the sense of religion from the minds of all who see it. Therefore, though no dying man is to be driven to despair, and left to die obstinate in his sins, yet, if we love the souls of our people, if we set a due value on the blood of Christ, and if we are touched with any sense of the honour or interests of religion, we must not say any thing that may encourage others, who are but too apt of themselves, to put all off to the last hour. We can give them no hopes from the nature of the Gospel covenant; yet, after all, the best thing a dying man can do is to repent. If he recover, that may be the seed and beginning of a new life, and a new nature in him: nor do we know the measure of the _riches of God's grace and mercy_."