Let me therefore exhort you to come prepared to this time of trial; to look out for comfort, whilst the day is before you; to treasure up such a _fund_ of good and pious works, as may make you able to bear that state, which cannot be borne without them. Could I any way make you apprehend, how dying men feel the want of a pious life; how they lament time lost, health and strength squandered away in folly; how they look at eternity, and what they think of the rewards of another life, you would soon find yourself one of those, who desire to live in the highest state of piety and perfection, that by this means you may grow old in peace, and die in full hope of eternal glory. XV. Consider again, that besides the rewards of the other life, the devoting yourself wholly to God has a great reward even in this life, as it makes religion _doubly_ pleasant to you. Whilst you are divided betwixt God and the world, you have neither the pleasures of religion, nor the pleasures of the world; but are always in the uneasiness of a divided state of heart. You have only so much religion as serves to disquiet you; to check your enjoyments; to shew you a _hand-writing upon the wall_; to interrupt your pleasures; to reproach you with your follies; and to appear as a _death’s head_ at all your feasts; but not religion enough to give you a taste and feeling of its proper pleasures and satisfactions. You dare not wholly neglect religion; but then, you take no more of it than is just sufficient to keep you from being a terror to yourself; and you are as loath to be _very good_, as you are fearful to be _very bad_. So that you are just as happy as the _slave_, that dares not run away from his master, and yet always serves him against his will. Instead of having a religion that is your comfort in all troubles, your religion is itself a _trouble_, under which you want to be comforted; and those days and times hang heaviest on your hands, which leave you only to the offices and duties of religion. _Sunday_ would be very dull and tiresome, but that it is but one day in _seven_, and is made a day of _dressing_ and _visiting_, as well as of divine service. You don’t care to keep away from the public worship, but are always glad when it is over. This is the state of half _piety_; thus they live who add religion to a worldly life; all their religion is mere _yoke_ and _burden_, and is only made tolerable by having but little of their time.