8. Though this is an _absurdity_ that we can pass over, whilst the health of our bodies, the passions of our minds, the noise, and hurry, and pleasures, and business of the world, lead us on with eyes that see not; yet at death, it will appear before us in a dreadful magnitude: it will haunt us like a dismal ghost; and our conscience will never let us take our eyes from it. We see in worldly matters, what a torment self-condemnation is; and how hardly a man is able to forgive himself, when he has brought himself into any calamity or disgrace, purely by his own folly. The affliction is made doubly tormenting; if he is forced to charge it all upon himself, as his own act and deed, against the reason of things, and contrary to the advice of his friends. Now by this we may in some degree guess, how terrible that self-condemnation will be, when a man shall find himself in the misery of death, under the severity of a self-condemning conscience; charging all his distress upon his own folly and madness, against the sense and reason of his own mind, against all the doctrines and precepts of religion, and contrary to all the instructions, calls, and warnings both of God and man. 9. *_Penitens_ was a busy, notable tradesman, and very prosperous in his dealings, but died in the _thirty-fifth_ year of his age. A little before his death, when the doctors had given him over, some of his neighbours came to see him; at which time he spoke thus to them. I see, my friends, the tender concern you have for me, by the grief that appears in your countenances; and I know the thoughts that you have about me. You think how melancholy a case it is, to see so young a man, and in such flourishing business, delivered up to death. And perhaps, had I visited any of you in my condition, I should have had the same thoughts of you. But now, my friends, my thoughts are no more like your thoughts, than my condition is like yours. It is no trouble to me now to think, that I am to die young, or before I have raised an estate. These things are now sunk into such mere _nothings_, that I have no name little enough to call them by. For if in a few days, or hours, I am to leave this carcase to be buried in the earth, and to find myself either for ever happy in the favour of God, or eternally separated from all light and peace. Can any words sufficiently express the littleness of every thing else? Is there any dream like the dream of life, which amuses us with the disregard of these things? Is there any folly like the folly of our manly state, which is too _wise_ and _busy_ to be at leisure for these reflections?