Our own experience, and the alterations which the approach of death makes upon the most, doth sensibly prove, that the expectation of a speedy change, and reckoning upon a short life, doth greatly help us in all our preparation, and in all the work of holiness through our lives. Come to a man that lieth on his death-bed, or a prisoner that is to die to-morrow, and try him with discourse of riches, or honours, or temptations to lust, or drunkenness, or excess; and he will think you are mad, or very impertinent, to tell him of such things. If he be but a man of common reason, you shall see that he will more easily vilify such temptations, than any religious persons will do, in their prosperity and health. Oh how serious are we in repenting and perusing our former lives, and casting up our accounts, and asking, What we shall do to be saved, when we see that death is indeed at hand, and time is at an end, and we must away! Every sentence of Scripture hath then some life and power in it; every word of exhortation is savoury to us; every reproof of our negligence and sin is then well taken; every thought of sin, or Christ, or grace, or eternity, goes then to the quick. Then time seems precious; and if you ask a man whether it be better spent in cards and dice, and plays and feastings, and needless recreations and idleness, or in prayer, and holy conference, and reading and meditating on the word of God and the life to come, and the holy use of our lawful labours; how easily will he be satisfied of the truth, and confute the cavils of voluptuous time-wasters! Then his judgment will easilier be in the right, than learning or arguments before could make it.[75] In a word, the expectation of the speedy approach of the soul into the presence of the eternal God, and of our entering into an unchangeable, endless life of joy or torment, hath so much in it to awaken all the powers of the soul, that if ever we will be serious, it will make us serious, in every thought, and speech, and duty. And therefore, as it is a great mercy of God, that this life, which is so short, should be as uncertain, and that frequent dangers and sicknesses call to us to look about us, and be ready for our change; so usually the sickly, that look for death, are most considerate: and it is a great part of the duty of those that are in youth and health, to consider their frailty, and the shortness and uncertainty of their lives, and always live as those that wait for the coming of their Lord. And we have great reason for it, when we are certain it will be ere long; and when we have so many perils and weaknesses to warn us, and when we are never sure to see another hour; and when time is so swift, so quickly gone, so unrecoverable, and nothing when it is past. Common reason requireth such to live in a constant readiness to die.
But if youth or health do once make you reckon of living long,[76] and make you put away the day of your departure, as if it were far off; this will do much to deceive and dull the best, and take away the power of every truth, and the life of every good thought and duty, and all will be apt to dwindle into customariness and form. You will hardly keep the faculties of the soul awake, if you do not still think of death and judgment as near at hand. The greatest certainty of the greatest change, and the greatest joy or misery for ever, will not keep our stupid hearts awake, unless we look at all as near, as well as certain. This is plain in the common difference that we find among all men, between their thoughts of death in health, and when they see indeed that they must presently die. They that in health could think and talk of death with laughter, or lightly, without any awakening of soul, when they come to die are oftentimes as much altered, as if they had never heard before that they are mortal. By which it is plain, that to live in the house of mirth is more dangerous than to live in the house of mourning; and that the expectation of long life is a grievous enemy to the operations of grace, and the safety of the soul.