of the certainty of a future judgment, that they put themselves to, when they would know, whether the Title of the Estate, they would buy, be good or no? Do not they drudge from Lawyer to Lawyer to advise about the Evidences that relate to it? And by this we guess, that they are willing to be fatisfied.

To fcoff at a Notion of weight and moment before examination, is a great fign of indifcretion and folly in those that do it, whilft the prudent man, that defires to know the truth of it, enquires what folidity there is in it, whether any wife men were ever of that opinion, what reafon they had to think fo, and what enticed, or moved them to embrace it? He is fo far from exclaiming against it at the first hearing, or are raigning thofe that receive it as too facile and credulous, that he'll confult with men, whom he may rationally fuppofe to be at least as wife and learned as himself, and fee what Arguments they can alledge for it, and whether thofe Arguments be fatisfactory or no z Nor would I require more pains or industry

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in the cafe in question, than fuch an application of prudence to be fatisfied in the truth of a future ftate; and he that would thus proceed, must be ftrangely ftupid, if he be not convinced of the verity and rationality of it.

But when I speak of enquiring into the truth of the Notion before us, I do not mean a flight or fuperficial furvey of it, not a flash of conception, which, like Lightning (to ufe Plutarch's phrafe) dies as foon as born, but a serious weighing and ponder= ing the matter; for it would feem a strange effect of arrogance, and felf-conceitedness, to undertake, at first fight, to comprehend, and refute all the reafons of a Point, wherein very wife men have employ'd the contemplation and study of many hours. all difputes, there are Topicks of greater or leffer weight, and if fome of these pregnant Wits find themfelves able to refel fome of the weakest Arguments, it's ill Logick to infer, that therefore they can as easily anfwer the strongest and most ponderous: And yet this is the ufual method, whereby these

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vain men difcipline themselves into unbelief; They are careful to pick out fuch additional Proofs, which men of Reafon fuperadd to their weightieft obfervations, and thefe they take the boldness to cavil at, whilst they avoid those more material evidences, which would stagger their understandings, and write Mene Mene Tekel Upharfin upon their Lufts and Paffions, which careless difpofition I can afcribe to nothing fo much, as want CONSIDERATION. And indeed it's lamentable to fee men, endued with Reafon, fink fo much beneath it, and live in the reverse of thofe Principles, which the Supreme Architect of Heaven and Earth bath engraven on their Confciences.

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To reduce fuch and other finful men to a ferious Confideration of their Spiritual Concerns is the chief defign of this Work, and all I shall request of Your Grace, is, that you will be pleased to peruse it sometimes at your hours of leifure; not that I pretend to have writ more or better on this Subject, than far more Learned Authors have done before me; but as the Mighty Artaxerxes accepted

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of a Cup of Water from the hand of a Peafant ; fo Your Grace will let the World fee, how great a Mafter you are in the Art of Condefcenfion, by countenancing the poor Present of,

THE

PREFACE.

T

HE great Foes of Religion, which have, in all Ages, oppos'd its progress, and undermin'd its glory, are Hypocrisy and Prophaneness. Between thefe two Thieves, the Jewel hangs, as its great Mafter on the Crofs; and they both revile it, the one under the Character of a familiar Friend, the other under that of an open Enemy: Which of thefe doth the greatest harm, is fomething difficult to determine. Hypocrify commonly ushers in Prophaneness, and, as a Lad thrust in at a Window, opens the Door to the greater Monster; for there is nothing more common than for men, who are not very difcerning, to contemn all Piety, when they feel the blackeft crimes profecuted under that filken Mantle, and men, with the Temple

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