's heart burn within him, who reads it with due attention.

14. That admirable author, having shewn the virtue of a good conscience,
in supporting a man under the greatest trials and difficulties of life,
concludes with representing its force and efficacy in the hour of death.

15. The third and last instance, in which above all others this
confidence towards God does most eminently shew and exert itself, is at
the time of death; which surely gives the grand opportunity of trying
both the strength and worth of every principle.

16. When a man shall be just about to quit the stage of this world, to
put off his mortality, and to deliver up his last accounts to God; at
which sad time his memory shall serve him for little else, but to
terrify him with a frightful review of his past life, and his former
extravagancies stripped of all their pleasure, but retaining their
guilt; what is it then that can promise him a fair passage into the
other world, or a comfortable appearance before his dreadful Judge when
he is there?

17. Not all the friends and interests, all the riches and honours under
heaven can speak so much as a word for him, or one word of comfort to
him in that condition; they may possibly reproach, but they cannot
relieve him.

18. No, at this disconsolate time, when the busy temper shall be more
than usually apt to vex and trouble him, and the pains of a dying body
to hinder and discompose him, and the settlement of worldly affairs to
disturb and confound him; and in a word, all things conspire to make his
sick-bed grievous and uneasy: nothing can then stand up against all
these ruins, and speak life in the midst of death, but a clear
conscience.

19. And the testimony of that shall make the comforts of heaven descend
upon his weary head, like a refreshing dew, or shower upon a parched
ground. It shall give him some lively earnests, and secret anticipations
of his approaching joy. It shall bid his, soul to go out of the body
undauntedly, and lift up his head with confidence before saints and
angels. Surely the comfort, which it conveys at this season, is
something bigger than the capacities of mortality, mighty and
unspeakable, and not to be understood till it comes to be felt.

20. And now who would not quit all the pleasures, and trash, and
trifles, which are apt to captivate the heart of man, and pursue the
great rigours of piety, and austerities of a good life, to purchase to
himself such a conscience