Things As Certain As Death

And I Add This Part Here, To Hint To Whoever Shall Read It, That Whenever They Come To A True Sense Of Things, They Will Find Deliverance From Sin A Much Greater Blessing Than Deliverance From Affliction.

I Have Since Often Observed, How Incongruous And Irrational The Common Temper Of Mankind Is, Especially Of Youth ... That They Are Not Ashamed To Sin, And Yet Are Ashamed To Repent; Not Ashamed Of The Action For Which They Ought Justly To Be Esteemed Fools, But Are Ashamed Of The Returning, Which Only Can Make Them Be Esteemed Wise Men.

So Possible Is It For Us To Roll Ourselves Up In Wickedness, Till We Grow Invulnerable By Conscience; And That Sentinel, Once Dozed, Sleeps Fast, Not To Be Awakened While The Tide Of Pleasure Continues To Flow Or Till Something Dark And Dreadful Brings Us To Ourselves Again.

As I Had Once Done Thus In My Breaking Away From My Parents, So I Could Not Be Content Now, But I Must Go And Leave The Happy View I Had Of Being A Rich And Thriving Man In My New Plantation, Only To Pursue A Rash And Immoderate Desire Of Rising Faster Than The Nature Of The Thing Admitted; And Thus I Cast My Self Down Again Into The Deepest Gulph Of Human Misery That Ever Man Fell Into, Or Perhaps Could Be Consistent With Life And A State Of Health In The World.

And Which I Take Notice Of Here, To Put Those Discontented People In Mind Of It, Who Cannot Enjoy Comfortably What God Has Given Them, Because They See And Covet Something That He Has Not Given Them. All Our Discontents About What We Want Appeared To Me To Spring From The Want Of Thankfulness For What We Have.