this doubtless is the one which most convicts them of
foolishness and blindness, and in which it is easiest to confound them by
the first glimmerings of common sense and by natural feelings.

For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment;
that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that
thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions,
according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one
step with sense and judgement, unless we regulate our course by the truth of
that point which ought to be our ultimate end.

There is nothing clearer than this; and thus, according to the principles of
reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take
another course.

On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the
ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their own inclinations
and their own pleasures without reflection and without concern, and, as if
they could annihilate eternity by turning away their thought from it, think
only of making themselves happy for the moment.

Yet this eternity exists, and death, which must open into it and threatens
them every hour, must in a little time infallibly put them under the
dreadful necessity of being either annihilated or unhappy for ever, without
knowing which of these eternities is for ever prepared for them.

This is a doubt of terrible consequence. They are in peril of eternal woe
and thereupon, as if the matter were not worth the trouble, they neglect to
inquire whether this is one of those opinions which people receive with too
credulous a facility, or one of those which, obscure in themselves, have a
very firm, though hidden, foundation. Thus they know not whether there be
truth or falsity in the matter, nor whether there be strength or weakness in
the proofs. They have them before their eyes; they refuse to look at th