’Tis a Great Folly to Fear that which it is Impossible to Avoid; and
it is yet a Greater Folly to Fear the Remedy of All Evils: For Death
Cures All Diseases, and Frees us from All Cares. It is as Great a Folly
again, not to Prepare our selves, and Provide for the Entertainment of
an Inevitable Fate. We are as sure to go Out of the World, as we are
that ever we came In to’t; and Nothing but the Conscience of a Good Life
can Support us in That Last Extremity. The Fiction of a _Swan_’s Singing
at her Death, does, in the Moral, but Advise, and Recommend it to us,
to make ready for the Chearful Entertainment of our last Hour, and to
Consider with our Selves, that if Death be so Welcome a Relief even to
_Animals_, barely as a Deliverance from the Cares, Miseries, and Dangers
of a Troublesome Life, how much a Greater Blessing, ought All Good Men
to Account it then, that are not only Freed by it from the Snares,
Difficulties, and Distractions of a Wicked World, but put into Possession
(over and above) of an Everlasting Peace, and the Fruition of Joys that
shall never have an End!