to their
liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles.
2:16. "How dieth the wise man? even as the fool."

All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell,
while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not
secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of
hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself
for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what
he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in
his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he
contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They
hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of
men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines
that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have
done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says
within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order
matters so for himself as not to fail. But the foolish children of men
miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in
their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow.