He preached his own funeral sermon, by Samuel Davies, from his sermon, This Very Year You Are Going to Die. This message was preached at Princeton College on January 1st, 1761. The author died shortly after, on February 4th, at the age of thirty-seven. Thus, in a way, he preached his own funeral sermon.

Thus says the Lord, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This very year you are going to die. Jeremiah 28 16

You may die this year. And should you die this year, you will be for ever cut off from all the pleasures of life. And farewell, an everlasting farewell, to all the mirth and gaiety, to all the tempting amusements and vain delights of earth. If you should die in your sins this year, then you will not only be cut off from all the flattering prospects of this life, but from all hope entirely and forever. You will be fixed in an unchangeable state of misery, a state that will admit of no expectation but that of uniform or rather ever-growing misery. A state that excludes all hopes of making any accomplishment, except as the monuments of the vindictive justice of God and the deadly effects of sin.

How affecting is the idea of a promising youth, cut off from the land of the living, useless and hopeless in both worlds, fallen from the summit of hope into the gulf of everlasting despair. Yet this may be your doom, my dear youth, your doom this very year, if you should die in your sins.

Therefore, if you should this year, then all your hopes of heaven will vanish for ever. No more happiness for you. You have received your portion in this life. A few years of fleeting, sordid, unsatisfactory happiness, and an entire eternity of misery, permanent, exquisite, consummate misery follows. No more honour for you, but shame and everlasting contempt. No more amusements for you, but only the blackness of darkness forever, Only intents pouring upon your hopeless wretchedness, Only tormenting recollections of your past folly and madness Of voluntarily rushing into the infernal pit. No agreeable companions, no sympathizing friends, No relaxation, no pleasing hobbies, No encouraging prospects, no comforting hopes, no token of love, no gift of grace from the Father of Mercy, no hope in the future, no relief from the past, no refuge, no escape into the gulf of annihilation,

Above you, an angry, omnipotent God, and a lost heaven. Behind you, a misspent life, and opportunities of salvation irrecoverably lost. Within you, a guilty, remorseful conscience, an implacable self-tormentor, Around you malignant, enraged fiends, mutual tormentors, Before you an eternity of hopeless misery, Extending infinitely.

O tremendous doom, who can bear the thought? And is it possible, that this doom should be so near to any of us? Where is the unhappy creature, that we may all drop our tears over him? Where is that wretched creature, who stands every moment upon the slippery brink of this horrible precipice? This year, nay, this hour, for anything we know, he may be thrown down, engulfed and lost for ever. And is this a safe situation for you, thoughtless, foolhardy mortals? Does it befit you in such a situation to be cheerful, merry, and mirthful? Does it befit you in such a situation to be busy, restless, and laborious in the pursuits of this transitory life? Does it befit you in such a situation to spin out your eternal schemes of grandeur, riches, or pleasures, in hopes to accomplish them within the narrow, uncertain limits of time allotted you?

Alas, before another year has run its hasty round, the world, and all that it contains, all its pursuits and enjoyments, all its cares and sorrows, may be as insignificant to you as the grandeur of Caesar or the riches of the world before the flood. If you die this year, then, earthly riches or poverty, liberty or slavery, honour or disgrace, joy or sorrow, sickness or health, will be as little your concern as the dust that shall cover your coffin.

Does it not rather befit you to turn your thoughts to another inquiry Is it possible for me to escape this impending danger? Where, how, whence may I obtain deliverance?

Thus says the Lord, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This very year you are going to die. Jeremiah 28 16