John Bunyan's Dying Words # 4
A man would be counted a fool to slight a judge, before whom he is to have a trial of his whole estate. The trial we have before God is of otherwise importance, it concerns our eternal happiness or misery; and yet dare we affront Him?
The only way for us to escape that terrible judgment, is to be often passing a sentence of condemnation upon ourselves here!
When the sound of the trumpet shall be heard which shall summon the dead to appear before the tribunal of God - the righteous shall hasten out of their graves with joy to meet their Redeemer in the clouds. The others shall call to the mountains and hills to fall upon them, to cover them from the sight of their Judge! Let us therefore in time be posing ourselves which of the two we shall be.
On the Joys of Heaven.
There is no good in this life but what is mingled with some evil: honors perplex, riches disquiet, and pleasures ruin health.
But in Heaven we shall find blessings in their purity, without any ingredients to embitter, with everything to sweeten them.
O! who is able to conveive the inexpressible, inconceivable joys that are there? None but they who have tasted of them. Lord, help us to put such a value upon them here, that in order to prepare ourselves for them, we may be willing to forego the loss of all those deluding pleasures here.
How will the heavens echo for joy, when the bride, the Lamb's wife, shall come to dwell with her Husband forever!
Christ is the desire of nations, the joy of angels, the delight of the Father! What solace then must that soul be filled with that has the possession of Him to all eternity!
O! what acclamations of joy will there be when all the children of God shall meet together, without fear of being disturbed by the anti-christian!
Of The Torments of Hell.
Heaven and salvation are not surely more promised to the godly - then hell and damnation is threatened to, and executed on the wicked.
O! who knows the power of God's wrath! None but the damned ones!
Sinners' company are the devil and his angels, tormented in everlasting fire with a curse.
Hell would be a kind of paradise, if it were no worse than the worst of this world.
As different as grief is from joy, as torment from rest, as terror from peace - so different is the state of sinners from that of saints in the world to come.
When once a man is damned, he may bid adieu to all pleasures!
~John Bunyan~
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