A30203:404
Sighs from hell, or, The groans of a damned soul discovering from the 16th…
Sighs from hell, or, The groans of a damned soul discovering from the 16th of Luke the lamentable state of the damned : and may fitly serve as a warning-word to sinners, both old and young, by faith in Jesus Christ, to avoid the same place of torment : with a discovery of the usefulness of the Scriptures as our safe conduct for avoiding the torments of hell / by John Bunyan.
London: printed for F. Smith, 1666
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Because they do not indeed see themselves by nature, heirs of that exceeding wrath and vengeance that the Scriptures testify of. For did they but consider what God intends to do with those that live and die in a natural state, it would either sink them into despair, or make them fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them. But if there be never such sins committed, and never so great wrath denounced, and the time of execution be never so near; yet if the party that is guilty be senseless, and altogether ignorant thereof, he will be careless, and regard it nothing at all. And that man by nature is in this condition it is evident. For take the same man that is senseless, and ignorant of that misery he is in by nature, I say, take him at another time, when he is a little awakened, and then you shall hear him roar, and cry out so long as trouble is upon him, and a sense of the wrath of God hanging over his head: Good sirs, what must I do to be saved?
2. Because they do not indeed see themselves by nature, heirs of that exceeding wrath and vengeance that the Scriptures testifie of. For did they but consider what God intends to do with those that live and die in a natural state, it would either sink them into despair, or make them fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them. But if there be never such sins committed, and never so great wrath denounced, and the time of execution be never so near; yet if the party that is guilty be senseless, and altogether ignorant thereof, he will be careless, and regard it nothing at all. And that man by nature is in this condition it is evident. For take the same man that is senseless, and ignorant of that misery he is in by nature, I say, take him at another time, when he is a little awakened, and then you shall hear him roar, and cry out so long as trouble is upon him, and a sense of the wrath of God hanging over his head: Good sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Though the same man at another time (when his conscience is fallen asleep, and grown hard) will lie like the Smiths Dog, at the foot of the Anvil, though the fire-sparks fly in his face. But as I said before, when any one is a little awakened, O• what work will one verse, one line, nay one word of holy Scriptures make in his heart, he cannot eat, sleep, work, keep company with his former companions; and all because he is afraid that the damnation spoken of in Scripture, will fall to his share, Like Balaam, who said, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord,