Love to Christ, necessary to escape the curse at his coming

The Lord will come, will surely, quickly come, and then they will be miserable; surely then they will be miserable Souls indeed.

But is this enough for you, (O ye Non-Lovers of Christ) that others do lament your woeful case, while ye your selves do spend your Time, and waste your Days in sinful Love, and carnal Delights, and sensual Joy? Were ye convinced of your present Sin, and did ye see your future approaching Misery, could ye be so full of Mirth, upon the very Borders of the place where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of Teeth? Could ye Laugh and Sing, so near the bottomless Pit, where your Laughing shall be turned into Mourning, and your Mirth into everlasting Sorrow? Were ye the ⟨image 7⟩Men that had your Eyes opened, would ye not, every one of you, bitterly bewail your present danger, in the sense and apprehension of your speedy and eternal Woe, and say, Alas, what shall I do, when Sickness shall come, and Death shall come, and the Lord himself shall come, when I have no love for him? Woe is me! How shall I dye, and after Death appear at his Tribunal, whom I never loved? O my poor departing Soul! now as full of Terror, as empty of the love of Christ; what will become of thee, when thou steppest out of Time into Eternity? O dreadful, dreadful, this is exceeding dreadful, to leave all that I did ever love, and go to be judged by him, whom I did (Woe to me that I did) never love! I did love my Wise and Children, but not Christ, and now I must leave them whom I did so much love, and receive my Doom from him whom I did so much hate. I did love my Pleasures, and my sensual Delights, and now there is an end of them; and now I must go unto those Miseries, Woes and Torments, that shall never, never, end. Woe is me, that now I am ⟨image 7⟩a dying man, and shortly, alas a day or two more, an hour or two more; so shortly, for want of love to Christ, and I must be a Damned man. When I wa• well, and loved not Christ, (well and loved not Christ!) when I thought I was well without love to Christ, I thought my Pleasures were sweet, my Riches my Happiness, and my beloved Relations my Joy; and I thought my love was rightly placed upon them, but now upon this Dying-Bed, when I look backwards upon time now past, and forwards into Eternity, that never will be past, I see, I find the remembrance of them doth torment my departing Soul, they are as bitter as Gall, for the more I loved them heretofore, the more they do torment me now. Now! Woe is me! They will for ever.