A77813:12
A few sighs from hell, or, The groans of a damned soul. Or, An…
A few sighs from hell, or, The groans of a damned soul. Or, An exposition of those words in the sixteenth of Luke, concerning the rich man and the beggar : wherein is discovered the lamentable state of the damned : their cries, their desires in their distresses, with the determination of God upon them. A good warning word to sinners, both old and young, to take into consideration betimes, and to seek by faith in Jesus Christ to avoid, lest they come into the same place of torment. Also a brief discourse touching the profitableness of the Scriptures for our instruction in the way of righteousness, according to the tendency of the said parable. / By that poor and contemptible servant of Jesus Christ, John Bunyan.A few sighs from hell, or, The groans of a damned soul. Or, An exposition of those words in the sixteenth of Luke, concerning the rich man and the beggar : wherein is discovered the lamentable state of the damned : their cries, their desires in their distresses, with the determination of God upon them. A good warning word to sinners, both old and young, to take into consideration betimes, and to seek by faith in Jesus Christ to avoid, lest they come into the same place of torment. Also a brief discourse touching the profitableness of the Scriptures for our instruction in the way of righteousness, according to the tendancy of the said parable. / By that poor and contemptible servant of Jesus Christ, John Bunyan.
London: printed by Ralph Wood for M. Wright, 1658
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
True, few there are that will be persuaded, that this course they take, though their daily conversations do bear witness ⟨image 4⟩to it: for how much time is spent, and how much care is the hearts of men filled withal, after attaining, keeping, and increasing these things? And how seldom do they trouble their heads, to have their minds taken up with thoughts of the better? Cumbering themselves with many things, but wholly neglecting the one thing necessary; yea, whereby do they measure their own or other mens happiness, but by the large incomes of this worlds good, accounting this the greatest, if not the only blessedness, to have their corn, wine and oil increase in abundance, and reckoning those that are most serious about, and earnest after the world to come, men of foolish spirits, giddy brains, and worthy to be branded in the forehead for simple deluded ones. But surely he is the most fool that will be one at last, and he that God calls so (Luke 12.20.) will pass for one in the end: yea, within a ⟨image 4⟩short time they themselves shall change their notes. Ask the rich man spoken of in the ensuing Treatise, who was the fool? he, or Lazarus? and he will soon resolve the question, that he now sees, and by woeful experience finds, (whatsoever his former thoughts were) that he, not Lazarus was the silly deluded one, for he, fool like, preferred the worse things before the better, and refused that which once might have been had, but now he hath slipped the time, it cannot be gained; when this poor man (knowing the day of his visitation) was making sure of that glory which he now enjoys, and shall enjoy for evermore. So that in this Parable (if I may so call it) thou shalt find that Scripture confirmed, That the triumphing of the wicked is short, Job 20.5. Together with that, That the temptations (or afflictions) of the righteous, which cause heaviness, are but for a season, 1 Pet. 1.6. And in ⟨image 5⟩this treatise both of those are largely opened and explained. Behold here a rich man clothed in silks, fed with delicates, and faring deliciously every day: but look a little further, and so, this man clothed with vengeance, roaring under torments, and earnestly begging for a drop of water to cool his tongue, a sad change.