A77813:17
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.
2ly. Take a short (yet let it not be a slight) view of the best of the things men prize so high, that for the love of, they lose their souls: what are they? Even painted nothings, promising vanities, (like the apples of Sodom, fair to the eye, but being touched, turn to dust: or like our Mother Eve's, that had a beautiful look, but being tasted, brings forth death) which for the most part have proved snares to the owners, and always miserable comforters at the parting, they cannot satisfy in life; for the more of these things are had, the more (with a disquieted spirit) are they reached after, and what comes in, serves ⟨image 9⟩but to whet up the greedy unsatisfied appetite after more. The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, 1 John 2.17. Though most men content themselves with these, yet it is not in these to satisfy them, and had they but one glimpse of the world to come, one cranny of light to discern the riches of Christ, and the least taste of the pleasures that are at the right hand of God, Psal. 16.11. They would be as little satisfied without a share in them, as they are now with what of worldly things they enjoy: much less can they ease from pain at death, clap a bag of gold (as one once did) to thy sinking spirit, pained body, and tormented conscience, and it can neither cheer up the one, nor appease the other, least of all can they deliver from, or yield comfort after death; those cannot serve as a bribe to death, to pass thee by, nor yet bring comfort to thy soul, when thou art gone: the rich fools large ⟨image 9⟩crop and great increase, could not procure one nights respite, nor one moments comfort. Besides, God regards them so little, that frequently he gives the largest share of them, to whom he hateth most, Psal. 17.14. And the least to them who are the excellent in the earth, in whom his soul delights, although he hath made them heirs of the Kingdom, Jam. 2.5. Yet doth he bestow but a small portion of these worldly things upon them, hereby declaring to all, how little he sets by those things which most set so much by, and to draw up our hearts, minds and affections to the things above: yea, His own Son that he appointed heir of all things,