CHAP. V. The Misery of those who lose the Saint's Rest (3)

§ 16. This also will be a most tormenting consideration, to remember what they sold their eternal welfare for. When they compare the value of the pleasures of sin, with the value of the recompense of reward, how will the vast disproportion astonish them? To think of the low delights of the flesh, or the applauding breath of mortals, or the possessing heaps of gold; and then to think of everlasting glory. "This is all I had for my soul, my God, my hopes of blessedness!" It cannot possibly be expressed, how these thoughts will tear his very heart. Then will he exclaim against his folly. "O miserable wretch! Did I set my soul to sale for so base a price? Did I part with my God for a little dirt and dross; and sell my Savior, as Judas, for a little silver? I had but a dream of delight, for my hopes of heaven; and now I am awaked, it is all vanished. My morsels are now turned to gall, and my cups to wormwood. When they were past my taste, the pleasure perished. And is this all that I have had for the inestimable treasure? What a mad exchange did I make? What if I had gained all the world, and lost my soul? But, alas! how small a part of the world was it, for which I gave up my part in glory?" O that sinners would think of this, when they are swimming in the delights of the flesh, and studying how to be rich and honorable in the world! When they are desperately venturing upon known transgression, and sinning against the checks of conscience!

§ 17. It will add yet more to their torment, when they consider that they most wilfully procured their own destruction. Had they been forced to sin, it would much abate the rage of their consciences; or if they were punished for another man's transgressions; or any other had been the chief author of their ruin. But to think, it was the choice of their own will, and that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their wills; this will be a cutting thought: "Had I not enemies enough in the world (thinks this miserable creature) but I must be an enemy to myself? God would never give the Devil, nor the world, so much power over me, as to force me to commit the least transgression. They could but entice, it was myself that yielded, and did the evil. And must I lay hands upon my own soul; and embrue my hands in my own blood? Never had I so great an enemy as myself. Never did God offer any good to my soul, but I resisted him. He hath heaped mercy upon me, and renewed one deliverance after another, to draw my heart to him: yea, he hath gently chastised me, and made me groan under the fruit of my disobedience; and though I promised largely in my affliction, yet never was I heartily willing to serve him." Thus will it gnaw the hearts of these sinners, to remember that they were the cause of their own undoing; and that they wilfully and obstinately persisted in their rebellion, and were mere volunteers in the service of the Devil.

§ 18. The wound in their consciences will be yet deeper, when they shall not only remember it was their own doing, but that they were at so much cost and pains for their own damnation. What great undertakings did they engage in to effect their ruin; to resist the Spirit of God; to overcome the power of mercies, judgments, and even the word of God; to subdue the power of reason, and silence conscience? All this they undertook, and performed. Though they walked in continual danger of the wrath of God, and knew he could lay them in the dust, and cast them into hell, in a moment; yet would they run upon all this. Oh the labor it costs sinners to be damned! Sobriety, with health and ease, they might have had at a cheaper rate; yet they will rather have gluttony and drunkenness, with poverty, shame, and sickness. Contentment they might have, with ease and delight; yet they will rather have covetousness and ambition, though it costs them cares and fears, labor of body, and distraction of mind. Though their anger be self-torment, and revenge and envy consume their spirits; though uncleanness destroy their bodies, estates, and good names; yet will they do and suffer all this, rather than suffer their souls to be saved. With what rage will they lament their folly, and say, "Was damnation worth all my cost and pains? Might I not have been damned on free cost, but I must purchase it so dearly? I thought I could have been saved without so much ado; and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado? Must I so laboriously work out my own damnation, when God commanded me to work out my salvation? If I had done as much for heaven, as I did for hell, I had surely had it. I cried out of the tedious way of godliness, and the painful course of self-denial; and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan, and for death. Had I loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures, and profits, and honors, and thought on him as often, and sought him as painfully, O how happy had I now been! But justly do I suffer the flames of hell, for buying them so dear, rather than have heaven when it was purchased to my hands!"

§ 19. O that God would persuade thee, reader, to take up these thoughts now, for preventing the inconceivable calamity of taking them up in hell as thy own tormentor! Say not, that they are only imaginary. Read what Dives thought, being in torment.[249] As the joys of heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the rational soul in its rational actings, so must the pains of hell be suffered. As they will be men still, so will they feel and act as men.

[249]   Luke xvi.