Quote 4605
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There are many in hell, who would be glad to change conditions with you, as bad as you think yours to be.
What is the reason that many professors are no more holy and humble, but waspish and peevish and harsh, and of a rugged disposition, but because they have not studied the gospel more
the Sabbath day is our market day, and then after we have bought our market on the Sabbath, we should roast it by meditation on the week. We do not go to the market on the market day to buy meat into the house only for the market day but for all the time until the market day comes about again. Indeed, Solomon says of the sluggard that he is so sluggish and slothful that "he doth not roast what he hath taken in hunting." The Sabbath day is the hunting day for souls wherein the venison is taken; on the weekday we are to roast it and to live upon it by meditation and otherwise. And what is the reason that many do not live upon their venison that they have taken on the Lord's Day? But because they do not roast it by meditation on the weekday.
Hell will be filled with people who didn't drink, didn't cuss, and may have even been baptized. Why? Because not one of those things make someone a Christian.
A man must not run into a suffering without a call, and he must not rush out of it without a call. And therefore you shall find Christ and the apostles, and all the martyrs, that thus they acted. They would hide, and go aside, and avoid their sufferings; but when they were in hold they would not go out though the doors were open. So that that is the next thing: be sure of this, that you do not run into sufferings without a call nor rush out of sufferings without the same call from God.
When a man's mind is empty, as in temptation and want of comfort, it is empty of Christ and full of fear. Then it grinds itself, as in a quern or mill when empty of corn, one stone grinds another. The more full a man's mind is, the more free from temptations and fears. Now Scripture matter is the most filling matter.
The word father is a sweet word, for it sweetens all our duties. Take the word father out of prayer, and how sour it is!
What is prayer and the nature of it? Prayer is the pouring out of the soul to God; not the pouring out of words nor the pouring out of expressions, but the pouring out of the soul to God.
Idleness breeds temptation. Our vacation is the devil's term; when we are least at work for God, then is Satan most at work about us. By doing nothing men learn to do evil. Yea, idleness is the burying of a living man.
Seek not great things for yourselves in this world, for if your garments be too long, they will make you stumble; and one staff helps a man in his journey when many in his hands at once hinders him.
Hell is full of hard hearts; there is not one soft heart there. There is weeping there, but no softness.
The damned in hell are under easeless and endless sufferings because they would have sinned always if they could have lived always. Wicked men would have no end of their lives here; they would live forever that they might sin forever. Therefore the Lord giveth them a life, not such a one as they would have but such a one as they deserve to have, which is indeed a death forever; wicked men shall die eternally for sin because they would have lived eternally in sin.
They say smelling of the earth is healthful for the body and taking in the scent of this sulphurous pit, by frequent meditation, cannot but be as wholesome for the soul. O Christian, be sometimes walking in the company of those scriptures which set out the state of the damned in hell and their exquisite torments. This is the true house of mourning, and the going into it by serious meditation is a sovereign means to make the living lay it to heart; and laying it to heart, there is the less fear that thou wilt throw thyself by thy impenitency into this uncomfortable place who art offered so fair a mansion in heaven through faith and repentance.
Many among us, I think, would be content if there were such a law that might tie up ministers' mouths from scaring them with their sins and the miseries that attend their unreconciled state. The most are more careful to run from the discourse of their misery than to get out of the danger of it, are more offended with the talk of hell than troubled for that sinful state that shall bring them thither.
Satan labors to put off the sinner with delays. Floating, flitting thoughts of repenting he fears not; he can give sinners leave to talk what they will do so he can beg time and by his art keep such thoughts from coming to a head and ripening into a perfect resolution. Few are in hell but thought of repenting.
Could the damned forget the way they went into hell, how oft the Spirit of God was wooing, and how far they were overcome by the conviction of it—in a word, how many turns and returns there were in their journey forward and backward, what possibilities—yea, probabilities—they had for heaven when on earth. Were but some hand so kind as to blot these tormenting passages out of their memories, it would ease them wonderfully.
Many have declared that all the torments in the world are nothing to the wrath of God upon the conscience. What is the worm that never dies but the efficacy of a guilty conscience? This worm feeds upon and gnaws the very inwards, the tender and most sensible part of man, and is the principal part of hell's horror.
O sinners, consider when you are sinning, you are dancing about the mouth of hell. If the Lord should but snap in sunder the slender thread of your lives, you would presently fall into hell. Men think the pleasures of sin very sweet; the Lord knows they are bitterness in the latter end.
God never yet sent any man to hell for sin to whom sin has commonly been the greatest hell in this world. God has but one hell, and that is for those to whom sin has been commonly a heaven in this world. That man that hates sin and that daily enters his protest against sin—that man shall never be made miserable by sin hereafter.
To think often of hell is the way to be preserved from falling into hell. Oh, that you would often consider the bitterness of the damneds' torments and of the pitilessness of their torments and of the diversity, the easelessness, the remedilessness of their torments! The sinner's delight here is momentary; that which torments hereafter is perpetual. When as sinners in hell, dost thou think, O young man, that another Christ shall be found to die for them or that the same Christ shall be crucified again for them or that another gospel shall be preached to them? Surely not.
The best way to prevent this hell of hells is to give God the cream and flower of your youth, your strength, your time, your talent. Death may suddenly and unexpectedly seize on you; you have no lease of your lives. Youth is as fickle as old age; the young man may find graves enough of his length in burial places. As green wood and old logs meet in one fire, so young sinners and old sinners meet in one hell and burn together.
Common and ordinary blessings once lost and found again become extraordinary.Lifting Up
As for the sin against the Holy Ghost, he never sins against the Holy Ghost that fears he has sinned against the Holy Ghost.Lifting Up, 162
The least sin is worse than the greatest affliction.Lifting Up, 68
What is affliction? Affliction is all that is contrary to one's will; thereby God eats out the core of our wills. Whensoever therefore you meet with any affliction, pray over it and beg that God would eat out the core of your wills thereby; and the more the core of your wills is eaten out, the more willing you will be to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.Works 3:342
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
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6. John Flavel (96)
7. J.I. Packer (95)
8. William Gurnall (93)
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13. A.W. Pink (68)
14. Louis Berkhof (63)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
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