I will yet add to all this; how will the fairness of some for heaven, even the thoughts of that, sting them when they come to hell! It will not be so much their fall into the pit, as from whence they fell into it, that will be to them the buzzing noise and sharpened sting of the great and terrible hornet. ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!’ there is the sting (Isa 14:12). Thou that art exalted up to heaven shalt be thrust down to hell, though thou hast made ‘thy nest among the stars,’ from thence I will fetch thee down; there is a sting (Matt 11:23; Oba 4). To be pulled, for and through love to some vain lust, from the everlasting gates of glory, and caused to be swallowed up for it in the belly of hell, and made to lodge for ever in the darksome chambers of death, there is the piercing sting!
But again, as there is the sting of hell, so there is the strength of that sting; for a sting though never so sharp, or venom, yet if it wanteth strength to force it to the designed execution, it doth but little hurt. But this sting has strength to cause it to pierce into the soul; ‘the sting of death is sin: and the strength of sin is the law’ (1 Cor 15:56). Here then is the strength of the stings of hell; it is the law in the perfect penalty of it; ‘for without the law, sin is dead’ (Rom 7:8). Yea, again he saith, ‘where no law is, there is no transgression’ (Rom 4:15). The law then followeth, in the executive part of it, the soul into hell, and there strengtheneth sin, that sting of hell, to pierce by its unutterable charging of it on the conscience, the soul for ever and ever; nor can the soul justly murmur or repine at God or at His law, for that then the sharply apprehensive soul will well discern the justness, righteousness, reasonableness, and goodness of the law, and that nothing is done by the law unto it, but that which is just and equal. 38
This, therefore, will put great strength and force into sin to sting the soul, and to strike it with the lashes of a scorpion. Add yet to these the abiding life of God, the Judge and God of this law, will never die. When princes die, the law may be altered by the which at present transgressors are bound in chains; but oh! here is also that which will make this sting so sharp and keen, the God that executes it will never die. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Heb 10:30, 31).
FOOTNOTES:
1 ‘Gospellers,’ a term of reproach given to our reformers under Henry VIII; changed to ‘Puritan’ under Elizabeth and the Stuarts; and to ‘Methodist,’ or ‘Evangelical’ in more recent times. All these terms were adopted by the reformers as an honorable distinction from the openly profane.—Ed.
2 Having the most solemn warnings mercifully given to us by God, whose word is truth itself, how strange it is, nay, how insane, to neglect the Saviour. Our author, in his ‘Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,’ gives a solemn account of his own distracted feelings, when he, by Divine warnings, contemplated the probable loss of his never-dying soul; and, believing in the truth of God’s revealed will, he felt, with inexpressible horror, his dangerous state. He describes his mental anguish, by comparing it with the acute bodily sufferings of a criminal broken on the wheel. Can we wonder that he was in ‘downright earnest’ in seeking salvation. Oh! reader, may we be thus impelled to fly from the wrath to come.—Ed.
3 Many have been the attempts to define the qualities, nature, and residence of the soul. The sinful body is the sepulchre in which it is entombed, until Christ giveth it life. The only safe guide, in such inquiries, is to follow Bunyan, and ascertain ‘what saith the Lord’ upon a subject so momentous and so difficult for mortal eyes to penetrate.—Ed.
4 The poor soul, under the irresistible constraints of conscience, bears witness against itself; sits in judgment upon, and condemns itself; and goeth, without a jailor, to conduct it, into the dread prison, where it becomes its own tormentor. ‘A wounded spirit (or conscience) who can bear?’—Ed.
5 My Lord Will-be-will was a very eminent captain in the town of Mansoul, during the Holy War: wherefore Diabolus had a kindness for him, and coveted to have him for one of his great ones, to act and do in matters of the highest concern. Bunyan represents him as having been wounded in the leg, during the seige. ‘Some of the prince’s army certainly saw him limp, as he afterwards walked on the wall.’—Ed.
6 To the unregenerate, unsanctified soul, the language of the Saviour in John 6:48-58, must appear, as it did to the Jews, perfectly inexplicable—‘He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.’ Blessed mystery! to be one with Christ, in obedience to His will, and in partaking of His inheritance. To be enabled to say, ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’—Ed.