The saints are always inflamed with the consideration of the grace that once they embraced; but the wicked, most flamingly tormented with the thoughts of rejecting and refusing it.
The just, when they think of their sins, they are comforted with the thoughts of their being delivered from them; but the ungodly, when they think of their righteousness, will gnaw themselves, to think that this would not deliver them from hell.
When the godly think of hell, it will increase their comfort; but when the wicked think of heaven, it will twinge them like a serpent. Oh, this eternal judgment! What would a damned soul give that there might be, though after thousands and hundreds of thousands of millions of years, an end put to this eternal judgment. But their misery is, they have sinned against a God that is eternal; they have offended that justice that will never be satisfied; and therefore they must abide the fire that never shall be quenched. Here is judgment, just and sad.
Again; as it will be thus with good and bad in general, so again, more particularly, when the wicked are thus adjudged and condemned, and also received of the fiery gulf, then they shall find, That as he that busieth himself to do good, shall have more glory than others; so they that have been more busy and active in sin than others, they shall have more wrath and torment than others. For as doing good abundantly, doth enlarge the heart to receive and hold more glory: so doing evil abundantly, doth enlarge the heart and soul to receive punishment so much the more. And hence it is that you have such sayings as these—It shall be more tolerable in the judgment for Sodom than for others (Luke 10:12)—that is, than for those that had sinned against much greater light and mercy. "For these," as he saith in another place, "shall receive greater damnation" (Luke 20:47). Yea, it standeth to reason, that he who had most light, most conviction, most means of conversion, and that was highest towards heaven, he must needs have the greatest fall, and so sink deepest into the jaws of eternal misery. As one star—that is, as one saint—differeth from another in heaven; so one damned soul shall differ from another in hell. It is so among the devils themselves; they are some worse than others; Beelzebub is the prince, or chief of the devils (Matt 9:34; Mark 3:22). That is, one that was most glorious in heaven; chief among the reprobate angels before his fall (Isa 14:12), and therefore sinned against the greater light, mercy, and goodness; and so became the chief for wickedness, and will also have as the wages thereof, the chief of torments. For that will be true of the damned in hell, which is prayed for against Babylon.—"How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her" (Rev 18:7). Can it be imagined that Judas should have no more torment, who betrayed the Prince of life and Saviour of the world, than others who never came near his wickedness by ten thousand degrees? He that knew his master's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; with many more stripes, than others that through ignorance did commit sin worthy of many stripes. But what should I thus discourse of the degrees of the torments of the damned souls in hell? For he that suffers least, will the waters of a full cup be wrung out to him; the least measure of wrath, it will be the wrath of God, eternal and fiery wrath, insupportable wrath; it will lay the soul in the gulf of that second death, which will for ever have the mastery over the poor damned perishing sinner. "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:14,15).
FOOTNOTES:
1 Bunyan quotes this from the Genevan or Puritan version; our present translation has "in our body."—Ed.
2 From the verb "to chit," to sprout—to shoot at the end of the grain; provincial and almost obsolete.—Ed.
3 These ideas are as new as they are striking and splendid. Our vile bodies, when raised from the dust, shall be spiritual—like that of Christ—with him in glory; "bright as the sun and stars and angels." How amazingly superior is our preaching mechanic, to all the fathers (so called) and dignitaries of state churches that ever wrote upon this subject. Bunyan proves his apostolic descent in the right line; he breathes the spirit—the holy fire of the inspired writers.—Ed.
4 I have continued this word as Bunyan spelt it, but he probably meant hog-herd, a keeper or driver of swine, one of the dirtiest and lowest employments.
"No boorish hog-herd fed his rooting swine" Browne's Pastorals.—Ed.