Published in Offor's 1861 edition of "Bunyan's Works."
OF DEATH AND JUDGMENT.
As the devil labours by all means to keep out other things that
are good, so to keep out of the heart as much as in him lies, the thoughts of passing
from this life into another world; for he knows if he can but keep them from the
serious thoughts of death, he shall the more easily keep them in their sins.
Nothing will make us more earnest in working out the work of our
salvation, than a frequent meditation of mortality; nothing hath greater influence
for the taking off our hearts from vanities, and for the begetting in us desires
after holiness.
O sinner, what a condition wilt thou fall into when thou departest
this world! If thou depart unconverted, thou hadst better have been smothered the
first hour thou wast born; thou hadst better have been plucked one limb from another;
thou hadst better have been made a dog, a toad, a serpent, if thou die unconverted,
and this thou wilt find true if thou repent not.
A man would be counted a fool to slight a judge, before whom he
is to have a trial of his whole estate. The trial we have before God is of other-guise
importance, it concerns our eternal happiness or misery; and yet dare we affront
him?
The only way for us to escape that terrible judgment, is to be
often passing a sentence of condemnation upon ourselves here.
When the sound of the trumpet shall be heard which shall summon
the dead to appear before the tribunal of God, the righteous shall hasten out of
their graves with joy to meet their Redeemer in the clouds; others shall call to
the hills and mountains to fall upon them, to cover them from the sight of their
Judge: let us therefore in time be posing ourselves which of the two we shall be.
