Works of John Bunyan: The Greatness of The Soul, And Unspeakableness of the Loss Thereof; Inferences from Thus Coming to God by Christ, 228.

 

Repentance will not be found in heaven among them that come to God by Christ; no, hell is the place of untimely repentance; it is there where the tears will be mixed with gnashing of teeth, while they consider how mad, and worse, they were in not coming to God by Jesus Christ.

Then will their hearts and mouths be full of, ‘Lord, Lord, open unto us.’ But the answer will be, Ye shut me out of doors; ‘I was a stranger, and ye took me not in’; besides, you refused to come to my Father by me, wherefore now you must go from my Father by me. (Matt 25)

Those who will not be saved by Christ must be damned by Christ; no man can escape one of the two. Refuse the first they may, but shun the second they cannot. And now those who would not come to God by Christ will have leisure and time enough, if I may call it time, to consider what they have done in refusing to come to God by Christ. Now they will meditate warmly on this thing, now their thoughts will be burning hot about it, and it is too late, There will be, in each thought, such a sting, that, like a bow of steel, it will continually strike him through.

Now they will bless those whom they once despised, and commend those they once considered. Now would the rich man willingly change places with poor Lazarus, though he preferred his own condition before his in the world. The day of judgment will bring the worst to rights in their opinions; they will not be capable of misapprehending anymore. They will never after that day put bitter for sweet, or darkness for light, or evil for good anymore. Their madness will now be gone. Hell will be the unbeliever’s bedlam house, and there God will tame them as to all those bedlam tricks and pranks which they played in this world, but not at all to their profit nor advantage; the gulf that God has placed and fixed betwixt heaven and hell will spoil all as to that. (Luke 16:23-26)

But what a joy will it be to the truly godly to think now that they have come to God by Christ! It was their mercy to begin to come, it was their happiness that they continued coming; but it is their glory that they are come, that they are come to God by Christ. To God! Why, he is all! all that is good, essentially good, and eternally good. To God! The infinite ocean of good. To God, in friendly-wise, by the means of reconciliation; for the other now will become to him to receive his anger, because they come not to him by Jesus Christ. Oh! that I could imagine; oh! that I could think, that I might write more effectually to thee of the happy estate of them that come to God by Christ.

But thus have I passed through the three former things, namely, 1. That of the intercession of Christ. 2. That of the benefit of intercession. 3. That of the persons that are interested in this intercession.