Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan (most life changing books TXT) 📕

Atten. This does look like an argument indeed; for Repentance must come, or else we must goe to Hell-fire: and if a lewd liver shall (I mean that so continues till the day of his death), yet goe out of the world quietly, ‘tis a sign that he died without repentance, and so a sign that he is damned.

Wise. I am satisfied in it, for my part, and that from the Necessity, and Nature of repentance. It is necessary, because God calls for it, and will not pardon sin without it: Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish. This is that which God hath said, and he will prove but a fool-hardy man that shall yet think to goe to Heaven and glory without it. Repent, for the Ax is laid to the root of the tree, every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, (but no good fruit can be where there is not sound repentance) shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire. {172a} This was Mr. Badmans case, he had attending of him a sinfull life, and that to the very last, and yet dyed quietly, that is, without repentance; he is gone to Hell and is damned. For the Nature of repentance, I have touched upon that already, and shewed, that it never was where a quiet death is the immediate companion of a sinfull life; and therefore Mr. Badman is gone to Hell.

Secondly, {172b} My second argument is drawn from that blessed Word of Christ, While the strong man armed keeps the house, his goods are in peace, till a stronger than he comes: but the strong man armed kept Mr. Badmans house, that is, his heart, and soul, and body, for he went from a sinfull life quietly, out of this world: the stronger did not disturb by intercepting with sound repentance, betwixt his sinful life and his quiet death: Therefore Mr. Badman is gone to Hell.

The strong man armed is the Devil, and quietness is his security. The Devil never fears losing of the sinner, if he can but keep him quiet: can he but keep him quiet in a sinfull life, and quiet in his death, he is his own. Therefore he saith, his goods are in peace; that is, out of danger. There is no fear of the Devils losing such a soul, I say, because Christ, who is the best Judge in this matter, saith, his goods are in peace, in quiet, and out of danger.

Atten. This is a good one too; {173a} for doubtless, peace and quiet with sin, is one of the greatest signs of a damnable state.

Wise. So it is. Therefore, when God would shew the greatness of his anger against sin and sinners in one word, he saith, They are joyned to Idols, let them alone. {173b} Let them alone, that is, disturb them not; let them goe on without controll; let the Devil enjoy them peaceably, let him carry them out of the world unconverted quietly. This is one of the sorest of Judgments, and bespeaketh the burning anger of God against sinfull men. See also when you come home, the fourteenth Verse of the Chapter last mentioned in the Margent: I will not punish your daughters when they commit Whoredom. I will let them alone, they shall live and dye in their sins. But,

Thirdly, My third argument {173c} is drawn from that saying of Christ: He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them. {173d}

There are three things that I will take notice of from these words.

1. The first is, That there can be no conversion to God where the eye is darkned, and the heart hardened. The eye must first be made to see, and the heart to break and relent under and for sin, or else there can be no conversion. He hath blinded their eyes, and hardned their hearts, lest they should see, and understand and (So) be converted. And this was clearly Mr. Badmans case, he lived a wicked life, and also died with his eyes shut, and heart hardened, as is manifest, in that a sinful life was joyned with a quiet death; and all for that he should not be converted, but partake of the fruit of his sinfull life in Hell fire.

2. The second thing that I take notice of from these words is, That this is a dispensation and manifestation of Gods anger against a man for his sin. When God is angry with men, I mean, when he is so angry with them, this among many is one of the Judgments that he giveth them up unto, to wit, to blindness of mind, and hardness of heart, which he also suffereth to accompany them till they enter in at the gates of death. And then, and there, and not short of then and there, their eyes come to be opened. Hence it is said of the rich man mentioned in Luke, He dyed, and in Hell he lifted up his eyes: {174a} Implying that he did not lift them up before: He neither saw what he had done, nor whither he was going, till he came to the place of execution, even into Hell. He died asleep in his soul; he dyed bespotted, stupified, and so consequently for quietness, like a Child or Lamb, even as Mr. Badman did: this was a sign of Gods anger; he had a mind to damn him for his sins, and therefore would not let him see nor have an heart to repent for them, lest he should convert, and his damnation, which God had appointed, should be frustrate: lest they should be converted, and I should heal them.

3. The third thing that I take notice of from hence, is, That a sinfull life and a quiet death annexed to it, is the ready, the open, the beaten, the common high-way to Hell: there is no surer sign of Damnation, than for a man to dye quietly after a sinfull life. I do not say that all wicked men, that are molested at their death with a sence of sin and fears of Hell, do therefore goe to Heaven, (for some are also made to see, and are left to despair (not converted by seeing) that they might go roaring out of this world to their place:) But I say, there is no surer sign of a mans Damnation, than to dye quietly after a sinful life; than to sin, and dye with his eyes shut; than to sin, and dye with an heart that cannot repent. He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart; (no, not so long as they are in this world) lest they should see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. {174b}

God has a Judgment for wicked men; God will be even with wicked men: God knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of Judgment to be punished: {174c} And this is one of his wayes by which he doth it. Thus it was with Mr. Badman.

4. Fourthly, {174d} It is said in the Book of Psalms, concerning the wicked, There is no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. By no bands, he means no troubles, no gracious chastisements, no such corrections for sin as fall to be the Lot of Gods people for theirs; yea, that many times falls to be theirs, at the time of their death. Therefore he adds concerning the wicked, They are not troubled (then) like other men, neither are they plagued like other men; but go as securely out of the world, as if they had never sinned against God, and put their own souls into danger of damnation. There is no band in their death. They seem to go unbound, and set at liberty, out of this world, though they have lived notoriously wicked all their dayes in it. The Prisoner that is to dye at the Gallows for his wickedness, must first have his Irons knock’t off his legs; so he seems to goe most at liberty, when indeed he is going to be executed for his transgressions. Wicked men also have no bands in their death, they seem to be more at liberty when they are even at the Wind-up of their sinfull life, than at any time besides.

Hence you shall have them boast of their Faith and Hope in Gods Mercy, when they lye upon their death-bed; yea, you shall have them speak as confidently of their salvation, as if they had served God all their dayes: when the truth is, the bottom of this their boasting is, because they have no bands in their death.

Their sin and base life comes not into their mind to correct them, and bring them to repentance; but presumptuous thoughts, and an hope and faith of the Spiders (the Devils) making, possesseth their soul, to their own eternal undoing. {175a}

Hence wicked mens hope, is said to dye, not before, but with them; they give up the Ghost together. And thus did Mr. Badman. His sins and his hope went with him to the Gate, but there his hope left him, because it dyed there; but his sins went in with him, to be a worm to gnaw him in his conscience for ever and ever.

The opinion therefore of the common people concerning this kind of dying, is {175b} frivolous and vain; for Mr. Badman died like a Lamb, or as they call it, like a Chrisom child, quietly and without fear. I speak not this with reference to the strugling of nature with death, but as to the strugling of the conscience with the Judgment of God. I know that Nature will struggle with death. I have seen a Dog and Sheep dye hardly: And thus may a wicked man doe, because there is an antipathy betwixt nature and death. But even while, even then, when Death and Nature are strugling for mastery, the soul, the conscience, may be as besotted, as benummed, as senceless and ignorant of its miserable state, as the block or bed on which the sick lyes: And thus they may dye like a Chrisom child in shew, but indeed like one who by the Judgment of God is bound over to eternal damnation; and that also by the same Judgment is kept from seeing what they are, and whither they are going, till they plunge down among the flames.

And as it is a very great Judgment of God on wicked men that so dye, (for it cuts them off from all possibility of repentance, and so of salvation) {176a} so it is as great a Judgment upon those that are their companions that survive them. For by the manner of their death, they dying so quietly, so like unto chrisom children, as they call it, they are hardened, and take courage to go on in their course.

For comparing their life with their death, their sinful cursed lives with their child-like, Lamb-like death, they think that all is well, that no damnation is happened to them; Though they lived like Devils incarnate, yet they dyed like harmless ones. There was no whirl-wind, no tempest, no band, nor plague in their death: They dyed as quietly as the most godly of them all, and had as great faith and hope of salvation, and would talk as boldly of salvation as if they had assurance of it. But as was their hope in life, so was their death: Their hope was without tryal, because