Miscellanies 80: How happy is the sinner now made saint

The barren woman sings when at last she produces her own offspring. The blind man, now seeing, first walks gently and then sprints to and fro in great excitement. Likewise those who were once tangled in darkness, nay, swallowed by it, and then afterward rescued unto the light, do give exceeding thanks to their heavenly hero. They say in retrospect, that "woe was me, for I never knew of my true misery and lostness. I had felt that I was altogether in good health, and my sins were never so great and gigantic as the sun in the sky and never so disagreeable too by God. God will forgive me, for my sins are little, and he is such a loving God that he will do no such thing by sending me to an eternal hell. Such a place existeth not, except in the mind of unloving religious fools who believe in a medieval doctrine propagated by Dante's inferno. We are to live as we ought to live, namely a pursuit of our own happiness. And which ever method by which we come to it, as long as it is not in the extreme camp of wickedness, then God, if there is one, blesses our endeavors." So says the unconverted man. But many more have no care, no, no virtuous spring in their heart that should move them with great seriousness to consider their standing before God, namely him who created in beauty and wisely the universe in which we live, although, now very much spoiled and ruined by sin.

But how different does the enlightened mind differ in his thoughts. O, infinitely different. For now he sees the heinousness of his sins and his life before hand, how it every day only served to arouse the wrath of God because it daily released pollution upon his earth, (John 3:36). How, now, he is forever thankful that the God of the earth did not arise to judge him when he was very much a willing servant of Satan, (2 Tim 2:26). O, see. He praises that God withheld his glittering sword, and instead lavished upon him the goodness of his sunshine, namely his grace and mercy. How happy is the sinner now made saint. And such is the disposition of all those who have been rescued, those who know something about their utter depravity and wrath deservedness, (Eph 2:4) that they should now receive mercy and love. This makes them weep tears of joy rather than tears of eternal pain and sorrow.

O be wise tarrying earthling, awake unto the judgment of your maker, for when he rises to Judge you and you are found to be absent in Christ, then you shall have no consolation forever. There shall be no day of bail, nay, no day of freedom. You shall be shut up in that frightening jail and the key for your release shall be thrown into that bottomless pit - that if anybody ever dare seek to retrieve it, they too shall descend endlessly with that key.

K.Oni