Sirs, give me leave to set my trumpet to your ears a little.

1. I begin with you whose religion lies only in your tongues; I mean you who are little or nothing known from the rest of the rabble of the world, only you can talk better than they. Hear me a word or two: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity" – that is, love to God and Christ and saints and holiness – "I am nothing," no child of God, and so have nothing to do with heaven. A prating tongue will not unlock the gate of heaven, nor blind the eyes of the Judge.

2. Covetous professor,you that make a gain of religion, and use your religion to bring grist to your mill, look to it also. Gain is not godliness. Judas's religion lay much in the bag, but his soul is now burning in hell. All covetousness is idolatry, but what will you call it, when men are religious for filthy lucre's sake?

3. Wanton professor, I have a word for you: I mean you that can tell how to misplead Scripture to maintain your pride, your banqueting, your abominable idolatry. Read what Peter says, II Peter 2:18. You are the snare and damnation of others. You allure through the lust of the flesh, and through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. Besides, the Holy Ghost has a great deal against you, for your feastings and eating without fear, not for health but gluttony. Further, Peter says that you that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime are spots and blemishes, sporting yourselves with your own deceivings. And let me ask, Does grace teach you to plead for the flesh, or the making provision for the lusts thereof?

4. I come next to the opinionist – I mean to him whose religion lies in some circumstantials of religion. With this sort this country swarms at this day. These think all are out of the way who are not of their opinion, when they themselves may be out of the way in the midst of their zeal for their opinions.

5. Neither is the formalist exempted from this number. He is a man that has lost all but the shell of religion. He is hot, indeed, for his forms; and no marvel, for that is his all to contend for. But his form being without the power and spirit of godliness, it will leave him in his sins; nay, he stands now in them in the sight of God, and is one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able" (II Tim. 3:5).

6. The legalist comes next, even him that has no life but what he makes out of his duties. This man has chosen to stand or fall by Moses who is the condemner of the world. "There is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust" (John 5:45).

7. There is in the next place the libertine – he that pretends to be against forms and duties, as things that gender to bondage, neglecting the order of God. This man pretends to pray always, but, under that pretence, prays not at all; he pretends to keep every day a Sabbath, but this pretence serves him only to cast off all set times for the worship of God. This is also one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able" (Titus 1:16).

8. There is the temporizing latitudinarian. He is a man that has no God but his belly, nor any religion but that by which his belly is worshiped. His religion is always, like the times, turning this way and that way, like the weather-cock; neither has he any conscience but a benumbed and seared one, and is next door to a downright atheist; and also one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

9. There is also the wilfully ignorant professor, or him that is afraid to know more for fear of the cross. He is for picking and choosing of truth, and loves not to hazard his all for "that worthy name" by which he would be called. When he is at any time overset by arguments or awakenings of conscience, he uses to heal all by pleading ignorance, as if it were unlawful for Christians to know more than what has been taught them in their youth. There are many scriptures that lie against this man, as the mouths of great guns, and he is one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

10. We will add to all these the professor that would prove himself a Christian by comparing himself with others instead of comparing himself with the Word of God. This man comforts himself, because he is as holy as such and such; he also knows as much as that old professor, and then concludes he shall go to heaven; as if he certainly knew that these with whom he compares himself would be undoubtedly saved; but how, if he should be mistaken? Nay, may they not both fall short!? But to be sure, he is in the wrong that has made the comparison; and a wrong foundation will not stand in the day of judgment (II Cor. 10:12). This man, therefore, is one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

11. There is yet another professor; and he is for God and for Baal too; he can be anything for any company; he can throw stones with both hands; his religion alters as fast as his company; he is a frog in Egypt, and can live in the water and out of the water; he can live in religious company, and again as well out. Nothing that is disorderly comes amiss to him; he will hold with the hare and run with the hound; he carries fire in the one hand and water in the other; he is a very anything but what he should be. This is also one of the many that "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

12. There is also that free-willer, who denies to the Holy Ghost the sole work in conversion; and that Socinian, who denies to Christ that He has made to God satisfaction for sin; and I might add as many more, touching whose damnation (they denying as they are), the Scripture is plain: these "will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

What a strange disappointment will many professors meet with at the day of judgment! So that, fellow-professors, let us fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into this rest, any of us should seem to come short of it. Oh, to come short! Nothing kills like it, nothing will burn like it... I intend not discouragements, but awakenings; the churches have need of awakening, and so have all professors. Do not despise me, therefore, but hear me over again. What a strange disappointment will many professors meet with at the day of God Almighty! A disappointment, I say, and that as to several things:

1. They will look to escape hell, and yet fall just into the mouth of hell: What a disappointment here!

2. They will look for heaven, but the gate of heaven will be shut against them: What a disappointment here!

3. They'll expect that Christ should have compassion for them, but will find that He has shut up all bowels of compassion for them: What a disappointment is here! Again,

As this disappointment will be fearful, so certainly it will be very full of amazement.

Will it not amaze them to be unexpectedly excluded from life and salvation? Will it not be amazing to them to see their own madness and folly, while they consider how they have dallied with their own souls, and took lightly for granted that they had that grace that would save them, but [it] has left them in a damnable state? ... Will they not also be amazed, one at another, while they remember how in their lifetime they counted themselves fellow-heirs of life? (Read Isa. 13:8) ... Will it not be amazing to some of the damned themselves to see some come to hell that then they shall see come thither? To see preachers of the Word, professors of the Word, practicers in the Word, come thither? What wondering was there among them at the fall of the king of Babylon, since he thought to have swallowed up all: "How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!" If such a thing as this will with amazement surprise the damned, what an amazement will it be to them to see such a one as he whose head reached to the clouds, to see him come down to the pit and perish forever! They that see you shall closely look upon you and consider you, saying, "Is this the man? Is this he that professed, and disputed and forsook us; but now he is come to us again! Is this he that separated from us, but now he is fallen with us into the same eternal damnation with us?"

Yet again, one word more...Consider, though the poor carnal world shall certainly perish, yet they will not have these things to aggravate their sorrow, that you will meet with in every thought that you will have of the condition you were in when you were in the world:

1. They will not have a profession to bite them when they come thither.

2. They will not have a taste of lost heaven to bite them when they come thither.

3. They will not have the thoughts of, "I was almost at heaven," to bite them when they come thither.

4. They will not have the thoughts of how they cheated saints, ministers, churches, to bite them when they come thither.

5. They will not have the dying thoughts of false faith, false hope, false repentance, and false holiness, to bite them when they come thither. "I was at the gate of heaven, I looked into heaven, I thought I should have entered heaven!" Oh, how will these things sting! They will, if I may call them so, be the sting of the sting of death in hell-fire.

Give me leave now in a word to give you a little advice.

Do you love your own soul? Then pray to Jesus Christ for an awakened heart, for a heart so awakened with all the things of another world, that you may be allured to Jesus Christ.

When you come there, beg again for more awakenings about sin, hell, grace, and about the righteousness of Christ. Cry also for a spirit of discerning, that you may know that which is saving grace indeed. Above all studies, apply yourself to the study of those things that show you the evil of sin, the shortness of man's life, and which is the way to be saved. -- Keep company with the most godly among the professors.

When you hear what the nature of true grace is, defer not to ask your own heart whether this grace be in you. And here take heed,

1. That the preacher himself be sound and of a good life.

2. That you take not seeming graces for real ones, nor seeming fruits for real fruits.

3. Take heed that a sin in your life goes not unrepented of; for that will make a flaw in your evidence, a wound in your conscience, and a breach in your peace; and a hundred to one, if at last it does not drive all the grace in you into so dark a corner of your heart, that you shall not be able for a time, by all the torches that are burning in the gospel, to find it out to your own comfort and consolation.

[And thus the true soul-surgeon, the good author of The Pilgrim's Progress, has examined our hearts under the searchlight of Divine truth. May God the Holy Ghost make the application, even salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ.] Amen.