Also the law, that can shoot a great way;
have a care thou keep out of the reach of those great guns the ten
commandments. Hell also hath a wide mouth; it can stretch itself
further than you are aware of. And as the angel said to Lot, "Take
heed; look not behind thee, neither tarry thou in all the
plain"--that is, anywhere between this and the mountain--"lest thou
be consumed;" so say I to thee, Take heed; tarry not, lest either
the devil, hell, death, or the fearful curses of the law of God, do
overtake thee and throw thee down in the midst of thy sins; then
thou, as well as I, wouldst say, They that will have heaven must run
for it.
They that go to heaven must run for it, because, perchance, the
gates of heaven may be shut shortly. Sometimes sinners have not
heaven's gates open to them so long as they suppose, and if they be
once shut against a man, they are so heavy that all the men in the
world and all the angels in heaven are not able to open them. "I
shut, and no man can open," saith Christ. And how if thou shouldst
come but one quarter of an hour too late? I tell thee it will cost
thee an eternity to bewail thy misery in. Francis Spira [Footnote:
Francis Spira, an eminent lawyer of Padua, Italy, flurished in the
first half of the sixteenth century.
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