John Owen - Meditate and think of the glory of heaven, and compare it with death and eternal misery

Meditate and think of the glory of heaven so as to compare it with the opposite state of death and eternal misery. Few men care to think much of hell, and the everlasting torments of the wicked therein. Those do so least who are in the most danger of falling thereinto. They put far from them the evil day, and suppose their covenant with death and hell to be sure. Some begin to advance an opinion that there is no such place; because it is their interest and desire that there should be none. Some, out of profaneness, make a scoff at it, as though a future judgment were but a fable. Most seem to think that there is a severity in thoughts about it, which it is not fit we should be too much terrified withal. Some transient thoughts they will have of it, but [they do] not suffer them to abide in their minds, lest they should be too much discomposed; or they think it not consistent with the goodness of Christ to leave any men in that condition, whereas there is more spoken directly of hell, its torments and their eternity, by himself than in all the Scripture besides. These thoughts, in most, proceed from an unwillingness to be troubled in their sins, and are useful unto none. It is the height of folly for men to endeavor the hiding of themselves for a few moments from that which is unavoidably coming upon them unto eternity, and the due consideration whereof is a means for an escape from it. But I speak only of true believers; and the more they are conversant in their thoughts about the future state of eternal misery, the greater evidence they have of the life and confidence of faith. It is a necessary duty to consider it, as what we were by nature obnoxious unto, as being "children of wrath;" what we have deserved by our personal sins, as "the wages of sin is death;" what we are delivered from through Jesus the deliverer, who "saves us from the wrath to come;" what expression it is of the indignation of God against sin, who hath "ordained Tophet of old," — that we may be delivered from sin, kept up to an abhorrency of it, walking in humility, self-abasement, and the admiration of divine grace. This, therefore, is required of us, that in our thoughts and meditations we compare the state of blessedness and eternal glory, as a free and absolute effect of the grace of God in and through Christ Jesus, with that state of eternal misery which we had deserved; and if there be any spark of grace or of holy thankfulness in our hearts, it will be stirred up unto its due exercise.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 6)