Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
2nd April 2005
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myself -- I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care;
but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and
in that manner; it came as a thief -- Death outwitted me: God's wrath
was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering
myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do
hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden
destruction came upon me."
God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any
natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises
either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from
eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the
promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and
amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant
of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in
any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the
covenant. So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about
promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain
and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion,
whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no
manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction. So
that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the
pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced
to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards
them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the
fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least
to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any
promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell
is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash abo