I trust the day of our delivery out of all miseries, and of our entrance into perpetual rest, and into perpetual joy and felicity, draweth nigh: the Lord strengthen us with his mighty Spirit of grace!
If you have not to write with, you must make your man your friend. And this bearer deserveth to be rewarded; so he may, and will do you pleasure. My man is trusty, but it grieveth both him and me, that when I send him with any thing to you, your man will not let him come up to see you, as he may to master Latimer, and yours to me. I have a promise to see how my answers were written in the schools, but as yet I cannot come by it. Pray for me, I pray for you, and so shall I for you. The Lord have mercy of his church, and lighten the eyes of the magistrates, that God's extreme plagues light not on this realm of England!—Turn, or burn.
Matthew Henry
The king is resolved, if they persist in their refusal, that they shall immediately be cast into the fiery furnace, and shall not have so much as an hour's reprieve. Thus does the matter lie in a little compass - Turn, or burn; and, because he knew they buoyed themselves up in their refusal with a confidence in their God, he insolently set him a defiance: “And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Let him, if he can.” Now he forgot what he himself once owned, that their God was a God of gods and a Lord of kings, Dan. 2:47.
William Gurnall
It is a great honour to a Christian, yea, to religion itself when all their enemies can say, is, They are precise, and will not do as we do. Now in such a case as this, when the Christian must turn or burn; leave praying, or become a prey to the cruel teeth of bloody men; how many politic retreats and self-preserving distinctions would a cowardly unresolved heart invent! The Christian, that hath so great opposition, had need be well locked into the saddle of his profession, or else he will be soon dismounted.
Charles Spurgeon
“If he turn not, he will whet his sword.” What blows are those which will be dealt by that long uplifted arm! God's sword has been sharpening upon the revolving stone of our daily wickedness, and if we will not repent, it will speedily cut us in pieces. Turn or burn is the sinner's only alternative. “He hath bent his bow and made it ready.” Even now the thirsty arrow longs to wet itself with the blood of the persecutor. The bow is bent, the aim is taken, the arrow is fitted to the string, and what, O sinner, if the arrow should be let fly at thee even now! Remember, God's arrows never miss the mark, and are, every one of them, “instruments of death.” Judgment may tarry, but it will not come too late. The Greek proverb saith, “The mill of God grinds late, but grinds to powder.”
Charles Spurgeon
We assert, then, that there is a Necessity that God should whet his sword and punish men, if they will not turn. Earnest Baxter used to say: "Sinner! turn, or burn; it is thine only alternative; Turn, or Burn!" And it is so. We think we can show you why men must turn, or else they burn.
Richard Baxter
O willful wretched sinners! It is not God that is cruel to you, it is you that are cruel to yourselves; you are told you must turn or burn, and yet you turn not. You are told that if you will needs keep your sins, you shall keep the curse of God with them; and yet you will keep them. You are told that there is no way to happiness but by holiness, and yet you will not be holy. What would you have God to say more to you? What would you have him do with his mercy? He offereth it you, and you will not have it.
John Trapp
Job 22:20 Whereas our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth.
Ver. 20. Whereas our substance is not cut down] That is, while life lasteth, and while it is called today; before death cometh: and after death, judgment; when the remnant of the wicked fire shall consume. Where we have a forcible motive to repent, because we must either turn or burn, Aut poenitendum, aut pereundum. See Acts 17:31; 2 Cor. 5:10-11; Heb. 12:28-29. Eliphaz seemeth here on purpose to have mentioned that fire wherewith wicked men shall be tormented at the last day (and before, for every man’s death day is his doomsday), and to have changed the person.
The remnant (or excellence) of them the fire consumeth] That it might the more effectually move men to repent, that they might be delivered from the wrath to come. And here I could willingly take up Chrysostom’s wish, Utinam ubique de Gehenna dissereretur! Oh that men would talk more everywhere of hell fire unquenchable, intolerable, and the fuel thereof made of the most tormenting temper, Isa. 30:33. It was a speech of Gregory Nyssen, He that does but hear of hell is, without any further labour or study, taken off from sin filled pleasures, and set upon the practice of mortification. But men’s hearts are grown harder today, and he that shall observe their impiety and impenitence may well say to them, as Cato once did to Caesar, Credo quae de inferis dicuntur falsa existimas, I believe thou thinkest all but a fable that is said concerning hell (Juven. Sat. 2.).
Esse aliquos Manes, &c.
Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum aere lavantur.
John Trapp
Thou hast run away from him by thine iniquity; and turned upon him the back, and not the face: return therefore. He is the author of thy being and well-being. He is God, to whom thou must either turn or burn for ever: aut poenitendum, aut pereundum; he can fetch in his rebels.
John Trapp
The Lord, as he is Father of mercies, so he is God of recompences: and it is a fearful thing to fall into his punishing hands, Heb_10:31. If his wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, woe be to all those upon whom it lights, Psa. 2:12 : how much more when he is sore displeased with a people or person, as here! For "who knoweth the power of thine anger?" saith Moses; "even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath," Psa. 90:11; that is, let a man fear thee never so much, he is sure to feel thee much more, if once he fall into thy fingers. And this is here urged by the prophet as a motive to true repentance; since by their fathers’ example they might see there was no way to escape the dint of the Divine displeasure but to submit to God’s justice, and to implore his mercy: men must either turn or burn, "For even our God is a consuming fire," Heb. 12:29.
John Bunyan
Yea, although they now begin to see that they must either turn or burn,* yet oftentimes even then they will study to wave a present conversion: they object, they are too young to turn yet; seven years hence time enough, when they are old, or come upon a sick-bed. O what an enemy is man to his own salvation! I am persuaded that God hath visited some of you often with his Word, even twice and thrice, and you have thrown water as fast as he hath by the Word cast fire upon your conscience. Christian, what had become of thee if God had taken thy denial for an answer, and said, Then will I carry the word of salvation to another, and he will hear it? Sinner, turn, says God. Lord, I cannot tend it, says the sinner. Turn or burn, says God. I will venture that says the sinner. Turn, and be saved, says God. I cannot leave my pleasures, says the sinner: sweet sins, sweet pleasures, sweet delights, says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to parley with the sinner! O the patience of God to a poor sinner! What if God should now say, Then get thee to thy sins, get thee to thy delights, get thee to thy pleasures, take them for thy portion, they shall be all thy heaven, all thy happiness, and all thy portion? But God comes again, and shows the sinner the necessity of turning now; now or not at all; yea, and giveth the sinner this conviction so strongly, that he cannot put it off.
*These terms are taken from Foxe's Martyrology. It was frequently the brutal remark of the Judges, You must turn or burn. Bunyan here applies it to turning from sin or burning in hell.-ED.
William Greenhill
We must do what we can, else we are slothful and unfaithful, and our damnation will be just. One thing is necessary; namely, to turn unto God, that our souls may be saved. Here it will hold good, "Turn or burn." If it be necessary to prevent burning in everlasting flames, it is necessary to turn, and so to do the utmost we can towards the same.
Thomas Gouge
Stand in the presence of God, and in his fear reason thus with thy self. Why should I not now become a sincere Convert to God?Thomas Doolittle
1. Is there not a necessity laid upon me? Must I not either turn or burn? Is it not necessary for me to look to the Salvation of my Soul? And is there any way for that by turning from my Sin? My Flesh pretends necessity for my serving of it; I must have Bread, I must have Clothes, I must have Money; I am sure these things are necessary for me, for I must not starve. I but is there not a higher necessity here? whether I have Bread or no, whether I starve or no, I must look to it, that I be not damned for ever. Skin for skin, and all that a man hath will he give for his life, Job 2:4. I but Skin and Flesh, and Bone and Life, and all must go, rather than lose my Soul. If I can live and maintain my self here in an honest way, it must be done. If I can be a rich Man, and a good Christian, a Wealthy Man and a Godly Man, 'tis well enough. But whether I be Rich or Poor, I must have Christ, and Life, and Christ I cannot have without turning from my Sin to him.
What O my Soul, art thou such an Enemy to Godliness, that thou wilt rather die, than become a Godly Man? Art thou so in love with thy carnal and earthly Life, that thou wilt sell thy self to the Devil rather than change thy Course? Will thy Necessity prevail nothing with thee? Thou art in necessity, O my Soul, in necessity of Christ, in necessity of Pardon, in necessity of Grace and Holiness. Thou art ready to perish a slave to Lust, a slave to the Devil; these Tyrants are thrusting thee down to the eternal Prison, thou art in necessity of Christ; there's no hope of escaping but by getting thee into Christ.
2. Would it not be for my profit to turn? How can I spend my time to better advantage, than by making the everlasting Kingdom sure to me? Whom dost thou, O my Soul, account to have been wise Men, and the best Husbands in the World? Whose care, and whose labor have best turned to account? Either those who have gotten Oil into their Lamps, that have been sowing to themselves in Righteousness, that have been laying up for themselves Treasure in Heaven; or they that have had their Occupation wholly upon this Earth, or else loitered their Time in Mirth and Idleness? Which of these two sorts dost thou think are best provided for? Whose Harvest or Vintage is like to be most plentiful or blessed? However thou judgest now in this sowing-day, yet when the reaping-day comes, then in which of the two cases would'st thou be? Either of those who have sown in Righteousness, and reap in Mercy, or else in the case of those, which have sown to the Flesh and reap Corruption, which have sown in iniquity, and must reap in Wrath and Fire? Would it not be more to thy profit to reap with the Righteous and the Godly, than with the Wicked and Ungodly? Why does the case stand thus? Is it both necessary and profitable for me to be a sincere Convert to the Lord? Come my Soul, away with all excuses, away with all delays, come in this day and yield thy self to the Lord; come give thy self, come join thy self to him in a perpetual Covenant, that shall never be forgotten.
Have not God's Ministers preached to you, and warned you from God of the wrath to come, and charged you in the Name of God, to repent, believe, and turn, and told you, you must turn from sin, or burn in Hell? And will you go from hearing on Earth, to howlings in Hell? from the Light of the Gospel to utter Darkness? with the sound of the voice of Mercy in your Ears? After a thousand calls to mind your Souls, to accept of Christ, and remedying Grace? Do you mean to have the hottest place in that Infernal Lake? the heaviest load of Wrath in that Eternal Furnace? Read, and tremble when you read. Matthew 11:20-25
James Janeway
Well, then see what is like to befall the enemies of God: you hear what is like to be the condition of all them that will not be acquainted with God, first or last: You likewise may behold what a case you yourself shall be in ere it be long, except you do speedily repent of your folly, and meet your adversary in the way, and humble yourself before the mighty Jehovah: Speak quickly; What will you do? Turn, or burn? Repent or die? Yet you do but hear, you do not feel; but thousands and millions feel what the displeasure of God is, what the breach of his covenant is, and what the effects of a war with the Lord of Hosts is. O be wise by their falls; let their destruction be your instruction; take heed what you do, lest you be the next that God shall deal with as an enemy: As yet God offers to be Friends with you; but whether God will do as much to-morrow as he doth to-day, I do not know. I tell you so, it is hard putting it to the venture. Remember you had large proffers of grace and pardon made to you, God hath sent us to let you know his will and pleasure, and we demand of you from him to give us your answer speedily. And what cannot you yet resolve? Is it so difficult a business to determine what to fix upon; O foolish people and unwise! O unspeakable madness! How just must their condemnation needs be, who are offered salvation so often, and refuse it? who are so oft told of damnation, and yet run into it? in a word, who might have God for their Friend, and had rather have him for their Enemy.
