Chap. 5.] LOSE THE SAINTS' REST yet, if thou art but willingand diligent, thou mayst'know thyself, whether thou art an heir of heaven or not. It is the main thing I desire, that, if thou art yet miserable, thou mayst discern and escape it. But how canst thou escape, if thou neglect Christ and salvation ? It is as impossible as for the devils themselves to be saved ; nay, God has more plainly and frequently spoken it in Scripture of such sinners as thou art, than he has of the devils. Methinks a sight of thy case would strike thee with amazement and horror. When Belshazzar " saw the fingers of a man's hand that wrote upon the wall, his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." What trembling, then, should seize on thee, who hast the hand of God himself against thee, not in a sentence or two, but in the very scope of the Scriptures, threatening the loss of an everlasting kingdom ! Because I would fain have thee lay it to heart, I will show thee, first, the nature of thy loss of heaven; secondly, its aggravations. First. In their loss of heaven, the ungodly lose the saints' personal perfectionGod himself all delightful affections toward God and the blessed society of angels and saints. 1. Thegloriouspersonalperfection, which the saints enjoy in heaven, is the great loss of the ungodly. They lose that shining lustre of the body surpassing the brightness of the sun at noonday. Though the bodies of the wicked will be raised more spiritual than they were upon earth, yet that will only make them capable of the more exquisite tor- ments. They would be glad then, if every member were a dead member, that it might not feel the punishment in- flicted on it; and if the whole body were a rotten carcass, or might lie down again in the dust. Much more do they want that moral perfection which the blessed partake of; those holy dispositions of mind; that cheerful readiness to do the will of God; that perfect rectitude of all their ac- tions: instead of these, they have that perverseness Of will, that loathing of good, that love to evil, that violence of pas- sion, which they liad on earth. It is true, their understai d- ings will be much cleared by the ceasing of former tempta- tions, and experiencing the falsehood of former delusions; but they have the same dispositions still, and fain would
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