Chap. 5.] LOSE THE SAINTS/ REST. 73 more enlarged, and made more capacious to conceive the worth of that glory which they have lost. The strength of their apprehensions, as well as the truth of them, will then be increased. What deep apprehensions of the wrath of God, the madness of sinning, the misery of sinners, have those souls that now endure this misery, in comparison with those on earth, that do but hear of it! What sensibility of the worth of life has the condemned man that is going to be executed, compared with what hewas wont to have in the time of his prosperity ! Much more will the actual loss of eternal blessedness make the damned exceedingly apprehensive of the greatness of their loss; and as a large vessel will hold more water than a shell, so will their more enlarged understandings contain more matter to feed their torment, than their shallow capacity can now do. 3. Their consciences also will make a truer and closer application of this doctrine to themselves, which will ex- ceedingly tend to increase their torment. It will then be no hard matter to them to say, " This is my loss ! and this is my everlasting remediless misery!" The want of this . self-application is the main cause why they are so little troubled now. They are hardly brought to believe that there is such a state of misery; but more hardly to believe that it is like to be their own. This makes so many ser- mons lost to them, and all threatenings and warnings in vain. Let a minister of Christ show them their misery ever so plainly and faithfully, they will not be persuaded they are so miserable. Let him tell them of the glory theymust lose, and the sufferings they must feel, and they think he means not them, but some notorious sinners. It is one of the hardest things in the world, to bring a wicked man to know that he is wicked, or to make him see himself in a state of wrath and condemnation. Though theymay easily find, by their strangeness to the new-birth, and their en- mity to holiness, that they never were partakers of them ; yet they as verily expect to see God, and be saved, as if they were the most sanctified persons in the world. How seldom do men cry out, after the plainest discovery of their state, I am the man! or acknowledge, that, if they die in their present condition, they are undone for ever! But when they suddenly find themselves in the land of dark- ness, feel themselves in scorching flames, and see theyare 4
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