but a wounded, a wrath - wounded fpirit, or an ill Con- fcience, rou7d by the terrors of the almighty God, who can bear ? This bath made fome, with 7udas the traitor, rather to chufe death, a violent death, infli&ed by their own wretched hands on themfelves, than life ; whereby they have d?fperately run themfelves under the wrath of God to the fall. O poor filly miferable íhift and eva- lion, to flee from fome fmaller fore-parties (as it were) of the wrath of God on earth, into the very ftrength and main battle of it eternally in hell ! This is infinitely worfh than to leap out of the water into the fire. Nay, fome of the moll eminent faints, by the falling but of fome hot fcalding drops of God's fatherly wrath and difpleafure, have been brought near the length of wishing rather for gangling (tho mercifully kept from it, and made to abhor it) than life ; as it was with non -fuch holy yob, who looked on death, a violent death, as an eafy mat- ter, be what it was to he under the fenle of wrath, and to be fet up as the mark for God's arrows to be (hot at, the venome whereof, to his apprehenfion, drunk up his fpírirs; rho' all the while he was kept up in the faith of his intereft in God, and of his love to him. To this pur- pole, Heman heavily complains, Pfal. 88. Jam a l,Jed and ready to die from my youth up ; while I fuffer thy ter- rors, Iam diflraïfed. If it be fometimes done thus in the green trees, even the greeneft, what (hall be done in the dry? Now the Confcience is in a fpecial manner the receptacle of all the terrors of God ; it muff therefore certainly be a very ill thing to have an awakned ill Con - fcience : If an ill and unpurged Confcience be filent and afieep, "cis in fome refpe& worfe, for it bath this black and dreadful awakning abiding it ; and the longer it fleep and keep fierce, the warning will be the more terrible, and its cries the louder ; 'cis, all the While of its filence and fleeping, treafuring up more wrath, whereby the poor wretch will be paid home with multiplied irn- creafe of terror and horror. O that ye knew how evil a thing, how very evil a thing it is, to have a Confcience aiot purged from dead works, a Confcience not fprink- led with the blood of Jefus Chriff ! As no firanger can )intcrmeddle with the joy of a man's fpirit, who bat
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