304 SEVENTH SERMON devour and feed upon us. " This is the condemnation," saith our Saviour, " that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light," John iii. 19. There was damnation in the world before while it lay in darkness, and in mischief, and knew not whither it went, but not so heavy damnation as that which groweth out of light. When physic, which should remove the disease, doth cooperate with it, then death comes with the more pain and the more speed. The stronger the conviction of sin is, the deeper will be the wrath against it, if it be not by repentance avoided. No surfeit more dangerous than that of bread, no judgment more terrible than that which grows out of mercy, known and despised ; " The word which I have spoken," saith Christ, " the same shall judge you at the last day," John xii. 4S. Every principle of truth, which is by the word begotten in the hearts of disobedient sinners, and is held down, and suppressed by unrighteousness, lies there like fire raked up under ashes, which at that great day will kindle into an unquenchable flame. The word can bring much of hell upon the spirit of impenitent sinners here. It can hew, and cut, and pierce, and burn, and torment, and root out, and pull down, and destroy, and strike with trembling and amazement the proudest and securest sinners, Hos. vi. 5. Acts vii. 54. Heb. iv. 12. Isa. xlix. 2. Psa. xlv. 5. Rev. xi. 5. 10. Jer. i. 10. 2 Cor. x. 4. Acts xxiv. 25. We need no messengers from the dead to tell us of the torments there : all the rhetoric in hell cannot set forth hell more to the life than Moses and the prophets have done already, Luke xvi. 31. But oh what a hell will it be at last, when the word which warned us of it, shall throw us into it ! When every offer of mercy which we have refused, and every
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=