DISC. 1II.1 SU&PRIZT IN DEATH.. 379 death, shall awake into such a life as is worse them dying." He shall be surprized, all at once, into dark- ness and fire, whichhave no gleam of light, and sorrows without mitigation, and which can find no end. The punishment of hell is not çalled eternal death, to denote state of senseless and stupid existence; but death being the most opposite to life, and all the enjoyments of it, the misery of hell is described by death, as the most for- midable thing to nature, as a word that puts a.period to all the enjoyments of this mortal life, and stands directly opposite to a life of joy and glory in the immortal world. Nappywould it be for such souls, if they could sink in- to an everlasting sleep, and grow stupid and senseless for ever and ever; but this is a favour not to be granted to those, who have been constant and unrepenting re- bels against the law, and the grace of God. The moment when the body falls asleep in death, the soul is more awake than ever to behold its own -guilt and wretchedness. It has then such a lively and piercing sense of its own iniquities, and the divine wrath that. is due to them, as it never saw or felt before. The inward senses of the soul, if I may so express. it, which have been darkened, and stupified, and benumbed in this body, are all awake, at once, when the veil of flesh is thrown off, and the curtains are drawn back,_ which di- vided them from the world of spirits. Every thought of sin, and the anger of God, wounds the spirit deep in this awakened state, though it scarce felt any thing of it be- fore; and "a wounded spirit who can bear?" Prov. xvüi. 14. But sinners must bear it days without end, and ages without hope. Then the crimes they have committed, and the sinful pleasures they have indulged, shall glare upon their re- membrance, and stare them in the face with dreadful surprize; and each of them is enough to drive a soul to despair: Nor can they turn their eyes away from the horrid sight, for their criminal practices beset them around, and their naked soul is all sight and all sense ; it is eye and ear all over ; it hears the dreadful curses of the law, and the sentence of the judge, and never, never forgets it. This is the character, these the circumstances of an obstinate sinner, that awakes not till the moment of death, and " lifts up his eyes in hell," as our Saviour
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