590 THE NATURE OP THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL, {DISC. XII. " I am now convinced, smith lie, but too late, that hap- piness dwells in his presence, and rivers of pleasure flow at his right-hand ; but this happiness I shall never see, these streams of pleasure I shall never taste ; he is gone for ever with all his love and with all his blessings, God. is gone with all his graces andpardons beyond my reach : IIe stands afar off frommy groanings. Ïle;told.me of it heretofore in the ministry of his word ; but, wretch that I was ! I would not hearken, I would not believe : I was invited by the Son of his love to receive his. gospel, and to partakeof forgiving mercy ; be stretched:out-his hands With divine compassion, and offered to receive my soul to his-grace, and to wash away tray, defilements with his own blood ; he beseeched me to repent and return to God; and assured me he would secure his Father's favour to rne, and a. place among the: mansions of his glory : But cursedTrebel that I was, to despise this salvation, and re- sist the offers of such love, and to renounce. such divine compassion! These offers of mercy are for ever finished, h shall never see him more as. surrounded with the bles- sings ofhis grace, but as the minister of his. Father'sjus, trice, and the avenger of his abused mercy, There is no other Saviour, no other intercessor to procure divine fa- vour for me, and my hopes.are overwhelmed and buried in the eternal despair of his love." III. There will be found also among the damned "a constant enmity, and malice, and hatred against the blessed God, which can never satisfy or ease itself by revenge." It seems very strange indeed that a creature should design revenge against his Maker ; but thus it is in these dismal regions of hell : Every wicked man is by nature at enmity with God, and in a state of rebellion; and when this enmity is wrought up to malice, under a sense of his punishing hand, timen wrists that cursed and detestable desire in the soul ofrevenging itself against its Maker. The fallen angels, those wicked spirits, have found this dismal temper of mind reigning in them: They hate the blessed God with intense malice, because his governing justice sees fit to punish their pride and other iniquities, and they would fain be revenged of him by destroying mankind who were made after his image: Their malice cannot reach him in the heights of his glory, but they can reach man his creature made in his likeness,
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