DISC. "XtIl THE 'NATURE OP THE PUNISHMENTS' IN HELL. 831 . to his majesty or his mercy, what would you think of yourselves andof your state ? Wouldyou not be wretched and horrible creatures indeed, without the least reason to hope for favour and compassion at his hands? Such is the case probably of every damned sinner. Amazing scene of complicated misery and rebellion ! A guilty spi- rit which cannot repent ? A rebellidus spirit which can not submit, even to God himself ! A hardened soul that cannot bend nor yield to its Maker ! Must not such a wretch be for ever theobject of its own inward torment; as well as of divine punishment ? O the hopeless and dreadful state of every bold transgressor, that is gone to death without true repentance for having offended God, and ingenuous relentings of heart for sinare never found in those regions of future misery ! No kindly meltings of soul toward God are ever known there." V. There will be also " intense sorrow and wild im- patience at the loss of present comforts, without any re- compence, and without any relief." If this world, O sinful creature, with the riches, or the honours, or the pleasures of it be all thy chosen happiness, what univer- sal grief and vexation will overspread all the powers of thynature, when thou shalt be torn away from them all, even fromall thy happinesses by death, and, have nothing corne in the room of them, nothing to relieve thy piercing grief, nothing to divert or amuse this vexation, nothing to soothe or ease this eternal pain at the heart? And . yet further, . when thou shalt be as the prophet speaks, " Like a wild bull in anet," struggling and tossing to and fro to free thyselfon all sides, when thou shalt be racked with inward fretfulness and impatience, and "full of the fury of the Lord that made thee, and the rebuke of that God that punishes thee ;" Is. li. 20. Then shall thy heart, bard as it is in an obstinate course of sin, be ready to burst and break, not with penitence, but mad- ness and over -swelling sorrows : And yet it must not break nor dissolve, but will remain firm and hard forever to. suffer these pangs. This is and must be an eternal heart-ache, for there are no broken hearts in hell in any sense whatsoever. There the eyes are weeping, and the hands are wringing, and the tongue almost dried with long wailings and out-cries, and the teeth gnashingwith madness of thought : This is our Saviour's frequent re F4
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