DISC. 1il.j THE NATURE OP TFIE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 603 fest thevengeance of God pursuing the iniquities of men, by wars, and famines, and pestilences, and every thing that is bitter and dreadful to human .nature. See Jeru- -sa,lem, the, cityof God, all in flames, and the whole land of Judea laid desolate withdeepest distress, diffusedand reigning among all the inhabitants of it : Above amillion of them were actually slaughtered and consumed by fa- mine and sword, as a sacrifice to the anger of God, for their long provocations, and the cruel barbarous murder of his Son Jesus.. And when, you have taken all these surveys, then tell me if such terrors of the Lord do not give us sufficient warning what unknown agonies and destructions may be expected by. obstinate and impeni- tent sinners_ from the hand of God, when the utmost limits of his patience restrain his wrath no longer, but his wisdom gives a loòse to all his fiery indignation. . - To enforce this yet upon your hearts, think again of all the pains and torments of flesh and spirit, which arise from the distempers of body, a from the anguish of soul, even in this present state of trial, this land ofhope, this season of divine long-suffering. Go to the hospi- tals, where the gout and stone, and rheumatism, and a thousand maladies torture the nerves and the points. of men with intolerable smart;, and infer thence what God will inflict both on the flesh and spirit, or the soul and body of sinners, in the day; of his complete vengeance, when his offers of mercy and the years of his grace are come to their last period. -Go and survey the fields of battle and slaughter, where thousands of the dead and the dying are mingled in confused heaps, and groan out their souls in long angúish and extreme torture, with bruises and wounds, and all.the smarting effects of the instru- ments of war. Now if all these things come under the conduct of divine providence in a sinful world, which is yet in a wayof hope, What may those resolved and obsti- nate rebels expect, when all the doors of hope are shut up for ever, and providence has nothing to do on earth, or in hell, but to-execute the vengeance of a God. Shall we take one step yet further, and think of the inward pangs of conscience, which some awakened cri+ minals have felt in this life on the account of sin, when the arrows of Goal have been shot. into. their souls, and 'the poison thereof lies drinking up their spirits:?.. Think
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