DISC. XII.] THE NATURE" OP THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 60$ Will nothing awaken you, O ye obstinate transgressors against God, ye "obstinate rejecters of his grace and gos- pel ? Will nothing warn you to flee from the wrath to come ? But just thus it was in the days of Noah ; the sinners of that generation would not hearken to that preacher of righteousness ; and even when they saw the clouds of heaven "grow big and black over their heads, and the rain began to be poured down from the skies, little did ,they imagine that it would have drowned the earth, till they were overwhelmed with the rising destruc- tion. And so shall it be in the days of the Son of man, when all the warnings of the preachers have been des- pised, and the threatened vengeance of the book of God decided, when they have set up for 'bold and witty.scof- fers, and impudently demanded, " Where is the promise of his coming ;" 2 Pet. iii. 4. Then shall the great and terrible dayof the Lord come, and pour out upon them the full measure of wrath and indignation. " Is it not time, my friends, to bethink yourselves, whether this be your case,? Is it not time for every one of us to examine our souls ? Am I exposed to this dan- ger? Am I every moment on the brink of this misery, and yet content to continue so one night or one day longer ? Can . I ever hope to escape the fury of a God, -while I thus abuse his patience? Or can I have any expectation of living with him as ray God hereafter, if I never seek after him here ? The face of God, as a stranger in the'world to come, carries infinite terrors in it, and yet we are content-to be strangers to, him, and to live without his acquaintance. " The wrath of God abides upon every man who is unregenerate in this life, and who has not trusted'in the name of the Son.of God ;" John iii. 56. yet they are thoughtless of it, for they feel it not; but the moment when they shall awake into the world of spirits, that wrath will be felt with sudden and dreadful anguish, as a most insupportable _burden, and will crush all the powers of the soul into torment." ReflexionV, "It deserves, and it demands our highest gratitude to the great God, our humblest acknowledg ment5 and our most exalted praises tohis majesty and his mercy, that we, who have long ago deserved this misery, are npt yet plunged into the midst of it: That we have
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