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582 THE NATCRE
OF
THE PVNISIÌMENTS
TN
Ft
ELL.
[DISC.
XII.
and
this state
of
trial and
of
hope,
eternal
hardness
seizes
upon
the mind
:
The
neck
is
like an iron
sinew
hardened
móre,
if
I
may
so
express
it,
in
the
fire
of
hell.
The
will
is
fixed
in everlasting obstinacy
against God,
and against the
glories
of
his
holiness.
If
Moses and
the
prophets,
if
Christ
and
his
apostles,
in
the ministry
of
the word,
could
not
soften the
heart of
bold
trans
gressors,
what can
be
expected
when all
the means
of
grace and
the methods
of
divine
compassion are vanished
and
gone for ever
?
It
is
granted indeed there
will be
bitter
repentance
among the damned
in hell,
and
inward
vexation of
soul
and self
-
cursing
in
abundance, for
having plunged them-
selves
into
this
misery,
and having abandoned
all the
offers
of
divine mercy
:
But it
will
he only such a
repen-
tance
as
Judas
the
traitor
felt, when
"
he
repented
and
hanged
himself
;"
Mat.
xxvii.
5.
This
is
a sort
of
mad-
ness
of
rage within
them for having made themselves
miserable. But there
will be
found no
hatred of
the
evil
of
sin,
as
it
is
an
offence
against God,
no
painful
and
relenting
sense
of
their
iniquity,
as
it
has
dishonoured
God
and broken
his
law, no
such sorrow for
sin
as
i$
attended
with
a
hearty
aversion
to
it,
and
a desire
to love
God
and
obey him
;
but rather
they
will
feel
and nou-
rish
a
growing aversion to
God
and
his holiness.
"
Ask yourselves
my
young
friends,
Did
you never
feel
your hearts
indulging an angry
and unrelenting
mood, and
stubborn
in
your wrath against a superior
who
had
sharply reproved
you
?
Or
have you never felt an
obstinate and unreconcileable hour
in
your younger
years,
even
against a
parent
who
had
severely
corrected
you'?
Or
have
you
not
found,
at
some seasons,
your
soul
rising and kindling into violent resentment
and a
re-
vengeful
temper against your neighbour
upon
some
sup-
posed
affront, damage, or
mischief
he
had done
you?
Call
these
unhappy
minutes to
mind, and
learn what
hell
is:
Think
into what
a
wretched
case you would be
plunged,
if
this
wrath and stubbornness,
this enmity
and
hardness should
become
immortal and
unchangeable,
though
it
were
but against a neighbour:
But
if
this
ob-
stinacy
and
stubborn hardiness
of
soul were
bent
against
God
himself,
so
that
you would
never relent, never
sin-
cerely
repent
of
your
crimes,
nor
bow,
nor
yield
either