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DISC.
"XtIl
THE
'NATURE
OP THE PUNISHMENTS' IN
HELL. 831
.
to
his
majesty or
his
mercy,
what would you
think of
yourselves and
of
your state
?
Would
you
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 the
object 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 sin
are
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
thy
nature,
when
thou shalt
be
torn
away from
them
all,
even
from
all
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
a
net," struggling and tossing
to
and
fro
to free
thyself
on 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