625 / 674
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
day
of
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."
Reflexion
V,
"It
deserves,
and it demands our highest
gratitude
to the
great God, our
humblest
acknowledg
ment5 and
our
most exalted praises to
his
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