638
THE ETERNAL
ISL7RATION
or
rDISC. XIII.
remains
still as heavy as ever,
and
seems
as
far off
from
its end.
This dreadful
price, which the
justice of
God
demands
for
the
réparation
of our
offences
against
his
law and
his
authority,
is
a price
which
creatures
can
never
pay,
for it
is
infinite
;
and
therefore
when a finite
creature
begins to
make
payment
thereof
with
his own
sufferings,
these
sufferings
must
be everlasting.
It
is
evident,
that
one wilful
sin
is
sufficient to
sink
creatures under
the indignation
of God
for
six
thousand
years
:
I
call the angels
who
sinned for
witnesses to this
truth. They
were
formed
in
holiness
and
glory before
the creation of
this lower
world,
and probably
they sin-
ned and
fell
before this
creation
too
;
and
they
are
yet
imprisoned
and
confined
under
perpetual
chains
of
darkness,
as
the word
of
God
tells
us,
and reserved
to everlasting punishment
at
the
judgment
of
the
great
day.
And if thou,
O
sinner among the
sons
of
men,
if
thou
diest
in
an
unregenerate,
unholy,
and
unpardoned
state, the
sins
of
thy
whole life
are charged upon
thee,
and
thou
art
daily "
treasuring up wrath against
the
day
of
wrath,"
Rom.
ii.
5.
and
"
thou shalt
not
escape
from this prison
till
thou
hast paid
the
utmost
farthing,"
Mat.
v.
If
any one
sin
deserves
all
this misery
which
has been
described, what
a
dreadful reckoning
will
the
sins
of
thy
whole
life
come
to, when
every command
of
God
which
thou hast broken
shall
appear
and
demand
reparation
for
its
injured honour
?
Remember,
O sinner, obstinate
and
rebellious, remember
thou
hast
to
do with a
great
and dreadful God,
who
has
all
thy
"iniquities
ever
be-
fore
his eyes
;"
Isaiah
lxv.
6.
"
Behold they
are written
before
me,
and
I
will
recompense,
saith the Lord, their
iniquity
into their
bosom.
He
is
a God
that
will
never
forget
any
of
thy
crimes.
Amos.
viii.
7.
"
The
Lord
bath
sworn by
the excellency
of Jacob,
surely
I
will
never
forget
any
of
their
works." Though thou
hast
lost and forgot
them,
he
will
bring
them again into thy
conscience
with
a
terrible remembrance
;
and
when
God
comes forth
in
a
way
of
vengeance,
"
every
transgres-
sion and
disobedience
shall receive
a
just
recompence
of
reward," Heb.
ii.
.
"
Vengeance
belongeth
unto
me,
saith the
Lord,"
chapter.
x.
so He that
spared
not
his own
Son,
when he
laid pn
him the
iniquity
of
us all,