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RÈFOAM,CTIQN'SERMON,
320
silent
and
less
affect
our
senses.
He
ca.n
give
us
up to
the
lusts
of
our
own
heart, and
send
judicial
blindness:
He
can
consign
us
over
to
the power
of
Satan;
to
our
be-
loved
lethargy and spiritual death
:
He
can
suffer the
devil
"
to
sear our
consciences, and
to
inspire
us
from
hell
to work all
uncleanness
with
greediness
;"
Eph.
iv. 19.
Our
understandings
may
be
sold
into the hands
of strong
delusions, and the
wisest
of
us
be
left to believe a
lie
;
or
God
may
continue the
messengers
of
his
gospel
in the.
midst of
us,
but
give
them a
new commission,
even
that
which
he gave
to
the
prophet Isaiah
for
Israel,
that
ar
curse shall attend our exercises
of divine
worship
A
drop
of
this
sort
of
vengeance lighting on
us, will
turn
our
eyes
into darkness
and
our hearts
into
nether
mill-
stones;
and after
all this, his
full
indignation
may be
poured
out.
upon
the land,
in
most
sensible instances,
nor
his
anger
be
turned
away
from
us,
but
his
hand
stretched out
still.
Thus
he
dealt
with
the
Jews
his
own
people
:
let
us
read
it
and fear the
parellel; Is.
vi.
10.
11.
"
Go, make the
heart of
this people
fat,
and
make
their
ears
heavy,
and
shut their
eyes
:
lest they see
with
their
eyes,
and
hear
with their
ears,
and
understand
with
their heart, and convert
and
be
healed. Then said
I,
Lord,
how long
?
And
he
answered, until the cities
be
wasted
without
inhabitant, and the
houses
without
man,
and the land
be
utterly desolate."
The
foregoing
chap-
ters
will
inform
us
of
the
sins
that
procured
this
threat-
ening,
it
will be
well
if
we
do
not
find
our names or
cha-
racters
there,
I
must not break off this
part of
my
discourse without
mention
of
the
final
consequent
of
prevailing iniquity,
and
that
is,
that
the
inhabitants of
such
a
nation
shall go
down to hell
by
thousands
;
and England
that
bath been
lifted up to heaven
by
divine
favours, shall be
thrust
down to
the bottomless
pit
for
her aggravated abomina-
tions.
Eternal "
death
is
the wages
of
sin
;"
Rom.
vi.
23.
and can
we
bear
this
thought,
that
the place
of
tor-
ment
shall
be
thronged
with
our
neighbours and
acquaint-
ance,
and the dominions
of
hell
peopled
out of the
land
of our nativity?
«
Multitudes,
multitudes
in
the valley
of
decision, when the
heathens
shall
be
awakened, when
the
Lord
shall sit
there
to
judge
the
nations
round
about
;"
Joel
iii. 12,
14.
What
a
terrible
forethought-
VOL.
III.
2
At