+52 TIM WORLD TO COME. his Maker; but thus it is in these dismal regions of hell : Every wicked man is by nature at enmity with God, ,and in a state of rebellion ; and when this enmity is wrought up to malice, under a sense of his punishing hand, then arises that cursed and detestable desire in the soul of revenging itself against its Maker. The fallen angels, those wicked spirits have found this dismal temperof mind reigning in them : They hate the blessed God with intense malice, because his governing justice sees fit to punish their pride and.other iniquities, and they would fain be revenged of him by destroying mankind who were made after his image : Their malice cannot reach him in the heights of his glory, but they can reach man his creature made in his likeness, and they began to take their revenge there near six thousand years ago. All the sins, and all the miseries of the sons and daughters of Adam, from the beginning of the, world to this day, are owing to this madness of malice, this hatred of God in the hearts of evil angels who were east out from heaven and the regions of happiness : They began to exert this malice early, and still they are everlasting tempters of men, in order to avenge themselves upon a righteous God. But alas, what a wretched satisfaction must the damned spirits of men propose to themselves in such a wild and extra- vagant attempt ? The very name and mention of this iniquity seems to put our souls and our ears to pain, while we dwell in flesh and blood ; but as cursed and hateful a temper as this is, it is the very spirit and temper of apostate angels; and this will be thy temper and thy spirit, O wilful and impenitent sinner, when thou shalt have obstinately sinned thyself into damnation, and canst never deliver thyself from the punishing hand of God. " Think, O my soul, at what a dreadful distance such crea- tures must be from every glimpse of peace and happiness, whose hearts are filled with such blasphemy and rage, and who would be attempting such vain and impious efforts of mingled insolence and madness. Read, O ye foolish and wilful transgressors,. read the temper and conduct of devils in their spite and opposi- tion to every thing of God, through all the books of the Old Testament and the New, and remember and think, that such will your temper be, when you also shall be banished from the presence of God for your wilful rebellions, as the fallen angels are, and be for ever shut out from all the blessings of his love, and all hope of his favour." IV. A further spring of continued torment is " such fixed and eternal hardness of heart as will never be softened, such im- penitence and obstinacy of soul which will never relent or sub- mit." The hardest sinner here on earth may now and then feel a relenting moment; and the most daring atheist may some-
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