251 THE WORLD TO COME. misery and rebellion ! A guilty spirit which cannot repent ? A rebellious spirit which cannot 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 ? 0 the hopeless and dreadful state of every bold transgressor, that is gone to death without true repentance for having offended God, and ingenuous relenting§ 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 impa- tience at the loss of present comforts without any recompence, and without any relief. If this world, 0 sinful creature, with the riches, or the honours, or the pleasures of it be all thy chosen happiness, what universal grief and vexation will over- spread 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 come in the room of them, nothing to relieve thy piercing griefs, nothing to divert or amuse this vexation, nothing to sooth 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. 'l'hen shall thy heart, hard as it is in an obstinate course of sin, be ready to burst and break, not with penitence, but madness and over - swelling sorrows : And yet it must not break nor dissolve, but will remain firm and hard for ever to suffer these pangs. This is and must be an eternal heart-ache, for there are no broken hearts in hell in any sense whatsover. There the eyes are weeping, and the hands are wringing, and the tongue almost dried with long wailings and outcries, and the teeth gnashing with madness of thought : This is our Saviour's frequent representation of hell, There shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; Mat xxii. 13. and yet the heart ever living and ever obstinate, to supply fresh springs of these sorrows, and to feel the anguish of them all. VI. There will be also " raging desires of ease and pleasure which shall never be satisfied, together with perpetual disap- pointment and endless confusion thrown upon all their schemes and their efforts of hope." It is the nature of man, while it con= times in being, that it must desire happiness, and make some efforts towards it : Anti some divines have supposed, that men of wicked sensuality and luxury in this world, have so drench- ed their souls in fleshly appetite by indulging lusts, and placing their chief satisfaction and happiness therein, that they will carry
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