280 TWE WORLD. TO COME. What tlìongh they do not live in the midst of sensual tempt- ations, yet who knows hbw far their spirits, having been im- mersed in flesh and blood, may carry with them inward raging appetites to those sinful sensualities and defiling pleasures, of which they are for ever deprived ? Let me ask again, have the devils ever repented in almost six thousand years ? Are they not the same enemies to God, and his glory, and his image through all ages ? And though the damned spirits of men are absent from this world, and their evil companions on earth, yet are they not in the fittest company to teach them pride, and rage, resentment and malice, and the most unfit to teach them humility, repentance, and obedience to God ? And when they have perversely sinned away all the means of grace in this life, is it reasonable to imagine, that God will powerfully soften their hearts by his sovereign grace, since be has never given the least hint or instance of it in all the disco- veries made in the bible? And has it not been often one way of God's punishing sinners here in this world, by letting them go on in their iniquity and madness to the end ? And why may not the wisdom and justice of God see it fit to treat sinners who have been incorrigible in this life, by the same method in the World to conic? IV. The natural effects and consequences of sin living in the soul, are misery and torment so long as the soul lives, that is, for ever. Sin, though it be a moral evil, as it is committed against God, yet it is such an enemy to the nature of man, that Where it has established its habit and temper in the soul, it natu- rally prepares constant anguish of conscience and certain misery. A wicked spirit all over averse to God and goodness, gone from this world and all the soothing or busy amusements of it, intense in its desires of happiness, and yet a stranger to all that can make it truly happy, and at the sane time shut out by God's righteous judgment, from all the means and hopes of grace, must needs be miserable, and has prepared a state of endless misery for itself, because its nature and duration are immortal. An unholy creature who loves not God, and cannot delight in things holy and heavenly, but derives its chief joy from sinful pleasures, can never taste of felicity, can never relish the satis- factions that cone from the knowledge and love, and the enjoy- anent of God ; and when h is torn away, and banished from all the sensible amusements of this life, it must and will be a Wretched creature in the world of spirits, and that by the very course of nature : Anti God cannot be Obliged to change the established course of nature to relieve this misery which the sinner had wil- fully brought on hiumself; norcan God make him happy without giving him a new temper of holiness, which he is not obliged to do by any perfection of his nature or any promise of grace.
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