ments or refreshments, no prospect of deliverance for ever.

Nor is it possible for them to be happy, were they taken up into heaven. The joys of heaven are holy, and would be to them intolerable. Wicked men here hate holy conversation. They confess it makes them dull and melancholy. How much more would heaven be offensive to them!

If men considered this more, they might feel the need of being made new creatures in Christ here. The conversion we preach would appear necessary to them. Be sure, if here you love not heavenly things, you will not love them hereafter. Then "he that is filthy, let him be filthy still," as it is written*. The change must be here, not there. How vainly do men talk of God's mercy, without considering that misery is in the very nature of sin, and that, if here they be not changed, all hopes of happiness must be vain. And how miserable may we conceive the damned will be through the force and violence of their sins. How miserable and tormenting is pride, and carnal lust, and impatience! Every sin has hell in it. Those who lie, then, in hell, in all this filthiness of flesh and spirit unsubdued, and in the company of none but human souls and evil spirits of the same character, what misery must they feel: what woe, we may suppose, must they inflict upon one another! Thus to be deprived of God must, in its consequence, bring hell and its horrors, indeed!

2. But though the misery of the damned may be thus shewn to arise from the nature of things, yet

* Rev. xxii. 11.

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I do not mean to exclude the idea of positive punishment. God is the Governor of the World; as such he has a right to punish as well as to reward. It is not for me, or indeed for any one, to say what is the nature of the fire in which they will be tormented. Whatever it be, it is the fire of God's wrath; "the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it." "If any man worship the beast, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out, without mixture, into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night." Agreeable to this is the sentence of the Judge, depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." The beast and the false prophet, in Rev. xix, are said to be "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone;" and the devil himself, at length, "that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever*." should imagine that sinners of an inferior magnitude may escape, we are told that will be the doom of all who are not in Christ. For it is added, "whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire." In Rev. xxi, we have a list of the characters of the condemned. Let my audience attend, and look within and ask what their own characters are. "The fearful, (by which I apprehend is meant those who fear man more

*Rev. xx. 10.

And lest we

than God) the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." What images of pain and horror are these! I do not pretend to be able to describe the precise nature of these torments! God keep us from an experimental knowledge of them, by an experimental knowledge of his grace here! but surely, here are ideas of real torture and positive pain inexpressible! and men, in our times, need to have these awful scriptures set forth; for the pride of self-conceit, and the profaneness of infidelity, render it difficult indeed for them to feel that there is any thing in sin so bitter and dreadful, as to issue in punishment like this!

3. The idea of being in an unpitied state, and destitute of every alleviating consideration, must sharpen exceedingly the horrors of hell! "To him that is afflicted, pity should be shewn of his friend; but who will pity in hell? We may conceive the damned more likely to aggravate each others woes, by accusations and invectives, than to soften them by the exercise of mutual compassion. It does not appear that even Jesus himself (and who can tell the extent of his grace and compassion?) will exercise, in practice at least, any pity toward them. We have seen how "they shall be tormented in the PRESENCE OF THE LAMB!" To me this circumstance gives a keen idea of the anguish of hell. What! the pitiful and meek Lamb of God, who always went about doing good, and healing the oppressed; who even died for his enemies, and

prayed for his murderers-He see poor souls tormented for ever, and yet afford them no reliefWhat! is his nature changed? Oh no! He may as soon cease to be, as cease to be gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of infinite loving-kindness. SIN, SIN, has that infinite evil in it, which renders it fit for the glory of God, and the support of his government, that thus it should be.

Men who reason against it ought to be sure that they are judges of the case; which it were folly, past the power of description, in any mortal to pretend to. But this boldness of reasoning against God's word, in things beyond our depth, I take to be the mark of pride in its essence, and one of the most horrible sins of our land. "Not a drop of water to cool the tongue," represents in a wellknown parable, the punishment of the damned. To have no relief, no alleviation, no soothing of pity: to have sinned away the loving-kindness of him who is infinite goodness itself, is a most dreadful state!

Nor will the damned have any comfort from within. No: "there the worm dieth not." They would not come to Jesus for life when they might. "God will be clear when he is judged:" "to me every knee should bow:"" the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted." Lay these scriptures together, and they will teach the ungodly that however they may brag of their goodness, and reason against God, saying, "wherein have we wearied him;" however they may exclaim against the idea of hell torments as inconsistent with the idea of God's mercy; in the world to

come, all such thoughts will cease.

Their con

sciences will then proclaim them to be what they are, and they will not be able, however dreadfully they suffer in eternity, to say their punishment is too great. Oh! to suffer thus, and have no friend from within or from without, and look around and see only devils and damned spirits, as miserable as themselves-This is hell indeed!

4. The consideration of the value of the blood of Christ must give a strong idea of the horror of hell, Jesus delivered us from the wrath to come. Let us behold the sinner, now in hell, deprived of communion with God; positively tormented in the lake of fire and brimstone, without any relief, or mitigating circumstance; yet knowing that Jesus had died for him, through whom he might have been saved, if, while the breath was in his nostrils, he had really come to him. Suppose him to reflect what infinite dignity and goodness there is in Christ, and thence conclude what a dreadful thing a state of sin is, and what a happy thing a state of holiness is, since to redeem from sin to holiness required such precious blood and such bitter sufferings as he underwent. Yet for the sinner to have thrown all away; to have refused his remedy, and set at nought such an amazing effort of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, as this of Christ's redemption— conceive, if you can, how bitter the thought must be-and if you cannot but think that this will probably be a most aggravating circumstance in hell, certainly none in the world are more likely to experience it than we are who have such means, and yet love darkness rather than light. Oh! then turn