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How did Christ stand knocking one sabbath after another, and crying to me, "Open, sinner, open thy heart to thy Saviour; and I will come in, and sup with thee, and thou with me! Why dost thou delay? How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? Wilt thou not be pardoned, and sanctified, and made happy? when shall it once be?" O how the recollection of such divine pleadings will passionately transport the damned with self-indignation! Must I tire out the patience of Christ? must I make the God of heaven follow me in vain, till I had wearied him with crying to me, Repent, return? O how justly is that patience now turned into fury, which falls upon me with irresistible violence! When the Lord cried to me, Wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be? my heart, or at least my practice, answered, Never. And now when I cry, How long shall it be till I am freed from this torment? how justly do I receive the same answer, Never, never."

15. It will also be most cutting to remember on what easy terms they might have escaped their misery. This work was not to remove mountains, nor conquer kingdoms, nor fulfil the law to the smallest tittle, nor satisfy justice for all their transgressions. The yoke was easy, and the burden light, which Christ would have laid upon them. It was but to repent, and cordially accept him for their Saviour; to renounce all other happiness, and take the Lord for their supreme good; to renounce the world and the flesh, and submit to his meek and gracious government; and to forsake the ways of their own devising, and walk in his holy delightful way." Ah," thinks the poor tormented wretch, "how justly do I suffer all this, who would not be at so small pains to avoid it! Where was my understanding, when I neglected that gracious offer? when I called the Lord a hard master, and thought his pleasant service a bondage, and the service of the devil and the flesh the only freedom? Was I not a thousand times worse than mad, when I censured the holy way of God as need

less preciseness? when I thought the laws of Christ too strict, and all too much that I did for the life to come? What would all sufferings for Christ and well-doing have been, compared with these sufferings that I must undergo for ever? Would not the heaven which I have lost have recompensed all my losses? and should not all my sufferings have been there forgotten? What if Christ had bid me do some great matter; whether to live in continual fears and sorrows, or to suffer death a hundred times over; should I not have done it?-how much more when he only said, "Believe, and be saved. Seek my face, and thy soul shall live. Take up thy cross, and follow me, and I will give thee everlasting life." O gracious offer!. O easy terms! O cursed wretch, that would not be persuaded to accept them!

16. This also will be a most tormenting consideration, to remember what they sold their eternal welfare for. When they compare the value of the pleasures of sin, with the value of the recompence of reward, how will the vast disproportion astonish them! to think of the low delights of the flesh, or the applauding breath of mortals, or the possessing heaps of gold; and then to think of everlasting glory, "This is all I had for my soul, my God, my hopes of blessedness!" It cannot possibly be expressed, how these thoughts will tear his very heart. Then will he exclaim against his folly, "O miserable wretch! did I set my soul to sale for so base a price? did I part with my God for a little dirt and dross; and sell my Saviour, as Judas, for a little silver? I had but a dream of delight, for my hopes of heaven; and, now I am awaked, it is all vanished. My morsels are now turned to gall, and my cups to wormwood. When they were past my taste, the pleasure perished., And is this all that I have had for the inestimable treasure? What a mad exchange did I make! What if I had gained all the world, and lost my soul? But, alas! how small a part of the world was it, for which I gave

up my part in glory!" O that sinners would think of this, when they are swimming in the delights of the flesh, and studying how to be rich and honourable in the world! When they are desperately venturing upon known transgression, and sinning against the checks of conscience.

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§ 17. It will add yet more to their torment, when they consider that they most wilfully procured their own destruction. Had they been forced to sin, it would much abate the rage of their consciences; or if they were punished for another man's transgressions; or any other had been the chief author of their ruin. But to think it was the choice of their own will, and that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their wills; this will be a cutting thought. Had I not enemies enough in the world, (thinks this miserable creature,) but I must be an enemy to myself? God would never give the devil, nor the world, so much more power over me as to force me to commit the least transgression. They could but entice; it was myself that yielded, and did the evil. And must I lay hands upon my own soul; and imbrue my hands in my own blood? Never had I so great an enemy as myself. Never did God offer any good to my soul, but I resisted him. He hath heaped mercy upon me, and renewed one deliverance after another, to draw my heart to him; yea, he hath gently chastised me, and made me groan under the fruit of my disobedience; and though I promised largely in my affliction, yet never was I heartily willing to serve him." Thus will it gnaw the heart of these sinners, to remember that they were the cause of their own undoing; and that they wilfully and obstinately persisted in their rebellion, and were mere volunteers in the service of the devil.

§ 18. The wound in their consciences will be yet deeper, when they shall not only remember it was their own doing, but that they were at so much cost and pains for their own damnation. What great undertakings did they engage in to effect their ruin; to

resist the Spirit of God; to overcome the power of mercies, judgments, and even the word of God; to subdue the power of reason, and silence conscience! All this they understood and performed. Though they walked in continual danger of the wrath of God, and knew he could lay them in the dust, and cast them into hell, in a moment; yet would they run upon all this. O the labour it cost sinners to be damned! Sobriety, with health and ease, they might have had at a cheaper rate; yet they will rather have gluttony and drunkenness, with poverty, shame, and sickness. Contentment they might have, with ease and delight; yet they will rather have covetousness and ambition, though it cost them cares and fears, labour of body, and distraction of mind. Though their anger be self-torment, and revenge and envy consume their spirits; though uncleanness destroy their bodies, estates, and good names; yet will they do and suffer all this rather than suffer their souls to be saved. With what rage will they lament their folly, and say, "Was damnation worth all my cost and pains? Might I not have been damned on free cost, but I must purchase it so dearly? I thought I could have been saved without so much ado; and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado? Must I so laboriously work out my own damnation, when God commanded me to work out my own salvation? If I had done as much for heaven as I did for hell, I had surely had it. I cried out of the tedious way of godliness, and the painful course of selfdenial; and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan, and for death. Had I loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures, and profits, and honours, and thought on him as often, and sought him as painfully, O how happy had I now been! But justly do I suffer the flames of hell, for buying them so dear, rather than have heaven when it was purchased to my hands!"

19. O that God would persuade thee, Reader, to take up these thoughts now, for preventing the inconceivable calamity of taking them up in hell as thy

own tormentor! Say not, that they are only imagi nary. Read what Dives thought, being in torments.(y) As the joys of heaven are chiefly enjoyed by the rational soul in its rational actings, so must the pains of hell be suffered. As they will be men still, so will they feel and act as men.

CHAP. VI.

The Misery of those, who, besides losing the Saint's Rest, lose the Enjoyments of Time, and suffer the Torments of Hell.

§ 1. The connexion of this with the preceding chapter. § 2. (I.) The enjoyments of time which the damned lose: § 3. (1) Their presumptuous belief of their interest in God and Christ; §4. (2) All their hopes; § 5. (3) All their peace of conscience; § 6. (4) All their carnal mirth; § 7. (5) All their sensual delights. 8. (II.) The torments of the damned are exceeding great: 9. (1) The principal author of them is God himself; § 10. (2) The place or state of torment: § 11. (3) These torments are the effects of divine vengeance; § 12. (4) God will take pleasure in executing them; § 13. (5) Satan and sinners themselves will be God's executioners: § 14. (6) These torments will be universal; § 15. (7) without any mitigation; § 16. (S) and eternal. § 17. The obstinate sinner convinced of his folly in venturing on these torments; § 18 and entreated to fly for safety to Christ.

1. As godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come; and if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all meaner things shall be added unto us: so also are the ungodly threatened with the loss both of spiritual and temporal blessings; and because they sought not first God's kingdom and righteousness, therefore shall they lose both it and that which they did seek, and there shall be taken from them

(y) Luke xvi.

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