Whose heart would not have melted to have heard Spira's outcries? to have seen Chaloner, that monument of justice, worn to skin and bones, blaspheming the God of heaven, cursing himself, and continually crying out, O torture, torture, torture! O torture, torture! as if the flames of wrath had already took hold on him? To have heard Rogers crying out, I have had a little pleasure, but now I must to hell forevermore; wishing but for this mitigation, that God would but let him lie burning for ever behind the back of that fire (on the earth) and bringing in this sad conclusion still, at the end of whatsoever was spoken to him to afford him some hope, I must to hell, I must to the furnace of hell, for millions of millions of ages? Oh ! Ꭵf the fears and forethought of the wrath to come be so terrible, so intolerable, what is the feeling of it?

Sinner, 'tis but in vain to flatter you, this would be but to toll you into the unquenchable fire; know ye from the living God, that here 'you must lie, with these burnings you must dwell, till immortality die, and immutability change; till eternity run out, and Omnipotency is not longer able to torment, except you be in good earnest renewed throughout by sanctifying grace.

VII. The law discharges all its threats and curses at thee, Gal. iii. 10. Rom. vii. Oh how dreadfully doth it thunder! It spits. fire and brimstone in thy face its words are as drawn swords, and as the sharp arrows of the mighty it demands satisfaction to the

utmost, and cries, Justice, justice: it speaks blood and war, and wounds and death against thee. O the execration, and plagues, and deaths that this murdering piece is loaded with? (read Deut. xxviii. 15, 16. &c.) and thou art the mark at which this shot is level led. O man! away to the strong hold, Zech. ix. 12. Away from thy sins, haste to the sanctuary, to the city of refuge, Heb. xiii. 13. even the Lord Jesus Christ: hide thee in him, or else thou art lost, without any hope of recovery.

VIII. The gospel itself bindeth the sentence of eternal damnation upon thee, Mark xvi. 16. If thou continuest in thine impeni. tent and unconverted state, know that the gospel denounceth a much sorer condemnation, than ever would have been for the transgression only of the first covenant. Is it not a dreadful case to have the gospel itself fill its mouth with threats, and thunder, and damnation? to have the Lord to roar from mount Sion against thee? Joel iii. 16. Hear the terror of the Lord, He that believeth not shall be damned. Except ye repent, ye shall all perish, Luke xiii. 3. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than bight, John iii. 19. He that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him, John iii. 36. If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Heb. ii, 2. 3. He that despised Moses' law,

died without mercy: of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, that hath trampled under foot the Son of God? Heb. x. 28, 29.

Application. And is this true indeed? Is this thy misery? Yea, 'tis as true as God is. Better open thine eyes, and see it now, while thou mayest remedy it, than blind and harden thyself, till, to thine eternal sorrow, thou shalt feel what thou wouldst not believe and if it be true, what dost thou mean to loiter and linger in such a case as this?

Alas for thee, poor man! how effectually hath sin undone thee, and deprived and despoiled thee, even of thy reason, to look after thine own everlasting good? O miserable caitiff! what stupidity and senselessness hath surprised thee! Oh! let me knock up, and awake this sleeper. Who dwells within the walls of this flesh? Is there ever a soul here, a rational understanding soul? Or art thou only a walking ghost, a senseless lump? Art thou a reasonable soul, and yet so far brutified, as to forget thyself immortal, and to think thyself to be as the beasts that perish? Art thou turned into flesh, that thou savourest nothing but gratifying the sense, and making provision for the flesh? Or else, having reason to understand the eternity of thy future estate, dost thou yet make light of being everlastingly miserable? Which is to be so much below a brute, as it is worse to act against reason, than to act without it. O unhappy soul, that wast the glory of man, the mate of angels, and the image of God! that wast

God's representative in the world, and hadst the supremacy amongst the creatures, and the dominion over thy Maker's works! art thou now become a slave to sense, a slave to se base an idol as thy belly; for no higher felicity than to fill thee with the wind of man's applause, or heaping together a little refined earth, no more suitable to thy spiritual, immortal nature, than the dirt and sticks? Oh! why dost thou not bethink thee where thou shalt be for ever? Death is at hand, the judge is even at the door, James v. 9. Yet a little while, and time shall be no longer, Rev. x. 5. 6. And wilt thou run the hazard of continuing in such a state, in which if thou be overtaken, thou art irrecoverably miserable.

Come then, arise, and attend thy nearest concernments. Tell me, whither art thou going? What! wilt thou live in such a course, wherein every act is a step to perdition; and thou dost not know but the next night thou mayest make thy bed in hell? Oh! if thou hast a spark of reason, consider, and turn, and harken to thy very friend, who would therefore shew thee thy present misery, that thou mightst in time make thine escape, and be eternally happy.

Hear what the Lord saith, Fear ye not me? saith the Lord will ye not tremble at my presence? Jer. v. 22. O sinners, do ye make light of the wrath to come? Matth. iii. 7. I am sure there is a time coming when ye will not make light of it. Why, the very devils do believe and tremble, James ii. 19. What! you more hardened than they? Will

you run upon the edge of the rock? will you play at the hole of the asp? will you put your hand upon the cokatrice's den? will you dance about the fire till you are burnt? or dally with devouring wrath, as if you were at a point of indifferency whether you did escape it or endure it? O madness of folly? Solomon's madman, that casteth fire-brands, and arrows, and death, and saith, Am not I in jest? Prov. xxi. 18. is nothing so distracted as the wilful sinner, Luke xv. 17. that goeth on in his unconverted estate, without sense, as if nothing ailed him. The man that runs on the cannon's mouth, that sports with his blood, or lets out his life in a frolic, is sensible, sober, and serious, to him that goeth on still in his trespasses, Psal. lxviii. 21. For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers, Job. xv. 25, 26. Is it wisdom to dally with the second death, or to venture into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, Rev. xxi. 8. as if thou wert but going to wash thee, or swim for thy recreation? Wilt thou, as it were, fetch thy vieze, and jump into eternal flames, as the children through the bonfire? What shall I say? I can find out no expression, no comparison, whereby to set forth the dreadful distraction of that soul that shall on in sin.

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Awake, awake, Eph. v. 14. O sinner! arise and take thy fiight: there is but one door that thou mayst fly by, and that is the strait door

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