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Ye shall die in your sins? John viii. 24. Oh! better were it for thee to die in a gaol, die in a ditch, in a dungeon, than die in thy sins. If death, as it will take away all thy other comforts, would take away thy sins too, it were some mitigation; but thy sins will follow thee, when thy friends leave thee, and all worldly enjoyments shake hands with thee thy sins will not die with thee, 2 Cor. v. 10. Rev. xx. 12, as a prisoner's other debts will; but they will to judgment with thee, there to be thine accusers: and they will to hell with thee, there to be thy tormenters. Better to have so many fiends and furies about thee, than thy sins to fall upon thee, and fasten in thee. Oh the work that these will make thee! Oh, look over thy debts in time! how much art thou in the books of every one of God's laws? how is every one of God's commandments ready to arrest thee, and take thee by the throat, for innumerable bonds it hath upon thee? what wilt thou do then, when they shall altogether lay in against thee? Hold open the eyes of conscience to consider this, that thou mayst despair of thyself, and be driven to Christ, and fly for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope that is set before thee. Heb. vi. 18..

V. Thy raging lusts do miserably enslave thee. While unconverted, thou art a very servant to sin, it reigns over thee, and holds thee under its dominion, till thou art brought within the bonds of God's covenant, John viii. 34, 36. Tit. iii. 3. Rom. vi, 12, 14. Rom. vi. 16, 17. Now there's no such ty

rant as sin: O the filthy and fearful work that it doth engage its servants in! Would it not pierce a man's heart to see a company of poor creatures drudging and toiling, and all to carry together faggots and fuel for their own burning? why, this is the employment of sin's drudges: even while they bless themselves in their unrighteous gains, while they swing and swill in pleasures, they are but treasuring up wrath and vengeance for their eternal burnings; they are but laying in powder and bullets, and adding to the pile of Tophet, and flinging in oil to make the flame rage the fiercer. Who would serve such a master, whose work is drudgery, and whose wages is death, Rom. vi. 23.

What a woful spectacle was that poor wretch possessed with the legion? would it not have pitied thine heart to have seen him among the tombs, cutting and wounding of himself? Mark v. 5. This is thy case, such is thy work, every stroke is a thrust at thine heart. 1 Tim. vi. 10. 1 Tim. vi. 10. Conscience i❤ now asleep but when death and judgment shall bring thee to thy senses, then wilt thou feel the raging smart and anguish of every wound. The convinced sinner is a sensible instance of the miserable bondage of sin : conscience flies upon him, and tells him what the end of these things will be: and yet such a slave is he to his lust, that on he must though he see it will be his endless perdition and when the temptation comes, lust gets the tt in his mouth, breaks all the

cords of his vows and promises, and carries him headlong to his own destruction.

VI. The furnace of eternal vengeance is heated ready for thee, Isaiah xxx. 33. Hell and destruction open their mouths upon thee, they gape for thee, they groan for thee, Isaiah v. 14. waiting (as it were) with a greedy eye, as thou standest upon the brink, when thou wilt drop in. If the wrath of man be as the roaring of a lion, Prov. xx. 2. more heavy than sand, Prov. xxvii. 3. what is the wrath of the infinite God? If the burning furnace heated in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery rage, wlien he commanded it to be made yet seven times hotter, was so fierce as to burn up even those that drew near it to throw the three children in, Dan. iii. 19, 22. how hot is that burning. oven of the Almighty's fury? Mal. iv. 1. Surely this is seventy times seven more fierce.. What thinkest thou, O man, of being a faggot in hell to all eternity! Can thine heart. endure, or can thine hand be strong in the ry that I shall deal with thee? saith the Lord of hosts, Ezek. xxii. 14. Canst thou dwell with everlasting burnings? Canst thou abide the consuming fire? Isaiah xxxiii. 4. When thou shalt be as a glowing iron in hell, and thy whole body and soul shall be as perfectly possessed by God's burning vengeance, as the fiery sparkling iron when heated, or in the fiercest forge? Thou canst notbear God's whip, how then wilt thou endure his scorpion? thou art even crushed, and ready to wish thyself dead under the weight of his finger; how then wilt thou bear the weight of his loins?

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The most patient man that ever was, did curse the day that ever he was born, Job. iii. 1. and even wish death to come and end his misery, Job. vii. 15, 16. when God did but let out one little drop of his wrath: how then wilt thou endure, when God shall pour out all his vials, and set himself against thee, to torment thee? when he shall make thy conscience the tunnel, by which he will be pouring his burning wrath into thy soul for ever? and when he shall fill all thy powers as full of torment, as they be now full of sin? when immortality shall be thy misery; and to die the death of a brute, and be swallowed into the gulph of annihilation, shall be such a felicity, as the whole eternity of wishes, and an ocean of tears shall never purchase? Now thou canst put off the evil day, and canst laugh and be merry, and forget the terror of the Lord, 2 Cor. v. 11. but how wilt thou hold out, or hold up, when God will cast thee into a bed of torments, Rev. ii. 21. and make thee to lie down in sorrows? Isai. 1. 11. when roarings and blasphemy shall be thine only music; and the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture, into the cup of his indignation, shall be thine only drink? Rev. xiv. 10. when thou shalt draw in flames for thy breath, and the horrid stench of sulphur shall be thy only perfume? in a word, when the smoke of thy torment shall ascend for ever and ever, and thou shalt have no rest night nor day; no rest in thy conscience, no ease in thy bones, but thou shalt be au execration, and an astonishment, and

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a curse, and a reproach for ever more Jer. xlii. 18.

O sinner! stop here, and consider if thou art a man, and not a senseless block, consider bethink thyself where thou standest, why, upon the very brink of this furnace. As the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, there is but a step between thee and this, 1 Sam. xx. 3. Thou knowest not when thou liest down, but thou mayest be in before the morning; thou knowest not when thou risest, but thou mayest drop in before the night. Dar est thou make light of this? wilt thou go on in such a dreadful condition, as if nothing ailed thee? If thou puttest it off, and sayest, this doth not belong to thee; look again over the foregoing chapter, and tell me the truth; are none of these black marks found upon thee? Do not blind thine eyes, do not deceive thyself; see thy misery, while thou mayest prevent it: think what it is to be a vile castout, a damned reprobate, a vessel of wrath, into which the Lord will be pouring out his tormenting fury while he hath a being, Rom. ix. 22.

Divine wrath is a fierce, Deut. xxxii. 22. devouring, Isa. xxxiii. 14. everlasting, Math. XXV. 41. unquenchable fire, Math. iii. 12. and thy soul and body must be the fuel upon which it will be feeding for ever, unless thou consider thy ways, and speedily turn to the Lord by sound conversion. They that have been only singed by this fire, and had no more but the smell thereof passing upon them, Oh, what amazing spectacles have they been!

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