love another by the sufferings which that other, however justly, had inflicted on him? Did you ever hear of one who was thus taught to love God? (), my brethren, be assured of this-that hell is a place of unmixed enmity to the infinitely adorable God. Could suffering bring the soul back to God? Then after these ages of sufferings would not Satan again fix his throne beside that of the archangels in heaven? But witness the ages of fixed and obdurate hatred against God. Witness the unwearied efforts against the cause of Christ which that spirit has been guilty of; and there let the sinner learn what must be his doom if he passes through all the solicitations of divine love unmoved, and confronts the eternal justice of his offended Maker.

Then, my brethren, consider, in the next place, among what beings you must be placed: what will be that dreadful society to which, if you persist in rejecting Christ, you must at last be exposed. The Judge shall say to them at his left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Here Satan's power is checked by various circumstances in the good providence of God-checked by the will and purpose of the Most High but what will there be to check them there? And if you will be lostif you will meet the anger of God, and place yourselves among that wretched company, without hope, and without virtue-what is the misery that you must expect? Imagine that any of us should be dragged to-morrow from the home we love. and the friendships we value, to be henceforth incarcerated with the ery vilest of the human race. Suppose from this hour, we were to have no other fellowship than theirs-those who, destitute of all virtue, and absolutely incapable of generosity, were sunk in their whole nature in worse than brutal ferocity, sensuality, and vice; to be ever shut up hopelessly in their society. What is worse, imagine that any one of us should be placed under their absolute control. And, worst of all, imagine that that control must be exercised when they were exasperated by penury and want, by shame and fear, and by the consciousness of universal scorn and hatred, by the goading of an irresistible and intolerable misery. What would be our prospects if this were all we could look for, for the rest of this short life? This is a poor faint picture of what must be expected by any amongst us who persists in rejecting Christ. And besides, who will be the companions of the lost soul? Others like itself.

Now, let me ask you, Did you ever weigh with attention those pictures, so humiliating to consider, in which unprincipled men have been placed in juxtaposition in circumstances of extreme misery? Have you ever watched the sufferings of men wandering across the ocean, short of provisions, when the longings of the cannibal have begun to arise in their spirits, and they have looked one on another, with the expectation that the next meal was to be the flesh of man? Did you ever watch in some disastrous retreat, after some ruinous campaign, what the soldiers have done towards each other when unrestrained by the fear of God or the discipline of man? There you may see, when every other feeling was merged in terrific selfishness, something of what you must anticipate will be the condition of those wretched beings who will persist in rejecting Christ to the end-shut up with the devil and his angels.

My brethren, must I say more? Is there more wanting to make you feel that you must flee from the wrath to come? Is there more wanting to make you feel there is no safety for a sinner except in Christ? Then, my brethren,

there is more. If you come to this place of penal suffering, I am persuaded it will immensely augment your woe to think, that it was all self-sought; and the remorse which will then penetrate your inmost souls will make despair still more intolerable. Our Lord has spoken of "the worm that never dies," and "the fire that is not quenched?" I am persuaded that that resistless gnawing worm is the intolerable remorse which will ever haunt the miserable mind of the man who might have been among the blessed in heaven, and now feels him self shut up among the damned. "I might have been happy," he says, "but I would not. Accursed folly! that refused to be blessed when my Maker would bless me. Miserable infatuation! utterly unparalleled in this world, that I should barter immortality, and give up my soul!"

picture.

There is

What is to end it?

Then, brethren, add another feature to this miserable every reason to suppose that that misery will be eternal. Does not the text say, "He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life?" Then how can we hope that we shall emerge from that penal suffering into life? "Shall not see life:" where, then, is the ground of hope? If it was possible for those who are lost to atone for sin, then that suffering might be limited: or, were it possible for them to recover their lost innocence, then we might hope that that suffering might be limited. But both are utterly beyond our hope. Where shall we learn any hope for the condemned sinner? If there might be an expectation that, after some indefinite number of ages spent in torture, the mind might at length escape purified and unsullied, into the presence of God; there would be some miserable alleviation to the expectation. But does Scripture warrant even that hope? "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." "They that have done good," says the prophet Daniel, "shall rise to everlasting life; some to shame and everlasting contempt." "They shall be punished," says St. Paul, "with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power." "The smoke of their torment," says St. John, of one class of transgressors, and, by implication of them all—“ The smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever." Remember, brethren, the argument that would limit them, would limit eternal happiness also: the language affords no stronger terms to express eternity: the very same conclusion that would relieve the lost of their despair, would crush the blessed in their felicity, with the unutterable feeling that they may lose it all.

But if the language of Scripture does not warrant the hope, may it not derive from reason some ground of limitation? No: reason apart from Scripture, will bring us to the same conclusion. Who could have meditated with any thing like seriousness, on the attributes of God, even though revelation were wholly set aside, and not see that it is utterly inconceivable that, in the relation in which we stand to our Maker, hemmed in by mercy, besieged by divine light, entreated to return, there shall be any suffering of any duration that can present to God the semblance of an atonement for guilt like ours. If it were possible, let me recur to that awful consideration, that the condition of the lost is such, as will more strongly rivet all the chains of sin, will mature their wickedness: the punishment will leave no virtue which destroys hope: with hope farewell fear, and with fear farewell all limitation to depravity. So that if the sins of earth require the punishment of a just and incensed God, the sins of hell must still more require it; and every miserable moment of its duration,

will only be still demanding fresh indignation by accumulated wickedness. My brethren, it were a miserable chance for a man to rest his soul upon that, deeming it barely possible that that suffering shall not be eternal, in the face of such plain declarations of God's Word.

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There is only one more thought which I will present, to describe the condition of those who shall persist in rejecting Christ. Our Lord gives us reason to expect that it will be misery altogether overwhelming. It is termed by St. Paul everlasting destruction." And our Lord has said, "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder." Remember, he is speaking of the immortal soul. What did he mean by the expression, "It will grind him to powder?" That it would blast, crush the wretched spirit. Could he endure this? Fortitude may wrestle on with adversity; the spirit would not be crushed; could he hope to escape from it, he would not be crushed. But this is unutterably hopeless: it is the wrath of Almighty God do you conceive a soul can bear that? Our Maker has given us a nature that can wrestle with all the ills of the present state; and the person, however he suffers, escapes from them by dissolution: there is a limit, therefore, to the malice of the persecutor, and the sufferings of the oppressed. The fortitude of man can endure all sufferings; his spirit is stronger than adversity: and even to the last, just as the wolf dies in silence, it is said, and as the camel labours on under the heaviest load, man can bear the severest trials. And yet the arrows of the Almighty even here can make him shrink; and that when he may be no coward perhaps on other occasions. The wretched Judas, harassed by the goadings of conscience till he could bear them no longer, may be a picture of what the Almighty can do when, in the language of Job, he "maketh the heart soft" -not with contrition, but with terror; when he pursues it "as a leaf driven to and fro of the whirlwind ;" and when he had so much knowledge of God's judgments as to entreat the Almighty to "let loose his hand and destroy him." How then, brethren, can you endure this, if you will persist in rejecting Christ, when you know that the Almighty God is your eternal enemy, and that you stand without hope, without any shelter, without the possibility of dissolution, when you stand exposed to the avenging justice of God? The venomous reptile that should be crushed beneath some granite cliff that has fallen from the mountain, would not be so utterly crushed as the lost spirit: the poor reptile would escape with its sufferings, but the crushed soul lives on. My brethren, it is a hopeless case. Could the tortured spirit merge from its sufferings, at last, glorious and pure in the presence of its God, there were some light in the darkness. But the atmosphere of hell is despair: every word, every countenance there is despair: look where the ruined man will, he will find nothing but despair.

Does the imagination shock you? What will be the reality? Can you not bear to hear it now imagined? O, will your hand be strong, and will your heart endure, that day when you enter the reality? Perhaps there are some among you who may have, at this moment, towards him who addresses you in nothing but good-will, something of the feeling of that king of Israel towards the prophet, when he said, "I hate him, for he prophesies no good concerning me, but evil." But if you cannot bear to hear it stated now, with what mind will you reflect upon your Maker himself, if only you should prove all this to be true! I confess I shrink from the task of bringing it before you, because I

would not willingly incur the dislike of the brute animal, much less yours: but I will not, with a mistaken feeling for your happiness, and in disregard to the express will of God, trifle with those truths which may, if God bless them, make you wise unto salvation. He has virtually said to every minister, what he said to Ezekiel-"Son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I shall say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand." Am I pure from your blood? Have I ventured to excite these most painful emotions in the minds of many? Have I encountered it that I might bring you to flee from the wrath to come?

But some of you may say, "This does for the vile, for the profligate, for the worst of our race; but not for us; we can only be accused of yielding to the common frailties of our nature: not for us, who only sin with myriads more, who are fulfilling all the social relations of life: not for us, who cast ourselves on the mercy of God, who are sure he will eventually bless and receive us." And is it thus you meet the awful declarations of God's Word? You say there are numbers more ungodly than you are; I believe it, brethren: but the very fact that you are associated with numbers, rather, according to the statement of Scripture, marks you out for the anger of God, than exempts you from it. What did the Redeemer say? "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Do not be of the many; in God's name, be of the few. "For many are called," said the Redeemer more than once, "but few are chosen." Seek to be selected from the multitude. Seek to have the blessing of God amongst those few who tread the narrow, difficult, solitary path to heaven, in the midst of blame, misrepresentation, and ridicule. Dare to join them, and pursue your way to heaven through good report, and through evil report.

But you trust to your frailties: you say you are so frail. I am afraid you are miserable then. You cannot probably have a stronger idea of that frailty than he who speaks to you: but what is that frailty? It is the frailty of ungodliness and depravity. It consists in an inclination to evil against reason, against light, against example, against every thing that ought to subdue your heart. It is the frailty of a soul that will be wicked, and therefore must be miserable. Is that your hope? Banish the miserable anticipation for ever. Cast away all excuses at once; and seek that you may find a shelter in your Maker's favour. But you say, you do cast yourselves on his mercy; that that is your shelter. The mercy of God sent you Christ; why do you refuse him? The mercy of God offers you the aids of his Spirit; why do you reject them? God promises you happiness in holiness; why do you neglect it? You are rejecting mercy, when the Lord has offered you mercy consistently with all his resplendent attributes. I tell you, brethren, that dying as you are, without any change for the worst-dying as you are, but rejecting Christ-with whatever amiable qualities that rejection may be associated-you never can look on the countenance of Christ with peace, never wake up with the redeemed of Christ in glory never, never can you be happy.

The mercy of

But you say, the passages to which we have referred, do not mean all that is said. Now, let what I say sink into your souls. You may, if you please, compel them to mean less; you may by some ingenuity make them mean something else. But looking at passage after passage, comparing one with another, and all with the known attributes of God, can you prove that they mean less? Can you make it probable that they mean less? I do entreat you, my dear brethren, never to venture to find out in your experience, what these passages mean. I beseech you in the name of Christ, go not into the eternal world to learn there, in your own miserable experience, what it is to be plunged into the lake of fire; to be sentenced to everlasting destruction; to depart accursed from the Saviour; to be Anathema Maran-atha; to be ground to powder under the vengeance of the Saviour. Whatever the meaning of these passages, they mean that which the common understanding God has given you, and the conscience he has implanted in your spirit, ought not to permit you to misinterpret.

Perhaps there are some who begin to repent of their ungodliness. May those blessed feelings, kindled, perhaps, for the first time in your soul, be increased by the God of mercy to your eternal peace! But you say, you cannot so change all your most favourite habits; you cannot give up the world that is so dear; you cannot expose yourself to ridicule so painful: the moral courage your soul feels this moment, may be gone to-morrow; and though you may be courageous in other matters, you feel cowards here. Did you ever ponder that saying of the Saviour" What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" What if, by rejecting Christ, you have a little more of present enjoyment; if you can pursue your own wishes a little further; if you can live as you will a little more; if you can secure more of the gains, and more of the objects which dazzle the ambition of ordinary men; if life does seem brighter; still what are you advantaged if you gain the whole world, and lose your soul? The loss of the soul, brethren, is a catastrophe which no language can describe. If this planetary world were, by some new force in creation, driven from its orbit, urged forward through space, passing suns and systems, into utter night, and there should be a blank, dead, silent, inert thing, with the corpses of its inhabitants strewed on its surface thick as the leaves in autumn; that miserable spectacle, could it be gazed on, would be but a very feeble description of the lost soul driven out from the beatific presence of God, the sun of our happiness; driven out to dwell among the damned in outer darkness.

But you are willing to become the servants of God, only not now. You defer it for a little time; you cannot make up your minds to become at once the resolved servants of God, and receiving Christ Jesus in sincerity and love, to follow his footsteps till the end of your life. You will do it, but not now. Not now? When will a better moment come? Possibly there are some of you who, at this moment, feel more the necessity of your eternal salvation, than you have done for a length of time; perhaps more than you ever felt: and if you will not resolve now, if you do not turn now, tell ine when will a more favourable moment come? I do believe that the lost company which inhabit that bed of misery, have been destroyed by this very resolution, by this very thought"only not now." They felt the necessity of giving themselves up to God, only not now and that time never came to them, and may never come to you. If