These things show the human mind to be depraved. In the things of eternity we have lost the powers of arithmetic. He knew this well, who prayed, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." This prayer is answered in converting and quickening grace. Perhaps men might seek more for this grace, were they more seriously impressed with ideas of eternity, or, which is much the same, the worth of the soul, When our Lord asks "What shall it shall profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" we should, to understand the force of the question, balance the account, by considering what it is to lose the soul, and what it is to gain all we could wish in the world.

Let me beg your earnest attention. The subject is alarming, I own. But will HELL be charmed away by our ceasing to think of it? There is an impudent profaneness in the times, which will not allow men to think that hell has any existence; but to say that it is ETERNAL, this they will not endure: they think it unjust. I know none more likely to obtain the heaviest punishment there than such fearless reasoners, who show themselves so unmeasurably arrogant as to set up their reasoning against God's word. Are you judges of the quantity of evil there is in sin? No man can say it. You cannot then judge of the propriety of the degree of punishing it. It is surely above reason, and revelation alone must determine.

Let me beg of you then, brethren, to attend to what far more concerns us—to weigh the case stated in the text. Bring it home, each man, each woman

-and O! Spirit of Christ be with us; and quicken, and illumine our dull, dark souls, while we consider -1st, what it is to lose the soul in hell, and-2d, what is the emptiness of the gain of all the world: whence we may-3d, apply to the conscience the infinitely weighty question of the text.

1st. What it is to lose the soul in hell.-Did you ever consider what this loss is? Did you ever set aside any portion of time in your life to weigh it? Conceive the greatest and most terrible losses that humanity knows, in this vale of tears and sorrow; suppose, with Job, you lost all your substance; all your children, and dearest friends; and was then, with Job, smitten with sore boils from head to foot; and, with Job, afterwards cruelly insulted and treated as an hypocrite by those from whom you ought to receive comfort. Nay, conceive also the most terrible pains and tortures of the body, worse than even Popish barbarity ever invented, and the bare mention of which would affright and affect many of my audience. All these evils are nothing at all compared with the loss of the soul in hell. Do not talk of any harsh representation of things. It is true, as sure as the Scripture itself is true; and if you will not bear the idea of hell beforehand, how ill will you be prepared to bear the real hell itself hereafter?

Consider the way to hell is broad, and many there be which walk therein. What reason have you to suppose that you shall not be of the number? But "I hope." Yes! these deluding hopes! They are the uncharitable preachers. They damn the souls of men. You who will not endure with patience a minister to represent to you the horrors of hell, with

a charitable view to induce you to flee from the wrath to come, have a black evidence in your souls, if you knew how to read it, that you are travelling the broad road thither. You have no business with HOPE, remaining as you are. You ought to be alarmed; rouzed; quickened; made to know, and feel yourselves on the brink of hell itself. There is but a step between you and death; and oh! that you would consider it to good purpose.

Suppose this night your souls were required of you! You would be among the "spirits in prison," that St. Peter speaks of, "reserved to the judgment of the great day." Scripture says little of what would be your condition during the interval between death and the judgment of the last day; and as little of the state of the righteous during the same interval. "The spirits of just men made perfect" must be, no doubt, in a happy state; and yours must be in a very dismal, dreadful state, expecting, I should apprehend, the coming of the Judge, with terror, at the last day. Were there no other consideration to make such a condition terrible, this would surely suffice. But I say little here, because Scripture says little.

Pass we on to a field, in which Scripture gives more dreadful light, and renders visible the images of woe, when the Lord Jesus with "his mighty angels, in flaming fire, shall take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." Can you bear the sight of the Judge?" Behold! he cometh with

clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." Yes, your astonished heart may probably cry, "This is he whose doctrines I neglected; whose people and ways I hated; how severe, how grand, how awful his looks! Alas! I hated instruction: I crucified him afresh, and put him to an open shame. O mountains, fall on me, O rocks, cover me from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of his wrath is come, and how shall I be able to stand!" And when you have heard the words, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" Oh! what horror in the sound; what a morning of the resurrection-day must it be to you, to be first awakened by the voice of "the arch-angel and the trump of God," "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!" The sentence of the Judge must complete your horror. Were I to pretend to describe particularly what follows after, my folly would be evident. I shall keep, therefore, to those general ideas which Scripture gives. A few considerations seem to occur in this matter.

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1. The lost soul, after sentence is passed, and hell has shut him up, may then understand fully what is meant by being deprived for ever of communion with God, and all hope of his favour. HIS loving kindness is better than life itself. When "He lets his breath go forth, his creatures are made, and he renews the face of the earth." He gladdens universal nature. How pleasant is it even here, to taste that he is gracious by believing! When the Psalmist says, "there be many that say, Who

will shew us any good?" He adds, "Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.". This is his, and it is the true idea of happiness,

It is pleasant to enjoy the light of the sun, and many worldly comforts, and conveniences; but a still more joyful and pleasant thing it is, in enjoying them, to be thankful to the Universal Lord, "whose tender mercies are over all his works." It is best of all to enjoy the light of his countenance in our souls, and know his pardoning love, and feast on his grace in Jesus. But how dreadful to have lost all hope of these things; to be shut out from all prospect of happiness, and banished, in comfortless despair, from God! This must, of itself, be hell, were there no positive punishment besides. To dwell in God, is to be happy; to be for ever disjoined from him, must be misery. There can be no bliss without him, in the nature of things. It is for want of this union with God, that the wicked are in this world "like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt: there is no peace to the wicked."

Hence, wicked men are miserable here, and know not often why. They roam from object to object, and use rounds of pleasure and business to kill time and thought. They indulge here also their vices, and this world has in it many refreshments, notwithstanding its many miseries. But remember, in hell these refreshments will be lost. It is written,

they have no rest day nor night*." To be shut up in hell is to be void of God, and condemned to a restless state, with no relief from amuse

*Rev. xiv. 11.