Then survey common experience. If all the charnels in the world were emptied upon one heap, and all the bones of all that ever died were laid together, you might say, All these were slain by sin. When- ever you see sin, you may entertain it as Elisha did Hazael, Thou art the murderer. All diseases, pestilences, wars, famines, tumults, earth- cpiakes, these are but the births of sin ; it hath laid houses desolate, wasted kingdoms, destroyed cities. Sin may say, Zeph. iii. 6, 7, 'I have cut ojBf the nations ; their towers are desolate : I have made their streets waste, that none passeth by ; their cities are destroyed so that there is no man, there is none inhabitant : I said, Surely thou wilt fear me ; ' that which we feel we may fear.
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But we may come nearer home. Do but consider the effects of it within yourselves in the terrors of conscience. What a sorry creature is man when God arms his own thoughts against him, and sets home one sin upon liis conscience ! He longs for death rather than life. Heman, who was a child of God, complains, Ps. Ixxxviii. 16, 17, 'Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, thy tenors have cut me off; they came round about me daily like water, they compassed me about together.' What a sad thing is this, that a man should be magor missahib, fear jound about, that his own thoughts should be his hell, and wherever he goes, he carries his hell with him ! When he lies down in his bed, hell lies down with him ; when he walks out into the field or garden, hell walks with him ; when he goes about his business, hell goes with him. Sin is its own executioner ; however it smiles in the first address, yet afterwards it scourgeth the soul with horror and despair.
Consider the horrors in death. There is a natural abhorrency from death as an evil to our life and being, but that which increaseth horror is sin : 1 Cor. xv. 56, 'The sting of death is sin.' Oh ! what agonies will it raise in our souls when we come to die if we die in our sins ! Though we were immortal, yet sin is so great an evil that it were not to be committed ; but when we are to die, and give an account, how doth it fill the soul with horror and diffidence and shame and anger! Some wicked men indeed die stupid and careless, at least doubtful ; and some may be foolhardy ; like a man that fetcheth a leaj) in the dark over a bottomless gulf he doth not know where his feet may light. A wicked man is like a tree that grows on the bank of a river ; he is on the borders of hell, and when he dies, he falls into it. When they come to die, sin will be accusing, conscience witnessing, the law condemning, Satan insulting ; heaven will be shut up against them, and hell enlarging her mouth. Oh ! how will the body curse the soul for an ill guide, and the soul curse the body as a wicked instru- ment ! It is a sad parting when these two loving friends, body and soul, part with curses, and can never expect to meet again but in torment. A godly man, wlien he dies, takes a fair leave of his body, and says. Fare- well, flesh ! He goes down to the grave with the covenant of grace in his hand, My flesh shall rest in hope ; but a wicked man dreadeth it, that ever his body and soul must be united again ; they part with an expecta- tion never to meet but in flames.
But all this is nothing to the everlasting estate that follows after it. Consider either the loss or the pain ; both will represent the evil of sin. Consider the loss ; by sinning thou losest God and heaven and glory for a trifle ; for a little dreggy pleasure thou thrustest away eternal joys. Thou dost as it were say, I care not for heaven, so I may have carnal satisfaction ; as of Esau it is said. Gen. xxv. 34, ' Thus Esau despised his birthright ; ' it is not worth a mess of pottage. With "" what sad reflections wilt thou declaim against sin when thou shalt see the holy ones of God stand at the right hand of Christ, and thou art haled to thy own place ! How will thy heart turn upon thee for thy own folly then ! As one dreamed that his heart was boiling for his sins in a kettle of scalding lead, and it cried out to him, '£70) aol tovtov alria, It is I that have been the cause of this. Were it not for sin I might have had a place in Abraham's bosom, but now I am going to everlasting torment ; then you will know what sin is. Every sinner is
326 SERMONS UPON GENESIS XXIV. 63-
as a mad gamester ; he ventures a kingdom, the largest and fairest that ever was, at every throw, and he is sure to lose it too. Then con- sider the pains of hell ; they will set out the greatness of sin ; and con- sider them either in regard of God's ordination or appointment, or in regard of your own feeling. (1.) In regard of God's ordination and appointment. That the good God, who is meekness and sweetness and bowels itself, should adjudge his creature to eternal torments ; certainly there is some cause. We pity a dog if he should be cast into a furnace for half an hour ; yet those tender bowels of mercy shrink not up at the sight of sinners, though man be the work of his own hands ; and though the creature screech and howl under these pains, yet he will not lessen and take them away. Surely there is some great evil in sin that hath tied up the hands of mercy. (2.) Consider it in regard of yourselves and your own feeling. Oh ! for a short temporal pleasure thou runnest the hazard of eternal pains. We that cannot endure the scratch of a pin or the aching of a tooth, how shall we endure the torment of so many thousand years, and yet still to look for more ? Heb. x. 31, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' Mark the attribute, ' the living God,' who lives for ever to see the vengeance accomplished. As long as God is God, hell will be hell ; there can never be any hope that God's being can be destroyed, or that there will be a cessation of those torments and pains. God ever liveth to reward the godly and to punish the wicked.