Again stand and take a view of poor damned Souls, and suppose you saw them with your eyes rolling in a lake of burning Brimstone, full of the fury of the Lord: Suppose you heard their direful execrations, their doleful outcries, their hideous roarings, and bitter lamentations ringing in your ears, saying, Woe and alas, that ever we were born! that are come to this place of torment, to this place of torment, Oh! it is, it is a place of torment: 1Once we had praying time and hearing time, but we did not improve it for our good, else we had not been now in this extremity of pain; no we had not, no we had not. We did pray, but we did but trifle in our prayers, and did but dally with that God, whom now we find and feel to be to us consuming fire, and yet we burn and are not consumed: we were not in good earnest in those prayers we were at, but now we suffer in good earnest, and are damned in good earnest. Oh! this place is hot, it is hot, it is exceeding hot. Will not God pity us? will not God have mercy on us? we once thought he would, but we did flatter and deceive our selves, and thought it would be well because we lived in a praying Family, and were frequent at the duty; but we did not pray as they should do, that were to pray for the escaping of such dreadful torments; we did sleep often in our prayers, but there is no sleeping here no ease, no resting here. O that God would try us once more, once more, were it but for a month or two, and set us out, and send us to a praying life again. O that we were in time again, in time again, and in the same circumstances again, as once we were, and had the same possibility, yea probability of escaping those restless torments. But this cannot be, this must not be, this will not be; time is gone, is gone, and we must pray no more for ever. O time, how didst thou slip away! How swift was thy motion! O that this eternity would hasten as fast as time did hasten. When we had lived twenty years, our life was so much nearer expiration; but here we have been a thousand years, and yet as far from an end as the first moment we came into this dreadful place and dark and doleful dungeon: This then addeth to our misery, that here we are, and must be here for ever, here we are, woe be to us that here we are, and that without all hopes of recovery, and possibility of redemption and deliverance.
Again stand and take a view of poor damned Souls, and suppose you saw them with your eyes rolling in a lake of burning Brimstone, full of the fury of the Lord: Suppose you heard their direful execrations, their doleful outcries, their hideous roarings, and bitter lamentations ringing in your ears, saying, Wo and alas, that ever we were born! that are come to this place of torment, to this place of torment, Oh! it is, it is a place of torment: 1Once we had praying time and hearing time, but we did not improve it for our good, else we had not been now in this extremity of pain; no we had not, no we had not. We did pray, but we did but triflle in our prayers, and did but dally with that God, whom now we find and feel to be to us consuming fire, and yet we burn and are not consumed: we were not in good earnest in those prayers we were at, but now we suffer in good earnest, and are damned in good earnest. Oh! this place is hot, it is hot, it is exceeding hot. Will not God pity us? will not God have mercy on us? we once thought he would, but we did flatter and deceive our selves, and thought it would be well because we lived in a praying Family, and were frequent at the duty; but we did not pray as they should do, that were to pray for the escaping of such dreadful torments; we did sleep often in our prayers, but there is no sleeping here no ease, no resting here. O that God would try us once more, once more, were it but for a moneth or two, and set us out, and send us to a praying life again. O that we were in time again, in time again, and in the same circumstances again, as once we were, and had the same possibility, yea probability of escaping those restless torments. But this cannot be, this must not be, this will not be; time is gone, is gone, and we must pray no more for ever. O time, how didst thou slip away! How swift was thy motion! O that this eternity would hasten as fast as time did hasten. When we had lived twenty years, our life was so much nearer expiration; but here we have been a thousand years, and yet as far from an end as the first moment we came into this dreadful place and dark and doleful dungeon: This then addeth to our misery, that here we are, and must be here for ever, here we are, woe be to us that here we are, and that without all hopes of recovery, and possibility of redemption and deliverance.
