|
HELL
by Dagg--
When God punishes, he punishes as a God.
Who knows the power of His anger?
What omnipotent wrath can accomplish,
all language fails to describe,
and all finite minds are unable to conceive.
Of what elements "future misery" will consist, we cannot tell;
but it will include poignant remorse, and a sense of divine wrath,
with the absence of all enjoyment, and of all hope.
It will produce, in the subjects of it,
weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
They will realize that they are shut out for ever from the
kingdom of heaven, into outer darkness; and they will remember
the good things which they once enjoyed, never more to be
enjoyed again; and the opportunities of mercy, once neglected,
never more to return.
They will be tormented in the flame,
without a drop of water to cool their tongues.
Their hatred of God will be complete and they will blaspheme
his name, while they feel themselves grasped in the hand of his
almighty wrath, without power to extricate themselves.
Devils, and wicked men, all under the same condemnation,
will be their eternal companions: and the companionship,
instead of affording relief, will be an aggravation of their woe.
The whole throng, hateful, and hating one another, will be
tormentors of one another. The malignant passions, which, on
earth, caused wars, assassinations, cruelty, oppression, and
every species of injury, will be let loose without restraint to
banish peace and brotherhood for ever from the infernal society;
and the passions which burn in the hearts of wicked men on
earth, and destroy all internal peace, and sometimes drive to
suicide, will then be unrestrained, and do their full work of
torture; and relief by suicide, or self-annihilation, will be
for ever impossible.
O, who can endure such torments?
Who will not, with every energy seek to escape
from devouring fire and everlasting burnings?
It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment, than for those who hear
and reject the gospel of Christ; who must, therefore,
suffer the vengeance of eternal fire, in its fiercest
burnings, and in its everlasting duration.
|