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T HE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no vis ible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that h.e does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger, in any respect, in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world, in all ages, shows this is no evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity and that the next step will not he into another world. The unseen, unthought of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceiv able. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight can not discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world, that there is nothing to make it appear that God has need to be at the expense of a . j miracle, or to go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God’s hands, and so universally and absolutely sub jest to His power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sin ners shall at any moment go, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case. 8. Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do bear testimony. There is this clear evi dence that men’s own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise, we should see some difference between the wise and politic '
They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his domin ion. The Scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11:21. The demons watch them; they are ever by them, at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions, that see their prey, and expect to have it, hut are for the present kept hack. If God should withdraw His hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their souls. 6. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for God’s restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men a foundation for torment. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceedingly vio lent in their nature; and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out; they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruption, the same en mity does in the hearts of lost souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in'them. The souls of the wicked are in Scrip ture compared to the troubled sea. Isaiah 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by His mighty power, as He does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, “Hitherto shalt thou eome, and no fur ther;’’ but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it is like fire pent up by God’s re straints; whereas if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature.
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