"I am lost forever! All hope of happiness or relief is gone from my
miserable soul! The blackness of darkness is round about me! No ray of
light dawns on my wretched soul! Despair, terrible despair has now
seized upon me, and must blacken every prospect to all eternity!
"While in the body, and engaged in secular pursuits, I entertained a
secret hope that there might be some mistake respecting the extreme
misery of the damned, or that there might possibly be some way of
escape not revealed; but now all these idle notions have fled like a
dream when one awakes! I find hell to be no fable--but a
dreadful reality! I find that the preachers, so far from exaggerating
the misery of the lost, had no adequate conception of the wretchedness
of a soul cast off from God forever, and doomed to dwell in everlasting
burnings! Oh horrible! Horrible! I am undone--forever undone! I have
passed beyond the reach of mercy!
"For the sake of momentary enjoyments, and worthless riches and
honors--I have bartered away my soul. Accursed folly! What
benefit can I now derive from those earthly pleasures and possessions?
They only serve as fuel to the flames which consume me. O for one drop
of water to cool my tongue! But for this I beg in vain. The time for
prayer and for mercy has gone by--and my soul is lost, lost, lost! And
through eternity I must expect no deliverance, no relief, nor even the
slightest mitigation of my misery! Woe, woe, woe is me! It would have
been infinitely better for me never to have been born!
"If I had not enjoyed the offers of the gospel, my anguish would not be
so excruciating. But this it is which wrings my heart with unspeakable
anguish--that I might have escaped all this
misery! Had it not been for my own sin and folly, I might
before now have been in heaven. Others who heard the same sermons, and
belonged to the same family, are now in eternal glory--while I am
tormented in this flame! Oh that I could cease to be; but to fly from
existence is impossible.
"Here I am surrounded by wretches as miserable as myself, but their
company rather aggravates than mitigates my soul's anguish. I am
reproached and cursed by all who were ever led by my counsel or example
into the ways of iniquity. They dreadfully scowl upon me.
"And the fiends of the pit, who were my seducers, now combine to taunt
me with my folly. They never had the offers of mercy. The merits of a
dying Savior were never offered to them. They seem to entertain a
malignant pleasure--if pleasure it can be called--in witnessing my
extreme misery. O wretch that I am--where can I flee? Is there no
possible escape from this prison of despair? Can no one ever pass the
gulf which separates this dismal abode from the regions of the blessed?
None! None!
"May I hope that the passing of time will lessen the horrors and
anguish of my wretched soul? Will my heart, so susceptible of the
emotions of bitter anguish, by degrees become less sensible to these
piercing pains, and be more able to bear up under this overwhelming
weight of misery? This question can only be solved by experience: let
me ask someone who has been suffering for thousands of years. Here comes Cain the first murderer, who is known still by having upon
him the stain of a brother's blood. Suppose I speak to him--'Tell me,
fellow-prisoner, who has long endured the pains of this infernal
prison, whether by long continuance these miseries become more
tolerable?' But why do I ask? the wretched fratricide is evidently
writhing in keenest anguish. He is too miserable to speak, and too full
of malignity to gratify anyone. His guilty stain--the blood-spot--has
not been burnt out by the fiercest fires of hell. No! see, he defies
the Almighty. He blasphemes the God of heaven. He asks for no
mitigation of his punishment now. His malignant, fiery spirit feeds on
despair, and challenges his Avenger to do his worst.
"Oh, then, I see there is a progression in wickedness even in
hell. This is the most appalling prospect of all--an endless
progression in sin, and consequently an increase, instead of a
diminution of misery, through the endless ages of eternity!"
"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more
shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God!" (Romans 5:9)
"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through
our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Thessalonians 5:9)