Vessels of His wrath!

(Samuel Davies, "The Vessels of Mercy and the Vessels of Wrath Delineated")

"What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath—prepared for destruction?" Romans 9:22

Vessels of His wrath! How terribly emphatic is this phrase! Vessels dreadfully capacious of divine wrath! to be filled to the brim—with that burning liquid!

Lost sinner! Consider your present dangerous situation! You hang over the pit of destruction by the slender thread of life, held up only by the hand of an angry God—just as we hold a spider, or some poisonous insect over a fire, ready to throw it in! You are ripe for destruction, and therefore in danger every day, every hour, every moment—of falling into it! You are as fit for destruction—as a murderer is fit for the gallows! Such polluted vessels of wrath must be thrown out of the way into some dark corner in hell—that they may no more encumber or disgrace the more honorable places of the universe. And is this a situation in which it befits you to be merry, and mirthful, and thoughtless, and eager after worldly trifles? Oh does it not befit you rather—to be on your knees at the throne of grace, and vigorously pressing into the kingdom of God?

Alas! I must leave this warning with you, and if you do not remember it now—you will remember it millions of ages hence, when the remembrance of it will torment you with intolerable anguish!