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 restraints, whereas if it were let loose,
it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart is now a
sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the
soul into fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.

It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no
visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that
he is now in health, and that he 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 be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways
and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and
inconceivable. 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 thes