Conscience is
chastizing him with scorpions. See how he writhes! Hear how he shrieks
for help! Mark what agony and terror are in his soul, and on his brow!
Death stares him in the face, and shakes at him his iron spear. He
trembles, he turns pale, as a culprit at the bar, as a convict on
the scaffold. He is condemned already. Conscience has pronounced the
sentence. Anguish has taken hold upon him. Terrors gather in battle
array about him. He looks back, and the storms of Sinai pursue him;
forward, and hell is moved to meet him; above, and the heavens are on
fire; beneath, and the world is burning. He listens, and the judgment
trump is calling; again, and the brazen chariots of vengeance are
thundering from afar; yet again, the sentence penetrates his soul
with anguish unspeakable--"Depart! ye accurst! into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels!"
Thus, "by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." They are
"dead in trespasses and sins," spiritually dead, and legally dead;
dead by the mortal power of sin, and dead by the condemnatory sentence
of the law; and helpless as sheep to the slaughter, they are driven
fiercely on by the ministers of wrath to the all-devouring grave and
the lake of fire!
But is there no mercy? Is there no means of salvation? Hark! amid all
this prelude of wrath and ruin, comes a still small voice, saying:
"Much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one
man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
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