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their misery, they will not know, or will not read or study that they may<br />
know; therefore, when their knowledge will but feed their consuming fire,<br />
they shall know, whether they will or not. <strong>The</strong>y are now in a dead sleep, and<br />
dream that they are the happiest men in the world; but when death awakes<br />
them, how will their judgments be changed in a moment! and they that<br />
would not see, shall then see, and be ashamed.<br />
2. As their understanding will be cleared, so it will be more enlarged,<br />
and made more capacious to conceive the worth of that glory which they<br />
have lost. <strong>The</strong> strength of their apprehensions, as well as the truth of them,<br />
will then be increased. What deep apprehensions of the wrath of God, the<br />
madness of sinning, the misery of sinners, have those souls that now endure<br />
this misery, in comparison with those on earth that do but hear of it! What<br />
sensibility of the worth of life has the condemned man that is going to be<br />
executed, compared with what he was wont to have in the time of his<br />
prosperity! Much more will the actual loss of eternal blessedness make the<br />
damned exceedingly apprehensive of the greatness of their loss; and as a<br />
large vessel will hold more water than a shell, so will their more enlarged<br />
understandings contain more matter to feed their torment than their shallow<br />
capacity can now do.<br />
3. <strong>The</strong>ir consciences also will make a truer and closer application of this<br />
doctrine to themselves, which will exceedingly tend to increase their<br />
torment. It will then be no hard matter to them to say, "This is my loss! and<br />
this is my everlasting remediless misery!" <strong>The</strong> want of this self-application is<br />
the main cause why they are so little troubled now. <strong>The</strong>y are hardly brought<br />
to believe that there is such a state of misery; but more hardly to believe that<br />
it is like to be their own. This makes so many sermons lost to them, and all<br />
threatenings and warnings in vain. Let a minister of Christ show them their<br />
misery ever so plainly and faithfully, they will not be persuaded they are so<br />
miserable. Let him tell them of the glory they must lose, and the sufferings<br />
they must feel, and they think he means not them, but some notorious<br />
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