4. The next spiritual judgment mentioned in this answer, as a punishment for sin, is a person’s being given up to _vile affections_. This God is said to have done, to those whom the apostle describes, as _giving themselves over to the committing of those sins_, which are contrary to nature, Rom. i. 26. such as all men generally abhor, who do not abandon themselves to the most notorious crimes: This is a contracting that guilt, which is repugnant to those natural ideas of virtue and vice, which even an unregenerate man, who has not arrived to this degree of impiety, cannot but abhor. These are such as are not to be named among Christians, or thought of, without the utmost regret, and an afflictive sense of the degeneracy of human nature. 5. The last thing mentioned in this answer, in which the inward punishment of sin, in this life, consists, is, _Horror of conscience_. Under the foregoing instances of spiritual judgments, conscience seemed to be asleep, but now it is awakened, and that by the immediate hand of God, and this is attended with a dread of his wrath falling upon it: horror and despair are the result hereof; _The arrows of the Almighty are within him, the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against him_, Job vi. 4. and, _Terrors take hold on him as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and, as a storm, hurleth him out of his place. For God shall cast upon him, and not spare; he would fain flee out of his hand_, chap. xxvii. 20-22. This differs from those doubts and fears, which are common to believers, inasmuch as it is attended with despair, and a dreadful view of God, as a God _to whom vengeance belongeth_, and is attended, as the apostle says, _with a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries_, Heb. x. 27. Before this, he took a great deal of pains to stifle convictions of conscience, but now he would fain do it, but cannot; which is a sad instance of the wrath of God pouring forth gall and wormwood into it, when he says, to use the prophet’s words, _Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee_, Jer. ii. 19. But, now we are speaking concerning horror of conscience, we must take heed, lest we give occasion to doubting believers, who are under great distress of soul, through a sense of sin, to apply what has been said, to themselves, for their farther discouragement, and conclude, that this is a judicial act of God, and a certain evidence, that they have not the truth of grace: Therefore we may observe, that there is a difference between this horror of conscience, which we have been describing, and that distress of soul, which believers are often liable to, in three respects.