What does this mean but that, when one has fallen away into mortal sin, it is as impossible for him to do any thing toward the salvation of his soul, as it is for a dead man to raise himself to life. Lay it to heart--a most important truth--that Almighty God owes you nothing; is not bound, nor has he promised, to give you grace beyond a certain degree; while he has most emphatically warned the sinner that the time will come, and who knows--oh! dreadful thought--but that it has already arrived for you, when he will withdraw his countenance from you, and leave you to the fate you have chosen, and so justly merited. Every child has amused himself on the banks of the river or brook, watching the eddies caused by the meeting of contrary currents, and observing how the brown leaves which have fallen from the trees into the stream are suddenly caught in the circling current and whirled about, approaching at each revolution nearer the centre of it. {87} Now, we are told by travellers, that in the vast ocean there are powerful and dangerous eddies of this sort, called whirlpools; and that large ships, if allowed to sail within their influence, are drawn in, and carried round and round, no longer obedient to the sails or rudder, and at last are completely swallowed up in the yawning vortex of whirling waters. Oh! unrepentant sinner: you are the brown leaf, fallen from the tree of life into the water of iniquity. You are the ship which has lost its compass, and strayed within reach of the dizzy whirlpool. God stood upon the calm open sea, and each time that you came around he warned you of your danger. He did more; he sent strong and sufficient breezes of his holy grace; if you had taken advantage of them in trimming the sails, and putting up the helm, you might have escaped. {88} How many times did he not thus attempt your rescue: but you heeded him not. There was even something pleasant and intoxicating to be thus carried along in the powerful stream; and now you go faster and faster, nearer and nearer, until the yawning abyss opens upon your gaze, and you send forth a shriek for help, a cry of despair. But you are so dizzy that you cannot descry the form of God upon the sea. It is well; it would double your agony to see him now, for he has turned his back upon you; or worse, is mocking you, and laughs you to scorn. "_Because I called and you refused; I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded. You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reprehensions. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when your fear cometh. When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction as a tempest shall be at hand; when tribulation and distress shall come upon you; then shall they call upon me, and I will not hear_." [Footnote 42] [Footnote 42: Prov. i., 24-28.] {89}