suffering. See how all this is expressed in our text from beginning to end. GENERAL CONCLUSION.--"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The history of the Jews since Israel's day is a terrible comment on this declaration. PARTICULAR CONCLUSIONS.--1. As sinners, let us bestir ourselves to avert the consequences of our transgressions by a timely and genuine repentance (ch. lv. 6, 7; Hosea xiv. 1-4, &c.) 2. Having obtained mercy, let us be in the fear of the Lord all the day long (John v. 14). 3. For our guidance in life, let us keep constantly before us the Biblical presentation of God, as a God of justice and mercy;--of justice, that we may be restrained from transgression; of mercy, that there may grow up in our hearts that love for Him which will cause us to find our highest joy in doing His will. FOOTNOTES: [1] See my _Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illustrations in Theology and Morals,_ Nos. 2288-2301. [2] As for example, _conscience,_ the awakening of which Henry Smith has thus depicted:--"There is a warning conscience and a gnawing conscience. The warning comes before sin; the gnawing conscience follows after sin. The warning conscience is often lulled asleep, but the gnawing conscience wakes her again. If there be any hell in this world, they who feel the worm of conscience gnawing on their hearts may truly say that they have felt the torments of hell. Who can express that man's horror but himself? Nay, what horrors are those which he cannot express himself! Sorrows are met in his soul as at a feast; and fear, thought, and anguish divide the soul between them. All the furies of hell leap upon his heart like a stage. Thought calls to Fear; Fear whistles to Horror; Horror beckons to Despair, and says, Come, and help me to torment this sinner. One says that she comes from this sin, and another says that she comes from that sin. So he goes through a thousand deaths, and cannot die. Irons are laid upon his body like a prisoner. All his lights are put out at once. He has no soul fit to be comforted. Thus he lives as it were upon the rack, and says that he bears the world upon his shoulders, and that no man suffers that which he suffers. So let him lie, says God, without ease, until he confess and repent and call for mercy." CORDS AND CART-ROPES. v. 18. _Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope._[1]