bits, and not perceiving that in stripping the bark they stop the sap.--_Melvill._ MORAL OBDURACY. i. 5. _Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more._ +I. The danger of despising the Divine chastisements.+ Heedlessness destroys the very power of taking heed. +II. The terribleness of the peace which is often the portion of the wicked.+ Like the cessation of pain in a sick man, which indicates that mortification has set in, it may be only a sign that God has given them up as irreclaimable (Hos. iv. 17).[1] +III. The folly of expecting sanctification as the inevitable result of suffering.+ Contrary to the expectation of the Universalists, the sufferings of the lost may only confirm them in their impenitence (Rev. ii. 9, 11, 21).[2] FOOTNOTES: [1] While God visits us at all, it is a sign He thinks of us. The present life is not the time for punishment devoid of mercy. While the debtor is on his way to prison, he may agree with his adversary, and escape the messenger's hands. While the sick man feels pain, there is vitality and activity in his constitution, and he may recover. And therefore I think it must be a terrible thing to have one's perdition sealed; to have the process already closed; both depositions and sentence, and laid up in God's chancery, as an irreversible doom, and so him who is its object troubled no further, but allowed the full choice of his pleasures,--as one permits a man, between sentence and execution, his choice of viands, in full certainty that when his hour hath tolled the terrible law will take its course. How smoothly glides along the boat upon the wide, unruffled, though most rapid stream that hurries it onward to the precipice, over which its waters break in thunder! How calm, and undisturbed by the smallest ripple, slumbers its unreflecting steersman! Or for one rock in the midst of its too smooth channel, against which it may be dashed and whirled about, to shake him from this infatuated sleep! It is the only hope that remains for him. Woe to him if to the end his course be pleasant! That end will pay it all!--_Wiseman._