they are
restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old
serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them;
and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and
lost.

There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning,
that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not
for God's restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a
foundation for the torments of hell. There are those corrupt principles,
in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are
seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding
violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of
God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the
same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts
of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them.
The souls of the wicked are in scripture compared to the troubled sea,
Isa. 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his
mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying,
"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw
that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the
ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God
should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make
the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is
immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it
is