his judgment; but more often, the fear of what he shall discover in the secret places of his soul deters him from making the attempt at self-examination.  For it is a surprising truth that the transgressor dares not bring out into the light that which is most truly his own, that which he himself has originated, and which he loves and cherishes with all his strength and might.  He is afraid of his own heart!  Even when God forces the vision of it upon him, he would shut his eyes; or if this be not possible, he would look through distorting media and see it with a false form and coloring.

  “But ’tis not so above;
  There is no shuffling; there the action lies
  In his true nature:  and we ourselves compelled,
  Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
  To give in evidence."[2]

The spirit that has come into the immediate presence of God, and beholds Him face to face, cannot deceive Him, and therefore cannot deceive itself.  It cannot remain ignorant of God’s character any longer, and therefore cannot remain ignorant of its own.

We do not sufficiently consider and ponder the elements of anguish that are sleeping in the fact that in eternity a sinner must know God’s character, and therefore must know his own.  It is owing to their neglect of such subjects, that mankind so little understand what an awful power there is in the distinct perception of the Divine purity, and the allied consciousness of sin.  Lord Bacon tells us that the knowledge acquired in the schools is power; but it is weakness itself, if compared with that form and species of cognition which is given to the mind of man by the workings of conscience in the light of the Divine countenance.  If a transgressor knew clearly what disclosures of God’s immaculateness and of his own character must be made to him in eternity, he would fear them, if unprepared, far more than physical sufferings.  If he understood what capabilities for distress the rational spirit possesses in its own mysterious constitution, if when brought into contact with the Divine purity it has no sympathy with it, but on the contrary an intense hostility; if he knew how violent will be the antagonism between God’s holiness and man’s sin when, the two are finally brought together, the assertion that there is no external source of anguish in hell, even if it were true, would afford him no relief.  Whoever goes into the presence of God with a corrupt heart carries thither a source of sorrow that is inexhaustible, simply because that corrupt heart must be distinctly known, and perpetually understood by its possessor, in that Presence.  The thoughtless man may never know while upon earth, even “in part,” the depth and the bitterness of this fountain,—­he may go through this life for the most part self-ignorant and undistressed,—­but he must know in that other, final, world the immense fulness of its woe, as it unceasingly wells up into everlasting death.