And how is that worse news?  My friends, every sinner knows so well in his heart that it is worse news, more terrible news, for him, that he tries to persuade himself that death is only the arbitrary punishment of his sin; or, quite as often, that the punishment of his sin is not even death, but eternal torment in the next life.

And why?  Because, as long as he can believe that death, or hell, are only punishments arbitrarily fixed by God against his sins, he can hope that God will let him off the punishment.  Die, he knows he must, because all men die; and so he makes up his mind to that:  but being sent to hell after he dies, is so very terrible a punishment, that he cannot believe that God will be so hard on him as that.  No; he will get off, and be forgiven at last somehow, for surely God will not condemn him to hell.  And so he finds it very convenient and comfortable to believe in hell, just because he does not believe that he is going there, whoever else may be.

But, it is a very terrible, heartrending thought, for a man to find out that what he will receive is not punishment, but wages; not punishment but the end of the very road which he is travelling on.  That the wages of sin, and the end of sin, to which it must lead, are death; that every time he sins he is earning those wages, deserving them, meriting them, and therefore receiving them by the just laws of the world of God.  That does torment him, that does terrify him, if he will look steadfastly at the broad plain fact—­You need not dream of being let off, respited, reprieved, pardoned in any way.  The thing cannot be done.  It is contrary to the laws of God and of God’s universe.  It is as impossible as that fire should not burn, or water run up hill.  It is not a question of arbitrary punishment, which may be arbitrarily remitted; but of wages, which you needs must take, weekly, daily, and hourly; and those wages are death:  a question of travelling on a certain road, whereon, if you travel it long enough, you must come to the end of it; and the end is death.  Your sins are killing you by inches; all day long they are sowing in you the seeds of disease and death.  Every sin which you commit with your body shortens your bodily life.  Every sin you commit with your mind, every act of stupidity, folly, wilful ignorance, helps to destroy your mind, and leave you dull, silly, devoid of right reason.  Every sin you commit with your spirit, each sin of passion and temper, envy and malice, pride and vanity, injustice and cruelty, extravagance and self-indulgence, helps to destroy your spiritual life, and leave you bad, more and more unable to do the right and avoid the wrong, more and more unable to discern right from wrong; and that last is spiritual death, the eternal death of your moral being.  There are three parts in you—­body, mind, and spirit; and every sin you commit helps to kill one of these three, and, in many cases, to kill all three together.