m burst,
The iron fetters yield.

. . . . . .

We may not know, we cannot tell
What pains He had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in.'

'Myself am hell,' cried out Satan, in his agony of pride and rage and
remorse.

'Divines and dying men may talk of hell,
But in my heart her several torments dwell.'

So you say of yourself, as you well may, after such a life as yours has
been. The Judge of all the earth would not be a just judge unless hell
were already kindled in your heart. But He who is a just God is also a
Saviour, and He has with His own hand hung the key of hell and of your
self-made bed in it at the girdle of Jesus Christ. Go to Him to-night,
and tell Him that you are in hell. Tell Him that, like David, and very
much, so far as you can understand, for David's sins, you, too, are in
the pains of very hell. Cast yourself, like John in the Revelation, at
His feet, and see if He does not say to you what He said through Nathan
to David, and what He said Himself to John, and what He said to Lady
Robertland, and what He said to Samuel Rutherford. Cast yourself at His
feet, and see if you do not get at His hands as rare an outgate and as
wonderfully waled a cross as the very best of them got.

Then all the rest of your life on this prison-house of an earth will be a
history in you and to you of all kinds of rare outgates. For, once He
who has the keys has taken your case in hand, He will not let either rust
or dust gather on His keys till He has opened every door for you and set
you free from every snare. There are many evil affections, evil habits,
and evil practices that are still closely padlocked both on your outward
and your inward life that you must be wholly delivered from. And He who
has all the keys of your body and your soul too at His girdle, will not
consider that you have got your full outgate, or that He has at all
discharged His duty by you, till, as Rutherford says, your sinful habits
and practices are all loosened off from your life and are driven back
into the inner world of your inclinations; and then, after that, He will
only take up still more skilful and still more intricate keys wherewith
to turn the locks of delight, desire, and inclination. O blessed keys of
hell and of death, of habi