Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/52

 bered but evil and its wedded partner falsity. This unhappy union of evil and falsehood pollutes the very fountain of his being, darkens his understanding, and spreads sorrow and desolation throughout his outward life. There is no peace to the wicked, because with such, God, as the Prince of Peace, is not thought of. Self-love, the generator of all vice, unmercifulness, and sin of every kind, has supplanted the love of God; the love of the world has destroyed love and charity to man; and self is remembered and God forgotten. The soul that constantly grovels in its own uncleanness, seeking rest but finding none, is called the worm that never dies; the evil within, which burns for universal dominion and self-gratification, without being able to obtain either, is the fire that is not quenched; while the false persuasions of the perverted and darkened intellect, bursting forth from the depth of the polluted heart, are described by that smoke of torment which ascends up for ever and ever. (Rev. xiv. 11.) O my soul, be on thy guard! set thine affections on things above! cease to do evil! touch not, taste not the unclean thing, lest thou form in the inmost of thy being the hell of those who forget God! Such are the wicked, who, when they pass out of this world, mingle, in spirit, with their like; and the whole together form that hell, or spiritual world of woe,—that everlasting punishment, the direct opposite to that state of angelic purity called.