May 11//The Sermon

Psalm lxxiii. 18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction."

III. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They don't only justly deserve to be cast down thither; but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell.
John 3:18, He that believeth not is condemned already. So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is. John 8:23, Ye are from beneath. And thither he is bound; 'tis the place that justice, and God's Word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assigns to him. They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed in the torments of hell: and the reason why they don't go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as angry as he is with many of those miserable creatures that he is now tormenting in hell, and do there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth, yea, doubtless with many that are now in this
congregation, that it may be are at ease and quiet, than he is with many of those that are
now in the flames of hell.

So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and don't resent it, that he don't let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation don't slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them.
--Jonathan Edwards, Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God