carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust, and hope, and
peace, and love, and purity, and nobleness, and independence, and,
above all, it can feel right and wrong. There is the infinite
difference between an animal and a man, between our flesh and our
spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has
done wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and
wicked, but because he knows from experience that he will be
punished for doing it: just so with a man's fleshly nature;--a
carnal, fleshly man, a man whose spirit is dead within him, whose
spiritual sense of right and wrong, and honour and purity, is gone,
when he has done a wrong thing is often enough afraid; but why? Not
for any spiritual reason, not because he feels it a wicked and
abominable thing, a sin, but because he is afraid of being punished
for it, because he is afraid that his body, his flesh will be
punished by the laws of the land, or by public opinion, or because
he has some dim belief that this same body and flesh of his will be
burnt in hell-fire; and fire, he knows by experience, is a painful
thing--and so he is AFRAID of it; there is nothing spiritual in all
that,--that is all fleshly, carnal; the heathens in all ages have
been afraid of hell-fire; but a man's spirit, on the other hand, if
it be in hell, is in a very different hell from mere fire,--a
spiritual hell, such as torments the evil spirits, at this very
moment, although they are going to and fro on this very earth. This
earth is hell to them; they carry about hell in them,--they are
their own hell. Everlasting shame, discontent, doubt, despair,
rage, disgust at themselves, feeling that they are out of favour
with God, out of tune with heaven and earth, loving nothing,
believing nothing, ever hating, hating each other, hating themselves
most of all--THERE is their hell! THERE is the hell in which the
soul of every wicked man is,--ay, is now while he is in THIS life,