HELL.] Future misery inconceivable. [CHAP. I. sole causes of it. What repentings will be kindled within them, for the stupid neglect of the great salvation so dearly purchased, and earnestly offered to them. What a fiery addition to their torment, that when God was so willing to save them, they were so wilful to be lost. They will never forgive themselves, that for the short and mean pleasures of sense, which if enjoyed a thousand years, cannot recompense the loss of heaven; nor requite the pains of hell for an hour, they must be deprived of the one and suffer the other for ever. (4) The sorrow and rage will be increased by despair; for when the wretched sinner sees the evil is peremptory, and no outlet of hope, he abandons himself to the violence of sorrow, and by cruel thoughts wounds the heart more than the fiercest furies in hell can do. The misery that flows from despair shall be more fully opened under the distinct consideration of the eternity of hell. Briefly, as the blessed are in heaven, and heaven is in them, by those holy and joyful affections that are always exercised in the divine presence; so the damned are in bell, and hell is in them by those fierce and miserable passions that continually prey upon them. CHAP. II. The eternity of future misery makes it most intolerable-The justice of eternal punishment for temporary sins-The wisdom of God requires that the punishment should be sufficient to preserve the inviolability of his law-There is an inseparable connexion between the choice and actions of men here, and their condition for ever· -The immense guilt of sin requires a proportionate punishment. THE eternity of future misery makes it above all other considerations intolerable. Our Saviour repeats it thrice in the space of a few verses, to terrify those who spare some favourite corruption, that in hell their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.' God will never reverse his sentence, and they shall never change their state. How willingly would carnal men raze the word eternal out of the scriptures ; but to their grief they find it joined with the felicity of heaven, and the torments of hell. The second death has all the terrible qualities of the first, but not the ease and end it brings to misery. All the tears of those who are lost, shall never quench one spark of the fire. Where are the delicious fare, the music, the purple, and all the carnal delights of the rich man? They are all changed into a contrary state of misery, and that state is fixed for ever. HELL] Future misery eternal. [CHAP. II. From his vanishing paradise he descended into an everlasting hell. In this the vengeance of God is imfinitely more heavy than the most terrible execution from men. Human justice and power can inflict but one death and that one will be soon dispatched, upon a malefactor worthy to suffer a hundred deatus. If he be condemned to the fire, they cannot make him live and die together, to burn and not be consumed. But God will so far support the damned in their torments, that they shall always have strength to feel, though no strength patiently to endure them. Those extreme torments which would extinguish the present life in a moment, shall be suffered for ever. This consideration infinitely aggravates the misery; for the lost soul racked with the fearful contemplation of what it must suffer for ever, feels as it were at once all the evils that shall torment it in its whole duration. The perpetuity of the misery is always felt by anticipation. This is as the cruel breaking of the bones upon the wheel, when the soul is tormented by the foresight of misery that without abatement shall continue in the circulation of eternal ages. In Let it also be remembered, that pain makes the mind observant of the passing of the hours. pleasures, time with a quick and silent motion insensibly slides away; but in troubles the hours are tedious, and in violent pains we reckon the minutes as long. It is observable how passionately the afflicted Psalmist complains; Will the Lord cast off for ever; will he be favourable no more? Doth his ОНАР. П.] Future misery eternal. [HELL promise fail for evermore? Hath he forgotten to be gracious; hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?' Psal. lxxvii. 7. In what various pathetic forms does he express the same affection. Though he had assurance that the gracious God would not be always severe, yet his anguish forced from him complaints, as if the moment of his trouble were an eternity. But what strains of sorrow are among the lost, who besides the present sense of their misery, have always in their thoughts the vast eternity in which they must suffer it. When three terrible evils were proposed to David's choice, pining famine for three years, or bloody war for three months, or devouring pestilence for three days; he chose the shortest, though in itself the heaviest evil. Many sad days must pass under the other judgments, where death by anticipation in such variety of shapes would be presented to the mind, that the lingering expectation of it would afflict more than the sudden stroke; whereas the fury of the pestilence would be soon over. But those in hell have not this relief; they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. How earnestly do they seek death, but cannot find it. What a favour would they esteem it to be annihilated. For certainly, if when the evils in the present state are so multiplied that no comfort is left, or so violent that the afflicted person cannot enjoy them, nor refresh his sorrowful spirit, death is chosen rather than life; it cannot be imagined that in the future state, where the misery HELL.] Future misery eternal. [CHAP. II. is extreme, and nothing remains to allay it, that the damned should be in love with the unhappy good of simple being, and not choose if it might be an absolute extinction. If any one should be so foolish as to think that custom will render that state more tolerable, he will find a terrible confutation of his vain fancy. Continuance under light evils may indeed arm the mind with patience to bear them; but in great extremities it makes the evil more ponderous and intolerable. He that is tortured with the stone, or on the rack, the longer the torture continues, the less able he is to sustain it. In short as the joy of heaven is infinitely more ravishing, because the blessed are without fear of losing it; so the misery of hell is proportionably tormenting, because the damned are absolutely destitute of hopes of a release. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,' who lives for ever, and will punish for ever incorrigible sinners. There are some who imagine that it is not consistent with divine justice, to inflict an eternal punishment for temporary sins. Therefore they soften the sentence, by interpreting the words of Christ, 'These shall go into everlasting punishment,' of the annihilation of impenitent sinners; that is, they shall be for ever deprived of heaven, but not suffer torments for ever. To this it may be replied, that the direct opposition between everlasting punishment and everlasting life, in the words of Christ, is a convincing argument that they are to be understood in the same |