nay, according to the Hypothefis of Serm. 3.fome, who believe future rewards for thegood, tho' they deny future punishments for the wicked, we may be exceeding happy in the next World, when the wicked fhall not be at all, and our care to avoid Hell, tho' there fhould be no fuch thing, may be rewarded with Heaven. So that, upon all accounts, it is our manifeft intereft to live fo, as that we may have no reason to be afraid of Hell: this immediate benefit we fhall reap from fo doing, that, while, even in this World, there is no peace to the wick ed, but they are like the troubled Sea, which cannot reft, whofe waters are continually cafting up mire and filth: we fhall be all calm within, void of any the leaft fear, and full of quietnefs and affurance for ever; and, if our own Natures and Reafon are not made to deceive us, we fhall hereafter find, to our unfpeakable comfort, all our pains to avoid Hell, turn to rich ac count, and become an occafion of everlasting Joy, Comfort, Satisfaction, Exultation and Triumph to us. Wherefore, to conclude all in the words Serm. 3. words of honeft Socrates, Let us, knowing these things to be fo, ufe our utmoft endeavors to prefent our felves, Plato. pure and Spotless, before our Judge, Gorgias, words, tho' proceeding from an Heathen, not much unlike those of an inSpir'd Writer, 2 Pet. 13, 14, 17. Seeing that ye look for fuch things, be diligent that ye may be found of your Fudge in peace, without spot and blamelefs and beware left ye being led away, with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfaftness. SERM. Serm. 4. SERMON IV. Preach'd before King WILLIAM at The Greatness of Hell-Torments. Matthew 25. 41. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels. Aving, in my former Difcourfes upon these words, finish'd what 1 propounded first to treat of from them, viz. the Certainty of Hell-Torments, from Principles of Nature and Reason; I fhall now proceed, accord ing to the method which I fet my 2 felf, to confider the Greatness of them, Serm. 4: and, in fo doing, First, To fhew that they will certainly be inconceivably great; and Secondly, To enquire, as far as we are able, wherein the greatness of them will confift. And, forasmuch as, in my former Discourses, I have fo far gratify'd Some Men, as, chiefly for their fakes, to argue only from Principles of Nature and Reafon, for the proof of that, which is the main point in dif pute between us, viz. the Certainty of Hell-Torments (tho' ftill with this caution, that the fullest and clearest proof of this matter must be had from the Holy Scriptures) I fhall now be lefs folicitous about gratifying them as to what follows, and fhall freely argue from Revelation, as well as Nature and Reafon,and, tho' I shall not neglect or país over proofs from thefe, yet I fhall no longer confine my felf wholely to the First then, I am to fhew that the Serm. 4. Torments of Hell will certainly be in conceivably great. And this is fo plau a truth, that the very Heathens them selves, by the meer light of Nature seem to have been perfectly well af fur'd of it. For not only their Poets (whofe heated fancies and imaginati ons may perhaps be fuppos'd to have carry'd them a great deal to far, upor this fubject (tho' even thefe in my O. pinion, are not wholely to be flighted in this cafe, because Poets, efpecially good ones, always write with fome regard to the Sentiments of the Age, in which they live) but also their best and gravest Philofophers, do both exprefly affert the extremity and intolerableness of Hell-Torments, and likewife give us fuch terrifying and amazing defcriptions of them, as may abundantly convince us, that they did really believe them to be infinitely great, infinitely beyond all that they were able to exprefs. A fmall taft of which you may be pleas'd to Platon. take in Plato only, who, under the Phado, perfon of one who is fuppos'd to have Gorgias Axiochus, feen Hell, and afterwards to have reLeg. L. 10. turn'd to this World again, tells us l. what |