3 6. Rev. 16. 10 11. which does sadly presage what will be his portion for ever unless repentance quench those flames and so of the like offenders Ps. 9. 17. Rev. 22. 12. As what says the Apostle Neither fornicators nor thieves nor murtherers nor drunkards nor swearers nor raylers nor lyars nor covetous persons nor unbelievers nor no unrighteous person shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but shall have their part and portion in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Rev. 21. 8. which did they well consider they durst not continue in the practice of these sins without fear or remorse or care of amendment Sect. 5. Now what heart would not bleed to see men run headlong into those tortures that are thus intolerable Dance hoodwinkt into this perdition O that it were allowed to the desperate ruffians of our days that swear and curse drink and drab rob shed blood c. as if Heaven were blind and deaf to what they do to have but a sight of this Hell how would it charm their mouths appall their spirits strike fear and astonishment into their hearts Yea if a sinner could see but one glimpse of hell or be suffered to look one moment into that fiery Lake he would rather chuse to die ten thousand deaths than wilfully premeditately commit one sin Nor can I think they would do as they do if they did but either see or foresee what they shall one day without serious and unfeigned repentance 〈◊〉 And indeed therefore are we dissolute because we do not think what a judgment there is after our dissolution because we make it the least and last thing we think on yea it is death we think to think upon death and we cannot endure that doleful hell which summons us to judgment Lam. 1. 9. Deut. 32. 29. Oh that men would believe and consider this truth and do accordingly Oh that thou wouldst remember that there is a day of account a day of death a day of judgment coming Heb. 9. 27. Mat. 25. wherein the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance unto them which obey not his Gospel and to punish them with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power as the Apostle speaks 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9. Jude 15. Isa. 33. 14. Mat. 25. 46. As consider seriously I beseech you whether it will not be worth the while so to foresee the torments of hell that you may prevent them Or if otherwise will you not one day wish you had when death comes and arrests you to appear before the great and terrible Iudge of all the world Luke 16. 23. to 32. Mat. 13. 30 38. at which time an Assizes or Quarter-Sessions shall be held within thee where Reason shall sit as Judge and Satan shall put in a Bill of Indictment as long as that Book in Zachary chap. 5. 2. Ezek. 2. 9 10. wherein shall be alledged all the evil deeds that ever thou hast committed and all the good deeds that ever thou hast omitted with their several circumstances that may aggravate them Eccles. 11. 9. and 12. 14. 2 Cor. 5. 10. and all the curses and judgments that are due to every sin Thine own conscience shall accuse thee and thy memory shall give bitter evidence against thee and thou shalt condemn thy self before the just condemnation of thy Judge who knows all thy misdeeds better than thy self John 3. 20. Which sins of thine will not then leave thee but cry unto thee We are thy works and we will follow thee Rev. 14. 13. And then who can sufficiently express what thy grief and anguish will be when the summons both of the first and second 〈◊〉 do overtake thee at once Prov. 1. 27. And when at once thou shalt think of thy sins past the present misery and the 〈◊〉 of thy torments to come and how thou hast made earth 〈◊〉 Paradise thy belly thy God and lust thy Law so sowing 〈◊〉 and reaping misery and finding that as in thy prosperity thou neglectedst to serve God so now in thy adversity God refuseth to save thee Prov. 1. 24. to 32. Ezek. 23. 35. When thou shalt call to mind the many warnings thou hast had of this doleful day from Christs faithful Ambassadors and how thou then madest but a mock or jeer at it Prov. 1. 25. and think how for the short sinful pleasures thou hast enjoyed thou must endure eternal pains Luke 16. 24 25. and Rev. 6. 12. to 18. Which yet thou shalt think most just and equal saying As I have deserved so I am served for I was oft enough offered mercy yea intreated to accept thereof but I preferred the pleasing of my senses before the saving of my soul and more regarded the words of wicked men and the allurements of Satan than the word of God or the motions of his holy Spirit Prov. 1. 24. c. Mark 16. 16. And which I would have thee think upon hell-Hell-fire is made more hot by neglecting so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. This is the condemnation saith our Saviour none like this that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil John 3. 29. Now salvation is freely offered but men reject it hereafter they would accept of salvation but God will reject them Yea then a whole world if thou hadst it for one hours delay or respite that thou mightest have space to repent and sue unto God for mercy but it cannot be because thy body which joyned with thy soul in thy sinful actions is now altogether unfit to joyn with her in the exercise of repentance and repentance must be of the whole man Besides death will take no pity the devil knows no mercy and the God of mercy will have utterly forsaken thee Then wilt thou say O that I had been more wise or that I were now to begin my life again then would I contemn the world with all its vanities yea if Satan should then offer me all the treasures pleasures and promotions of this world he should never entice me to forget the terrors of this dreadful hour and those worse which are to follow Luke 16. 24. c. and 13. 28. But oh wretched Caitiff that I am how hath the Devil and my own deceitful and devilish heart deluded me Anâ— how am I served accordingly For now is my case more mâ—serable than the most despised Toad or Serpent that perisâ—â—â— when it dieth in that I must go to answer at the great Judgment Seat for all my sins that am not able to answer for one of the least of them Eccles. 12. 14. Mat. 18. 34. that I who heretofore gloried in my lawless liberty am now to be enclosed in the very claws of Satan as the trembling Partridge within the griping tallons of the ravening and
resolved with a vengeance and so shall you O ye fools when that hour comes though you flatter your selves for the present When you feel it you will confess it and when it is too late you will like a Fool say Alas I had not thought For this is the difference between a Fool and a Wise man A wise man saith Solomon foreseeth the evil the evil of Hell says Bernard and preventeth it but fools go on and are punished Prov. 22. 3. Acknowledge thy self a Fool then or bethink thy self now and do thereafter without delaying one minute For there is no Redemption from Hell if once thou comest there And there thou mayest be for ought thou knowest this very day yea before thou canst swallow thy spittle Thy Pulse may leave beating before thou canst fetch thy breath Sect. 3. But to speak this to the Sensualists is labour in vain For their consciences are so blinded that they as they think do believe an heaven and an hell yea in God and in Christ as well as the precisest Joh. 4. 38 39 46 47. For it is hard for men to believe their own unbelief in this case They that are most dangerously sick are least sensible of their being sick A very likely matter thou believest in Christ and hopest to be saved by him when thou wilt neither imitate his actions nor follow his precepts How does this hang together Let me ask thee a question or two that may convince thee of thy unbelief If a Physician should say to his Patient Here stands a Cordial which if you take will cure you but touch not this other Vial for that is deadly poyson and he wittingly refuseth the Cordial to take the Poyson will not every one conclude That either he believed not his Physician or preferred Death before Life If Lots Sons in law had believed their Father when he told them the City should suddenly be destroyed with fire and brimstone and that by flying they might escape it they would have obeyed his counsel If the Old World had believed that God would indeed and in good earnest bring such a flood upon them as he threatned they would have entred the Ark and not have scoft at Noah for building it So if you did firmly believe what God in the Scriptures speaks of Hell you would need no entreaties to avoid the same Sect. 4. But alas men of thy condition are so far from believing what God threatens in his word against their sins that they bless themselves in their hearts saying We shall have peace although we walk according to the stubbornness of our own will so adding drunkenness to thirst Deut. 29. 19. Yea they prefer their condition before others who are so abstemious and make conscience of their ways thinking that they delude themselves with needless fears and scruples 2 Kings 18. 22 30 33 35. Alas if they did in good earnest believe that there is either God or Devil Heaven or Hell or that they have immortal souls which shall everlastingly live in bliss or woe and receive according to what they have done in their bodies whether it be good or evil 2 Cor. 5. 10. They could not but live thereafter and make it their principal care how to be saved But alas they believe that they see and feel and know they believe the Laws of the Land and know that there are Stocks and Bridewels and Goals and Dungeons and Racks and Gibbets for Malefactors and this makes them abstain from murther felony and the like but they believe not things invisible and to come For if they did they would as well yea much more fear him that hath power to cast both body and soul into hell as they do the temporal Magistrate that hath only power to kill the body they would think it a very hard bargain to win the whole world and lose heaven and their own souls Luke 9. 25. Men fear a Gaol more than they fear Hell and stand more upon their silver or sides smarting than upon their souls and regard more the blasts of mens breath than the fire of Gods wrath and tremble more at the thought of a Sergeant or Bayliff than of Satan and everlasting perdition Else they would not be hired with all the worlds wealth multiplyed as many times as there be sands on the Seashoar to hazard in the least the loss of those everlasting Joys before spoken of or to purchase and plunge themselves into those easless and everlasting flames of fire and brimstone in Hell there to fry body and soul where shall be an innumerable company of Devils and damned Spirits to affright and torment them but not one to comfort or pity them Confident I am thou wouldst not endure hereto hold thy hand in a fiery crucible the space of a day or an hour for all the worlds wealth and splendour How then if thou bethinkest thy self wilt thou hereafter endure that and ten thousand thousand time more for millions of millions of ages Look Rev. 20. 10. and bethink thy self how thou wilt brook to be cast into a doleful disconsolate dungeon to lie in utter darkness in eternal chains of darkness in a little ease at no ease for ever and ever Canst thou endure to dwell with the devouring fire with the everlasting burning Sect. 5. Wherefore let me my Brethren beseech you not to be such Atheists and Fools as to fall into Hell before you will fear it when by fearing it you may avoid it and by neglecting it you cannot but fall into it What though it be usual with men to have no sense of their souls till they must leave their bodies yet do not you therefore leap into Hell to keep them company but be perswaded to bethink your selves now rather than when it will be too late when the Draw-bridge will be taken up and when it will vex every vein of your hearts that you had no more care of your souls Yet there is grace offered if we will not shut our hearts and wills against it and refuse our own mercy but how long God will yet wait thy leisure or how soon he will in his so long provoked Justice pronounce thy irrevocable sentence thou knowest not nor canst thou promise thy self one minutes time Oh that men would believe the God of truth that cannot lye touching spiritual and eternal things but as they do these temporary and transitory Oh that thou who art the sacred Monarch of this mighty Frame wouldst give them hearts to believe at least thus much That things themselves are in the invisible World in the World visible but their shadows only And that whatsoever wicked men enjoy here it is but as in a dream their plenty is but like a drop of pleasure before a River of sorrow and displeasure And whatsoever the godly feel but as a drop of misery before a River of mercy and glory That though Thou the great and just Judge of all the World comest slowly to Judgment yet Thou
ever If God would everlastingly have spared thee thou wouldst have everlastingly hated and provoked him What then can be more equal then that thou shouldst suffer everlastingly O then bethink thy self of this word eternal and everlasting and ponder upon it yea do but indeed believe it and it will be enough to break thine hard heart and make it relent and repent and thereby prevent the wrath to come It will put thee to a demur What have I done What am I now aabout Whether will this course tend How will it end What will become of me if I go on in chambering and wantonness surfeiting and drunkenness strife and envying swearing prophaneness earthly-mindedness and the like For indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish shall be upon the soul of every one that doth evil and continueth therein as the Apostle witnesseth Rom. 2. 8 9. O then break off thy sins without delay and let there be an healing of thy errours Sect. 3. Neither is the extremity of pain inferiour to the perpetuity of it it is a place full of horrour and amazedness where is no remission of sin no dismission of pain no intermission of sense no permission of comfort its torments are both intolerable and interminable and can neither be endured nor avoided when entred into Rev. 19. 20. and 20. 14. and 18. 6. Mat. 25. 30. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Heb. 10. 27. Jude 6. The pangs of the first death are pleasant compared with those of the second For mountains of sand were lighter and millions of years shorter than a tithe of those torments Rev. 20. 10. Jude 7. It is a death which hath no death it hath a beginning it hath no ending Mat. 3. 12. Isa. 66. 24. The pain of the body is but the body of pain the anguish of the soul is the soul of anguish For should we first burn off one hand then another after that each arm and so all the parts of the body it would be deemed intolerable and no man would endure it for all the profits and pleasures this world can afford and yet it is nothing to the burning of body and soul in hell Should we endure ten thousand years torment in hell it were grievous but nothing to eternity Should we suffer one pain it were miserable enough but if ever we come there our pains shall be for number and kinds infinitely various as our pleasures have been here every sense and member each power and faculty both of soul and body shall have their several objects of wretchedness and that without intermission or end or ease or patience to endure it Luke 12. 5. and 16. 23. Mat. 3. 12. and 5. 22. and 22. 23. The Schools affirm that the least torture in hell exceeds the greatest that can be devised by all the men on earth even as the least ioy in heaven surpasseth the greatest comfort here on earth There is scarce any pain here on earth but there is ever some hope of ease mitigation or intermission of some relief or deliverance but in Hell their torments are easeless endless and remediless unsufferable and yet inevitable and themselves left hopeless helpless pitiless It were misery enough to have the head-ach tooth-ach collick gout burning in the fire or if there be any thing more grievous Yea should all these and many more meet together in one man at one instant they would come infinitely short of the pains of hell Yea they would all be but as the stinging of Ants to the lashes of those Scorpions but as drops to those Vials of wrath as sparks to that flame as Chrysostome speaks The Furnace of Babel was but a flea-biting to this tormenting Tophet prepared of old Isai. 30. He hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it ver. 32. So that it were happy for reprobate spirits if they were in no worse condition than so many Toads or Serpents As consider If a dark dungeon here be so loathsom what is that dungeon of eternal of utter darkness If material fire be so terrible what is hell-Hell-fire Here we cry out of a burning fever or if a very coal from the hearth do but light on our flesh O how it grieves us we cannot hold our finger for one minute in scalding lead but there both body and soul shall fry in everlasting flames and be continually tormented by infernal fiends whose society alone would be sufficiently frightful Sect. 4. Now consider Is one hours twitche of the worm of conscience here Yea is one minutes twitch of a tooth pulling out so unsufferable What is a thousand years What is eternity of hell torments If the Glutton being in hell in part only viz. in soul yet cryed out that he was horribly tormented in that flame what think we shall that torment be when body and soul come to be united in torment since the pains of Hell are more exquisite than all the united torments that the Earth can invent Yea the pains and sufferings of the damned are ten thousand times more than can be imagined by any heart under heaven and can rather through necessity be endured than expressed It is a death never to be painted to the life no pen nor pencil nor art nor heart can comprehend it Mat. 18. 89 10. and 25. 30. Luke 16. 23 24. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Isai. 5. 14. and 30. 33. Prov. 15. 11. Yea were all the Land paper and all the water ink every plant a pen and every other creature a ready Writer yet they could not set down the least piece of the great pains of Hell-fire Now add eternity to extremity and then consider Hell to be Hell indeed For if the Ague of a year or the Collick of a month or the Rack of a day or the burning of an hour be so bitter here how will it break the hearts of the wicked to feel all these beyond all measure beyond all time So that it is an evil and bitter thing to depart from the living God We poor mortals until God does bring us from under 〈◊〉 power of Satan unto himself do live in the world as if 〈◊〉 were not so hot nor the Devil so black as indeed they are in Hell and Heaven were the one not worth the avoiding the other not worth the enjoying but the heat of fire was never painted and the Devil is more deformed than represented on the wall There are unexpressible torments in Hell as well as unspeakable joys in Heaven Nor will this be their case alone that are desperately wicked cursing and blaspheming Drunkards and shedders of blood but of all impenitent persons As for instance they who have lived in the fire of lust here must not think much to be scorched in the flames of hell hereafter Heb. 13. 4. Rev. 21. 8. and 22. 15. The detractor is a devil above ground his tongue is already set on fire from hell Jam.
wither Yea sin like a damp puts out all the lights of our pleasure and deprives us of the light of Gods countenance as it did David Psalm 51. 12. and 4. 6. So that the fault is either First in the too much sensuality of a Christian that will not forego the pleasures of sin or the more muddy joyes and pleasures of this world which are poysons to the soul and drown our joyes as Bees are drowned in honey but live in vinegar Men would have spiritual joy but withal they would not part with their carnal joy Yet this is an infallible Conclusion There is no enjoying a worldly Paradise here and another hereafter Or secondly The fault is in the taste not in the meat in the folly of the judgment not in the Pearl when a Grain of Corn is preferred before it To taste spiritual joyes a man must be spiritual for the Spirit relisheth the things of the spirit and like loveth his like Between a spiritual man and spiritual joyes there is as mighty an appetite and enjoying as between fleshly meat and a carnal stomack Therefore the want of this taste and apprehension condemneth the world to be carnal but magnifies the joyes spiritual as being above her carnal apprehension Or Thirdly Herein lies the fault few feel these joyes in this life because they will not crack the shell to get the kernel they will not pare the fruit to eat the pulp nor till the ground to reap the Harvest They fly the Wars and thereby lose the glory of the Victory They will not dig the craggy Mountain to find the Mine of Gold nor prune the Vine therefore enjoy not the fruit They fly Mortification and therefore attain not the sweet spiritual Consolation which ever attends the same And so much for the Reasons The Use may be manifold CHAP. XXII Sect. 1. FIrst Is it so that the torments of Hell are so exquisite even worse than the pangs of death or child-birth scalding lead drinks of gall and wormwood griping of chest-worms fits of the stone gout strangury flames of fire and brimstone Yea are all these and all other pains that can be named put together but shadows and flea-bitings to it And are they to be endured everlastingly And are all Fornicators Idolaters Thieves Covetous Drunkards Swearers Raylers Fearful and Unbelieving persons Murtherers Sorcerers Lyars and all Unrighteous persons to have their part and portion in that Lake And withal lose their part and portion in the Kingdom of Heaven as the Word of God expresly tells us Rev. 21. 7 8. and 22. 14 15. How is it that we are not more affected therewith The only reason is most men are so far from believing the Word of God in this point that they do not believe there is a God The Fool says David hath said in his heart there is no God Psalm 53. 1. They meaning the wicked think always there is no God Psalm 10. 4. to 14. And the reason follows His ways always prosper Psalm 73. 3. to 21. And hence it is that they live like beasts because they think they shall die like beasts without any answer for what they have either acted or left undone and accordingly resolve Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die as the Holy Ghost hath acquainted us with their inmost thoughts 1 Cor. 15. 32. Whereas if men did believe either Heaven or Hell they could never so carelesly hazard the losing of the one or the procuring of the other As oh the madness of these men that cannot be hired to hold their finger for one minute in the weak flame of a farthing candle and yet for trifles will plunge themselves body and soul into those endless and infinitely scorching flames of hell-Hell-fire If a King but threatens a Malefactor to the Dungeon to the Rack to the Wheel his bones tremble a terrible palsie runs through all his joynts but let God threaten the unsufferable Torments of burning Tophet we stand unmoved undaunted And what makes the difference the one we believe as present the other is as they think uncertain and long before it comes if ever it do come Otherwise it could not be since the soul of all sufferings are the sufferings of the soul since as painted fire is to material such is material to Hell-fire Men may say they believe there is an Hell and a Heaven but surely they would never speak as they speak think as they think do as they do if they thought that their thoughts words and actions should ever come to Judgment If men believed that Heaven were so sweet and Hell so intolerable as the Word makes them they would be more obedient upon Earth The Voluptuous and Covetous would not say Take you Heaven let us have Mony Pleasure c. Sect. 2. True there are none so confirmed in Atheism but some great danger will make them fly to the aid of a Divine Power as Plato speaks Extremity of Distress will send the prophanest to God as the drowning Man stretcheth out his hand to that Bough which he comtemned whiles he stood safe on shore Even Sardanapalus for all his bold denying of a God at every hearing of a thunder was wont to hide his head in a hole Yea in their greatest jollity even the most secure heart in the world hath some flashes of fear that seize on them like an Arrest of Treason At least on their Death-beds had they as many Provinces as Ahashuerosh had they would give an hundred six and twenty of them to be sure there were no Hell though all their life they supposed it but a fable And this makes them fearful to die and to die fearfully Yea how oft do those Russians that deny God at the Tap-house preach him at the Gallows and confess that in sincerity of heart which they oppugned in wantonness And certainly if they did not at one time or other believe a God a day of Judgment a Heaven and an Hell they should be in a worse condition than Felix or Belshazzar yea than the Devils themselves for they believe them yea quake and tremble to think of them as being still in a fearful expectation of further degrees of actual torments Matth. 8. 29. However admit their lethargized consciences be not awakened until they come into Hell as God not seldom leaves them to be confuted with fire and brimstone because nothing else will do it yet in Hell they shall know there is a righteous Judge that will reward every man according to his deeds and confess that what they once vainly imagined was but imagined There may be Atheists on earth there are none in hell shall make them wise whom sin hath made and left foolish A Pope of Rome being upon his Death-bed said to those about him Now come three things to tryal which all my life I made doubt of Whether there be a God a Devil and whether the Soul be immortal 'T was not long ere he was fully
devouring Falcon Oh cursed be the day when I was born and the time when my mother conceived me c. Job 3. Sect. 6. And so death having given thee thy fatal stroke the Devil shall seize upon or snatch away thy soul so soon as it leaves thy body Luke 12. 20. and hale thee hence into the bottomless Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone where she is to be kept in chains of darkness until the general judgment of the great day Jude 6 7. 1 Pet. 3. 19. Rev. 21. 8. Thy body in the mean time being cast into the earth expecting a fearful Resurrection when it shall be re-united to thy soul that as they sinned together so they may be everlastingly tormented together Heb. 10. 27. At which general Judgment Christ sitting upon his Throne John 5. 22. shall rip up all the benefits he hath bestowed on thee and the miseries he hath suffered for thee and all the ungodly deeds that thou hast committed and all the hard speeches which thou hast spoken against him and his holy ones Jude 15. Eccles. 12. 14. and 11. 9. Within thee shall be thine own conscience more than a thousand witnesses to accuse thee the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness shall on the one side testifie with thy conscience against thee and on the other side shall stand the holy Saints and Angels approving Christs Justice and detesting so filthy a creature behind thee an hideous noise of innumerable fellow-damned Reprobates tarrying for thy company before thee all the world burning with flaming fire above thee an ireful Judge of deserved vengeance ready to pronounce his heavy Sentence upon thee beneath thee the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit gaping to receive thee Isa. 5. 11. 14. And in this woful and doleful condition thou must stand forth to receive with other Reprobates this thy Sentence Rom. 14. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 10 Depart from me there is a separation from all joy and happiness ye cursed there is a black and direful excommunication into fire there is the extremity of pain everlasting there is the perpetuity of punishment prepared for the devil and his angels there are thy infernal tormenting and tormented companions Mat. 25. 41. O terrible sentence from which there is no escaping withstanding excepting or appealing Then O then shall thy mind be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures which even perished before they budded thou hast so foolishly lost heavens joys and incurred hellish pains which last to all eternity Luke 16. 24 25. Thy conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder when thou callest to mind how often Christ by his Ministers offered thee remission of sins and the Kingdom of heaven freely if thou wouldst but believe and repent and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those days How near thou wast many times to have repented and yet didst suffer the devil and the world to keep thee still in impenitency and how the day of mercy is now past and will never dawn again Thy understanding shall be racked to consider how for momentany riches thou hast lost eternal treasure and exchanged heavens felicity for hells misery where every part and faculty both of body and soul shall be continually and alike tormented without intermission or dismission of pain or from it and be for ever deprived of the beatifical sight of God wherein consists the soveraign good and life of the soul Thou shalt never see light nor the least sight of joy but lye in a perpetual prison of utter darkness where shall be no order but horrour no voice but howling and blaspheming no noise but screeching and gnashing of teeth no society but of the devil and his angels who being tormented themselves shall have no other ease but to wreak their fury in tormenting thee Mat. 13. 42. 25. 36. c. Where shall be punishment without any pity misery without any mercy sorrow without succour crying without comfort malice without measure torment without ease Rev. 14. 10 11. where the wrath of God shall seize upon thy soul body as the flame of fire does on the lump of pitch or brimstone Dan. 7. 10. in which flame thou shalt ever be burning and never consumed ever dying and never dead ever roaring in the pangs of death and never rid of those pangs nor expecting end of thy pains So that after thou hast endured them so many thousand years as there are blades of grass on the earth or sands in the Sea hairs on the heads of all the sons of Adam from the first to the last born as there have been creatures in heaven and earth thou shalt be no nearer an end of thy torments than thou wast the very first day that thou wast cast into them yea so far are they from ending that they are ever beginning For if after a thousand times so many thousand years thy damned soul could but conceive some hope that those torments should have an end this would be some comfort to think that at length an end will come but as often as thy mind shall think of this word never and thou shalt ever be thinking of it it will rend thy heart in pieces with rage and hideous lamentation as giving still new life to those unsufferable sorrows which exceed all expression or imagination It will be another hell in the midst of hell Wherefore consider seriously what I say and that while the compassionate arms of Jesus Christ lye open to receive you and do thereafter Prov. 1. 24. c. take warning by Pharaoh's example We in the rich mans scalding torments have a Discite à me Learn of me Luke 16. 23. c. For he can testifie out of woful experience that if we will not take warning by the word that gentle warner the next shall be harder the third and fourth harder than that yea as all the ten plagues did exceed one another so the eleventh single exceeds them altogether Innumerable are the curses of God against sinners Deut. 28. but the last is the worst comprehending and transcending all the rest The fearfullest plagues God still reserves for the upshot all the former do but make way for the last Hell in Scripture is called a Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone and than the torment of the former what more acute than the smell of the latter what more noysome CHAP. XX Sect. 1. THus I say shall they be bid Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire c. while on the contrary the same Christ shall say unto the other Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world Mat. 25. 34. Which Kingdom is a place where are such joys as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive 1 Cor. 2. 9. A place where there shall be no evil present nor good absent Heb. 9. 12. Mat. 6. 20.
In comparison whereof all the Thrones and Kingdoms upon earth are less than the drop of a bucket Deut. 10. 14. 2 Cor. 12. 2 4. Isai. 66. 1. Heaven in Scripture is compared to a Kingdom for Soveraignty to a Throne for preheminency to a Crown for state and majesty to an Inheritance for perpetuity to a Marriage-feast for plenty pleasure and delicacy and to whatsoever else may set forth its excellency though indeed in these comparisons there is little or no comparison as I might shew you in many particulars if I would be large for instances in this case would be endless There death shall have no more dominion over us Rom. 6. 9. The Sun shall not burn us by day nor the Moon by night Ps. 121. 6. There all tears shall be wiped from our eyes Rev. 7. 17. There shall be no sorrow nor pain nor complaint there is no malice to rise up against us no misery to afflict us no hunger thirst wearisomness temptation to disquiet us Mat. 6. 19 20. Heb. 9. 12. There is no death nor dearth no pining nor repining no fraud sorrow nor sadness neither tears nor fears defect nor loathing Rev. 7. 16 17. and 21. 4. Heb. 9. 12. There O there one day is better than a thousand there is rest from our labours peace from our enemies freedom from our sins c. John 3. 17. Heb. 4. 3. 9 10 11. Rev. 14. 13. Heb. 9. 12 15. Sect. 2. Unto which Negative Priviledges there are also added Positive of all sorts as I might plentifully prove but I study brevity Do we delight in good company What pleasure shall we take in the company of Saints and Angels In whom there is nothing but amiable comfortable delectable Nothing in us that may cool the fervour of our love and affection to them And so of all other enjoyments As Dost thou desire beauty riches honour pleasure long life or whatever else can be named No place so glorious by Creation so beautiful with delectation so rich in possession so comfortable for habitation nor so durable for lasting Heb. 12. 22. 1 Pet. 1. 4. 2 Cor. 4. 17 18. Rom. 9. 3. and 8. 18. There are no Estates but Inheritances no Inheritances but Kingdoms no Houses but Palaces no Meals but Feasts no Noise but Musick no Rods but Scepters no Garments but Robes no Seats but Thrones no Coverings for the Head but Crowns Rom. 8. 17. Tit. 3. 7. Heb. 9. 15. Mat. 25. 31. 34. 2 Tim. 4. 8. Gal. 4. 7. 1 Pet. 3. 9 10. Mar. 10. 23 24 25. Rev. 7. 13 14 15. 6. 11. There we shall see the blessed face of God which is the glory of all sights the sight of all glory Yea we our selves shall out-shine the Sun in brightness Mat. 13. 43. For if the brightness of the body shall match the Sun what will the glory and splendour of the soul be And yet such honour shall all the Saints have For when Christ which is our head and life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory And he shall change our vile and mortal body that it may be fashioned like to his glorious body Col. 3. 4. Phil. 3. 21. Briefly Our joy shall there be full and none shall be able to take it from us or diminish it John 15. 11. and 16. 22. There is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Psal. 26. Joys and pleasures never ebbing but ever flowing to all contentment There we shall rejoyce for the pleasantness of the place we possess for the glory of our souls and bodies which we have put on for the world which we have overcome for hell which we have escaped for the joys of heaven which we have attained to We shall have joy above us by the beatifical vision and sight of God joy within us by the peace of conscience even the joy of the holy Ghost and joy round about us by the blessed company and fellowship of our associates the holy Saints and Angels Sect. 3. And in reason if a Christian-soul in this Tabernacle of the body wherein we see but as in a glass be so delighted to see the face of God manifested in Jesus Christ If it so glads a Child of God when he can but in the least measure master his corruptions or hath occasion to manifest the sincerity of his affectionate love to his Maker and Redeemer and to serve his brethren in love How joyful will he be when these graces shall be perfected and he freed from all grievances inward outward Yea if the communion and enjoyment of Gods Spirit and Christ in his Gospel and Ordinances be so sweet here that one day with us is better than a thousand with the ungodly Psal. 84. 10. What will it be to enjoy the immediate presence and glory of God our Father Christ our Redeemer and Elder-brother The holy Ghost our Comforter The Angels and Saints our Comforts and Companions Our condition there will be so joyful that look we outwardly there is joy in the society Heb. 12. 22. if inward there is joy in our own felicity 1 Cor. 2. 9. Look we forward there is joy in the eternity 1 Pet. 5. 10. Mark 10. 30. So that on every side we shall be even swallowed up of joy Isai. 35. 10. and 51. 11. Mat. 25. 23. and 18. 10. Heb. 12. 2 22. Psal. 16. 11. As oh the multitude and fulness of these joys so many that only God can number them so great that he only can estimate them of such rarity and perfection that this world hath nothing comparable to them 2 Cor. 12. 24. As oh the transcendency of that Paradise of pleasure where is joy without heaviness or interruption peace without perturbation blessedness without misery light without darkness health without sickness beauty without blemish abundance without want ease without labour satiety without loathing liberty without restraint security without fear glory without ignominy knowledge without ignorance eyes without tears hearts without sorrow souls without sin where shall be no evil heard of to affright us nor good wanting to chear us for we shall have what we can desire and we shall desire nothing but what is good Deut. 10. 14. Isai. 66. 1. 1 Kings 8. 27. Mark 10. 21. Luke 18. 22. 1 Pet. 5. 10. John 4. 36 and 10. 28. Mat. 25. 46. Sect. 4. While we are here how many clouds of discontent have we to darken the Sunshine of our Joy When even complaint of evils past sense of present and fear of future have in a manner shared our lives among them Here we love and loath in an instant like Amnon to his Sister Tamar in heaven there is no Object unlovely nothing which is not exceeding amiable and attractive and not attractive only but retentive also for there we shall not be subject to passion nor can we possibly there misplace our affection Here we have knowledg mixed with ignorance faith with doubting peace with trouble yea trouble of
any further exercise my self in things too high for me Psal. 131. 1. For as St. Paul tells us The heart of man is not able to conceive those joyes which being so How should I be able to express them in words And yet though we cannot comprehend this glory this far most excellent exceeding and eternal weight of transcendent glory yet may and ought we to admire the never enough to be admired bounty and goodness of God and our Redeemer in crying out O the depth c. O the sweetness of his love how unsearchable are his thoughts and intendments to man-ward once miserably forlorn lost and undone and his ways past finding out Rom. 11. 33. CHAP. XXI Sect. 1. BUt for the better confirming of this so important a truth in these Atheistical times see some reasons to confirm it As First If the Sun which is but a Creature be so bright and glorious that no mortal eye can look upon the brightness of it how glorious then is the Creator himself Or that light from whence it receives its light if the frame of the heavens and globe of the earth be so glorious which is but the lower house or rather the foot-stool of the Almighty as the holy Ghost phraseth it Isa. 66. 1. Mat. 5. 35. Acts 7. 49. How glorious and wonderful is the Maker thereof and the City where he keeps his Court Or if sinners even the worst of wicked men and Gods enemies have here in this earthly Pilgrimage such variety of enjoyments to please their very senses as who can express the pleasurable variety of Objects for the sight of meats and drinks to satisfie and delight the taste of voyces and melodious sounds to recreate the hearing of scents and perfumes provided to accommodate our very smellings of recreations and sports to bewitch the whole man And the like of honour and profit which are Idols that carnal men do mightily dote upon and take pleasure in though these earthly and bodily joyes are but the body or rather the dregs of true joy what think we must be the soul thereof viz. those delights and pleasures that are reserved for the glorified Saints and Gods dearest darlings in heaven Again Secondly If natural men find such pleasure and sweetness in secular wisdom lip-learning and brain-knowledge For even mundane knowledge hath such a shew of excellency in it that it is highly affected both by the good and bad As O the pleasure that rational men take therein It being so fair a Virgin that every clear eye is in love with her so rich a Pearl that none but Swine do despise it yea among all the Trees in the Garden none so takes with rational men as the Tree of Knowledge as Satan well knew when he set upon our first Parents insomuch that Plato thinks in case wisdom could but represent it self unto the eyes it would set the heart on fire with the love of it And others affirm That there is no less difference between the Learned and the Ignorant than there is between the living and the dead or between men and beasts And yet the pleasure which natural and moral men take in secular and mundane knowledge and learning is nothing comparable to that pleasure that an experimental Christian finds in the Divine and Supernatural knowledge of Gods Word Which makes David and Solomon prefer it before the hony and the hony-comb for sweetness and to value it above thousands of gold and silver yea before pearls and all precious stones for worth How sweet then shall our knowledge in heaven be For here we see but darkly and as it were in a glass or by moon-light but there we shall know even as we are known and see God and Christ in the face 1 Cor. 13. 12. Thirdly If meer Naturians have been so taken with the love of Vertue that they thought if a vertuous soul could but be seen with temporal eyes it would ravish all men with love and admiration thereof yea if the very worst of men drunkards blasphemers and the like though they most spightfully scoff at and back-bite the people of God yet when they know a man sincere upright and honest cannot choose but love commend and honour him in their hearts as it fared with Herod touching John and King Agrippa touching Paul Sect. 2. Or rather if Gods own people are so ravished with the graces and priviledges which they enjoy upon earth as the assurance of the pardon of sin the peace of a good conscience and joy of the holy Ghost which is but glorification begun What will they be when they shall enjoy the perfection of glory in heaven As see but some instances of their present enjoyments here below First if we were never to receive any reward for those small labours of love and duties we do to the glory of God and profit of others we might think our selves sufficiently recompensed in this life with the calm and quietness of a good conscience the honesty of a vertuous and holy life That we can do and suffer something for the love of Christ who hath done and suffered so much to save us That by our works the Majesty of God is magnified to whom all homage is due and all service too little For godliness in every sickness is a Physician in every contention an Advocate in every doubt a Schoolman in all heaviness a Preacher and a Comforter unto whatsoever estate it comes making the whole life as it were a perpetual Hallelujah Yea God so sheds his love abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost that we are in heaven before we come thither Insomuch that as the fire flieth to his sphere the stone hastens to the center the river to the sea as to their end and rest and are violently detained in all other places so are the hearts of Gods people without their Maker and Redeemer their last end and eternal rest and quietness never at rest like the Needle touched with the Loadstone which ever stands quivering and trembling until it enjoys the full and direct aspect of the Northern Pole But more particularly How doth the assurance of the pardon of sin alone clear and calm all storms of the mind making any condition comfortable and the worst and greatest misery to be no misery To be delivered of a child is no small joy to the mother but to be delivered from sin is a far greater joy to the soul But to this we may add the joy of the holy Ghost and the peace of conscience otherwise called the peace of God which passeth all understanding These are priviledges that make Paul happier in his chain of iron than Agrippa in his chain of gold And Peter more merry under stripes than Caiaphas upon the Judgment-seat and Stephen the like under that shower of stones Pleasures are ours if we be Christs whence those expressions of the holy Ghost The Lord hath done great things for us wherefore we rejoyce Be glad in the Lord and
rejoyce ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Let all that put their trust in thee rejoyce let them even shout for joy Rejoyce evermore and again I say rejoyce Rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience Your heart shall rejoyce and your joy shall no man take from you c. So that it is a shame for the faithful not to be joyful and they sin if they rejoyce not whatsoever their condition be The Eunuch no sooner felt the pardon of sin upon his being baptized into the Faith of Christ but he went on his way rejoycing Acts 8. 39. He then found more solid Joy than ever he had done in his riches honours and great places under Candace Queen of the Aethiopians At the same time when the Disciples were persecuted they are said to be filled with joy and with the holy Ghost Acts 13. 52. And as their afflictions do abound so their consolations do abound also 2 Cor. 1. 5. For these are comforts that will support and refresh a child of God in the very midst of the flames as the Martyrs found for maugre all their persecutors could do their peace and joy did exceed their pain as many of them manifested to all that saw them suffer Sect. 3. Where observe before we go any further what Sots they are that cry out It is in vain to serve God and unprofitable to keep his Commandments as it is in Malachy 3. 14. For had these Fools but tasted the sweet comforts that are in the very works of piety and that Heaven upon Earth the Feast of a good Conscience and joy of the inward man they could not so speak Yea then would they say There is no life to the life of a Christian For as the Priests of Mercury when they are their Figs and Hony cryed out Oh how sweet is truth So if the worst of a Believers life in this world be so sweet how sweet shall his life be in that heavenly Jerusalem and holy City where God himself dwelleth and where we shall reign with Christ our Bridegroom and be the Lambs wife Which City is of pure gold like unto clear glass the walls of Jasper having twelve foundations garnished with all manner of precious stones the first foundation being Jasper the second Saphir the third a Calcedony the fourth an Emerald the fifth a Sardonyx the sixth a Sardius the seventh a Chrysolite the eighth a Beryl the ninth a Topaz the tenth a Chrysoprasus the eleventh a Jacynth the twelfth an Amethyst Having twelve gates of twelve pearls the streets thereof of pure gold as it were transparent glass In the midst of which City is a pure River of the water of life clear as Chrystal and of either side the Tree of Life which bears twelve manner of fruits yielding her fruit every moneth the leaves whereof serve to heal the Nations Where is the Throne of God and of the Lamb whom we his servants shall for ever serve and see his face and have his Name written in our Foreheads And there shall be no night neither is there need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Into which nothing that defileth shall enter but they alone which are written in the Lambs Book of life As is exprest Rev. 21. and 22. Chap. The holy Ghost speaking after the manner of men and according to our slender capacity for otherwise no words can in any measure express the transcendency of that place of pleasure Only here we have a taste or earnest-penny one drop of those divine dainties of those spiritual supernatural and divine pleasures reserved for the Citizens of that heavenly Jerusalem some small smack whereof we have even in the barren desert of this perillous peregrination God letting out as it were a certain kind of Manna which in some sort refresheth his thirsty people in this Wilderness as with most sweet hony or water distilled from out of the Rock As what else are those Jubilees of the heart those secret and inward joys which proceed from a good conscience grounded upon a confident hope of future salvation As what else do these great clusters of grapes signifie but the fertility of the future Land of Promise Sect. 4. True it is none can know the spiritual joy and comfort of a Christian but he that lives the life of a Christian John 7. 17. As none could learn the Virgins Song but them that sang it Rev. 14. 3. No man can know the peace of a good Conscience but he that keeps a good Conscience No man knows the hid Manna and white Stone with a new name written in it but they that receive the same Rev. 2. 17. The world can see a Christians outside but the raptures of his Soul the ravishing delights of the inward man and joy of the Spirit for the remission of his sins and the infusion of grace with such like spiritual Priviledges more glorious than the States of Kingdoms are as a covered mess to men of the World But I may appeal to any mans conscience that hath been softned with the unction of grace and truly tasted the powers of the World to come To him that hath the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the holy Ghost in whose Soul the light of grace shines whether his whole life be not a perpetual Hallelujah in comparison of his natural condition Whether he finds not his joy to be like to the joy of harvest or as men rejoyce when they divide a spoil Isa. 9. 3. Whether he finds not more joy in goodness than worldlings can do when their wheat wine and oyl aboundeth Psalm 4. 7. and 53. 17. Yea he can speak it out of experience that as in prophane joy even in laughter the heart is sorrowful so in godly sorrow even in weeping the heart is light and chearful The face may be pale yet the heart may be calm and quiet So St. Paul as sorrowing yet always rejoycing 2 Cor. 6. 10. Our cheeks may run down with tears and yet our mouth sing forth praises And so on the contrary Where O God there wants thy grace Mirth is only in the Face 2 Cor. 5. 12. Well may a careless worldling laugh more as what will sooner make a man laugh than a witty jest but to hear of an Inheritance of an hundred pounds a year that is faln to a man will make him more solidly merry within Light is sown to the righteous and joy for the upright Psal. 97. 11. My servant saith God shall sing and rejoyce but they shall weep c. Isai. 65. 14. Indeed we are not merry enough because we are not Christians enough because sin is a cooler of our joy as water is of fire And like the worm of Jonah his gourd bites the very root of our joy and makes it
with Christ in his Kingdom for evermore than be confined to a perpetual prison or Furnace of fire and brimstone there to be tormented with the Devil and his Angels If so provoke not the Lord who is great and terrible of most glorious Majesty and of infinite purity and who hath equally promised salvation unto those which keep his Commandments and threatned eternal death and destâ—uction to those who break them For as he is to all repentant sinners a most merciful God Exod. 34. 6. so to all wilful and impenitent sinners he is a consuming fire and a jeaious God Heb. 12. 29. Deut. 4. 24. There was a King who having no Issue to succeed him espied one day a well favoured and towardly Youth he took him to the Court and committed him to Tutors to instruct him providing by his Will that if he proved sit for Government he should be Crowned King if not he should be kept in Chains and he made a Galley slave The Youth was misled and neglected both his Tutors good Counsel and his Book so as his Master corrected him and said O that thou knewest what honour is prepared for thee and what thou art like to lose by this thy idle and loose carriage Well thou wilt afterwards When 't is too late sorely rue this And when he grew to years the King died whose Council and Executors perceiving him to be utterly unfit for State Government called him before them and declared the Kings will and pleasure which was accordingly performed for they caused him to be fettered and committed to the Galleys there to toil and tug at the Oar perpetually where he was whipt and lasht if he remitted his stroke never so little where he had leisure to consider with himself that now he was chained who might have walked at liberty now he was a slave who might if he would have been a King now he was over-ruled by Turks who might have ruled over Christians The thought whereof could not but double his misery and make him bewail his sorrow with tears of blood Now this hereafter will be the case of all careless persons save that this comes as short of that as Earth comes short of Heaven and temporary misery of eternal Wherefore if thou wouldst have this this to become thy very case go on in thy wilful and perverse impenitency but if not bethink thy self and do thereafter and that without delaying one minute For there is no redemption from Hell if once thou comest there And there thou mayst be for ought thou knowest this very day yea before thou canst swallow thy spittle if thou diest this day in thy natural condition Many men take liberty to sin and continue in a trade of sin because God is merciful but they will one day find that he is just as well as merciful There is mercy with God saith the Psalmist that he may be feared not that he may be despised blasphemed c. Psalm 130. 4. Yea know this and write it in the Table book of thy memory and upon the table of thy heart That if Gods bountifulness and long suffering towards thee does not lead thee to repentance it will double thy doom and encrease the pile of thy torments And that every day which does not abate of thy reckoning will encrease it And that thou by thy hardness and impenitency shalt but treasure up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and the Declaration of the just judgment of God Rom. 2. 4 5 6. Now this Judge hath told us that we must give an account for every idle word we speak Mat. 12. 36. much more then for our wicked actions therefore beware what thou dost against him Men may dream of too much strictness in holy courses but they do not consider the power the purity and strictness of the Judge He who brings even idle words to judgment and forgets not a thought of disobedience how will he spare our gross negligence and presumption how our formality and irreverence in his service much more our flagitious wickedness Heb. 12. 29. Sect. 3. Wherefore as you ever expect or hope for Heaven and Salvation as you would escape the tormenting flames of Hell-fire cease to do evil learn to do well For Sanctification is the way to Glorification Holiness to eternal happiness If we would have God to glorifie our bodies in Heaven we also must glorifie God in our bodies here on Earth And now for conclusion Are the Joys of Heaven so unspeakable and glorious the torments of Hell so woful and dolorous Then it behoves all Parents and Governours of Families to see to their Childrens and Servants souls and that they miscarry not through their neglect As tell me Will not their blood be required at your hands if they perish through your neglect Will it not be sad to have Children and Servants rise up in judgment against you and to bring in Evidence at the great Tribunal of Christ saying Lord my Father never minded me my Master never regarded me I might sin he never reproved me I might go to Hell it was all one to him Will not this be sad Secondly If it be so let Children and Servants consider that 't is better to have lust restrained than satisfied 't is better to be held in and restrained from sin than to have a wicked liberty Be not angry with those who will not see you damn your souls and let you alone they are your best Friends Fear the strokes of Gods anger be they spiritual or eternal more than the strokes of men What 's a Fetter to a Dungeon a Gallows to Hell-fire Give not way to imaginary speculative heart-sins Murther in the heart uncleanness in the eye and thoughts given way to will come to actual murther and bodily uncleanness at last Keep Satan at a Distance if he get but in he will be too hard for you And let so much serve to have been sâ—oken of Heaven and Hell Upon the one I have stood the longer that so I might if God so please be a means to save some with fear plucking them out of the fire of Gods wrath under which without repentance they must lye everlastingly And for the other I have like the Searchers of Canaan brought you a cluster of Grapes to give the Reader a taste thereby of the plentiful vintage we may expect and look for in the heavenly Canaan Now if any would truly know themselves and how it â—ill fare with them in the end let them read the whole Book out of which this is taken viz. The whole duty of a Christian Which Book is Licensed by John Dewname and Thomas Gataker FINIS LONDON Printed at the Charge of Christs-Hospital according to the Will of the Donor 1677. Vengeance