passions war against the soul? This is signified by "the never dying worm," that gnaws on the tenderest parts, and of quickest sense. Shame, sorrow, despair, fury, hatred and revenge, are some of that brood of vipers that torment the damned.

1. Shame is a passion of which human nature is very sensible, and this in the highest degree of confusion shall seize on the wicked. For all the just causes of shame shall then meet: the inward source of it, is the consciousness of guilt, of turpitude and folly in the action; and all these are the inseparable adjuncts of sin. The guilty soul, by a piercing reflection upon its crimes, has a secret shame of its degeneracy and unworthiness: the passion is increased, when a discovery is made of vile practices that defile and debase a man, expose to contempt and infa my, before persons of high quality and eminent virtue, whom we admire and reverence, and whose esteem we value. To be surprised in an unworthy action by such a person, disorders the blood, and transfuses a color in the face, to cover it with a veil of blushing and the more numerous the spectators are, the more the disgrace is aggravated. And if derision be joined with the ignominy, it causes extreme displeasure. O the uni versal confusion, the overpowering amazement, that will seize on sinners in the great day of discovery, when all the works of darkness, all their base sensualities shall be revealed before God, angels and saints! When all the covers of shame shall be taken off, the excuses and denials, to extenuate or conceal their sins, shall vanish, and their breasts be transparent to the eyes of all! How will they be ashamed of their foul and permanent deformity in the light of that glorious presence? How will they be astonished to appear in all their pollutions before that bright and immense theatre? How will they be confounded to stand in all their guilt before that sublime and severe tribunal? How will they endure the upbraidings for all the sins which they have so wickedly committed, and the derision for the punishment they so deservedly suffer? The holy Judge will "laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear comes. The righteous also shall see, and shall laugh at them :" lo, these are the men that made not God their portion, but perishing vanities, that preferred sweet folly before severe wisdom. The Devils will reproach them for that scornful advantage they had over them, that as children are seduced for things of lustre to part with real treasures; so they were easily persuaded for the trifles of time to change eternal happiness. Whether will they cause their shame to go? Jer. 14. 12. Those black sinners that here never change color for their filthiness, that hardened by custom in sin, are impenetrable to shame, as the brute beasts that are absolutely destitute of reason; nay, they have not only overcome all

*Tacita sudant præcordia culpa. Juv.

tenderness, but "glory in their shame," shall glow at the manifestation of their social lusts, their vile servilities, and be covered with confusion, and the sense of it shall be revived in their minds forever.

2. To open shame is joined the greatest inward sorrow. This passion, when violent, penetrates the soul in all its faculties, and fastens it to the afflicting object. When it dwells in the bosom, it gives an easy entrance to whatever cherishes and increases it, and rejects what might assuage and lessen the sense of the evil. The most pleasant things do not excite desire or joy, but exasperate grief. Like those animals that convert the best nourishment into their own poison; so deep sorrow receives mournful impressions from all things, and turns the sweetest comforts of life into wormwood and gall. The causes of sorrow are either the loss of some valued good, or the sense of some present evil. And the sorrow is more violent, as the cause is great in itself, and in the apprehension and tenderness of the sufferers. Now both these causes, with all the heavy circumstances that can multiply and aggravate sorrow, meet in hell the centre of misery.

The loss is inconceivably great. If Cain, when banished from the society of the saints, where God was publicly worshipped, and by spiritual revelations and visible apparitions, graciously made himself known, cried out in anguish of soul, "My punishment is greater than I can bear; from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive upon the earth:" how intolerable will the final separation from his glorious and joyful presence be? In the clear and transforming vision of his glory, and the intimate and indissoluble union with him by love, consists the perfection and satisfaction of the immortal soul. The felicity resulting from it is as entire and eternal, as God is great and true, who has so often promised it in scripture. Now the damned are forever excluded from the reviving presence of God. It is often seen how tenderly and impatiently the human spirit resents the loss of a dear relation. Jacob, for the supposed death of Joseph, was so overcome with grief, that when all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, he refused to be comforted, and said, "I will go down mourning to the grave." Indeed this overwhelming sorrow is both a sin and a punishment. It is ordained by the righteous and unchangeable decree of God, that every inordinate affection in man should be his own tormenter. But if the loss of a poor frail creature for a short time be so afflicting, how unsupportable will the sorrow be for the loss of the blessed God forever? Who can fully conceive the extent and degrees of that evil? For an evil rises in proportion to the good of which it deprives us it must therefore follow, that celestial blessedness being an infinite eternal good, the exclusion from it is proportionably evil. And as the felicity of the saints results from the

* Jussisti Domine, et sic est, ut pœna sit sibi omnis inordinatus affectus. Aug.

fruition of God in heaven, and from comparison with the contrary state: so the misery of the damned arises both from the thoughts of lost happiness, and from the lasting pain that torments them.

It may be replied, if this be the utmost evil that is consequent to sin, the threatenings of it is likely to deter but few from the pleasing their corrupt appetites: for carnal men have such gross and vitiated affections that are careless of spiritual happiness. They cannot "taste and see how good the Lord is."

To this a clear answer may be given: In the next state, where the wicked shall be forever without those carnal objects that here deceive and delight them, when deprived of all things that please their voluptuous senses, their apprehensions will be changed; they shall understand what a happiness it is to enjoy God, and what a misery to be expelled from the celestial Paradise. Our Saviour tells the Jews, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the Prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out, Luke 15. 28. How will they pine with envy at the sight of that triumphant felicity, of which they shall never be partakers? To see that blessed company entering into the sacred mansions of light, will make the loss of heaven infinitely more discernible and terrible to the wicked, who shall be cast into "outer darkness," and forever be deprived of communion with God and his saints. "Depart from me," will be as dreadful a part of the judgment, as "eternal fire."

With the loss of the most excellent good, the suffering of the most afflicting painful evil is joined. The sentence is, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire." And if an imaginary sorrow conceived in the mind without a real external cause, as in melancholy persons, when gross vapors darken and corrupt the brightness and purity of the spirits that are requisite for its cheerful operations, is often so oppressing, that nature sinks under it; how insupportable will the sorrow of condemned sinners be, under the impression and sense of God's almighty and avenging hand, when it shall fully appear how pure and holy he is in his anger for sin, how just and dreadful in punishing sinners? It may be, the indulgent sinner may lessen his fear of hell, by fancying the number of sufferers will assuage the sense of their misery. But this is a foolish mistake; for the number of sufferers shall be so far from affording any relief, that the misery is aggravated by the company and communication of the miserable. Every one is surrounded with sorrows, and by the sights of woe about him, feels the universal grief. The weeping and wailing, the cries and dolorous expressions of all the damned, increase the torment and vexation of every one. As when the wind conspires with the flame, it is more fierce and spreading.

3. The concomitant of sorrow will be fury and rage against themselves as the true causes of their misery. For God will

:

make such a discovery of his righteous judgment, that not only the saints shall glorify his justice in the condemnation of the wicked, but they shall be so convinced of it, as not to be able to charge their judge with any defect of mercy, or excess of rigor in his proceedings against them. As the man in the parable of the marriage feast, when taxed for his presumptuous intrusion without a wedding garment, "How camest thou hither?" was speechless so they will find no plea for their justification and defence, but must receive the eternal doom with silence and confusion. Then conscience shall revive the bitter remembrance of all the methods of divine mercy for their salvation, that were ineffectual by their contempt and obstinacy. All the compassionate calls by his word, with the holy motions of the spirit, were like the sowing of seed in the stony ground, that took no root, and never came to perfection. All his terrible threatenings were but as thunder to the deaf, or lightening to the blind, that little affects them: the bounty of his providence designed "to lead them to repentance," had the same effect as the showers of heaven upon briars and thorns, that make them grow the faster. And that a mercy so ready to pardon, did not produce in them a correspondent affection of grateful obedient love; but by the unworthy provocations they plucked down the vengeance due to obstinate rebels, will so enrage the damned against themselves, that they will be less miserable by the misery they suffer, than by the conviction of their torn minds, that they were the 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 damned? 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 forever.

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. This 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 hell, and hell is in them by those fierce and miserable passions that continually prey upon them.

CHAPTER II.

The eternity of misery makes it most intolerable. The justice of God cleared in the eternal punishment of sinners for temporary sins. The wisdom of God requires that the punishment threatened should be powerful to preserve the commands of the law inviolable. There is an inseparable connexion between the choice and actions of men here, and their condition forThe damned are unqualified for any favor. The immense guilt of sin requires a proportion in the punishment.

ever.

II. The eternity of their 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 favorite corruption, "that in hell their worm dies not, and the fire is never quenched." God will never reverse his sentence, and they shall never change their state. How willingly would carnal men rase 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 forlorn wretches 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 forever. From his vanishing paradise he descended into an everlasting hell. In this the vengeance of God is infinitely more heavy than the most terrible execution from men. Human justice and power can inflict but one death (that will be soon dispatched) upon a malefactor worthy to suffer a hundred deaths; 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 forever. This consideration infinitely aggravates the misery; for the lost soul, racked with the fearful contemplation of what it must suffer forever, 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 prevision. This is as the cruel breaking of the bones upon the wheel, when the soul is tormented by the foresight of misery, that without allays shall continue in the circulation of eternal ages. To make this more