-- CHAPTER VII: A fourth sort of additional confirmations, drawn from the harmonies that are between
with God, and with none but God himself, he only is able to fill the vast corners of it with either. Creatures like itself may afflict and torment it much, especially whilst in the body, so much as to cause it to desire death and a being out of the body, but the soul they are never able to destroy. The soul is a castle so strong built, as it can bear the assaults of all its fellow-creatures, and sustain itself and not sink into destruction. Nothing can destroy the well-being of the soul but God's power; for it is said, They may kill the body, but God only can kill the soul. And else, according to that argument of Christ, 'Fear not them that can kill the body only,' &c., they were to be feared as God himself is, if they could kill the soul as God can do; for Christ says, God is therefore to be feared, and only to be feared, because he can destroy both body and soul. And he redoubleth it with an emphasis: 'Fear him, yea, I say unto yon, Fear him,' Luke 12:5.
Indeed, one evangelist says, 'Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell,' which expresseth no more but an act of authority to sentence and cast into hell as the judge doth into prison.
Yet the other evangelist puts it upon this, because he is able to kill the soul, and that only he is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. He says, not barely to cast into hell, as by way of authority, but adds, kills and destroys in hell when they are cast thither; for God is both judge and avenger, and therefore if it be destruction, it is evident he only can and must do the execution. And, therefore, in the text, 2 Thes. 1:8, 9, their being punished with everlasting destruction is attributed to the glory of his power. These are some of the reasons of this great point.
CHAPTER VII:
A fourth sort of additional confirmations, drawn from the harmonies that are between it and other divine truths
I shall in the last place cast in some harmonies, or congruities and correspondencies, which this holds and makes up with other divine truths; and in such harmonies and concords, there is much of reason, at least to confirm, if not demonstrate, truths in divinity.
1. To begin where I left. Hereby it comes to pass, that as the souls of men and other spirits were immediately made and created by God, who is therefore in a peculiar respect, and with an opposite distinction to the fathers of our bodies, said to be the Father of spirits, and the God of the spirits of all flesh, so that their last termination or end should be into and by his immediate hands also, this makes up a congruous and suitable dispensation. That look as they receive their first being from him, likewise they should return to him, as Ecclesiastes speaks, as to their sole and immediate author and creator; and so receive from him, as a Father of spirits, their portion at his immediate hands. And man's ultimate end, either way, is called their portion, Ps. 11:6, Mat. 24:51, whether it be in blessedness, as their inheritance out of his love, or misery as the wages of their sin. And thus hereby God himself is made the end, and the beginning or terminus, the Alpha and Omega of souls, to whom be glory for ever!
2. Thereby also there comes to pass an answerableness and a proportion held between the two conditions of heaven and hell, which the apostle seems to make the ultimate aim and determination of God's counsels, unto which all in this world are but preparations, as he calls them. Thus Rom. 9:22, 23, for the shewing forth of his own immediate glory: 'What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?'
3. And thirdly, also, it is said, that after that Christ the judge of all, hath delivered up his administration and kingdom unto his Father, then God should become all in all, 1 Cor. 15:28; not in respect of