CHAPTER V: life impressions of God's immediate wrath
other fire that is kindled in his anger, that shall in the end 'burn to the bottom of hell,' Deut. 32:22. This as to what may be objected out of that place.
3. I deny not from other scriptures a created fire in hell. Let but that also be allowed which some of the ancients also speak of, that there is a double fire there: one inward in men's souls, another outward.
Gerson aptly applieth that place of the psalmist fore-cited, Ps. 21:19, unto that of this inward fire, 'Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven; the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.' The fire of an oven is a fit similitude of a fire within, as into which fire is put to heat it, and the heat made more intense by the cavity or hollowness of the place. Whereas, to be cast into a furnace of fire, as Christ speaks, or into a lake of fire, as Rev. 19, 20, 21, imports a fire without, into which the matter or persons to be burnt are cast.
And thus much for bare Scripture testimonies. Many other there are which might be collected to confirm this, but are scattered in several parts of this discourse in a duer place.
CHAPTER V
A second sort of proofs.—Demonstrations from instances both of wicked men and holy men, who have felt in this life impressions of God's immediate wrath.—And that such impressions are evidences of what, in the fulness, is in hell A second sort of proofs are demonstrations from instances in Scripture, of persons in this life, who have felt impressions of this wrath of God in their souls, upon God's rebuking them for sin. And these instances of experience upon record, being added to those foregone Scripture testimonies, will serve as ruled cases, joined unto maxims in law, alleged both of them for the proof of one and the same thing, and will give yet more clear demonstration what is
meant by wrath, and what hell is in the fulness of it, and, being joined to the former, do altogether give an abundant evidence of this great truth.
I say, 1, of men in this life. And if any should deny the truth hereof, or that which we have been prosecuting, themselves, perhaps, ere they die, may be made miserable examples, verifying of both, and out of their own woful experience, live to confess and acknowledge the truth herein; for God doth in this life single out some, both of his children and others, to whom he gives a taste what the one should for ever have undergone, but that Christ did it for them, and of what the other must undergo for ever without repentance; whereof those instances that follow are undeniable evidences.
And, 2, these terrors are wrought by God's immediate hand, and from immediate impressions and representations of his wrath, made by him on their souls, and to their consciences; for, as God puts joy into the hearts of his children in this life, by the immediate light of his countenance, as Ps. 4:6, 'Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance upon us;' and verse 7, 'Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increaseth;' and again,
'Whom though we see not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious,' as the apostle speaks of those primitive saints; even so when he is pleased to rebuke man for sin, he doth the like, in a way of contraries, on men both good and bad; correcting them, by and with anguishments from the like immediate stroke of his own anger. God is the Father of all spirits, and of the spirits of his own children upon a double creation. And if the fathers of our bodies corrected us, Heb. 12:9, and had power to do it with bodily punishment, by bodily instruments, do we think that our souls, which lie naked before God, Heb. 4:13, are not as immediately subject and exposed to his correction, as a 'Father of spirits'? and if so, that then he may and doth sometimes choose to correct even his own children with no other rods but of his own, which are the immediate emanations, streamings, and dartings of his own displeasure, which, when they feel, they wax pale and wan, and
wander up and down like unto ghosts in hell, as if they were cut off by his hand; and that those anguishments which either of these feel are from God's immediate hand alone, those that have felt the smart thereof do readily acknowledge, for it is not in the power of any creature to strike so hard a stroke.
And you shall hear some of themselves by and by, speak out so much, whilst they were under the present sense thereof. These things premised, There are two things to make this demonstration complete.
First. The instances themselves of persons in this life, on the evidence of which the main stress lies, for the proof of the assertion.
The second is, that such immediate impressions of divine wrath are evidences of what kind of torment it is, which in the fulness of it befalleth men in hell, and that both proceed from the same immediate cause.
The instances are of two sorts, that so we still may have under two or three witnesses this word established.
First, Of good and holy men.
Secondly, Of bad and wicked men.
1. For instances of holy men, there are divers of them. As of Job, see his complaints; chap. 6 ver. 2–12, 'The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinks up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Oh that it would please God to destroy me; that he would loose his hand and cut me off.' Which, with other passages in that chapter, I shall after open at large. Again, chap. 13:24, 26, 'Thou holdest me for thine enemy, thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the sins of my youth;' also, chap. 16 vers. 12–15, 'God, he also hath taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His
archers compass me about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me as a giant.' I shall here only single out that of Heman, which is a most full one, and alone sufficient, and reserve the explicating that of Job's case wholly unto the setting forth the dreadfulness, which is the subject of the second section.
Heman complains at the third verse of that Ps. 88, 'My soul is full of trouble,' &c. And what was the matter of that trouble, and the inflicting cause thereof? Ver. 7, 'Thy wrath lies hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.' Those words, thy wrath lies hard, &c., others read, sustains itself, or bears up itself upon me, which is as if a giant should with his whole weight stay himself upon a child. 'And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.'
The waves of that immense ocean of wrath (for unto such waves he again compares these terrors in ver. 16, 17) he says they came over him continually, and overwhelmed his soul, as billows of the sea wallowing and tumbling upon a Jonah cast into them. And vers. 14–
16, he sets out his condition such as wherein there was not only a privation of God's favour, and that God seemed to reject his soul as if he never meant more to look upon it, or regard it: so ver. 14, 'Why castest thou off my soul?' But further, positively, ver. 15, 'I suffer thy terrors;' and ver. 16, 'Thy fierce wrath goes over me, thy terrors have cut me off.' The blows which God gave his soul were so hard and sharp, that to his feeling they not only wounded or cut into, but cut off his soul at every stroke. The like follows ver. 17, and this put him into the condition of men in hell. 'I am free among the dead,' ver. 5, that is, of that society, number, and company; and as one of them that are 'cut off from thy hand,' or, as the margin renders it, 'by thy hand.' All which are as if he had said, They are not the strokes of creatures I feel, or of thine anger as conveyed by creature distresses, but of thine own immediate hand, and such as those that are in hell itself do feel from thee. These are notes and degrees beyond, and higher than the Ela of dolours from or by the hands of creatures, though set on by God. They are strains of another key, the doleful air of which doth sound another hand and stroke (purely divine) that
did immediately strike upon their heart-strings that spake these things. These are the resoundings of blows and strokes which God's own immediate hand gave upon the bare spirit of one wounded by him; he that attentively listens to them will soon perceive and esteem
(as they said) this man stricken and smitten of God himself. Creature distresses give a far less report.
But that it was God's own immediate hand is more plainly by himself expressed, ver. 16, 'Thy terrors have cut me off,' and ver. 15, 'While I suffer thy terrors I am distracted, and ready to die from my youth up,' as in the same verse. Thy terrors, so he termeth them (he speaking to God), or the terror of thee; that is, 1st, from thee efficiently, and from thy hand setting them on; and, 2dly, of thee, as arising in me from and with dreadful apprehensions and thoughts of thee objectively, and of thy sore displeasure represented to my soul by thee. And so God's terrors are every way set forth in distinction from distresses from creatures, or such as are made mediately by or from creature-afflictings, although they also be from God. Thus, in like phrase of speech, it is appositely said, 1 Peter 3:14, 'Be not afraid of their terror;' he speaks it of men that were persecutors and threatened the saints. Their terror, objectivè, that is, the terror of them, or that terror which the apprehension of their power, greatness; strength, threatenings, &c., may possibly work in you. In a like sense thy terror here is spoken of God. And the other great apostle, speaking of this ultimate punishment of hell, he in like phrase termeth it 'the terror of the Lord,' 2 Cor. 5:11, that is, that terror which is peculiar and proper to him, in and to the souls of men, who is the terrible God (as he styles himself in Moses), and, says Nahum, 'Who can abide, or stand in the fierceness of his anger?'
There are, further, two effects which Heman there relateth, of this his having suffered these terrors, or that befell his spirit whilst these terrors were upon him. 1. That he was continually ready to die; the wrath that lay on him was so heavy as it even well nigh thrust his soul out every moment, and made the spirit to fail. And, 2, it made him not himself (as we say), put him out of his right mind. 'Whilst I
suffer thy terrors I am distracted;' for the intention of a soul taken up with, and extended by the wrath of God, is such, and is wound up so high, as the string is ready to crack. You usually term this in such persons deeply wounded trouble of conscience (but that is more common), whereas this dispensation requires a higher word; it is indeed the wrath of God, or the terror of God in conscience, making it as a fiery oven within itself, as the psalmist speaks. This for the instances of good men.
A second instance is of bad and wicked men. What was it caused Judas to hang himself? The prophecy of the psalmist, and the apostle's reference to it, have resolved us, that it was the curse or wrath of God entering into his soul. The psalm is the hundred and ninth, which was penned on purpose about him; the apostle's reference and application is in Acts 1:20. In the psalm it is said, ver.
18, 'as he loved cursing,' that is, sin, which is that accursed thing before God, so 'the curse of God came into his bowels (or inwards) like water, and like oil into his bones,' and filled all within him full of anguish and torment; and so was fulfilled that saying, 'indignation and wrath,' namely, of God, caused 'tribulation and anguish' in his soul. The similitudes or allusions there are elegant: that as there are spiritual oils which men's bodies being anointed withal, they soak into the bones, &c.; they cool, refresh, and repair spirits and strength, and allay fervent heats and pains, into which more inward parts, other medicines, more crass and druggish, cannot soak or come. In the way of a contrary virtue or effect, he compares the curse of God on his soul unto a spiritual oil, of a piercing, penetrating violence, that strikes in as quicksilver, into the bones and nervous parts, and fills them with unsufferable torments. He compareth also this curse, and the effects of it, unto such painful diseases as are caused by sharp corroding waters in the bowels, as of the gout in the bowels, which when it possesses those inwards, is mortal and intolerable. The apostle's allusion elsewhere is correspondent to both these of the psalmist, when he says, The word of God (through the power of the Spirit) is a 'savour of death unto death' in some men's hearts, as 'of life unto life,' in others, 2 Cor. 2:16. The meaning
whereof is, that look as venomous and sulphurous vapours and damps in mines and caverns, arising out of the earth, do strike up such scents or smells as often kill, by extinguishing the spirits of those that descend into them, such exhalations of hell and wrath doth the Spirit of God, by the word preached, exhale and draw forth, and cause to ascend in some men's consciences, which gives them the very scent of hell itself. They are the savour or odour of death aforehand, unto death and damnation, and so are vapours of the same kind, out of the same matter that is laid up in the mine or treasury itself, as those out of the earth use to be.
The second thing requisite to be added for the completing the demonstration is, that such immediate impressions of divine wrath in this life are sure and certain evidences, I say not as to what persons, but of what kind of torment it is, which in the fulness of it befalleth men in hell, and that both do proceed from the same immediate cause. This needs not much probation, for the instances afore given carry their own evidence with them of this thing to any intelligent reader. And this general reason for it will readily occur to any one's thoughts, that surely God will not punish them in hell with a punishment of a lesser sort or kind (for we speak not now of comparisons of degrees) than what his dispensation reacheth forth unto some men in this life,—for that is the proper day and time and season of wrath, and of the fierceness of his wrath,—in which the fruits of their own doings are every way in their full ripeness and maturity to be returned to them; and these inflictions in this life are but the buds and blooms that precede, yet both from the same root and cause. Now to be punished by God's wrath but mediately, through the force only of created instruments, &c., as of material fire, or the like (if that were all the punishment there), this were certainly by a lower kind or sort, than to be punished immediately from the wrath of God itself, as will abundantly appear in the second section, when I shall set out the dreadfulness of such a punishment.
But let us particularly weigh the instances themselves, as we have singly and apart delivered them.
1. Those dispensations to wicked and bad men, as Judas, &c.
2. The same as they are exemplified in good and holy men, as Heman, &c.
And either of them will afford an argument for the proof of this proposition in hand.
These direful impressions of God's immediate wrath, when they do befall wicked men, what are they to them? Not only pledges or forerunners of that punishment to come (for such all sorts of afflictions are unto wicked men), but further, these are spices and grudgings, and lesser intermitting fits of those future fiery, burning, and continued calentures and fevers; yea, earnest-pennies of hell, and so of the same kind with what in full men shall there receive.
As we use to say and speak of those glorious joys, which some saints aforehand have the privilege to partake of, that they are pure drops of those rivers of pleasure, flowing immediately from the same fountain of life: so we may as confidently say of those breakings forth of wrath upon wicked men's souls here, that they are the sippings of that 'cup of wrath without mixture,' (as the Revelation distinguisheth it from those in this life, Rev. 14:10), whereof the wicked must 'drink the dregs,' though it be to eternity, unto the bottom. And therefore we may make a true and warrantable measure of what all such men are to look for in hell, by what some few of them do partake of here.
And the argument is strong every way, from the one of these unto the other. For as heaven and hell are parallel in a way of contraries, as out of Romans 9:22, 23 hath been shewn, so those unspeakable glorious joys, and these contrary extraordinary horrors and anguishes, on the other hand, do hold parallel also, in being (in their several kinds) prelibations and tastes of what is to come in the other world. And in this very posture and tendency doth the apostle set these two dispensations together in this life, in a parallel way (as in Romans 9 he doth the other), whilst in the same scripture, 2 Cor.
2:15, 16, he compares those joys, common in those times, in them that are saved, to the breakings forth, at the opening of the gospel, as of spikenard, of 'a sweet odour or savour of life unto life' (namely of the life to come) aforehand, sensing* their souls with some of those perfumes that are fetched from that country, and only grow there; and on the contrary such also he declares those precursory savours or odours of death in their kind to be, which do arise from the threatenings of the same word in horrors upon many that perish, which he pronounceth to be the very evaporations of that 'lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death,' in styling them the odour or 'savour of death unto death;' so speaks he. These men often smell the scent of hell in their consciences, and the spirits of it do strike up into their souls. The very ashes and smoke of that Vesuvius or Etna of hell (I allude unto the last words of Deut. 32:22) do fall upon them, which lighting upon men in this life, do, as those ashes of the furnace (Exod. 9:8, 9, 10) miraculously did, they cause sores and blains upon men's consciences. And however, if the apostle did therewithal intend the more common dispensations by the word, and so both the ordinary and extraordinary, of which we now speak, yet still take and compare those extraordinary joys in the one, as a savour of life, with the extraordinary horrors, that are the savour of death unto the other, and in their proportion there is still the like reason of both, as to the matter in hand; and an alike presignificancy in either of those two eternal estates.
Again, that each of these are alike by and from God, and by his more immediate hand dispensed. This I take from Philip. 1:28, and submit the interpretation of it: where, exhorting Christians unto an holy courage and confidence in their appearings, for the cause of Christ, before their persecutors' tribunals, 'In nothing be terrified by our adversaries,' says he. And upon such a bold undauntedness on their part, two effects, he tells them, do often follow; and both from God alike, as two wonderful contrary effects. First, in themselves, God elevateth and raiseth up that their confidence of faith into a glorious assurance and taste of heaven and salvation, whither they are agoing; so, in these words, 'which is a token to you' (yourselves) 'of
salvation;' but, on the contrary, which is 'an evident token' (namely, in their persecutors' consciences) 'of perdition,' if they repent not,
'and that' (namely, both these effects) 'of God.'
Two things I observe:
1. That these two contrary effects run parallel still, and that in order to, and of their being tokens either of salvation or perdition, as in that other place, 2 Cor. 2. And so that as the joys put into the hearts of these confessors are the 'first-fruits of the Spirit,' Rom. 8, and therefore of the same kind with what fruit and harvest they reap in heaven; and thereupon also a spirit of glory is said to 'rest upon them' in such a case, 1 Peter 4:14; it being itself initial glory, and the first-fruits of glory, in a way of glory. Thus, on the contrary, those terrors God strikes their adversaries' hearts withal, are like tokens and evidences of hell, no other than the suburbs, the first-fruits of hell, and shadow of death.
And, 2, I observe (which is that for which I quote it) that both these extraordinary effects are alike wrought in the hearts of either, by the same or like hand, namely, impressions from God. The apostle therefore adds ἀπὸ τοῦ κοίνου unto both, 'and that of God,' he being the immediate author of the one as well as of the other; and both unto a like, though contrary, purpose. And the reason why God thus often takes that season and occasion to put forth his immediate power in the consciences of either at such a time is, because his glory is in no passages of providence in and upon earth so highly interested and engaged as upon such trials, wherein both his truth and children are brought to the bar at once, and therefore is then pleased to discover something more than ordinary (though secretly) in the spirits of men: 'Have they no fear,' says the psalmist, 'that eat up my people like bread?' one would think so, they look so big, and fall to so heartily to devour them. Yes, says the psalmist, answering it, 'there were they in great fear.' There; that is, upon such an occasion, at such a time. And yet the same psalmist tells us that there was no cause of fear (compare for that Ps. 14:4 with Ps. 54:4), that is,
not from creatures. What was the matter, then, or whence comes this great fear? 'God is in the generation of the righteous,' says the psalmist; thence was their fear, and 'that of God.' So the apostle in that very case. God takes part with his children, and so strikes and terrifies their adversaries' souls, as he comforts theirs. And this is to them an 'evident token,' and as the first baptisms, washings, or sprinklings 'of that perdition' which their souls will be everlastingly drowned in (as the apostle's allusion is in Timothy) if they turn not.
The truth and real verification of both these so immediate effects by God and from God (he as with a double-edged sword striking contrary ways at once), multitudes of instances of both kinds the story of the martyrs doth relate; and particularly in the examples of those persecuting emperors Galerius and Maximinus, as Eusebius hath recorded them. Insomuch as that lamentable outcry in the sixth seal, Rev. 6:16, 'Which the kings of the earth, and mighty men' (the persecutors) are brought in so loudly uttering, in 'saying to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb,' Mr
Mede and others have applied (as the time and order of the visions of that prophecy require) unto those great persecutors in the Roman empire, whom authentic antiquity hath related to have been terrified and struck with horror by God and the Lamb, in prodigious extraordinary ways of confusion; and those terrors, such as stories have related them, as were the liveliest representations of that great day of wrath, ver. 17; and are therefore set out under the notion thereof, as having been to them the very imperfect beginnings of it.
This for the argument from the instances of wicked men.
II. The argument is as strong, though not so direct, from the instances of holy men.
For, 1, this dispensation to them is not only an argument in common with other afflictions of this world, in their being a 'manifest token of the judgment of God,' 2 Thes. 1:9; and that therefore a sure and certain judgment is to come upon the wicked, as he there argues. But this kind being a judgment of a spiritual nature (as immediate
inflictions of wrath are), and properly belonging unto souls as they are the subjects of the other world, it argues therefore upon a more proper account, that the punishment to come is of the same kind therewith. And such they must needs be, unless we will suppose that God whips his own children in this world with scorpions, but wicked men in the other world, but as with rods in comparison of them. For it must be acknowledged that these, God's own blows, from his own immediate hand, are sorer, and cause wounds of a deeper blue than what are given by him through creatures. Surely God hath not laid up gentler rods for the wicked in hell than he puts in use towards his children: 'Have I smote them as I smote thee?' Isa. 27:7. 'I will correct thee in measure,' Jer. 30:1; not so them. The equity of those ruled cases (which the reader may consult), Jer. 25:15, 16, 17, 28, 29,
Luke 23:31, and 1 Peter 4:12, 17, do hold in this, and give us warrant in like manner to argue, that if his own children do drink of so bitter a cup here, then surely you, the wicked of the earth, shall much more drink of the very same. And these scriptures alleged, and the strength of this our inference, are all resolved into that of Ps. 78:8, 'In the hand of the Lord is a cup, whereof the wicked of the earth shall'
(finally) 'drink the dregs.' And the force therefore lies in this, that if such kind of judgments and fiery trials as these (I allude unto that speech of the apostle), thus falling upon their spirits from God himself, do begin at some of 'the household of God,' then 'where will the ungodly and sinners appear?' For his own people do but begin in this cup to them who are to drink the dregs, whereof themselves have but the droppings.
2. This dispensation of impressions of wrath, when it doth befall either the godly or the wicked, although there are differing ends and purposes from God towards either; yet as they are one and the same in substance (as other afflictions are), so also they meet in this one and the same issue, namely, to be an evidence and demonstration what hell itself in the extremity of it is. For as in the wicked they are imperfect testimonies of what they shall undergo, to the end they may repent, so in the godly they are evidences of what they have deserved, in common with those and all wicked men; and to shew
that they are alike 'children of wrath, even as others,' Eph. 2:1; also unto them, they are sensible experiments of what they should have undergone, but that Christ hath saved them from the wrath to come, that so they may be thankful, and love much. And many other holy ends there are; yet still so as these contrary lines do centre in this, that hell is pre-libated and tasted by the one as well as the other.
But for a clear eviction that these terrors in the godly are no other than the very shadow of death, or vive and lively resemblances of what men feel in hell; hear what themselves say of it, whilst under the sense thereof. First Heman, for all the rest, while you find him as with his mouth put in hell, into the very dust of death, bemoaning himself thus, Ps. 88:5, 'I am free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more; and that are cut off from' (or by) 'thy hand.' When he says slain, it is in language the same which Christ useth of that execution, Luke 19:27, 'Slay them before me.' And the whole of it is all one as to say, My condition is like unto a man's that is in hell, and in some respects the same. Not that it had the same consequents, all effects of despair that wrath hath upon the damned; but in respect it is God's hand that inflicteth it, and also the same wrath itself he felt. And David, who had experimented them, expressly terms them 'the pains and sorrows of hell,' Ps. 18:5, and 116:3, and elsewhere. And Jonah says the like whilst he was in the whale's belly for his rebellion against God; compare for this Heman's speeches, Ps. 88:6, 7, 16, 17, with these of Jonah, chap. 2:2, 4. And so you have out of their own months this assertion verified, and the consequence we have insisted on confirmed.