CHAPTER VIII: The dreadfulness of this punishment argued

CHAPTER VIII: The dreadfulness of this punishment argued

and the creatures should become one; that can never be. It is a contradiction to say a creature made out of nothing should come to be of itself; and such God in his being is, but all in all in respect of immediate dispensation. And so look as to the vessels of mercy, he will then be all in all, so that they shall not need the light of the sun and the moon, &c. (that is, the comfort of any creature, though all created excellencies in the spirit and quintessence of them shall be there), why should it not be also meant that the same God, which makes up a parallel, seeing men's sins deserve it, shall be all in all in hell too, in a contrary way to the other?

4. And the rather this may be thought, because when God shall have caused this visible world to pass away, the earth and the heavens we now behold, as some judicious divines have inclined to think from Job 14:12, and other scriptures, either by turning them into nothing or into their first chaos; and so there being none, that is, of this old word left, but pure heaven and hell, which are as two spiritual places or worlds, and therein these two sorts of creatures rational, either those who are wholly spirits, as angels good and bad, or the spirits of men, whose bodies are raised spiritual and so fitted for that other kind of world, both of which are capable of happiness or woe from him; that then these two sorts of intelligent natures, God and they being left thus alone, the brutish part of the world being done away, should have to do with him for ever immediately, either in a way of wrath or blessedness. And so God shall be all in all in either worlds; and this is be the final ending and catastrophe of all. But these I urge not, but only mention.

CHAPTER VIII

The dreadfulness of this punishment argued from all and each of the particulars treated of in the former chapters.—That it is a falling into the hands of God immediately.—That it is the destruction of the soul.

—That it is for the glory of God, and the manifestation of his power.

—That it is satisfaction of God's justice and avenging wrath.—The

dreadfulness of it argued also from those instances of good and bad men, their having suffered those kinds of terrors in this life.—And lastly, that it is a falling into the hands of the living God

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.—

HEB. 10:31

The second thing at first propounded to be handled, was the dreadfulness of this punishment. 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' Which being an inference from the foregoing words, and not a simple affirmation only, do come in with an amazing kind of implication, wherein the apostle leaveth it to our own thoughts to conceive of, and is as if he had said, How dreadful must it needs be! which I leave to your own thoughts to conceive of, I not being able, says he, to utter or express the terror of it.

Hence the genuine and natural way of handling this part, is to set it forth by way of inference or corollary from that former point, which we have despatched. I shall therefore accordingly draw forth demonstrations of the dreadfulness thereof from those fore-cited scriptures, or grounds already laid in the fore-gone chapter, which doth afford sufficient topics unto this head.

First, Let us take the main doctrine itself, as in the general it is uttered here, that it is a falling into the hands of God himself, and not of creatures only; and a being punished from his presence and the glory of his power immediately, as 2 Thes. 1:9. And then extend and widen your apprehensions to take in how fearful this must be, which I shall demonstrate by a comparative gradation, raised thus:

I. If it were but a giving us up into the hands of mere creatures to afflict, and they assisted by God, but with the common and ordinary concurrence of his power, which joins with and upholds the agency of all things in their workings, whether in comforting us or in distressing of us: this the lowest degree of supposition. And yet consider how dreadful this supposition would render to our thoughts

such a punishment to be, if God should be but as the looker-on, and withal the setter of them on; or, as in the Scripture phrase, Mat.

18:34, but only deliver us up to these tormentors. As when it is termed a being cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, suppose it were a lake of material corporeal fire only, wherein thy body is cast, and thy soul, no otherwise to suffer than by what the spirits of that body it is united to and dwells in, is by that fire made sensible of. And suppose, withal, the spirits thereof were kept up, in their utmost sensibleness, of what torment that fire could inflict, and thy body continually flaming (as the bush in Exodus) and yet never burnt up, how terrible is it for flesh and blood to think but this of it! Or, to use another comparison, if a man were bound hand and foot, with his mouth set open, and were cast into a pit, wherein, as in the apostle's sheet let down from heaven, were all manner of creeping things, toads, serpents of all sorts, fiery scorpions, cockatrices, vipers, adders, snakes, &c., flies, hornets, lice, pismires, and frogs, &c.; and that these should bite and sting thee with exquisite pain and torment, also creep in at thy mouth, down into thy inwards, gnaw and swell thee there. How did but one sort of these creatures, when sent by God, afflict Pharaoh and all the Egyptians! A man in this case should endure not only the pains mentioned, but beyond them the torture which antipathy, contrariety, and natural abhorrency works, which is of all other most exquisite, and turns nature backward (as of Jordan it is said) into a recoil, and wresteth it against itself and throws it off its hinges. I need not instance how, by this way of antipathy, a cock makes a lion roar, a mouse the elephant to tremble, a serpent or a toad, a spider, sets the whole of nature in man into an inconsistency; a man knows not how to bear up, sustain himself, or be himself. But, besides, what pains or torments these, or any of these, can inflict;— II. Let us proceed in our supposition a step further. If God should so far further assist as to set his wisdom a-work, and that only to find out and invent, what mixture of torments from creatures would be most exquisite of all others. As if a king (whose wrath is compared to the roaring of a lion, who yet sets but others to torment) should but

order ten men to invent torments for one poor man, as the Sicilian tyrants did. Hence, Majus tormentum Siculi non invenire tyranni.

And then consider, for the exaggeration of this unto your thoughts, 1. That the nature of man is so framed as it is capable to receive discomfort as well as comfort from every creature. The least creature hath a sting in it as well as honey, unto something or other in man's nature, if it be applied and turned against it.

2. God knows all the ingredients in the creatures' natures; as also, it is said, he knows our frame, and so therewith the suitableness of sense in man's nature thereunto. Think, then, what punishment from their mixture can he invent and temper, and put all the venoms (the dregs) into one cup, as the psalmist speaks. And as by some lesser proportion we may estimate this by what those that know the secrets of nature can effect, above what other men, as Solomon did.

3. Now, raise up your apprehensions from these two steps of comparison thus first laid. If, as the psalmist says, he that made the eye shall not he see? speaking of that infinite omniscience in God himself above what is in the creatures, say I then in this case, if the creatures that God hath made may thus be supposed able to work anguish to a man, dolour and misery, what then can God, the great

God that made all these himself, immediately inflict! As the prophet Isaiah slighteth the Egyptians and their assistance, Isa 31:3; thus, their horses are flesh, not spirit, and the Egyptians that ride them are men, and not God; so we may of all these suppositions, and still say, these are but of what creatures can do, who are creatures, and not God; flesh, and not spirit.

III. That we may yet heighten the dreadfulness of this immediate hand of God, let us make a third supposition beyond the former, that God not only should use his ordinary concurrence with creatures, but (as sometimes he hath done), arm those creatures with his own wrath, over and above the activity of their ordinary sphere of workings, heating that sword of created powers he strikes with red-

hot in the furnace of his fiery indignation, and so intending the power of creatures beyond their strength, yet still so as to use them as the sole instruments of that anguish wrought, conveying his anger with them but as at second-hand; and so, as the man so afflicted is sensible, not of the stroke of the creatures only, but of God, and his wrath accompanying and seconding it through them. This would be yet more dreadful than the former, and yet still fall short of what the doctrine hath held forth, that himself is the avenger, and strikes immediately.

1. This latter is more dreadful to suppose than the former, yea, is not a bare supposition; for if God conveys his wrath with the least affliction, and in his providences fights against a man, and the heart is thereby made sensible of his wrath therein, this, as it often falls out, so it useth wonderfully to inflame and rage in man's spirit, even as a poisoned arrow useth to do the flesh, which itself alone would only pierce and wound, but as it is an arrow; but if further dipped in poison, or, as the apostle's comparison is, Eph. 6, made a fiery dart, it works a further anguish and torment. Now there is no creature but if armed with God's wrath, or if it be but a messenger and a representer of God's anger, but it is infinitely more dreadful than of itself otherwise it is. What is less than the shaking of a leaf, which seems itself to tremble? But if God send faintness of heart and terror with it, and by it, into a man's heart, the very 'sound of the shaking of a leaf chaseth them,' Lev. 26:36. Every grass-blade, burnished with God's wrath, strikes terror into the heart, as that flaming cherub did into Adam's. This is experimented in men troubled in mind, unto whom, Iratumque refert quœlibet herba Deum. Every creature presents an angry God, and strikes trembling of heart into them.

'They fear where no fear is.' The light, which of all creatures is the most amiable and pleasantest, yet to a spirit wounded the beams thereof are dreadful; and when it is day, he wisheth it were night, and that darkness might for ever cover him; and why should the light arise, says he, to disclose my rebellion against my maker? Thus Job

4:20, 'Wherefore is the light given to him that is in misery?' even as on the contrary to a soul God's face shines on, every creature strikes

up comfort and gladness into it. He hears the thunder (which made Caligula tremble), It is my Father's voice, says he; views the stars,

These are mine, saith he. The greatest afflictions to such an one do turn into joy, knowing he hath a treasury of love in the bosom of his

Father that sent them. The perfect contrary is here.

2. This latter supposal of God's arming the creatures with his displeasure, and conveying it by them, falls yet lower, and is less than

God's immediate wrath from himself, even as God's love, conveyed by ordinances and means, is a far lower dispensation than the immediate communication thereof from himself. God's power, though never so great, yet in working by and through an instrument, is abated, lessened, stinted in working. You may have read and heard

(perhaps) the comparison between God's power and the creatures, in respect of torment, thus expressed, that the one is but as if a child should strike a blow in comparison of a giant. But to the case in hand; I have used to raise it thus: A giant that can of himself give a great blow immediately, if he yet should take but a straw to strike withal, the stroke would prove but small, and yet it would be greater than if a child should strike with it. Why? Because his power is limited and enervated by the instrument he strikes withal. Now, what are all the creatures, though in God's hand, but as straws in a giant's?

And yet how terrible is his wrath when conveyed by them! I conclude this with allusion to that speech of Rehoboam, 1 Kings 12:10. The weight of God's little finger is heavier than that of the whole creation; and if they be able, or God by them, to scourge as with whips, then

God himself immediately with scorpions.

Having thus considered how the immediateness of God's working doth comparatively exceed that of the creatures, or of himself by the creatures, in the Fourth place, let us go on more sadly, in a positive way, to consider what his immediate power is, what the strength of those hands is which men must fall into. And how may this amaze you! As it is said of God's wisdom, 'There is no end of it, no searching of his

understanding,' so nor of his power. And how can I discover or unbare that arm before you? I begin to do it thus: God had begun to enter into a contest with Job, and touched him but with his little finger, and Job soon felt him, and cries out, 'If I speak of strength,' or think that way to grapple with him, 'he is strong,' Job 9:19. If but his little finger be so strong, as Job found it, what is his fist, which Ezekiel next sets forth the strokes of his wrath by? And what God himself there speaks against covetous and bloody men, Ezek. 22:13,

14, do you apply to every sin you live and go on in. Says God, 'I will strike with my fist at thy dishonest gain. And can thy heart endure, or thy hands be made strong, in the day in which I shall have to do with thee?' Let every one that heareth or readeth this, who yet go on in their sins, consider with themselves, Am I able to stand it out and encounter this God? And encounter him thou must, if thou goest on in thy sins. Or, Can my heart endure? sayest thou. The apostle puts the very same consideration upon the Corinthians' spirits, when guilty of idolatry. (And it is the same case of uncleanness, or any other known sin). 'Do you provoke the Lord to jealousy? are you stronger than he?' 1 Cor. 10:22; as if he had said, Do you not consider what a powerful God you have to do withal, and that immediately?

Can you grapple with him, think you, or make your part good with him? Hear yet further by what way it is that the apostle sets forth to us the strength of God; and let us make a further estimate thereby as to the matter in hand. The apostle, in the same epistle, though upon another occasion, chap. 1:25, had said that 'the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men;' in which speech he evidently puts our thoughts upon making of a measure of what is to be accounted more or less stronger or weaker in God, in respect of the putting forth his power by what the Scriptures do express of him, after the similitude of man, as in Job the comparison is of his little finger, and in Ezekiel of his fist; whereof the one is weaker (in man) and the other stronger. Now, in man, what is weaker than his breath, which will scarce blow away a straw? (and his weakness is usually expressed by this, that 'his breath is in his nostrils.') Now, estimate the strength of God according unto what is said in the Scriptures of God (and that as to this point of destroying us) after the manner of

men. 'By the very breath of his nostrils we are consumed,' Job 4:9.

His power is such that he needs put forth no more (as it were) to destroy as. His very weakness is enough. Job had in the same verse first said, 'By the blast of him we perish,' but because a blast imports some forcibleness, the utmost might of what is in a man's breath, and it is a man's putting forth his breath with a more than ordinary violence; therefore, by way of diminution and correction, he adds, 'by the breath of his nostrils;' that is (still measuring it as spoken after the similitude and manner of men), by the most ordinary and weakest putting forth of his power. And yet we see if he puts forth no more, he blows us to destruction when his intent is to destroy. And why? For of us the Scriptures use a comparison suitable thereto, in saying that we are but 'as the dust of the balance:' Isa. 40:15, 'Yea, all the nations (put all together) are but as the small dust of the balance;' as that little that is left in the balance, when what is weighed is taken forth, which is easily blown away with a man's breath. Again, yet lower, in man, his nod is of less force than his breath; and yet, 'lo, at the rebuke of his countenance we perish,' Ps.

80:16; 'He can look on one that is proud, and abase him, and his eye can cast about rage and destruction,' Job 40:11–13. He had said before, verse 9, 'Hast thou an arm like God?' He riseth from the power of his nod, the weakness of his power, unto the power of his arm; and so may we, from his looks to his breath, from that to his little finger, from that to his fist, from that to his arm and hands, in which his strength is said to lie, Luke 1:51. Oh think how dreadful, then, it must needs be to 'fall into those hands' (as here in the text); into those hands, I say, that 'measure the waters in the hollow of them,' that 'span the heavens,' and at the same time comprehend also 'all the dust of the earth' in one grasp, as one of us doth a little pebble; and verse 15, 'takes up the isles as a very little thing,' as you would do hazel nutshells out of a pail of water. Now for thee, a poor grasshopper, to be taken into those hands, and to be gripped, and crushed, and squeezed with the might thereof; but the Scripture expressions go further yet: to have this God, like a mill-stone, fall upon thee with his whole weight, which is Christ's comparison, Mat.

21:44. 'Thy wrath lies hard upon me,' said Heman. You see in

summer little green flies creeping upon green leaves, which, if a man doth but touch, they die. Such a slight creature art thou in comparison to this God. Or further (as Job's comparison is), that this great and mighty God should run upon thee as a mighty giant with his full force, the utmost of his force, as a man doth upon his enemy; yet so Job speaks of it, chap. 16:14. And in another place, the same

Job, that he should 'take thee about the neck' and throttle thee. Oh what do we, poor 'potsherds of the earth, striving with our Maker!' as Isaiah speaks, chap. 45:9; or, as Christ spake from heaven, will flesh think to kick and spurn against such iron pricks and pikes, which run up into the soul whilst it strikes upon them.

And that we may yet further have a thorough sensibleness of our obnoxiousness and exposedness to this great God, let us withal consider his absolute sovereignty over us, as well as his power. What an inconsiderable portion doth any one soul (and every one is singly to deal with him for his own particular) bear unto this infinity of being and glory! To whom not one nation, but all nations; and not only all nations that are now extant in the world, but that ever have been, or shall be, are counted 'as nothing,' yea, 'less than nothing.'

What a little thing is this island of ours to the whole body of nations!

And yet all isles are to him but a little thing, as Isaiah speaks. Lord, think thou, what am I to thee, or any man, that thou shouldst regard him! Yea, and being sinful, why should any man (as he is of himself) think that God should have any stick or demur within him, to withhold himself from destroying him every moment! For, lo, even the greatest of men, that have been of greatest wisdom, parts (being sinners), he hath in his distance and greatness laid them aside, and regarded them not at all: Job 37:24, 'He regards not the wise in heart.' What is all or any excellency in thee to him!

There is therefore no way but to turn unto him, and seeing you must fall into his hands, prevent him by putting yourselves into his hands.

This great arm of his may be held: Isa. 27:5, 'Let them take hold of my strength; fury is not in me.' There is an arm also of another one, that is, Christ, who can deal with God for thee, and overcome him.

Isa. 53:1, 'To whom is the arm of the Lord (so he termeth Christ) revealed?' Thus you have seen and heard something of the greatness of this God, and that but in general, as he is the author of this punishment, and thereby this punishment aggrandised unto us, and yet how little do we know of him! as Job speaks.

Secondly, Subjoin hereunto the consideration of what is the eminent subject of this punishment, the soul of man, and that the issue of this punishment is no less than the destruction of that soul. And these two (which I join together) will afford further reflections, to help us to conceive of the fearfulness of this punishment. And the consideration hereof cometh in most pertinently next unto the foregoing, wherein the power of the agent was spoken to, but now in this the capacity of the subject or patient, and the receptivity thereof of impressions from this worker.

That the soul is the immediate vessel of this wrath, that I spake to before: Mat. 10:28, 'Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' The former part of which words evidently import,

1, that the soul alone, and immediately in itself, and not only in respect of what it suffers with or from the body's suffering, is the subject of this punishment, though the body also is; and, 2, Christ concludes, that it is the destruction of both body and soul.

You know also the rule, that the measure of every agent's working upon another must be taken from the capacity of the subject which the impression is made upon, as well as from the power of the agent that works. Fire works more fiercely upon oil and brimstone, than upon stones, or upon dust or sands. You may discern this in the parts of your own body. Rheum falling upon the lungs doth not torture so, as falling upon a tooth, a joint, or eye. How also are the inward parts capable of more exquisite torment, as by the stone, &c., bred in them, than the outward are, by any cuttings or wounds?

Now, the soul of a man is capable of more exquisite impressions from God's hand, in that it is an intelligent spirit, and in the substantial faculties of it assimilated to him, made in his image, a spirit as God is, that hath an understanding, and other faculties to receive and take in from him what he is pleased to pour forth into it by them, and is accordingly more sensible thereof, than the senses of the body are or can be supposed to be from creatures. The prophet

Nahum seems to have considered this, chap. 1 ver. 5, 6, when, setting out God's wrath to men in the effects of it, he first considers how it works upon inanimate creatures, that are at such a distance (in respect of the kind of their being) from God's: 'It kindleth a fire,' says he, 'which maketh the hills to melt, and the earth is burnt up at his presence; yea, the world, and all that dwell therein' (which he will one day burn up with fire). Now from these the prophet infers and raiseth up our thoughts. Doth he work thus upon insensible creatures, as the hills, and the earth, and the whole world? Do the elements melt with fervent heat? Are the heavens shrivelled up as a scroll of parchment before him, by the violence of that fire which he sends forth? Consider, then, oh consider, ye sons of men, how will the fire of his wrath work upon your intellectual souls! And as unto this scope and coherence with the former, I understand what follows, ver. 6, 'Who can stand before his indignation? who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?' He here turneth his speech, and applieth it to men. For the souls of men being in their beings and kind nearer of kin to him, spirits, as he is the great Spirit, and the Father of spirits, which were made only for God, and to be filled with God, have accordingly a more intimate sense of his workings on them. And it is as if he had said, If, then, he sends forth such a fire as melts and dissolves the earth, mountains of iron or brass, how much more will it be able to melt wax! And such are men's souls to God, comparatively to other creatures. Christ speaking of his soul, when he had thus to do with God, in the day of his anger, Ps. 22:14 (that psalm was all made of him) 'My heart is melted like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels.' And towards this sense doth Sanctius seem to understand that complaint of Job's, uttered to his friends, concerning those terrors of God which he felt within him: Job 6:4, 11

verses compared, 'Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh,' my nature or constitution, 'of brass,' that I should be able to encounter with this indignation of the Almighty? Stones and brass have no sense in them (or but a dull sense, if their opinion should hold true, de sensu rerum), they have no blood nor spirits to make them sensible of these arrows of God's anger he had spoken of, ver.

4. Ay, but Job meaneth to say, I have a soul made of other metal, suited to God, the great Spirit, whose arrows I feel, which is exquisitely sensible of all his actings. Take the statue of a man made of brass, or cut out of stone, and slash and cut him, and he feels it not; but cut the same limbs that answer to these in a living man, made of flesh and blood, with the same knife, and what torture is it!

You may see this, and aggravate it to yourselves, by what inferior spirits to this great Father of spirits, as angels and devils can work upon man's soul, that is a spirit like themselves, being yet inferior to them. When Saul had but one evil spirit sent from the Lord, how distracted and terrified was he, though in the midst of the enjoyments of a kingdom! 1 Sam. 14:14. Also that great apostle, that had his spirit fortified, as having been newly feasted with the joys of heaven, and that not as at a distance only, but as a spectator, that stood by, present there, 2 Cor. 12; yet one angel, 'Satan, buffeting him,' he was so disturbed and put to it, as he knew not what to do, or how to bear it; only God told him, 'My grace is sufficient for thee.'

Well, but do men's souls in hell 'fight with flesh and blood,' yea, or 'with principalities and powers' chiefly? No; that is but whilst they are the 'rulers of this world,' as there it is added. And yet if these spirits have such power over our spirits to buffet and terrify them, what hath God, the Father of them?

Again, consider how the soul is capable of more joys and sorrows than the bodily senses are, and this by how much it doth exceed them in its eminency and capacity. The soul is able to drink up all the pleasures the whole creation can afford the bodily senses, or they bring in; to drink them up (I say) even at one draught, and yet would in the midst of it still cry, Give, Give. Now, as it is in the body of a man, look whatever part is capable of more pleasure, it is also

capable of more pains. So the soul proportionably; look how capable it is of greater joys (as it is from God), it is as much of sorrows also, unto the same extension and intension of them.

Add, II., as to this point, that as the soul is thus vastly capable of more sorrow and anguish, so further, that these souls to be punished are filled with sin, and in that respect termed 'vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,' Rom. 9:22. Take a barrel of wood, and of itself it will burn as it is wood; but if withal it be pitched within, and full of tar and combustible matter, it will burn more ragingly. Of unfruitful branches, apostatising from Christ, it is said, John 15:6, that they are

'cast into the fire, and they are burned;' that is, they burn to purpose, make a mighty fire. That clause, 'and they are burned,' is added by way of auxesis or emphasis; else it needed not. We see when sins were but laid upon Christ by imputation, who in himself was separate from sinners, and had no conscience of sin, how yet the anger of God against sin dealt with him, as undertaking to be a surety for sin. And 'can you drink,' says Christ, 'the cup that I am to drink of?' that is, so as to bear it and not be overcome with it. Now, in Luke

23:31, you may see how Christ infers from his sufferings, as being the sufferings of one who had not been himself personally guilty of sin, what therefore, with difference, those in whom sin is inherent must expect. 'Weep for yourselves,' says he, 'for if they do those things to the green tree, what will be done in the dry?' that is, who are fit combustible matter for the fire, and, as the prophet says, 'are as stubble fully dry,' Nahum 1:10: and of the terribleness of God's anger he had before discoursed (as was even now observed) in all that chapter.

Again, III., in the soul, some faculties are more capable of anguish from his wrath than other, even as in the body some parts are more of pain. If a man would avoid a scalding drop to be let fall upon any part, of all other he would fence his eye. You see how a mote, a fly troubleth it; a scalding drop of oil would much more. So it is in the faculties of the soul. You read there is the 'spirit of the mind,' Eph.

4:23. Now God will wound even that, and aims at it in this

punishment. 'A wounded spirit who can bear?' says Solomon. If a man's flesh be torn and cut, he may yet bear up himself, but if his bones be broken, 'who can stand?' Now the immediate strokes of God are so compared by David, as unto the breaking of the bones, in comparison of other dealings of God with, and inflictions from God towards us.

The next thing which I mention, but as an appendix to this head, is, that it is the destruction of the soul. So Christ and the apostle again and again. They are said to be lost; and though men may metaphysically dispute that it is better to be, though in hell, than not to be, yet Christ hath said, 'it were better not to have been born.' I shall say no more as to this head than what the apostle expresseth this by, in 1 Tim. 6:9, in saying, that men are 'drowned in perdition and destruction.' One would think for him to have expressed death and destruction, it might have been enough to have said that a man were drowned, or sunk down to the bottom of waters, or the like materials that would suffocate a man; but to say he is 'drowned in perdition' itself, or that 'perdition and destruction' are the pit, the lake he is plunged into, what can be said beyond it? And yet here he is not content with one single word to express that by either, as to have said, 'drowned in perdition,' but must double it, and add another word, destruction, also. Destroyed, therefore, over and over; drowned over head and ears, as we say, and all that is in them drowned and sunk into perdition; the whole soul, yea, the whole man. No part above water: destroyed with a double destruction; both for object doable, and also for the subject of it, both body and soul.

So Christ says.

The third head that affords matter of exaggeration to our thoughts, whereby to infer the fearfulness of this punishment, is taken from the ends or final causes mentioned in that first section: the ends, I say, which God hath in, and is provoked by unto this punishment. And as I then singly argued from each of them the immediateness of God's hand therein, so now I shall from each of the same, the dreadfulness hereof. There were three attributes of God in special, and his glory in

common, which God aimeth at the manifestation of, in this ultimate guerdon or reward for sin. 1. The manifestation of the glory (that is in common); then particularly, 1st, of his power; 2dly, the satisfying of his justice; 3dly, of his wrath. The scriptures I then had recourse to, do specify all these. I shall speak to these in this section, and to the other in the following.

1. In general, that he aimeth at his glory in it (which is God's general aim, and is common to these and all other attributes) is evident. His glory (as it is to be manifested to us) is but the result or shine of all or any of his attributes, manifested in that place of Prov. 16:4, 'The Lord hath made all things for himself,' that is, for his glory (for that is himself, 'My glory I will not give to another') it follows, 'yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.' The day of evil there is the day of punishment, the wicked themselves also making and preparing themselves by sin thereto; but so as thereupon God manifests his glory upon them, as well as upon all things else, which he hath made in their several seasons and kinds. And Solomon doth mention this of punishment, as one eminent instance of all things else whatever that are for his glory, and which will be ordered then by him thereunto in a special manner; and because (it being so great an evil) men might think otherwise, yea, but, says Solomon, God seeks and will have a glory out of this punishment, as well as out of all things else, of which ye all acknowledge that God made them for himself.

And so in that 2 Thes. 1:9, they are said to be 'punished from the glory of his power;' that is, from his power, glorifying himself on them, as I before expounded it. And as it is for the glory of this his power, so by the same reason of all or any of those other attributes, he is pleased to put forth therein.

I shall premise two maxims, from whence forelaid the inference for the dreadfulness of this will more readily rise, in an infinite height, unto our more serious and sober apprehensions.

1. The first, that all things which God doth for his own glory, he will perform them like himself, that is, like God, and so make the utmost

of everything that that subject matter, whatever it be, will afford of glory to him. This rule is ascertained to us, as from the nature of God, so from that saying of the apostle, Rom. 1:21, where he condemns the Gentiles, that they 'glorified him not as God,' that is, in such a manner as was worthy of him; they came not up to that height of glory, so great a God must have given unto him from creatures.

Now, if it be the sin of creatures that they fall short in glorifying God as God, then be assured that if God himself undertakes and professeth to do a thing for his glory, he will, in the whole of it, and issue thereof, either glorify himself as God, or never begin to essay or meddle with it, but would have let it alone for ever.

2. From hence take this also along with you, to carry it in your view through each particular that follows: that then, if God seeks to glorify himself in a way of punishment, that punishment must be answerably great and proportioned to raise up a glory unto God, such as shall 'glorify him as God' in that way. For it is the punishment or the judgment itself which he executes (as the psalmist says) out of which this glory must spring. This punishment, as it is a punishment, is that wherein God will be glorified as God; that is, it is the soil which this crop of his glory is to grow up out of, and the crop or harvest of glory can be but what the fertility of that soil, as such, affords. These things in general forelaid.

Now, 3, the greatness or vast comings in of that glory God reckons upon from this may rise up in your view by these particulars.

(1.) Had it not been that, in comparison of other works of his, an infinitely exceeding revenue of glory would have arisen unto him from this, God would never have set his heart or hand to this work of all other; I say it again, he would never have set his hand to this work of all other. For as he is Creator, he hath a love to all, and hates nothing that he hath made; he loves no such bloody work for itself, nor would have ever imbrued his hands in the destruction of his creature, had it not been for an exceeding weight of glory; and as being justly provoked thereto, it becometh a just prize on that hand

presented to him, which he will be sure withal to manage and perform with the utmost righteousness. It is certain that this is to him opus alienum, a work strange to his nature, as the prophet speaks. He does not naturally nor willingly (says the Lamentation)

'afflict or grieve the children of men,' Lam. 3:33. Men's quarrellings and cavils hereabout did put him long since to his oath, and he hath cleared himself by oath in Ezekiel: 'As I live, I will not the death of a sinner;' that is, not simply, as if I delighted in it for itself, as a God that is cruel (which was objected); and therefore I say peremptorily it must be an infinite mass of glory, after much longsuffering and impenitency of men, that moves him to it. And if so, then, according to the principles even now mentioned, do you that are impenitent sinners look to it, for ex vestro corio (I allude to Job's speech, skin for skin), out of the blood of your souls, and their destruction, shall this tribute and tax of glory be raised, according unto what your sinfulness shall be found to have been. And oh, then, do you collect how fearful it is like to be! View it in a contrary, and indeed though an instance far transcending the proportion of this, yet in respect of holding some likeness to God's proceeding in this, will conduce to heighten our thoughts about this. It is a consideration that helps our faith (and it is a great one) that for God to deliver up his own Son to death, and for himself to bruise him (you have it all in a short saying,

Isa. 53:10, 'It pleased the Lord to bruise him'), and that this should be the object of his good pleasure, there must have been some incomprehensible vast design of glory to accrue therefrom, to be attained by doing it, some high end and far transcending design that was to be the issue and product of it; which, as you know, was the glory of his mercy and love in the salvation of men: 'Glory to God on high, good will to men.' And this is as great an evidence and argument to our faith that God is resolved to save sinners as can be given. For what hath been thus done to Christ is past recalling, not to be recompensed any other way than by saving many by the knowledge of him, as God there speaks. Now as this instance of the highest kind serves to evidence this thing to us, so, though in a far lesser proportion, you may take somewhat a like illustration, at least in the point in hand; that certainly it must be a great surpassing mass

of glory that will come in unto him by this punishment for sin, which should any way gain him to be so much as willing to it, against which otherwise he hath so much in his own nature, who had it withal in his absolute power to have given effectual grace to all as well as to some; which latter all acknowledge he hath done, even as it was in his power to have saved the world without Christ's death, Mark

14:36. O ye sons of men, know and understand your God, and be moved thereby to turn unto him; and the more by this, that it must and will prove an infinite punishment that is coming upon you, because, were it not an immense sum of glory would accrue to him out of it, and that but upon your final impenitency; he that is a God so good in himself would never else bring it upon you. And according to that first maxim premised, it must be the soreness of the punishment from whence that glory must arise.

(2.) Consider herewith how that he hath reserved this, as his last work in that other world, when this world shall come to be folded up as a garment, and a final conclusion be put to all these other dispensations and works of glory that are now on foot. And as Solomon told us that he hath 'made the wicked for himself and for the day of evil,' so Job also tells us, that 'the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, and shall be brought forth at (or to) the day of wrath.' Reserved by God till after all his other works of wonder are ended and gone, then to be brought forth as a trophy of his glory.

Both themselves and all their sins are reserved till then, and laid up amongst God's treasures, to be then made public. The salvation of his elect and the destruction of the wicked are the last and only works that then remain, and do remain, and are purposely kept unto that time, when he means to shew himself to be God indeed, and to make all men and angels know that he is God. It is an argument of the tearfulness of that punishment the devils shall undergo, Jude 6, 2

Peter 2:4, that he hath 'reserved them in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day.' It is a certain rule that God's latter works do still exceed and put down the former, so far as the former shall not in comparison be remembered, Isa. 65:17, Jer. 3:16. When God would make his apostles (as to this world) the greatest spectacle of

misery that (excepting what he made his own Son, who was the first born among many brethren), he ever put upon saints, prophets, or martyrs, that had preceded and were before them, how doth the apostle express his design in it, 1 Cor. 4:9? 'I think,' says he, 'that God hath set forth us the apostles last as it were, men appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men:' alluding to those gladiators brought up last upon the stage as a spectacle to the people. The thing I cite it for is, that the greatest work in that kind he appointed to be at last, as also was that which immediately preceded it, the coming of his Son in the last days. And but this of punishing the wicked in his last, and very last, of all that he will do for ever.

(3.) Especially let us withal consider besides how all his actings and works whereby to glory himself for ever shall be reduced and contracted to these two. He gives over all other of providence and spiritual dispensations by ordinances, and sets down and betakes himself to these two alone. God hath nothing else to do in the other world; and he hath no other revenue of manifested glory that remains extant; he lives and reigns eternally in or upon these two; and yet this is, then, when he is resolved to the utmost to be glorious.

And yet all is but what comes out of these two works, the salvation of the elect and destruction of the wicked.

(4.) Again, consider these two are uniform works, and unvarying, and 'without shadow of turning.' In this world he makes a variety and interchange of providences, which are exercised in such works as he sometimes takes up and then lays down again at pleasure; he 'sets one thing against another,' as Solomon speaks. Every day and age produceth a variety and alteration. And this is because his glory, that appeareth but imperfectly in some one (as in this and that particular), may have an additional perfection in some other, that so all that variety may, like small pieces in tapestry, make that piece of work complete. And yet we see how in this mixture, and often but in some one single work or piece wrought and done but once, how much of God's glory appears to the wonderment of men and angels.

Whereas now this last work of punishing wicked men (as likewise that other of salvation), are but as one continued dispensation, of one woof, and uniform for ever, without change, variety, or interruption. The whole stream of God's activity contracts itself unto and runs in these two channels, and no more, in omne volubilis ævum. And how strong must you needs suppose these two streams each of them to be, whenas the manifestation of the Deity doth now run so strongly in a thousand rivulets. This in general, from the manifestation of his glory.

I named three attributes in particular, which God doth more eminently shew forth in this great and last work of his

First, His power.

Secondly, Justice.

Thirdly, Avenging wrath, to the end to gain a glory to himself out of all these.

First, His power. That you have in two places: Rom. 9:22, 'What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known?' His power, you see, is mentioned distinct from his wrath, though indeed it will provoke to be the power of his wrath; but I shall distinctly speak of it. You have it also mentioned as that attribute which shall be most glorified hereby in 2 Thes. 1:9, 'Who shall be punished with destruction from the glory of his power.' I afore spake some things of the greatness of God's power as in relation to this punishment, in shewing how fearful it is to fall into the hands of God, in the first head or demonstration in this section. I shall only here add,

1. This general rule concerning it, that the drawing forth of power or activity by God in any work, is still but what is proportionable and answerable to the work; that is, the effect shall be answerable in greatness to the power that is said to be put forth. It is certain God over-acts nothing. Now the effect wherein this power of his is put forth, is here said to be destruction; and therefore that destruction

must be conceived proportioned to the power that is said to be exerted. There was never work which God ever did, wherein he professed to shew forth a transcendency of power, or of any other attribute, but it was wonderful and glorious in its kind. All his attributes are himself, and so as great as himself. This visible world, in its kind, what a glorious building is it, consisting of heaven and earth! and to what end was it that he professed he made it? You have it Rom. 1:20, that by the creation of the world might be 'understood his eternal power and Godhead.' And if he that created and raised up such beings out of nothing shall profess yet further to make his power known, and will use that power, and put it forth in destroying, to shew forth the glory of it, how great will that destruction be which must bear a proportion to such a manifestation! That after God hath in so great and so various works preceding this, sufficiently, as we might think, shewn himself God, in point of power, or what a powerful God he is; that yet after all, as if in all these he had not given so full proof or demonstration of power, and as not satisfied with all the former as not enough, he should be after all willing, as the apostle says here, at last to begin a new work, which should make the ears of the whole creation tingle, on purpose to make his power known: this is it swallows up my thoughts into astonishment, knowing both that, according to the rule before given, his last works ordained to shew forth any attribute, must infinitely exceed the former, that served to the making known thereof; and that again puts a new amazement into my thoughts, to think how, or wherein so much a greater proportion of power should be spent! If it were barely to annihilate, and bring the creature to its first nothing, there needs not an extension of power; it were but withdrawing that word of his power that holds up and bears up all things, Heb. 1:3, and these, as all, would fall to nothing. But over and above, you read here of such a destruction as draws out his power positively, and makes his power known afresh. Specially, when again I consider as to this particular, that to destroy the well-being of anything is, in the ordinary experience of us creatures, more easy than to give being. A man that cannot make alive the least of creatures, not the least fly or flea, can yet with an easy touch destroy them. I hinted before some respects

wherein this destruction might exceed, in respect of power concurring to it, that of the creation. In the creation there was but a single expense of power, namely, of merely raising up out of nothing; but in this a double. For the wrath of God, exerted in the fierceness of it, hath a tendency to bring, and would, if no other power intervened, bring the sinner unto nothing; as that speech of Jeremiah doth imply, chap. 10:24, 'Correct me not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing;' as also that of Nahum, 'Who can stand in the fierceness of his anger?' So as under this his pressure of the creature unto nothing, for God to uphold that creature in being, is equivalent unto a continual educing it out of nothing again. Oh what destruction must that then be in the execution of it, in which God will positively put forth more power than in creating, and thereby, after all other works of power shewn, get himself the name among the whole creation of being a powerful God indeed! But of this destruction, more hereafter. Thus much for that of power.

The second attribute is justice, which he will to the utmost shew forth in this punishment. So in the text, 'The Lord shall judge his people;' and 2 Thes. 1:9, (δίκην τίσουσιν)' They shall lay down, or pay a punishment;' and ver. 6, 'It is a righteous thing in God to recompense tribulation,' &c. And indeed, God's power herein is not put forth simply out of sovereignty, or for itself, but is drawn out by justice and wrath, to execute what they are provoked unto. I before gave this as one reason why God himself must execute this punishment, because else the punishment will not come up to satisfy his justice; but now I make use of the same to infer the dreadfulness thereof: that it is the felling into the hands, as of a potent God, so of a just God recompensing for sin, and extending his mighty power to inflict a punishment, which should in justice hold proportion with the demerit of sin, that so the exactness of his justice might appear.

Now, to heighten our apprehensions of the dreadfulness of this punishment from this particular, consider,

1. The infinite demerit of sin. Which is not enough known or considered by the miserable subjects thereof, because indeed God himself, in his holiness, and in his greatness, is not known by them.

Now, because men will not otherwise know, nor be sensible of sin, in the spiritual evil of it against God, therefore it is that God is put upon it thus to make men know it, and what God himself is; for men to sin against him by such dreadful effects, as in justice shall hold proportion with their sin and the desert thereof. And God professeth he will herein be exact, Heb. 2:2, so as 'every transgression shall receive a just recompence of reward;' not such or such sins, some few more eminent sins only, but every transgression shall have a reward proportionate. 'He that is the Judge of all the world, shall not he be exact?' as Abraham in another case, Gen. 17. Yes; in this ultimate punishment he will be sure to be, as Isaiah speaks, chap. 28 ver. 17,

'To lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet,' as carpenters do when they would fit things one to another, and make things uniform and correspondent, and square them adequately to an hair's breadth, as we say. And thus God will do in judging; he will bring his line and his plummet, take measure of the heinousness of every sin, and mete a punishment adequate thereto. And if so, then this punishment, how dreadful will it be! 'If thou wilt be severe to mark what is done amiss, who will be able to stand?' says the psalmist, Ps. 130:3. The heinousness of sin is measured by the greatness of that glory whereof it is the debasement; and that debasement done to him, further measured by this, that it is by so mean things as we creatures are to God; and so is estimated by the worth of that person against whom it is committed, which therefore could by no other means be expiated, but by the debasement and emptying of as great a glory, due to the person of the Son of God, appearing in our nature as one person therewith. Sin, the apostle tells us, Rom. 7:13, is 'above measure sinful.' And hence, accordingly, this punishment is estimated to be above measure fearful. Thus Jer.

30:11, and Isa. 27:7, 8, God putting this very difference between his punishing godly men, his own children, and his punishing wicked men, 'Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him?' No; for he puts this difference in the 8th verse, he smites his own in

measure. You may thus take the compass, the magnitude, and the depth of it by this, that therefore oppositely his punishing the other exceeds all measure. Sin is the creature's proper work, and punishment is God's work. 'Vengeance belongeth unto me,' says the text; he challengeth it as his. Now it is certain God will shew himself as perfect and as exact in his work as man and Satan have been in theirs; he will not be exceeded or outgone by them. 'The Lord is known,' says the psalmist, 'by the judgment that he executeth,' Ps.

9:16. If the creature be so wicked as to bring forth so heinous an evil (in genere moris) as sin is, which is malum catholicum, a catholic evil, and accordingly hath the name of all evil given it, as virtually and transcendently containing all that God or man calls evil, then be assured that God who is so just will be as sure to bring forth, by way of return upon the creature, a punishment that shall be, in genere pœnæ, in its kind, malum catholicum, an universal evil also. And such Ezekiel terms it, speaking of the evil of punishment; it is 'an evil, and an only evil,' Ezek. 7:5; that is, such an evil as shall be nothing but evil, and that shall contain the spirit, the quintessence of all evil in it. Therefore, Ps. 75:8, 'In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and it is full of mixture;' as if an artist that knows the nature of all simples should temper a cup that is full of all sorts of poisons, and which is a compound of the bitterest, loathsomest ingredients this earth puts forth. Even thus hath God strained the quintessence of all evils into one cup; and it follows there, 'the wicked of the earth must drink the dregs of it;' which phrase also argues such a mixure as this we speak of; the bitterest of all is at the bottom, and it is eternity to the bottom, and they must not nor shall not leave a drop, but suck out the dregs, as the prophet's phrase is, Ezek. 23:34. Thou hast a 'cup of abomination,' and when thou hast 'filled up thy measure,' then will God take a measure of thy cup, and fill the same proportion of dregs and mixture to thee in a cup of his tempering.

2. Consider that in the manifestation of this attribute of justice there must, of all other (next unto that of mercy), be a more special glory intended and designed by God himself, unto which this punishment must bear an eminent proportion, as being the matter wherein it

appears. I said before, that if God professed to manifest any attribute of his whatever, it still hath been done in such effects of wonder as all the creation is set admiring of. Now of all other attributes, these two of justice and mercy are the prime, which he sets the greatest value upon the manifestation of. And therefore still look how they are more eminent, or by how much the more eminently he intends to manifest them above other attributes, by so much must the effects in and by which he manifesteth them exceed and excel all other works.

Now that these are the brightest jewels in that crown of his glory, and which he intends most to embellish, may be seen in this: 1. That he hath chosen the choicest and most excellent of his creatures as the stuff or materials in which to set these forth; namely, angels and men, and Christ himself the head of all. That look as curious engravers, when they would shew their best art and chiefest workmanship, they call out the choicest materials, as either precious stones, cedar, or marble, to work upon; and so embroiderers, the finest stuff or cloth for the groundwork they would embroider gold or pearls upon; thus hath God singled forth angels and men, the chief of, and more noble creatures (in the stuff they consist of) than the rest of his whole creation. Power and wisdom is seen in other creatures, but vindictive justice, as also grace and saving mercy, only on men and angels. And, 2, although he hath shewn forth more of wisdom and power in the frame and fabric of men and angels than in the whole of heaven and earth, yet still, comparatively, more of justice and mercy in these two, than that all or any of the other attributes shewn forth in and upon them comes unto; whereof this is sufficient evidence, that they have the name of 'vessels of mercy' and 'vessels of wrath,' Rom. 9. You read nowhere that they are termed vessels of power or vessels of wisdom, which is a token that they are filled with these, in that they carry away the denomination (which is usually à principaliori), as if no attributes else in comparison seemed to appear. And yet how much of power and wisdom is seen in the fabric of man, David tells us, 'I am wonderfully or fearfully made.' So then, those that shall prove to be the miserable vessels of this his wrath and justice, shall be so filled with the punishment whereby this

justice is made known, as shall deservedly bear the name of wrath and judgment engraven upon it of all other attributes. 'The day in which he will judge the world,' Acts 17:31, is elsewhere called the day of destruction, the day of wrath, the day of judgment, &c. It beareth its denomination from this very work we speak of.

And further, consider how he hath given out beforehand, almost six thousand years before, concerning this work above all works else, and hath posted it upon Enoch's pillars (you know the tradition I allude to) as you use to do citations, Jude 14, 15, or as you do indicere diem, set a day for the most solemn works. 'Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied hereof, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all,' &c. And further and besides, God speaks of preparations to have been all along made by him during the time of this world against that day.

The persons are a-fitting, Rom. 9; the punishment a-preparing, 'prepared for the devil and his angels,' even from their very first fall.

Now certainly God would never raise up in us, by such words given out by himself, so great expectations, if the reality, the execution, the thing itself, should not answer to all these. Yea, after all his other works of wonder finished and perfected, he professeth to come on purpose to be glorified. And in what? as well in rendering vengeance in the destruction of wicked men as in the glorifying his saints, 2

Thes. 1:6–10, 'Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you that are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power: when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day.' He carries on the glorifying himself and of his power in the one as well as in the other.

Yea, and to render the solemnity of this work and day yet greater, he calls a general assembly of all men and angels that are or have been,

or of men that yet shall be, in either worlds, to be present and see the execution.

To conclude. It is therefore called 'the great day,' as that 'reserved to the judgment of the great day,' Jude 6, and other speeches. And why the great day, but from this work of that day that shall be done upon it, which this day shall then bring forth and produce; as days have their style and denomination from the work of the day, opus diei in dis suo. So this (as was said) is called the day of destruction, wrath,

&c. And if so, then that style of greatness must be from the greatness of the work that shall be done thereon. And so the judgment of the great day, because great will the judgment be that is to be executed on that day.

Lastly. God hath in the mean time suffered his glory to be debased, himself to be the least regarded in the world, sin and the devil to carry all before them, and sinners to have the glory; relieving himself in the mean time that he hath a treasure of glory to be broken up at that day, Rom. 2:3, when he will come on purpose to be glorious. He hath suffered an eclipse of six thousand years, that in the end he may break forth with a redoubled glory. And all that glory must come in this way, even from this punishment he shall execute. And it must be a recovery of greater glory than he should have had by man's holiness in that first state by creation, or God would never have let sin have come into the world; he meant not to be a loser.

I come next to argue this from the third attribute, his wrath; or if you will, his power and justice, as intended and heightened to extremities by wrath; and though he will be just in what he doth, yet it is justice put on by wrath. He recompenseth sin, not only as rector universi, judge of all the world, and so upon the account of public rules given forth, to vindicate the equity and righteousness of which, he punisheth the transgressions of them; but over and above he doth it as resenting an injury, a personal affront given to himself, his person; and this draws forth his wrath and vengeance on his own behalf.

As it is termed vengeance, so zeal, in Heb. 10:27, and 1 Cor. 10:22, 'Do you provoke the Lord to jealousy?' In Nahum 1:2, see what a conglomeration there is of attributes and effects.

God is jealous; that is the first. He compares that in God unto that in man, which, Solomon tells us, is the 'rage of man,' Prov. 6:34.

Again, 2, The Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth. That is the effect, and he says it twice, as speaking of one who is inflamed with anger.

Then, 3, to shew how fiercely in revenging he executes it, even with fury, he adds, The Lord revengeth and is furious'; who yet professeth elsewhere of himself, 'Fury is not in me;' that is, of myself it is not,

Isa. 27:4. But as he is provoked by sin and impenitency, so fury is in him. 'The Lord is furious.'

Then, 4, follows the subject thereof, and what they are to him whom his fury waxeth so hot against, enemies and adversaries: 'The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.' Which accords with this text, 'Vengeance is mine, I will recompense the adversaries,' ver. 27, And, 5, if any urge, Yea, but is not God merciful, and slow to anger?

Yes, says he, ver. 3, the Lord is slow to anger. But he brings it into shew that in this case it is that very patience of his, which in the issue works up unto that fury, Læsa patientia fit furor.

And then, 6, he further warns them to consider, that in the execution of this fury to the utmost, his power comes to be engaged, The Lord is great in power.

And lastly, He will not at all acquit, the wicked that lives and dies in his sins; which is a clause or proviso he still puts in, even when he speaks the greatest things of his mercy. See Exod. 34:6, 7.

And although the very reading this description of God as an avenger shews forth alone its own dreadfulness, yet further, to clear and

enlarge upon it, consider, 1. How it is justice heightened by wrath to a fury, and all of these whetting on and drawing out the greatness of power. And to this purpose we find, as was observed, power and wrath joined, in Rom.

9:22 and Ps. 90, 'Who hath known the power of thine anger?' His jealousy draws out his strength, and his power works in a way of wrath. Take a man; let his blood, his fury be up, and thereby all his spirits are intended and stirred, and he is able to strike a greater and heavier blow than at another time; as Samson, in his fury against the Philistines, he pulls down the pillars of the house. Now bring this to God, and though his power is the same, and not greater, when he executeth vengeance on his enemies, than at all other times; yet being attributed to him after the manner of men, it imports to us something of analogy (whereby the working of his power in such a case is set out) which it holds with what is in men in the like case.

And so shews (1.) that if ever he did or will upon any occasion, or can be supposed to shew forth power and strength, it will be in this, for he is in fury; and in that fury talks of the greatness of his power, which in men in their fury useth to be at the highest; and they shew forth their strength in no acts so much as those which they do in fury.

(2.) That comparatively therefore unto other works of his, wherein he shews forth power, he is to be supposed to shew forth more of power in this. Consider, therefore, if God shewed forth power in creating the world, &c., yet according to this analogy I may say of all those kinds of works whatever (speaking after the manner of men), that he did them coolly as it were; but this he doth in fury, and so may well be supposed to put forth more of power in these, in that respect, than in those other.

2. Avenging wrath is more than simple anger. A man is angry with a friend, and so is God often with his children; and then he 'stirs not up all his wrath,' as Ps. 78. But the butt and mark which revenge

shoots its arrows at, is an enemy, as both out of Nahum and the twenty-seventh verse of this chapter was observed. And not only so, but such as are irreconcileable enemies; for that is the state of men in hell, and the posture of their spirits there towards God, to be fixed in malice. Now when vengeance in God shall be extreme, who shall be able to bear it?

3. Justice hath a mixture of pity mingled with it; but when it is a case of revenge, there is a decorum put upon the extremity of justice. It is the revenge of an injury, which, though in the creature, who itself is a subject of God's (who only hath the sovereignty of power), it is therefore inglorious and unworthy; yet, in God, who is the supreme, in case of wrong and injury to himself, this hath a glory in it:

'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' No wonder, then, if it be termed 'severity,' Rom. 11:23; and James 2:13, expressly, 'judgment without mercy;' and perhaps in that respect also it is, that, Rev. 14:10, it is termed, 'wrath without mixture;' that is, pure wrath which hath no mixture, not a drop to cool one's tongue. And again, 'wrath to the uttermost,' as 1 Thes. 2:16, the apostle speaks of that wrath which, upon the destruction of Jerusalem (the type of the day of judgment), befell that nation. And so it is set forth in the language of the wrath at the great day, as Grotius hath observed, which is wrath to the uttermost; and as God is said to 'rest in his love' shewn to his children, Zeph. 3:17, so his wrath satisfies itself in accomplishing vengeance: Ezek. 7:8, 9, 'I will accomplish mine anger upon thee; and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and I will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will recompense thee according to thy ways, and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee, and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth;' and therefore is often called a sacrifice, as Mark 9:49.

And this answers an objection may be made. Did not David expressly choose rather to 'fall into the hand of God than man?' 2 Sam. 24:14.

The answer is at hand in the same place: 'for his mercies are great;' that is David's reason for it there. And so indeed the difference lies in

chastising anger, and avenging wrath, and David there speaks of God's chastising his children in this world; but in the world to come you see the case is altered. It is the falling into the hands of an avenger, who in that execution professeth to shew no mercy: 'He that made them will have no pity on them.'

Lastly, Consider how wrath sets all that is in God against a man, whets and sharpens the whole activity of every attribute. What is the reason that in the text, when this dreadful execution is spoken of, the attribute of the living God is mentioned rather than power? &c. The life of God speaks the whole of his attributes. The whole of his nature and Godhead, as it is active and working, this life imports. In hell,

God draws out all his forces, all his attributes into the field, whereof wrath is the leader and general. All his perfections conspire either to stir up and enkindle wrath, or to assist him in the execution. How power is drawn forth and intended, I shewed before. Wisdom, that marshals all into order, 'sets both thy sins in order,' in the view of thy conscience, Ps. 50:21, and 'sets his terrors in battle array against thee;' it is Job's expression, chap. 6:4, and the same word in both places. And as it marshals all, so whets on to vengeance: Prov. 1:25,

'Ye have set at nought all my counsel; I will therefore laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh.' It is wisdom speaks this, ver. 20. 'Be not deceived,' saith the apostle, 'God is not mocked,'

Gal. 6:7. It imports two things:

1. That sinners think to illude and deceive God. As what is it else to think to defer repentance to the last, and then to come and flatter, and look to be saved, as if they had served him from the very first moment of their lives? They herein think to go beyond God.

2. That in such cases God's wisdom takes it and resents it to the height. Nothing adds unto provocation more, in a man that is wise, than to perceive how another man thinks to go beyond him, and impose upon his wisdom. And it is wisdom in a man that makes him he would not be mocked, deceived, or trifled withal; this principle riseth up in God's heart, the judge of all the world. Again, his

holiness cries out to him against the sinner: Thou art a pure God, and I can endure to behold no iniquity; and the 'eyes of my glory have been provoked' by this sinner continually. Then says justice too,

I must be satisfied to the utmost farthing, and have the last drop of blood that is in their souls; and this their punishment executed on their own persons is all I shall have or can recover for all the dishonour hath been done thee; for Christ, through their unbelief, hath not taken off one farthing of their debt, but all is left and remains upon their own score. And I can no other way recover glory, but by having it out of them; and therefore it is that an eternity is required, because, but by an eternity of suffering it is that they can come to satisfy: Prov. 27:20, 'Hell and destruction are never full,' or satisfied, as the next words shew the meaning to be. Then says truth and righteousness, Their whole lives have been contrary to my love, the whole actings and courses of them have been but a making a lie, a web of hypocrisy, continually woven and vended: Rev. 22:15, that 'love and make a lie;' and Rom. 3:13, 'their tongues are full of falsehood and deceit;' and again, 'give them their portion with hypocrites,' whom of all else I hate, says truth. Then boils up jealousy, Every creature hath been an idol, and made their god, and set up in God's stead, and they have been inflamed with them, as of idolaters the prophet speaks; 'idols of jealousy' have all their lusts been, and the glory due to me hath been given to them. But you will say, Will not mercy at last speak a good word for them? Will it not allay and moderate all these? No; but turn as fiercely against them as any other attribute, and plead, I indeed did a long while restrain all these other attributes that were provoked every moment, 'whom God endured with much long-suffering,' says Rom. 9:22; and that they have lived so long free from wrath hath been by means of me, I waiting for their repentance, which hath cost me millions. I have spent riches on them, in forbearance of them, all which now is to be reckoned to them in wrath. You have it Rom. 2:4, 5, 'They have despised the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth them to repentance; but, after their hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath,' &c. And says grace, I was presumed on,

and made a stale to and defender of their lusts, and was 'turned into wantonness,' Jude 4.

And thus all in God is set (as it were) on fire against a sinner, and (as I may so speak) do turn all in him into fury. And look as to God's people, all in God is assimilated into love towards them, and they live and dwell in love, and see nothing else as it were in God but love.

'God is love,' says the apostle, namely, to his own, 1 John 4:16.

Nothing else appears, or rather, all that is in him appears in that hue, under that dye, with that tincture. So here, on the contrary, all in God is turned into fury: læsa patientia fit furor. Though he is not so of himself,—'Fury is not in me,' says he, Isa. 27,—but sin hath made him such.

A fourth head of demonstrations is taken from the instances given both of good and bad men. Which instances, as I then alleged to prove the immediateness of God's inflicting it, so now I shall from thence present some inferences of the fearfulness hereof. Do but sit down a little with Job and Heman, who were the instances of good men; or go to that roll which the Scriptures have recorded of Cain, and Judas, and others, or which ecclesiastical stories or present examples of our age have afforded, of men in horror; weigh and perpend their cries and roarings, and consider what a sad spectacle such instances afford.

1. Of good men. Heman I insisted in before, and acquainted you with his complaints, as sad as man can utter. I reserved that of Job specially for this place, as I then professed all the while that he had but afflictions common to men; and although he was every way surrounded with them, as being visited with a loathsome disease, his body filled with dolours and pains, his children lost, servants destroyed by fire from heaven, his estate quite gone unto an extremity of poverty, his wife abhorring his breath, and tempting him to blasphemy, all this while the text tells us, chap. 2:10, that 'in all this did not Job sin with his lips,' but was quiet and patient, as the Holy Ghost in the New Testament takes notice of him: James 5, 'You

have heard of the patience of Job.' Well, but God himself in the end came in upon him with his immediate wrath. And now will you hear of his impatience too? He was not pricked to the quick till now. But then he begins to curse the day of his birth, chap. 3:1–3, and at that rate talks all along that chapter. For brevity, let us only consult his lamentations, in chap. 6 vers. 2–4, 'Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together, for now it would be heavier than the sand, therefore my words are swallowed up.' The rest that follows, I shall add by and by. What was it caused this sudden outcry and alteration in Job's spirit, from that still and sedate frame we left him in before? What was it? The thoughts of his lost estate, children, wife's unkindness, or the pains of his bones and body, &c., or his downfall from a petty kingdom? Did these begin now at length so sadly to return upon him, so as in the end his spirit should begin to take them in, and lay them at length to heart, which at first he in an holy gallantry had made so light of? Oh no; he had fully concocted and digested all that had been occasioned from all or any of these, and had quieted himself with one or two good cordials, namely, that 'the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken, and blessed be the name of the Lord,' chap. 1:21; and again, 'Shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord, and not evil?' chap. 2:10, which had carried away all that sorrow might have been stirring in him from these. What might be the matter then that was the cause of these so high disturbances? The next words, ver. 4, do inform as, 'For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinks up my spirits; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.' Let us go on duly to weigh and consider these passages of his.

Heman, in his horrors, had complained, Ps. 88:7, that 'God's wrath lay hard or heavy on him,' and says no more of it. But Job here, in like manner feeling the like weight thereof, goes about to express how heavy and how great the burden was of his grief, that was caused thereby. And he calls for a mighty scale to weigh it in, such a scale as might be large enough to contain all the sands of the sea. 'Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamities laid in the balance together; for now it would be heavier than the sand of the

sea.' His meaning is, that to have his grief and calamity put in one of the scales, and the sand of the sea in the other, his calamity would be infinitely heavier. His invention was heightened by what he really felt; the greatness of it made him eloquent; for as love, so deep sense of misery useth so to do. And he pitcheth, as you see, upon the weightiness of sand, to express it by, which is of all things the weightiest, as Solomon tells us: Prov. 27:3, 'A stone is heavy, and the sand is weighty.' Yea, and 'the sand of the sea;' which, take both those sands within the sea at the bottom of it, and those also scattered without on the shore, they do make an immense balk and body condensated, if they were gathered together into one heap (as the waters were into one place when God made the sea). Job had a most sublime fancy, as the high strains of that whole book shew; and this is in view a comparison vast and great enough (one would think) as could be used. But yet further, observe how he breaks off that attempt of his to express it by this or by any such comparisons, though in appearance never so hyperbolical. Which breaking off his next speech utters, 'My words,' says he, 'are swallowed up!' As a small thing is swallowed up of a greater, as a drop of the ocean, as one small scattered sand would be in the bulk of all those sands of the sea when cast in amongst them, so were all these his vast expressions and comparisons he had used, although thus great

(which yet from all rhetoricians would have had the name of hyperboles, far exceeding the reality), but yet in his sense and feeling were swallowed up by the thing itself. I feel my words fall short, says he; so Broughton paraphraseth on those words, and therefore he cuts himself off from using any more or higher decipherings of it of any kind, if any could have been found, as being all but mere metaphors, too light, and holding no weight with that far exceeding weight of misery he felt (as the apostle, on the contrary, comparing present afflictions and the glory to come together speaks), but Job here, he gives it clean over as a thing unexpressible. And instead of all essays that way, he chooseth rather to speak and shew the cause thereof, the same which I in this treatise have endeavoured to do. And thereby he sets forth in a reality the dreadfulness of it indeed; and more than by all things whatever that his grief could have been compared unto.

This you have in these words, 'For the arrows of the Almighty are within me.' He had sores without in his body, and afflictions in his outward man or condition; fears without, and terrors within. He complains not, that you hear, of them at all. Oh, but they, are these arrows that are within me, says he, 'the arrows of the Almighty;' that is, which none but an Almighty hand could shoot, and shoot so deep; such arrows as could come out of no other forge or quiver. The soul of a man is a spirit of a vast depth, and God, and God alone, can shoot up into it unto the arrow head. And yet again, besides the strength of the arm that shoots them, and the forkedness of the arrows themselves, they were all as arrows that are dipped in poison, envenomed with the guilt of his sins, which as chap. 13:23 and 26,

God had now set on upon his soul, 'Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth.' Thus it follows in the next words, 'and the poison thereof drinks up my spirit.' They do not only let out the spirits

(which wounds made by other arrows use to do), but they 'drink them up.' The strength and violence of the venom of them had such an efficacy on his very soul, and the very spirit and life thereof, as they drank all up. Again it follows, 'And the terrors of God have set themselves in array against me. God drew forth his wrath, as it were, into a well-ordered army, into rank and file, at once to fall upon him.

If one man had a whole army set against him, and each armed man therein were to shoot a bullet or an arrow into him at once, and if, withal, we could make the supposition that that man should have his life still renewed after each wound given, so as never to die, and yet they still to renew to shoot all at once every moment, how dreadful is this to any one's thoughts thereof! But yet these are but men, not God, whose arrows he says these were. 'Oh that he would destroy me!' says Job; that is, kill me outright; so vers. 8, 9, 'Oh that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me, and that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off.' Well, but Job, canst thou not stir up thy spirits, and harden thyself against all these present sorrows?

'The spirit of man will bear its infirmity,' if it be steeled with resolution. To this Job himself gives answer by way of preoccupation to this effect: that if death indeed, or a being utterly cut

off, should come upon me with all that host of fears (whereof elsewhere Job tells us death is the king), I could harden myself against that; yea, and to endure the pains of the most exquisite tortures any kind of death could inflict, if thereby God would thus cut me off; then indeed (if such news of death were brought me) 'I should yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow,' so ver. 10. And let it be the worst death he can put me to, for so it follows, 'let him not spare.' Oh but they are these arrows of his own within me! these I cannot bear: so ver. 12, 'Is my strength the strength of stones, or my flesh brass,' that I should be able to endure and bear up myself against these encounters? Oh no. Read on those his expressions further roared forth by him in chap. 16 vers. 12–14,

'He hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by the neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach; he runneth upon me like a giant.' What should I instance in more, or how to comment on them?

That which, in the second place, is proper next to be done, is to provoke those that are secure sinners, &c., and others also that are awakened, to raise but up their thoughts from the consideration hereof, to infer and gather how dreadful this punishment in hell must be, above all that these dispensations can represent unto us.

And this is most strongly inferred from these examples, whether they be the examples of good men, as Job was, or bad men, as Cain and Judas were, in both which I formerly instanced in.

I shall make inference from each of these apart, as in the first section I also did in arguing from them, the immediateness, &c.

First, From these of good men. If you consider that all these terrors which Job and Heman endured from God were yet all in love, out of so solid and substantial a love, permanent, and abiding in God's heart all this while towards them, and that all these were but chastisings of them for trial, and 'to make them partakers of his

holiness.' And besides, what manner of anger was it towards them? It was but anger which love stirred up; and those his afflictions were accompanied and joined all with everlasting kindness and thoughts of peace all the while. According to that in Isa. 54:8, 'In a little wrath

I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.' Yea, those two known cordial recipes, so frequently made use of, and commonly taken by most Christians in their distresses, and cited by two apostles, James 1:12, chap. 5:11, Heb. 12:5, and Christ himself from heaven, Rev. 3:19. 'Happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty,' were first spoken and directed unto this our Job whilst in the midst of these afflictions, in chap. 5:17, and are particularly applied to that his condition in the worst of it by the Holy Ghost, James 5:11. Yea, and all this that was upon Job was in itself (how great soever it seemed to his sense) but the touch of God's little finger, Job 1:11. Oh think, then, how great will that vengeance be which is pure wrath, Rev. 14, which is out of fury, as was shewn, which is the fiery indignation of patience abused, boiled up into fury. This that befell them is said to be but a little wrath, and for a moment. And yet (as also it is said, Ps.

2:12) if God be angry but a little, who is able to abide it! Then what will this last and extreme vengeance reserved for hell be? These chastisements of Job's and Heman's were, in comparison of what awaits men in hell, but as rods of birch or rushes, which we use to whip our children withal: Ps. 89:32, 33, 'Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes: nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.' These were all rods of mercy's own gathering and making, the stripes whereof are not so deep but they may be and were healed again; as in the same book you also find it, chap. 5:18, 'He maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole;' and so was Job in the issue thus healed; and Heman likewise, and made thereby one of the wisest men in the world, 1 Kings 4:31. Yea, but these wherewith wicked men in hell are eternally lashed and cut off, are rods of revenge's making; 'rods of iron' (as the psalmist in that second Psalm speaks), 'to break them in

pieces like a potter's vessel,' never to be set together again or made whole. Again, those strokes on the children of God are in measure, as Isa. 27:7, 8, but of these in hell it may be and is said that wrath cometh upon them without measure. Again, in the midst of these corrections he remembers mercy, but in this of hell there is

'judgment without mercy,' James 2:13. In those other stripes given his children God himself is afflicted, and feels every stroke he gives them, as Jer. 31:20, and Isa. 64; but in these in hell, vengeance and justice do satisfy themselves in their deserved damnation. It is styled a sacrifice to him, Mark 9:48, 49, compared, and elsewhere.

Secondly, The same inference may be much more raised from those instances given of bad men suffering in this life the like terrors to those mentioned. If we but consider that when they fall and seize upon them in the greatest extremity, that yet then they are, in comparison to what remains to them in hell, but as the sippings of the top of that cup here, the dregs whereof are reserved for them there, to drink to the bottom: as Ps. 75:8, 'In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.' Those words, he poureth out the same, and but the dregs thereof, are an opposition each to other, shewing how that in this life God promiscuously poureth forth the same from the upper part thereof, both upon good and bad. And that all that is but the overflowings of what is uppermost, but the dregs, the brackish, bitter stuff, is reserved for hell; and the truth is, men can bear but the sippings thereof here.

Should they drink but a little deeper, their souls would be giddy, and reel out of their bodies in a moment. As the joys of heaven cannot be inherited by flesh and blood, so nor the torments of the fulness of this wrath. But in hell their bodies shall be nealed (as we speak of glass) that they may endure this fire. All the terrors of conscience here are, as is said of the joys of the saints, but the earnest-pennies, farthing-tokens, in comparison to that great, immensely vast treasure of wrath to come you have heard the Scriptures speak of. All here is but the shadow of death, and yet if that can wither men's

souls so, what will the blackness of darkness do? as the apostle speaks of this. The utmost threatened here is, that 'the anger of the Lord shall smoke' against a man, Deut. 29. It is but smoke; but in hell it breaks forth into raging flames of the fiercest fires, Luke 16:24, that fill every corner, and break out at all the windows of the soul.

The fifth and last head, which represents the dreadfulness of all this unto an infinity, is, that it is a 'falling into the hands of the living

God.' The living God. The former exaggerations have been raised from falling into the hands of the great, powerful, just, and avenging

God; but this further of the living God. Which, of all other attributes, the apostle hath singled forth to set out the dreadfulness of it by, and is therefore most of all to be heeded by us, as having as much weight in it to the thing in hand as any of the other. The living God notes out, not only God's activity, and how the whole of his life and being is engaged and active in this punishment (as was noticed), but further, both that, 1, he shall execute this to eternity; and, 2, that during that whole space of eternity he will permanently continue to inflict it. His being the living God notes out, 1, eternity; 2, with a continuation of acting till that while; and so his being the living God both threatens and effecteth, 1, an eternal, and, 2, a continual death in those that are the subjects thereof. And to imply so much it is that he hath that denomination, specially and so eminently given him here, when this punishment is spoken of.

First, consider thy soul is an immortal soul as to the duration of it, and that this great God is the living God. And sin in thee, and the injury of it to God, is an eternal stain, which hell fire cannot eat out or satisfy God for, but in an eternity of time; and therefore whilst

God lives, and thou livest, he will inflict it on thee. That is one meaning.

Again, God's life, as it is in itself a continual act, so in its being attributed to him with respect to this punishment, it imports his continued acting therein without cessation or intermission. For he doth it as the living God. Job, whilst he endured the terrors of the

Almighty, complains they were so incessant that God 'suffered him not to take breath:' Job 9:18, he followed his strokes so thick, 'with one breach,' as he there speaks, 'upon another.'

You have both these set forth in one and the same scripture: Rev.

14:10, 11, 'He shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And they have no rest day nor night.' First, they have no rest day nor night; that shews they have no intermission. And then, that the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever shews the eternity. Yea, and further, to strike our dull hearts with the sense of this eternity, if one ever be not enough, another is added, for ever and ever. Which eternity, as you know, our

Saviour is still careful to indigitate, when he speaks of hell, in love and warning unto men's souls, that they might be moved by the moment thereof to endeavour to escape it.

Now, it being thus, this infinitely superadds unto all the former. The former heads have given demonstration to us, wherein the substance of this great punishment consists, and then comes in this as the fatal and final rolling stone upon the grave or sepulchre of souls. And with the grave hell is oft paralleled. Or these two imports thereof are as two millstones hung about the necks of those that are plunged into this lake, to sink them down for ever; for these two things mentioned do work in the spirits of those that undergo it, perfect fear and perfect despair. The effects of both which make up a perfection of misery in such a state.

1. Perfect despair. Hope was given to reasonable and intelligent natures (and in peculiar unto them) to be as a breathing hole in time of misery, to keep up life in such an one whereby to sustain itself.

And the reasonable soul being in its duration eternal, and having an eternity of time to run through and sail over, hath this privilege, denied to beasts, to take a prospect or foresight of time that is yet to come, and if it can spy out any space or spot of time in which it shall

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