Book XII
An unregenerate mans guiltiness by reason of the aggravations of his sitifulness.
[This Book was published separately by the author himself, and is contained
in Vol. IV. of the present edition, under the titles, AGGRAVATION OF SIN ; AGGRAVATIONS OF SINNING AGAINST KNOWLEDGE ; AND AGGRAVA TIONS OF SINNING AGAINST MERCY.
- ED.]
490 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
BOOK XIII.
Of the punishment of sin in hell. That the wrath of God is the immediate cause of that punishment.
For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recom
pense, saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. HEB. x. 30, 81. In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lo?d Jesus Christ : who shall be punished ivith ever
lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, andfrom the glory of his
power. 2 THES. i. 8, 9. What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, en dured with much long-suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ?
ROMANS ix. 22.
CHAPTER I.
The subject and general division of the discourse.
We have seen how sinful and guilty every man is in his unregenerate condition ; what last remains, is to consider the greatness of that punish ment, which all this sinfulness deserves : a punishment so great that it can not be comprehended by our thoughts, nor ever be sufficiently expressed. For what hell and destruction are, is a mystery, as well as what heaven is : and the true and proper notion or conception of either, are a riddle to the most of men. As
* eye hath not seen, ear not heard, nor hath it entered
* what God hath prepared for those
into the heart of man (the natural man),
that love him; so, nor what God hath prepared for them that hate him. For it is the same, and no other punishment but that which is
* prepared for the devil and his angels, as Christ says. And what it can be that should torment them, or be the immediate executioner of vengeance on them, the imagination of man, confined to worldly agents and instruments, cannot
divine or take in.
Other scriptures go metaphorically to work in setting out this punish ment by things outwardly, sensibly dreadful. But these scriptures (of all
other) that are my texts, do more plainly, and without parables, declare it to
us, in its immediate causes, and from them do leave us to infer the fearfulness.
For instance, other scriptures set it out tons as a prison, 1 Peter iii. 19,
large enough, to be sure, to hold men and devils : The wicked shall be turned into ;hell, and all the nations that forget God, Ps. ix. 17. As also
by their being retained in chains of darkness, 2 Peter ii. 4, where men must lie till they have paid the utmost farthing, Mat. v. 26 ; where is no
thing but darkness, utter darkness, blackness of darkness, Jude 4, that
is, an emptiness of all good, not a beam of light to all eternity ; also a place
CHAP. I.] IN KESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 491
of torment, Luke xvi. 28, -where there is not admitted one drop to cool one s tongue, in the midst of the most raging scorchings. Also, I find it elsewhere expressed by the most horrid punishments and tortures that were found amongst the nations, cutting men in pieces, dividing them in the miist (di^oT&^ffn, Mat. xxiv. 49, 51), tearing them in pieces, Ps. 1. 22 ;
* cutting tuem up to the backbone, Heb. iv. 12, 18 ;* drowning men in
perdition, 1 Tim. vi. 9, and that with millstones about their necks, as Christ adds, Mat. xviii. 6, to make sure they never rise again ; also unto a
being cast bound hand and foot, Mat. xxii. 13, into fire, to be burnt
alive ; a furnace of fire, twice in one chapter, Mat. xiii. 42, 49, 50 ; a lake of fire, and so drowned over head and ears for ever ; a lake fed with a stream of brimstone, which (of all matter that feedeth fire) is the most
fierce ; then again, eternal fire, and that never to be slacked or extin
guished. And you may with the like analogy go over whatever else of torment is most exquisite to outward sense.
But these and all else you can imagine, are but shadows and similitudes
(as I myself heard one upon the rack of terror of conscience cry out, in a
like comparison, These are but metaphors to what I feel), and indeed unto what the thing itself is. As to say of heaven, there are rivers of pleasures, a city whereof the streets are of gold, the gates of pearl, and such like, they are but metaphorical descriptions ; for it is God himself that is the fountain
of life. And oppositely it is said of the wrath to come, that God is a con
suming fire, Heb. xii. 20. But these scriptures which I have read, they all speak essences, quintes sences. And as hell is said to be naked before the Lord, and without a
covering, Job xvi. 1G, so do these words lay hell open nakedly, not unto our senses, but to the understanding of us, and then they leave us to infer Low fearful ! And although these scriptures consist of words that differ,
yet they conspire together in the same scope and matter, viz., to set out damnation to us in the true and proper causes, and the real horridness
thereof argued from those causes.
I shall confine myself to two heads ; and in handling thereof, what the
one of these scriptures is wanting in, the other will supply ; in what the
one is dark, the other explains.
The heads themselves I shall take as I find them in the first of these
Scriptures, Heb. x. 31.
First, That God himself, by his own hands, that is, the power of his
wmth, is the immediate inflicter of that punishment or destruction of men s
souls in hell. It is a falling into the hands of God.
Secondly, The dreadfulness of that punishment inferred and argued there
from : It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Which two are the doctrinal parts of this discourse. For the first, that God himself is the immediate inflicter, &c. For explication. We must distinguish how that God performs two parts
herein : 1. Of a judge, to give forth the sentence of his authority. 2. Of an
avenger, a party injured and provoked, and, as such, the inflicter. My scope
ia this distinction is, that we may, in reading the scriptures that speak ot
this punishment, know how to put a difference, and not transfer the whole
of God s agency in this matter unto that of sentencing it as a judge only. And besides that many scriptures do apart shew this distinction, there are
some that still carry along with them both these agencies, or hand of God in it
together, and yet as distinct ; the one under the term of wrath and vengeance,
* See for this the interpretation hereof in the Child of Liyht, &c., p. 49, 50. [Vol.
III. of this edition. ED.]
492 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
the other under the notion of its being a judgment, the judgment of God and the judgment of hell-fire,* as Mat. xxiii. 33. Thus first the text Heb.
x. terms it somewhile vengeance and fiery indignation, ver. 30, 27 ; then again judgment, as ver. 27, a fearful looking for of judgment, and ver. 30, the Lord will judge, &c. The like, Rom. ii. 5, 8, 9, where all is reduced in like manner to these two, God s righteous judgment, and his wrath and indigna tion treasured up. Also, 2 Thes. i., The righteous judgment of God, vers.
5,6, there is the sentence, and destroyed from the glory of his power as the inflicting cause, ver. 9 ; likewise Rom. ix., as sovereign Lord he shews
e%oveiav, authority in this punishment, ver. 21, and then as the immediate in-
* power of his wrath, ver. 22. That speech of our Saviour about this matter, one evangelist, Luke xii. 5, records it,
fiicter, wrath and TO dwarbv, the
* Who is able, E^ovaiav e^ov-ra, to cast into hell,
1 namely, as a judge who casts a malefactor into prison. The other, Mat. x. 28, Who is able, Tov ovvd-
j&zvov, to kill the soul, and to destroy body and soul in hell. Noting thereby that he useth his intrinsic power and force as the inflicter.
I shall be large in handling and proving this latter, as a great truth, con
cerning which I further premise, that I would not be understood to exclude other miseries, as inflicted by creatures used as God s instruments, accom
panying this ; but that which I contend for is, that principally and eminently above all sueh, it is the wrath and indignation of God himself, working im
mediately in and upon men s souls and consciences, that is intended in these and other scriptures. This is the subject of the first section of this
discourse.
And let it be noticed now at the entrance, that the same scriptures and reasons that shall be brought to prove this in this first section, will be found
again to serve as new arguments by way of inference, to set out and infer the latter also ; that is, the dreadmlness of it, as will appear in the second
section.