Chapter VIII (continued, part 2)
1. How it is justice heightened by wrath to a fury, and all of these whet
ting on and drawing out the greatness of power. And to this purpose we
find, as was observed, power and wrath joined, in Horn. ix. 22 and Ps. xc.,
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 im
ports 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 fun*.
(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. Ixxviii. But the butt and mark which revenge shoots its arrows at, is an enemy, as both out of Nahum and the twentyseventh verse
of this chapter was observed. And not only so, but such as are irrecon-
cileable 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 ?
8. 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 re
venge 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
l Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. No
himself, this hath a glory in it :
542 AN UNKEGENEBATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
* severity, Kom. xi. 23 ; and James ii. 13, ex
wonder, then, if it be termed
pressly, judgment without mercy ; and perhaps in that respect also it is,
that, Rev. xiv. 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. ii. 1C, 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. iii. 17, so his wrath satisfies itself in accomplishing vengeance
* I will ac
: Ezek. vii. 8, 9,
complish 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 ix. 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. xxiv. 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. 1. 21, and sets his terrors in battle array against thee; it is Job s expression, chap. vi. 4, and the same word in both places. And as it marshals all, so whets on to vengeance
: Prov. i. 25, Ye have
set at nought all my counsel ; I will therefore laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh.
1 It is wisdom speaks this, ver. 20. Be not
deceived, saith the apostle, God is not mocked, Gal. vi. 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
CHAP. VIII. ] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 543
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
* Hell and destruction are never full, or satisfied, as the next words shew the meaning to be. Then
that they can come to satisfy
: Prov. xxvii. 20,
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. xxii. 15, that love and make a lie; and Rom. iii. 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. ix. 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.
ii. 4, 5, They have despised the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering ; 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 ^vas 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 iv. 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
: lasa
patiantia fit Juror. Though he is not so of himself, Fury is not in me,
says he, Isa. xxvii., 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 ecclesi
astical 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 com mon 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
544 AN UNBEGENEBATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFOBE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
children lost, servants destroyed by fire from heaven, his estate quite gone unto an extremity of poverty, his wife abhorring his breath, fand tempting him to blasphemy, all this while the text tells us, chap. ii. 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 v., 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 impa tience too ? He was not pricked to the quick till now. But then he begins to curse the day of his birth, chap. iii. 1-3, and at that rate talks all along that chapter. For brevity, let us only consult his lamentations, in chap. vi.
* Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid
vers. 2-4,
in the balances together, for now it would be heavier than the sand, there
fore 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. i. 21 ; and again, Shall we receive good from the hand of the
Lord, and not evil ? chap. ii. 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 us, For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the
poison whereof drinks up my spirits ; the terrors of God do set them
selves in array against me. Let us go on duly to weigh and consider these
passages of his.
Heman, in his horrors, had complained, Ps. Ixxxviii. 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. xxvii. 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 with
out on the shore, they do make an immense bulk 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
ClIAP. VIII.] IN RESPECT OP SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 545
* 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
off his next speech utters,
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 ho 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 afflic
tions 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 theso 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. xiii. 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 pre-occupation 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 VOL. x. Mm
5-16 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFOEE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
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 1 cannot bear : so ver. 12, Is my strength the strength of stones, or my flesh brass, that
1 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, xvi. vers. 12-14, He hath broken me asunder: he bath 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 dispen sations 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 thorn, 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 kind
ness and thoughts of peace all the while. According to that in Isa. liv. 8,
1 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with ever
lasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.
Yea, those two known cordial recipes, so frequently made use of, and com
monly taken by most Christians in their distresses, and cited by two apostles, James i. 12, chap. v. 11, Heb. xii. 5, and Christ himself from heaven, Rev.
iii. 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. v. 17, and are
particularly applied to that his condition in the worst of it by the Holy Ghost, James v. 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 i. 11. Oh think, then, how great will that vengeance be which is pure wrath, Rev. xiv., which is out of fury, as was shewn, which is the fiery in
dignation 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. ii. 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 chastise ments 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 :
* Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and
Ps. Ixxxix. 32, 33,
: nevertheless, my loving-kindness will 1 not ut
their iniquity with stripes
terly 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
CHAP. VIII. ] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 547
but they may be and were healed again ; as in the same book you also find
it, chap. v. 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 iv. 81. Yea, but these wherewith \ucked men in hell are eternally lashed and cut off, are rods of revenge s making ; rods of iron (as the psalmist in that second Psalin 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 chil dren of God are in measure, as Isa. xxvii. 7, 8, but of these in hell it may be and is said that wrath cometh upon them without measure. Again, ia the midst of these corrections he remembers mercy, but in this of hell there
is judgment without mercy, James ii. 13. In those other stripes given his children God himself is afflicted, and feels every stroke he gives them, as Jer. xxxi. 20, and Isa. Ixiv ; but in these in hell, vengeance and justice do satisfy themselves in their deserved damnation. It is styled a sacrifice
to him, Mark ix. 48, 49, compared, and elsewhere.
Stoatully, The same inference may be much more raised from those in stances given of bad men suffering in this life the like terrors to those men
tioned. 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. Ixxv. 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 in herited by flesh and blood, so nor the torments of the fulness of this wrath. Bat 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 tha: 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. xxix. It is but smoke ; but in
hell it breaks forth into raging flames of the fiercest fires, Luke xvi. 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
ta 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
548 AN UNREGENEBATE MAN*S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XIII.
inflict it. His being the living God notes out, 1, eternity; 2, with a con tinuation of acting all 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 de
nomination, specially and so eminently given him here, when this punish ment 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 attri buted 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 ix. 18, he followed
* upon another. You have both these set forth in one and the same scripture
* with one breach, as he there speaks,
his strokes so thick,
: Rev. xiv.
* 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
10, 11,
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 mo ment 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 r.n 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 pros
pect 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 have happiness or ease, or outlive its misery,
it will not utterly die ; yea, it will harden itself against present misery with
this thought, that, however, it shall not always be thus with me. But on
the contrary here, by reason of this ability of foresight, it comes to pass that
a wretched soul in hell, viewing and turning over all the leaves of time to
eternity, both finds that it shall not outlive that misery, nor yet can it find one space or moment of time of freedom and intermission, having for ever to do with him who is the living God. And then it dies and dies again, and
sinks into a gulf of despair for the future, as well as it is swallowed up with
present sense of wrath.
CHAP. IX. J IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 549
2. Perfect fear. Which these likewise cause, and keep up within that
soul, and that continually, of all their misery that is yet to come. And the
nature of fear is to outstrip a man s misery, and to take them up before they come, as hopes use to do our comforts, so as by reason thereof it comes to
pass that the soul is not only tormented by what it at present feels, but with
the thought of all that is to come, which still further strikes the soul through and through. So as this thought, that it will be with me thus for ever and
ever, makes it completely miserable. Yea, hereby the soul doth come all
along in every instant to endure and be possessed in fears and dreadful ap prehensions of all that woe that in eternity is yet to come, as well as that at
present.