The Practice of Piety, Treatise · Part 2
Meditations of the misery of a man not reconciled to God in Christ.
O Wretched man!Damnatus antequam natus. Aug▪ where shall I begin to describe thine endless misery? who art condemned as soon as conceived: and adjudged to eternal Death, before thou wast born to a temporal Life… A beginning Indeed I find, but no end of thy miseries. For when Adam and Eve bei…g created after God's own Image, and placed in Paradise, that they and their Posterity might live in a blessed state of Life Immortal, having dominion over all earthly Creatures, and only restrained from the Fruit of one Tree, as a sign of their subjection to the Almighty Creator, tho' God forbad them this one small thing under the penalty of eternal Death; yet they believed the Devil's Word before the Word of God, making God (as much as in them lay) a Lyar. And so being unthankful for all the benefits which God bestowed on them, they became male-content with their present state, as if God had dealt enviously or niggardly with them, and believed that the Devil would make them pertakers of far more glorious things than ever God had bestowed upon them; and in their pride they fell into High Treason against the most High, and disdaining to be God's Subjects, they affected blasphemously to be Gods themselves, Equals unto God. Hence, till they repented, (losing God's Image) they became like unto the Devil; and so all their posterity, as a traiterous brood, (whilst they remain impenitent like thee) are subject in this life to all cursed miseries, and in the life to come, to the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels.
Lay the aside for a while thy doting vanities, and take the view with me of thy doleful miseries, which duly survey'd, I doubt not but that thou wilt conclude, that it is far better never to have Natures Being, than not to be by Grace a Practitioner of Religious Piety.
Consider therefore thy misery. 1. In thy Life. 2. In thy Death. 3. After Death in thy Life.
1. The miseries accompanying thy Body.
2. the miseries which deform thy Soul.
In thy Death, The miseries which shall oppress thy Body and Soul.
After Death, The miseries which overwhelm both Body and Soul together in Hell.
And first let us take a view of those miseries which accompany the Body according to the four Ages of thy Life.
1. Infancy. 2. Youth. 3. Manhood. 4. Old Age.
Meditations of the Miseries of Infancy.
WHAT wast thou, being an Infant but a Brute, having the shape of a Man? Was not thy body conceived in the heat of Lust, the secret of shame and stain of Original Sin? And thus wast thou cast naked upon the …arth, all embrewed in the blood of filthiness; (filthy indeed, when the Son of God, who disdained not to take on him Man's Nature and the Infirmities thereof, yet thought it unbeseeming his Holiness to be conceived after the sinful manner of Man's Conception) so that thy Mother was ashamed to let thee know the manner thereof; what cause then hast thou to boast of thy Birth, which was a cursed pain to thy Mother, and to thy self the entrance into a troublesome life? the greatness of which miseries, because thou couldst not utter in words, thou didst express (as well as thou couldst) in weeping tears.
2. Meditations of the Miseries of Youth.
WHat is Youth, but an untamed Beast; all whose Actions are rash and rude, not capable of good Counsel when it is given, and Ape-like, delighting in nothing but in Toys and Babies? Therefore thou no sooner beganest to have a little strength and discretion, but forthwith thou wast kept under the Rod, and fear of Parents and Masters: as if thou hadst been born to live under the Discipline of others, rather than at the Disposition of thine own will. No tired Horse was ever more willing to be rid of his Burthen, than thou wast to get out of the servile state of this Bondage. A state not worthy the Description.
3. Meditations of the Miseries of Manhood.
WHat's Man's Estate but a Sea, wherein (as Waves) one trouble ariseth in the neck of another; the latter worse than the former? No sooner didst thou enter into the Affairs of this World, but thou wast inwrapped about with a cloud of miseries. Thy flesh provokes thee to lust, the world allures thee to pleasures, and the Devil tempts thee to all kind of Sins; fears of Enemies affright thee, suits in Law do vex thee, wrongs of ill Neighbours do oppress thee, cares for Wife and Children do consume thee, and disquietness betwixt open Foes and false Friends do in a manner confound thee: Sin stings thee within: Satan lays snares before thee. Conscience of sins past doggeth behind thee. Now Adversity on the left-hand frets thee, anon Prosperity on the right-hand flatters thee; over thy head GOD's vengeance due to thy sin, is ready to fall upon thee; and under thy feet Hell's Mouth is ready to swallow thee up. And in this miserable estate whither wilt thou go for rest and comfort? The House is full of cares, the Field full of toil, the country of rudeness, the City of Factions, the Court of Envy, the Church of Sects, the Sea of Pyrates, the Land of Robbers. Or in what state wilt thou live? Seeing Wealth is envied, and Poverty contemned; Wit is destru…ted, and Simplicity is derided; Superstition is mocked, and Religion is suspected; Vice is advanced and Virtue is disgraced O with what a body of Sin art thou compassed about in a World of Wickedness? What are thine Eyes but Windows to behold Vanities? What are thine Ears but flood gates to let in the streams of Iniquity? What are thy Senses, but matches to give fire to thy lusts? What is thine Heart but the Anvil, whereon Satan hath forged the ugly shape of all lewd affections? Art thou nobly descended, thou must put thy self in peril of Foreign Wars, to get the Reputation of earthly honour; oft-times hazard thy life in a desperate Combate, to avoid the aspersion of a Coward. Art thou born in mean estate? Lord! what pains and drudgery must thou endure at home and abroad to get maintenance? and all perhaps scarce sufficient to serve thy necessity; and when (after much service and labour) a man hath got something, how little certainty is there in that which is gotten? seeing thou seest by daily Experience, that he who was rich yesterday, is to day a begger; he that yesterday was in health, to day is sick; he that yesterday was merry and laughed, hath cause to day to mourn and weep; he that yesterday was in favour, to day is in disgrace; and he who yesterday was alive, to day is dead: And thou knowest not how soon, nor in what manner thou shalt die thy self. And who can enumerate the Losses, Crosses, Griefs, Disgraces, Sicknesses and calamities, which are incident to sinful man? To speak nothing of the death of Friends and Children, which ofttimes seem to be unto us far more bitter than present Death it self.
Meditations of the Miseries of Old Age.
WHat is Old Age, but the receptacle of all Maladies? For if thy Lot be to draw thy days to a long date, in comes old bald-headed Age, stooping under dot age, with his wrinkled Face, rotten teeth, and stinking breath, teasty with choler, wither'd with dryness, dim'd with blindness, obscured with dea…ness, over-whelm'd with sickness, and bowed together with weakness, having no use of any Sense but of the Sense of pain; which so racketh every member of his body, that it never easeth him of grief till it hath thrown him down to his Grave.
Thus far of the Miseries which accompany the body. Now of the Miseries which accompany chiefly the Soul in this Life.
Meditations of the Miseries of the Soul in this Life.
THE Misery of thy Soul will more evidently appear, if thou wilt but consider.
1. The felicity she hath lost.
2. The misery which she hath pulled upon her self by sin.
1. The felicity lost, was first the Fruition of the image of God, whereby the Soul was like unto God in*Col. 3. 10. knowledge, enabling her perfectly to understand†Rom. 12. 2 the revealed Will of God. Secondly, True holyness, by which she was fre… from all prophane error. Thirdly, Righteousness, whereby she was able to incline all her natural powers, and to frame uprightly all her Actions, proceeding from those powers: With the loss of this Divine Image she lost the love of God, and the blessed Communion which she had with his Majesty, wherein consisteth her life and happiness, if the loss of Earthly Riches vex thee so much, how should not the loss of this Divine Treasure perplex thee much more;
2. The misery, which she pulled upon her self, consists in two things:
1. Sinfulness.
2. Cursedness.
1. Sinfulness is an universal corruption, both of Her Nature and Actions: for HeraEpes. 2. 3. Gen. 6 5. Nature is infected with a proneness to every sin continually, thebRom. 12. 2. Ephes. 4. 17. Mind is stuffed with Vanity, thec1 Cor. 2. 14. Vnderstanding is darkned with Ignorance, thedPhil 2. 3. Will affecteth nothing but vile and vain things: All HereRom. 3. 12. Actions …re evil; yea, this deformity is so violent, that oftentimes in the regenerate Soul the Appetite will not obey the government of Reason and the Will wandreth after, and yields consent to sinful motions. How great then is the violenc… of the Appetite and Will in the Reprobate Soul, which still remains in her natural corruption! hence it is, that thy wretched Soul is so deformed with Sin, defiled with Lust polluted with Filthiness, outraged with Passions, overcarried with Affections, pining with Envy, overcharged with Gluttony, surfeited with Drunkenness, boiling with Revenge, transported with Rage, and the glorious Image of God transformed into the ugly shape of theaJohn 8. 44 Devil, so far as it oncebGen. 6. 6. repented the Lord that he ever made Man.
From the former flows the other part, of the Soul's Miseries, calledcDeut. 27. 36 Cursedness whereof there are two degrees.Gal. 3. 10.Psal. 119. 21
1. In part.
2. In fullness thereof.
1. Cursedness in part is that which is inflicted upon the Soul in life and death, and is common to her with the Body.
The Cursedness of the Soul in Life is the wrath of God, which lieth upon such a Creature so far, as that all things, not only Calamities, but also verydRom. 2. 4, 5. J…. 28. 13. Blessings, and eIsa. 28. 13.Graces, turn to ruine.fGen. 3. 8, 10. and 4 14. Heb. 2. 15. Terror of Conscience drives him from God and his service, that he dares not come to his Presence and Ordinances; but isgRom. 1. 21, 24, 2…. given up to thehEph. 2. 2. Col. 1. 13. slavery of Satan, and to his own Lusts, and vile Affections.
This is the Cursedness of the Soul in life; Now follows the Cursedness of the Soul and Body in Death.
Meditations of the Misery of the Body and Soul in Death.
AFter that the aged man hath conflicted with long sickness, and having indured the brunt of pain, should now expect some ease, in comes Death (nature's slaughter-man, God's Curse and Hell's Purveyor) and looks the Old Man grim, and black in the face; and neither pitying his age, nor regarding his long endured dolours, will not be hired to forbear either for silver or gold; nay, he will not take, to spare his life,Job 1. Skin for Skin, aud all that the old Man hath, but batters all the principal parts of his Body, and arrests him to appear before the terrible Judge.
And as thinking that the Old man will not dispatch to go with him fast enough, Lord! how many darts of Calamities doth he shoot through him, Stiches, Aches, Cramps, Fevers, Obstructions, Rheums, Flegm, Cholick, Stone, Wind, &c.
O what a ghastly sight it is, to see him then in his Bed, when Death hath given him his mortal wound! what a cold sweat over-runs all his body! what a trembling possesseth all his Members! the Head shooteth, the Face waxeth pale, the Nose black, the n…ther Jaw-bone hangeth down, the Eye-strings break, the Tongue faltereth, the Breath shortneth and smelleth earthly, the Thro…t …a…ti…th, and at every Gasp the Heart-strings are ready to break asunder.
Now the miserable Soul sensibly perceiv… her Earthly Body to begin to die; For …owards the dissolution of the universal Frame of the great World, the Sun … be turned into Darkness, the Moon into Blood, and the Stars shall fall from Heaven, the Air shall be full of Storms, and flashing Meteors, the Earth shall tremble, and the Sea shall roar, and mens hearts shall fail for fear, expecting the end of such sorrowful beginnings: So towards the dissolution of Man (which is the little World) his Eyes, which are as the Sun and Moon, lose their light, and see nothing but blood-guiltiness of Sin: The rest of the Senses, as lesser Stars, do one after another fail and fall; his Mind, Reason and Memory, as heavenly powers of his Soul, are shaken with fearful storms of Despair, and fierce flashing of Hell-fire; his earthly body beginneth to shake and tremble, and the humours, like an overflowing Sea, roar and rattle in his Throat, still expecting the woful End of these dreadful beginnings.
Whilst he is thus summoned to appear at the Great Assizes of God's Judgment… behold a Quarter-Sessions, and Gaol-Delivery, is held within himself, where Reason sits as Judge, the Devil puts in a Bill of Indictment, as large as that Book of Zechary, Zech. 5. 2. Exek. 2. 10.wherein are alledged all thy evil deeds that ever thou hast committed, and all the good deeds that ever thou hast omitted, and all the Curses and Judgments that are due to every sin. Thine own Conscience shall accuse thee, and thy Memory shall give bitter Evidence, and Death stands at the Bar ready, as a cruel Executioner, to dispatch thee.1 Joh. 3. 20. If thou shalt thus condemn thy self, how shalt thou escape the Just Condemnation of God, who knows all thy misdeeds better than thy self? Fain wouldst thou put out of thy mind the remembrance of the wicked deeds that trouble thee: but they flow faster into thy remembrance, and they will not be put away, but cry unto thee, We are thy works, and we will follow thee: and whilst thy soul is thus within, out of peace and order, thy Children, Wife, and Friends, trouble thee as fast, to have thee put thy goods in order; some crying, some craving, some pitying, some chearing; all like Flesh-Flies, helping to make thy sorrows more sorrowful. Luke 12. 20.Now the Devils, who are come from Hell to fetch away thy Soul, begin to appear to her, and wait, as soon as she cometh forth to take her and carry her away. Stay she would within, but that she feels the body begin by degrees to die, and ready, like a ruinous House, to fall upon her head. Fearful she is to come forth, because of those Hell-hounds which wait for her coming. O she that spent so many days and nights in vain and idle pastimes, would now give the whole world, if she had it, for one hour. delay, that she might have space to repent, and reconcile her self unto God. But it cannot be, because her body which joyned with her in the Action of sin is altogether now unfit to joyn with her in the exercise of repentance, and repentance must be of the whole Man.
Now she seeth that all her pleasures are gone as if they had never been; and that but only torments remain, which never shall have an end of being. Who can sufficiently express her remorse for her sins past, her anguish for her present Misery, and her terror for her torments to come?
In this Extremity she looketh every where for help, and findeth her self every way helpless.Prosopop…i… Thus in her greatest misery (desirous to hear the least word of comfort) she directs this, or the like Speech unto her Eyes: O Eyes, who in times past were so quick-sighted, can ye spy no Comfort, nor any way how I might escape this dreadful danger? But the Eye-strings are broken, they cannot see the Candle that burneth before them, nor discern whether it be Day or Night.
The Soul (finding no comfort in the Eyes) speaketh to the Ears: O Ears, who were wont to recreate your selves, with hearing new pleasant Discourses, and Musicks sweetest Harmony, can you hear any news or tidings of the least Comfort for me? The Ears are either so deaf, that they cannot hear at all, or the sense of hearing is grown so weak, that it cannot endure to hear his dearest Friends to speak. And why should those Ears hear any tidings of Joy in Death, who could never abide to hear the glad tidings of the Gospel in this life? The Ear can minister no comfort.
Then she intimates her grief unto the Tongue: O Tongue, who wast wont to brag it out with the bravest, where are now thy big and daring words? now (in my greatest need) canst thou speak nothing in my defence? Canst thou neither daunt these Enemies with threatning words, nor entreat them with fair speeches? Alas, the Tongue two days ago lay speechless! It cannot in his greatest extremity either call for a little drink, or desire a Friend to take away with his finger the flegm that is ready to choak him.
Finding here no hope of help, she speaks unto the Feet; where are ye, O Feet, which sometime were so nimble in running, can you carry me no where out of this dangerous place? the Feet are stone-dead already: if they be not stirred, they cannot stir.
Then she directs her Speech unto her Hands: O Hands, who have been so often approved for Manhood, in peace and war, and wherewith I have so often defended my self, and offended my Foes; never had I more need than now. Death looks me grim in the face, and kills me: Hellish Fiends wait about my Bed to devour me: help now, or I perish for ever Alas▪ the Hands are so weak, and do so tremble, that they cannot reach to the Mouth a Spoonful of supping to relieve languishing Nature.
The wretched Soul seeing her self thus desolate and altogether destitute of friends, help, and comfort, and knowing that within an Hour she must be in everlasting pains, retires her self to the Heart (which of all Members is primum vivens, and ultimum moriens) from whence she makes this doleful lamentation with her self.
O miserable Caitiff that I am!The doleful lamentation of the reprob…te Soul at the point of death. How do the sorrows of Death compass me! How do the floods of Belial make me afraid! Now have indeed the snares both of the first and second death overtaken me at once.2 Sam. 22. 5. O how suddenly hath Death stollen upon me with insensible degrees! like the Sun which the Eye perceives not to move, though it be most swift of motion. How doth Death wreak on me his spite without pity! The God of mercy hath utterly forsaken me; and the Devil, who knows no mercy, waits for to take me. How often have I been warned of this doleful Day by the faithful Preachers of God's Word, and I made but a Jest thereat? What profit have I now of all my Pride, fine House, and brave Apparel? What's become of the sweet Relish of all my delicious Fare? all the worldly Goods which I so carefully gathered, would I now give for a good Conscience, which I so carelesly neglected! and what Joy remains now of all my former fleshly Pleasures, wherein I placed my chief delight? those foolish Pleasures were but deceitful Dreams, and now they are past, like vanishing shadows; but to think of those Eternal Pains, which I must endure for those short Pleasures, pains me as Hell before I enter into Hell. Yet justly I confess, as I have deserved, I am served, that being made after God's Image, a reasonable Soul, able to judge of mine own Estate and having Mercy so often offered, and I intreated to receive it; I neglected God's Grace, and preferred the pleasures of sin before the religious care of pleasing God: lewdly spending my short time, without considering what Accounts I should make at my last end. And now all the Pleasures of my Life being put together, countervail not the least part of my present Pains: My Joys were but moment any, and gone before I could scarce enjoy them: My Miseries are eternal, and never shall know end. O that I had spent the Hours that I consumed in carding, diceing, playing, and other vile exercises, in reading the Scriptures, in hearing Sermons, in receiving the Communion, in weeping for my Sins, in fasting, watching, praying, and in preparing my Soul, that I might have now departed in the assured hope of everlasting Salvation! O that I were now to begin my Life again, how would I contemn the world and the vanities thereof! How religiously, and purely would I lead my Life! How would I frequent the Church, and sanctifie the Lord's-Day! If Satan should offer me all the treasures, pleasures, and promotions of this world, he should never intice me to forget these Terrors of this last dreadful Hour. But, O corrupt Carkase and stinking Carrion! How hath the Devil deluded us, and how have we served and deceived each other, and pulled swift Damnation upon us both! Now is my case more miserable than the Beast that perisheth in a Ditch: For I must go to answer before the Judgment-seat of the righteous Judge of Heaven and Eart… … I shall have none to speak for … and these wicked Fiends, who are privy … my evil deeds, will accuse me, and I cannot excuse my self. My own heart already condemns me, I must needs therefore be dain…ed before his Judgment-seat; and from thence be carried by these Infernal Fiends, into that horrible Prison of endless torments and utter darkness, where I shall never more see light, that first most excellent thing that God made. I who gloried heretofore in being a Libertine, am now inclosed in the very Claws of Satan, as the trembling Partridge is within the griping talons of the ravenous Faulcon, Where shall I lodge to night, and who shall be my Companions? O horror to think! O grief to consider! O cursed be the day wherein I was born, and let not the day wherein my Mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the Man that shewed my Father, saying, A Child is born unto thee, and comforted him. Cursed be that man, because he slew me not. O that my Mother might have been my Grave, or her Womb a perpetual Conception! How is it that I came forth of the Womb to endure these hellish sorrows! and that my days should thus end with eternal shame? Cursed be the day that I was first united to so lewd a body: O that I had but so much favour, as that I might never see thee more! Our parting is bitter and doleful, but our meeting again, to receive at that dreadful Day, the fulness of our deserved vengeance, will be far more terrible and intolerable. But what mean I thus (by too late lamentation) to seek to prolong time? My last hour is come, I hear the heart-strings break; this filthy house of Clay falls on my Head, here is neither hope, help, nor place of any longer abiding. And must I needs be gone? thou filthy Carcass; O filthy Carcass, with fare ill, fare well, I leave thee. And so all trembling she cometh forth; and forthwith is seized upon by Infernal Fiends, who carry her with a violence, torrenti simili, to the bottomless Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, where she is kept as a Prisoner, in torments, till the general Judgment of the great Day.Rev. 21. 8. Jude 5. 6. 1 Pet. 3. 19.
The loathsome Carcass is afterwards laid in the Grave. In which action, for the most part, the dead bury the dead; that is, they who are dead in sin, bury them who are dead for sin. And thus the godless and unregenerate worldling, who made Earth his Paradise, his Belly his God, his Lust his Law; as in his life he sowed vanity, so he is now dead, and reapeth misery. In his prosperity he neglected to serve God; in his adversity God refuseth to save him: And the Devil, whom he long served, now at length pays him his wages. Detestable was his life, damnable his death: The Devil hath his Soul, the Grave hath his Carcass; in which Pit of Corruption, Den of Death, and Dungeon of Sorrow, let us leave the miserable Caitiff, rotting with his Mouth full of Earth, his Belly full of Worms, and his Carcass full of Stench; expecting a fearful Resurrection when it shall be re-united with the Soul, that as they sinned together, so they may be eternally tormented together.
Thus far of the miseries of the Soul and Body in Death, which is but cursedness in part: Now follows the fulness of cursedness, which is the misery of the Soul and Body after Death.
Meditations of the misery of man after death, which is the fulness of Cursedness.
THe fulness of cursedness (when it falls upon a Creature, not able to bear the brunt thereof) presseth him down to that bottomlessaLuke 8. 28. & 16. 23 deep of the endless b1 Thess. 1. 10.wrath of Almighty God; which is called thecMat. 23. 33. damnation of Hell. This fulness of cursedness is either particular or general.
Particular, is that which in a less measure of fulness lighteth upon thedLuke 16. 22, 23. 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude ver. 6, 7. Soul immediately as soon as she is separated from the Body. For, in the very instant of dissolution, she is in the sight and presence of God. For when she ceaseth to see with the organ of fleshly eyes, she seeth after a spiritual manner, like Stephen, whoeActs 7. 5. saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at his right hand: Or as a Man, who being born blind, and miraculously restored to his sight should see the Sun, which he never saw before. And thereby the testimony of her own Conscience, Christ the righteous Judge, who knoweth all things, makes her by his omnipresent Power, to understand the doom and judgment that is due unto her sins, and what must be her eternalaPostquam anima de corpore est egressa, subito judicium Christi de se latum cognoscit. Aug. l. 1. de anim & èjus orig. c. 4. Hier. Fp. ad Pannat. state. And in this manner standing in the sight of Heaven, not fit for her uncleanness to come into Heaven, she is said to stand before the Throne of God. And so forthwith she is bAnima damnata continuò invaditur à daemonibus, qui crudelissimè eam rapientes ad infernum deducunt. Cyril. Alex. in Orat. de exit. anim. Matth. 5. 34. & 23. 21. Luke 12. 20. Luke 16. 22, 23. 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude ver. 6. Luke 16. 24carried by the evil angels, how came to fetch her with violence into Hell, where she is kept as in a Prison, in everlasting pains and chains, under darkness, unto the Judgment of the great Day: But not in that extremity of torments which she shall finally receive at the last Day.
The general fulness of cursedness is in ac2 Pet. 2. 9. Jude ver. 7. Rev. 11. 18. greater measure of fulness, which shall be inflicted upon both thydJoh. 5. 28, 29. Rev. 20. 13. soul and body, when (by the mighty power of Christ the supreme Judge of heaven and earth) the one shall be brought out of Hell, and the other out of the Grave, as Prisoners to receive their dreadful doom, according to their evil deeds. How shall the reprobate by the roaring of the Sea, the quaking of the earth, the trembling of theeMat. 24. 29. Luke 21. 24, 25. Powers of heaven, and terrours of heavenly signs, be driven at the worlds end, to their wits end! Oh, what a woful salutation will there be, betwixt the damned Soul and Body, at their re-uniting at that terrible Day!
O sink of Sin, O lump of Filthiness, (will the Soul say unto her Body) how am I compelled to re-enter into thee, not as into an habitation to rest, but as a Prison to be tormented together!The damn… Soal… apostrophe to the Body at their second meeting. how dost thou appear in my sight like Jephthah's Daughter to my greater torment! Would GOD thou hadst perpetually rotted in the grave, that I might never have seen thee again! How shall we be confounded together, to hear before God, Angels, and Men, laid open all those secret sins, which we committed together! Have I lost Heaven for the love of such a stinking Carrion? Art thou the flesh, for whose pleasures I have yielded to commit so many fornications? O filthy Belly, how became I such a Fool as to make thee my God! How mad was I for momentany joys, to incur these torments of eternal pains! Ye rocks and mountains, why skip ye so like rams, Psalm 144. 4. and will not fall upon me, to hide me from the face of him that comes to sit on yonder throne; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? Rev. 6. 16, 17. Why tremblest thou thus, Earth, at the presence of the Lord, and wilt not open thy Mouth and swallow me up, as thou didst Korah, that I be seen no more?
O damned furies! I would ye might without delay tear me in pieces, on condition that you would tear me into nothing! But whilst thou art thus in vain bewailing thy misery, the Angels hale thee violently away from the brink of the Grave, to some place near the Tribunal Seat of Christ, Ma… 13. 41.where being as a cursed Goat separated to stand beneath on Earth, as on *Mat. 25. 33.the left-hand of the Judge; Christ shall rip up all the benefits he bestowed on thee, and the torments he suffered for thee, and all the good deeds which thou hast omitted, and all the ungrateful villainies which thou didst commit against him and his holy Laws.
Within thee, thine own Conscience (more than a Thousand Witnesses) shall accuse thee; the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness, shall on the one side testifie with thy Conscience against thee; and on the other side, shall stand the holy Saints and Angels, approving Christ's Justice, and detesting so filthy a Creature; behind thee an hideous noise of innumerable fellow-damned Reprobates tarrying for thy company. Before thee †Ansel. Militat.all the World burning in flaming fire; above thee an ireful Judge of deserved Vengeance, ready to pronounce his Sentence upon thee; beneath thee, the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit, gaping to receive thee. In this woful estate, to hide thy self will be impossible; (for on that condition, thou wouldst wish that the greatest Rock might fall upon thee) to appear will be intolerable, and yet thou must stand forth, to receive, with other Reprobates, this thy Sentence, *Rev. 6. 16, 17. Bonavent. Postil. Dom. …. post Pent. Serm. 2.Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
Depart from me] There is a separation from all joy and happiness.
Ye cursed] There is a black and direful Excommunication.
Into fire] There is the cruelty of Fain.
Everlasting] There is the perpetuity of punishment.
Prepared for the Devil and his Angels.] Here are thy infernal tormenting and tormented Companions.
O terrible Sentence! from which the condemned cannot escape; which being pronounced, cannot possibly be withstood: against which a Man cannot except, and from which a Man can no where appeal: so that to the damned nothing remains but hellish torments, which know neither ease of pain, nor end of time. From this Judgment-seat thou must be thrust by Angels (together with all the damned Devils andRev. 21. 8. Reprobates) into the bottomless lake of utter darkness, that perpetually burneth with fire and brimstone. Whereunto as thou shalt be thrust, there shall be such weeping woes and wailing, that the cry of the company of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, when the earth swallowed them up, was nothing comparable to this howling; nay, it will seem unto thee an Hell before thou goest into Hell, but to hear it. Into which bottomless lake after that thou art once plunged, thou shalt ever be falling down, and never meet a bottom; and in it thou shalt ever lament, and none shall pity thee; thou shalt always weep for pain of the Fire, and yet gnash thy Teeth, for the extremity of Cold; thou shalt weep to think that thy miseries are past remedy: thou shalt weep to think, that to repent is to no purpose: thou shalt weep to think, how for the shadows of short pleasures thou hast incurred these sorrows of eternal pains: thou shalt weep to see how that weeping it self can nothing prevail; yea,Bonavent. in weeping, thou shalt weep more tears than there is water in the Sea, for the water of the Sea is finite, but the weeping of a Reprobate shall be infinite.
There thy lascivious Eyes shall be afflicted with sights of ghastly Spirits, thy curious Ears shall be affrighted with hideous noise of howling Devils, and the gnashing Teeth of damned Reprobates; thy dainty Nose shall be cloyed with noisom stench of Sulphur; thy delicate Taste shall be pined with intolerable hunger; thy drunken Throat shall be parched with unquenchable thirst; thy Mind shall be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures, which perished ere they budded, thou so foolishly lost Heaven's Joys, and incurredst Hellish Pains, which last beyond Eternity. Thy Conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder, when thou thinkest how often Christ by his Preachers offered the Remission of Sins, and the Kingdom of Heaven freely unto thee, if thou wouldest but Believe and Repent; and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those days; how near thou wast many times to have repented, and yet didst suffer the Devil and the World to keep thee still in impenitency, and how the day of mercy is now past, and will never dawn again.
How shall thy understanding be racked to consider, how for momentany Riches thou hast lost eternal Treasure, and changed Heaven's felicity for Hell's misery; where every part of thy Body, without intermission of pain, shall be continually tormented alike!
In these Hellish Torments, thou shalt be for ever deprived of the beatifical sight of GOD, wherein consisteth the sovereign good and life of the Soul. Thou shalt never see Light, nor the least sight of Joy, but lie in a perpetual Prison of utter Darkness, where shall be no Order, but Horrour; no Voice, but of Blasphemers and Howlers; no Noise but of Torturers and tortured; no Society, but of the Devil and his Angels, who being tormented themselves, shall have no other ease, but to wreak their Fury in tormenting thee: Where shall be punishment without Pity; misery, without mercy; sorrow, without succour; crying, without comfort; mischief, without measure; torment, without ease; where the Worm dieth not, and the Fire is never quenched; where the Wrath of God shall seize upon the Soul and Body,Matth. 9. as the flame of fire doth on the lump of Pitch or Brimstone. In which flame thou shalt ever be burning, and never consumed; ever dying, and never dead; ever roaring in the pangs of Death, and never rid of those pangs, nor knowing end of thy pains. So that after thou hast endured them so many thousand years as there are Grass on the Earth, or Sands on the Seashore, thou art no nearer to have an end of thy torments, than thou wast the first day that thou wast cast into them; yea, so far are they from ending, that they are ever but beginning. But if after a thousand times so many thousand years, thy damned Soul could but conceive a hope that those her torments should have an end, this would be some Comfort, to think that at length an end will come: But as oft as the Mind thinketh of this word Never, it is as another Hell in the midst of Hell.
This thought shall force the damned to cry foreign, as much as if they should say foreign, O Lord, not ever, not ever, torment us thus. But their Consciences shall answer them as an Echo, foreign, ever, ever. Hence shall arise their doleful foreign, wo and alas for evermore.
This is that second Death, the general perfect fulness of all cursedness, and misery, which every damned Reprobate must suffer, so long as GOD and his Saints shall enjoy bliss and felicity in Heaven for evermore.
Thus far of the misery of Man in his state of corruption, unless he be renewed by Grace in Christ.
Now followeth the knowledge of Man's self, in respect of his state of Regeneration by Christ.