The Punishment of Sin in Hell, Section 1
A DISCOURSE OF THE Punishment of Sin in HELL: DEMONSTRATING That the Wrath of God is the immediate Cause of that PUNISHMENT.
HEB. 10. 30, 31. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompence, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judg his People.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
2 THESS. 1. 8, 9. 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.
ROM. 9. 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much long-suffering, the vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction.
WHat Hell and Destruction are, is Sect. I.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 entred into the Heart of Man (the Natural Man) what God hath prepared for those 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 should 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 Punishment 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 to us as a Prison, 1 Pet. 3. 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, Psal. 9. 17.] As also by their being retained in Chains of Darkness; 2 Pet. 2. 4. where Men must lie till they have paid the utmost farthing, Mat. 5. 26. where is nothing 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 of torment, Luke 6. 48. where there is not admitted one drop to cool ones Tongue (Luke 15.) 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 peices, dividing them in the midst, (foreign, Mat. 24. 49, 51.) tearing them in peices, Psal. 50. last, cutting them up to the Back-Bone, Heb. 4. 12, 13. *See for this, The interpretation hereof in the Child of Light, &c. pag. 49, 50.drowning Men in perdition, 1 Tim. 6. 9. and that with Milstones about their Necks, as Christ adds, Mat. 18. 6. to make sure they never rise again: also unto a being cast bound Hand and Foot, Mat. 22. 13. into Fire to be burnt alive; a Furnace of Fire, twice in one Chapter, Mat. 13. 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 Rev. 14. 19. Rev. 19. 20. & Chap. 20. 10. 14. 25. & chap. 21. 18. Mat. 3. 1. Mat. 18. 8. Mat. 25. 41.slackt or extinguisht. And you may with the like Analogy, go over what ever else of torment is most exquisite to outward Sense.
But these and all else you can imagine, are but Shadows and Similitudes (as I my self 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 it self is. As to say of Heaven, there are Rivers of Pleasures: a City, whereof the Strees 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 consuming Fire, Heb. 12. last.
But these Scriptures which I have read, they all speak essences, quintessences. And as Hell is said to be naked before the Lord, Job 16. 16.and without a covering; 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 how 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.