The Whole Duty of a Christian, Chapter 19
CHAP. XIX.
A description of Heaven and Hell, so farre as may be collected from the Word, according to the best Expositors.
§ 1. THus as the unbeleever and disobedient is cursed in every thing, and whereever he goes, and in whatsoever he does: Cur…ed in the City, and cursed also in the field; cursed in the fruit of his body, and in the fruit of his ground, and in the fruit of his Cattell: Cursed when he cometh in, and cursed also when he goeth ou…: cursed in this life, and cursed in the life to come; as is at large exprest, Deut. 28. So the Beleever that obeyes the voice of the Lord, shall be blessed in every thing he does whereever he goes, and in whatsoever befalls him: as God promiseth in the former part of the same Chapter, and as I have proved in the eleven foregoing Sections. Yea, God will blesse all that belong unto him, for his children and posterity, yea many generations after him shall fare the better for his sake: yea the very place where he dwells, perhaps the whole Kingdom he lives in. Whereas many, yea multitudes, even an whole Army, yea his childrens children, unto the third and fourth generation, fare the worse for a wicked man and an unbeleever. Besides, his prayers shall profit many; for he is more prevalent with God, to take away a judgement from a People or a Nation, then a thousand others. And he counts it a sinne to cease praying for his greatest and most malicious enemies; though they like fools, would (if they durst or were permitted,) cut him off, and all the race of Gods people; which is as if one with his hatchet should cut off the bough of a Tree upon which he standeth. For they are beholding to Beleevers for their very lives: yea it is for their sakes, and because the number of Christs Church is not yet accomplisht, that they are out of hell. But to go on, as all things (viz.) poverty, imprisonment, slander, persecution, sicknesse, death, temporall judgements, spirituall dissertions, yea even sinne and Satan himself) shall turn together for the best unto those that love God, as you have seen. So all things shall turn …ogether for the worse unto them that hate God; as all unb…leevers do, Rom. 1. 30. Io…. 15. 18. even the mercy of God, and the means of grace, shall prove their bane and inhance their damnation; yea Christ himself, that only summum bonum, who is a Saviour to all beleevers, shall be a just revenger to all unbeleevers: and bid the one, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels. Which shall be an everlasting departure, not for a day, nor for years of dayes, nor for millions of years, but for eternity; into such pains, as can neither be expressed nor conceived, Iude 6. 7. Rev. 20. 10. Mat. 3012. Heb. 6. 2.
§ 2. Wickednesse hath but a time, a short time, a moment of time: but the punishment of wickednesse is beyond all time; There shall be no …nd of plagues to the wicked man, Prov. 24. 20. Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, Isa. 66. 24.
§ 3. Neither is the extremity of pain inferior to the perpetuity of it; it is a place full of horror and amazednesse; where is no remission of sinne, no dismission of pain, no intermission of sense, no permission of comfort; its torments are both intollerable and interminable: and can neither be endured nor avoided when entred into, Rev. 19. 20. and 20. 14. and 18. 6. Mat. 25. 30. 2. Pet. 2. 4. Heb. 10. 27. Iude 6.
§ 4. The plagues of the first death are pleasant, compared with those of the second: For mountains of sand were lighter, and millions of …ears shorter, then a tythe of these torments, Rev. 20. 10. Iude 7. It is a death which hath no death; it hath a beginning, it hath no ending, Mat. 3. 12. Isa. 66. 24.
§ 5. The pain of the body, is but the body of pain, the anguish of the soul, is the soul of anguish: For should we first burn off one hand, then another, after that each arm, and so all the parts of the body, it would be deemed intollerable, and no man would endure it for all the profits and pleasures this world can afford; and yet it is nothing to that burning of body and soul in hell: Should we endure ten thousand years torment in hell, it were grievous; but nothing to eternity: Should we suffer one pain, it were miserable enough; but if ever we come there, our pains shall be for number and kindes, infinitely various, as our pleasures have been here; every sense and member, each power and faculty both of soul and body, shall have their severall objects of wretchednesse, and that without intermission, or end, or ease, or patience to endure it, Luke 12. 5. & 16. 23. Matth. 3. 12. & 5. 22. & 23. 33. Yea the pains and sufferings of the damned, are ten thousand times more then can be imagined by any heart under heaven, and can rather (through necessity) be endured, then expressed. It is a death never to be painted to the life 5 no pen nor pencill, nor art nor heart can comprehend it, Matth. 18. 8, 9, 10. & 25. 30. Luke 16. 23, 24. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Isa. 5. 14. & 30. 33. Pro. 15. 11.
§ 6. Yea were all the land paper, and all the water ink, every plant a pen, and every other creature a ready writer, yet they could not set down the least piece of the g…eat pains of hell fire.
§ 7. Now add eternity to extremity, and then consider hell to be hell indeed. For if the Ague of a year, or the Colick of a monethmonth, or the Rack of a day, or the burning of an hour be so bitter here; how will it break the hearts of the wicked, to feel all these beyond all measure, beyond all time; yet is all this truth, save that it comes farre short of the truth; this is much, it is not near all. For as one said, Nothing but the eloquence of Tully could sufficiently set forth Tully's eloquence: So none can express these everlasting torments, but he that is from everlasting to everlasting.
§ 8. Now what heart would not bleed to see men runne headlong into these tortures, that are thus intollerable? Daunce hood-winked into this perdition? O that it were but allowed to the desperate ruffians of our daies, that swear and curse, drink and drab, rob, shed blood, &c. (as if heaven were blind and deaf to what they do) to have but a sight of this hell! How would it charm their mouthes, apale their spirits, strike fear and astonishment into their hearts? Yea the Church and they would be better acquainted, which are now perpetual strangers. For I cannot think they would do thus, if they did but either see or foresee, what they shall one day (without serious and unfeigned repentance) feel; O that men would believe and consider this truth! and do accordingly.