and past recovery; how would this foolish action gall him, upon the discovery of the riches in it! Such a one's case may be a faint resemblance of the case of despisers of the gospel, when in hell they lift up their eyes, and behold that to their torment, which they will not see now to their salvation. (2.) That they have lost it for loss and dung; sold their part of heaven, and not enriched themselves with the price. They lost heaven for earthly profits and pleasures, and now both are gone together from them. The drunkard's cups are gone, the covetous man's gain, the voluptuous man's carnal delights, and the sluggard's ease: nothing is left them to comfort them now. The happiness they lost remains indeed, but they can have no part in it for ever.

USE. Sinners, be persuaded to come to God through Jesus Christ, uniting with him through a mediator, that ye may be preserved from this fearful separation from him. O be afraid to live in a state of separation from God, lest that which ye now make your choice, become your eternal punishment hereafter! Do not reject communion with God, cast not off the communion of saints, for it will be the misery of the damned to be driven. out from that communion. Cease to build up the wall of separation betwixt God and you, by continuing in your sinful courses; repent rather in time, and so pull it down, lest the cap-stone be laid upon it, and it stand for ever between you and happiness. Tremble at the thoughts of rejection and separation from God. By whomsoever men are rejected on the earth, they ordinarily find some to pity them: but if ye be thus separated from God, ye will find all doors shut against you. Ye will find no pity from any in heaven, neither saints nor angels will pity them whom God has utterly cast off. None will pity you in hell, where there is no love, but loathing, all being loathed of God, loathing him, and loathing one another. This is a day of losses and fears. I show you a loss ye would do well to fear in time; be afraid lest you lose God: if ye do, a long eternity will be spent in roaring out lamentations for this loss. O horrid stupidity! men are in a mighty care and concern to prevent worldly losses; but they are in hazard of losing the enjoyment of God for ever and ever; in hazard of losing heaven, the communion of the blessed, and all good things for soul and body in another world, yet as careless in that matter, as if they were incapable of thought. Oh! compare this day with the day our text aims at. This day is heaven opened to them, who hitherto have rejected Christ, and yet there is room, if they will come: but that day the doors shall be shut. Now Christ is saying uuto you, Come: then he

will say, Depart: seeing ye would not come when ye were bidden. Now pity is shown: the Lord pities you, his servants

pity you, and tell you that the pit is before you, and cry to you, that ye do yourselves no harm, but then ye shall have no pity from God nor man.

SECONDLY, The damned shall be punished in hell with the punishment of Sense: they must depart from God into everlasting fire. I am not in a mind to dispute what kind of fire it is which they shall depart into, and be tormented by for ever, whether a material fire or not? Experience will more than satisfy the curiosty of those, who are disposed rather to dispute about it, than to seek how to escape it. Neither will I meddle with that question, Where it is? It is enough that the worm which never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched, will be found somewhere by impenitent sinners. But (1.) Í shall evince that whatever kind of fire it is, it is more vehement and terrible than any fire we on earth are acquainted with. (2.) I shall condescend on some properties of these fiery torments.

As to the first of these, burning is the most terrible punishment, and brings the most exquisite pain and torment with it. By what reward could a man be induced to hold out his hand in the flame of a candle for an hour? All imaginary pleasures on earth would never prevail with the most voluptuous man, to venture to lodge but one half hour in a burning fiery furnace; nor would all the wealth in the world prevail on the most covetous to do it. Yet on much lower terms, do most men in effect expose themselves to everlasting fire in hell, which is more vehement and terrible than any fire we on earth are acquainted with, as will appear by the following considerations:

1. As, in heaven, grace being brought to its perfection, profit and pleasure do also arrive at their height there; so sin being come to its height in hell, the evil of punishment doth also arrive at its perfection there. Wherefore, as the joys in heaven are far greater than any joys which the saints obtain on earth, so the punishment of hell must be greater than any earthly torments whatsoever, not only in respect of the continuance of them, but also in respect of vehemency and exquisiteness.

2. Why are the things of the other world represented to us in an earthly dress in the word, but that the weakness of our capacities in such matters (which the Lord is pleased to condescend unto) does require it; it being always supposed, that these things of the other world are in their kind more perfect than that by which they are represented? When heaven is re

presented to us under the notion of a city, with gates of pearl, and the street of gold, we look not to find gold and pearls there, which are so mightily prized on earth, but something more excellent than these finest and most precious things in the world. When therefore we hear of hell-fire, it is necessary we understand by it something more vehement, piercing, and tormenting, than any fire ever seen by our eyes. And here it is worth considering, that the torments of hell are held forth under several other notions than that of fire simply; and the reason of it is plain, namely, that hereby what of horror is wanting in one notion of hell, is supplied by another. Why is heaven's happiness represented under the various notions of a Treasure, a Paradise, a Feast, a Rest, &c. but that there is not one of these things sufficient to express it? Even so hell-torments are represented under the notion of fire, which the damned are cast into. A dreadful representation indeed! yet not sufficient to express the misery of the state of sinners in them. Wherefore we hear also of the second death,' (Rev. xx. 6,) for the damned in hell shall be ever dying: of 'the winepress of the wrath of God,' (chap. xiv. 19,) wherein they will be 'trodden in anger, trampled in the Lord's fury,' (Isa. lxiii. 3,) pressed, broken, and bruised without end: "the worm that dieth not," (Mark ix. 44,) which shall eternally gnaw them: a bottomless pit,' where they will be ever sinking, Rev. xx. 3. It is not simply called 'a fire,' but "the lake of fire and brimstone," (ver. 19,) "a lake of fire burning with brimstone," (chap. xix. 20,) than which, one can imagine nothing more dreadful. Yet because fire gives light, and light, (as Solomon observes, Eccl. xi. 7,) is sweet;' there is no light there, but darkness, utter darkness,' Matth. xxv. 30. For they must have an everlasting night, since nothing can be there, which is in any measure comfortable or refreshing.

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3. Our fire cannot affect a spirit, but by way of sympathy with the body to which it is united; but hell fire will not only pierce into the bodies, but directly into the souls of the damned, for it is 'prepared for the devil and his angels,' these wicked spirits, whom no fire on earth can hurt. Job complains heavily under the chastisement of God's fatherly hand, saying, "The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit," Job vi. 4. But how will the spirits. of the damned be pierced with the arrows of revenging justice! How will they be drunk up with the poison of the curse on these arrows! How vehement must that fire be that pierceth directly into the soul, and makes an everlasting burning in the spirit, the most lively and tender part of a man, wherein wounds or pain are most intolerable!

LASTLY, The preparation of this fire, evinceth the inexpressible vehemency and dreadfulness of it. The text calls it prepared fire, yea, the prepared fire by way of eminency. As the three children were not cast into an ordinary fire, but a fire prepared on a particular design, which therefore was exceeding hot, the furnace being heated seven times more than ordinary, Dan. ii. 19, 22. So the damned shall find in hell a prepared fire, the like to which was never prepared by human art; it is a fire of God's own preparing; the product of infinite wisdom on a particular design, to demonstrate the most strict and severe dívine justice against sin; which may sufficiently evidence to us the inconceivable exquisiteness thereof. God always acts in a peculiar way becoming his own infinite greatness, whether for or against the creature: and therefore as the things he hath prepared for them that love him, are great and good beyond expression or conception; so one may conclude, that the things he hath prepared against those who hate him, are great and terrible beyond what men can either say or think of them. "The pile of Tophet is fire and much wood, (the coals of that fire are coals of juniper, a kind of wood which set on fire burns most fiercely, (Psal. cxx. 4,) and the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it," Isa. xxx. 33. Fire is more or less violent, according to the matter of it, and the breath by which it is blown: what heart can then fully conceive the horror of coals of juniper, blown up with the breath of the Lord! Nay, God himself will be "a consuming fire," (Deut. iv. 24,) to the damned; intimately present as a devouring fire in their souls and bodies. It is a fearful thing to fall into a fire, or to be shut up in a fiery furnace on earth; but the terror of these vanisheth, when one considers how "fearful it is to fall into the hands of the living God," which is the lot of the damned: for "Who shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings,' Isa. xxxiii. 14.

As to the second point proposed, namely, 'the properties,' of the fiery torments in hell.

1. They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a burning fiery furnace, the fire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched; what part then can have ease, when the damned swim in a lake of fire burning with brimstone? There will there bodies be tormented and scorched for ever. And as they sinned, so shall they be tormented, in all the parts thereof: that they shall have no sound side to turn them to: for what soundness or ease can be to any part of that body which being separated from God, and all refreshment

shall

from him, is still in the pangs of the second death, ever dying, but never dead? But as the soul was chief in sinning, it will be chief in suffering too, being filled brimful of the wrath of a sinrevenging God. The damned shall ever be under deepest impressions of God's vindictive justice against them: and this fire will melt their souls within them, like wax. Who knows the power of that wrath which had such an effect on the Mediator, standing in the room of sinners? Psal. xxii. 14, "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels!" Their minds shall be filled with the terrible apprehensions of God's implacable wrath: and whatever they can think upon, past, present, or to come, will aggravate their torment and anguish. Their Will shall be crossed in all things for evermore: as their Will was ever contrary to the Will of God's precepts: so God in his dealing with them in the other world, shall have war with their Will for ever. What they would have, they shall not in the least obtain: but what they would not shall be bound upon them without remedy.-Hence no pleasant affection shall ever spring up in their hearts any more: their love of complacency, joy and delight, in any object whatsoever, be plucked up by the root; and they will be filled with hatred, fury, and rage, against God, themselves, and their fellow-creatures, whether happy in heaven, or miserable in hell, as they themselves are. They will be sunk in sorrow, racked with anxiety, filled with horror, galled to the heart with fretting, and continually darted with despair; which will make them weep, gnash their teeth, and blaspheme for ever. Matt. xxii. 13,Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into utter darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Rev. xvi. 21, "And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." Conscience will be a worm to gnaw and prey upon them; remorse for their sins shall seize them, and torment them for ever; and they shall not be able to shake it off, as sometimes they did; for in hell" their worm dieth not," Mark ix. 45, 46. Their memory will serve but to aggravate their torment, and every new reflection will bring another pang of anguish, Luke xvi. 25. "But Abraham said, (viz. to the rich man in hell) Son, remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things."

2. The torments in hell are manifold. Put the case, that a man were at one and the same time, under the violence of the gout, gravel, and whatsoever diseases and pains have ever met together in one body; the torment of such an one would be