Divel perswaded our first parents to know it to know the excellency of good by the misery of evill by a wofull experimentall knowledge as light is known by darkness or sweetness by bitterness Then they shall be fully convinc'd in their judgements of that which no art of ours no evidence of the spirit could prevaile with them to believe that Gods justice is as infinite as his mercy and his mercy no larger than his truth That Christ is only a refuse for humble penitent believing sinners and none else that Hell is as hot and eternity full as long as Gods word and Ministers have told them 2 They shall be plagued in their consciences The conscience is taken to be a part of the practicall understanding Scientia cum scientia a reflex knowledge joyn'd with a direct knowledge and most of the rationall torments of the damned are discharged upon conscience and therefore the worme of conscience as instar omnium is synechdochically put for for all If a wounded conscience were an intolerable burden upon earth surely a damned conscience will be much more intolerable in Hell Some do cut this worme of conscience into three peices but cut it into an hundred and it will never die 1. Memoria praeteritorum 2. Sensus praesentium 3. Metus futurorum 1. The remembrance of things past 2. The sense of present misery 3. The fear of wrath to come But I may not enlarge upon these particulars least it swell this part of our discourse that it will not hold proportion with the rest While they lived here though the mighty word mannaged by Sons of thunder did often grate upon conscience that their sins were hardly the pleasures of sin for a season yet the spirit of slumber did often fall upon them and they might perhaps fall into some pleasing dream while that sleep lasted or they might be sear'd with an hot iron and made past feeling but when the pit shuts her mouth upon the sinner the conscience opens hers and opens it wide opens it so as it shall never be shut more the conscience is all feeling the sinner can never hope for any flattering anodine from his bribed conscience but must indure conscience as Judge Jury Witnes Executioner for ever ever When a sinner in hell shall look back upon his time upon earth and consider that God made him a reasonable creature fit to perform unto him reasonable service and reveal'd his righteous will in his law and Gospel both for matter and manner of his service and gâ—ve him his lot of being not onely in the bosome of his Church and in Gospel times but in reforming times when the Sun was broken out of a cloud and shined in strength and did strive with him by his Spirit in ordinances and providences making many gracious offers of Christ and with Christ himself and Spirit and all things belonging to their peace saying and swearing that he takes no delight in the death of sinners intreating and beseeching them to be reconciled to return and live expostulating with them why they will dye why they will not be gathered waiting with invincible patience and a very miracle of long-suffering when it will once be yet after all this after Christ and mercy and grace have been offered and refused after sin hath been reproved and yet continued in Faith and other graces have been pressed of as absolute necessity to Salvation and never heeded duty hath been taught and never performed seasons opportunitys have been offered and all neglected and frustrated and now to consider that there shall never be one call more one offer of grace more one opportunity to be saved more they are all lost and lost for ever this makes the heart to sinke and dye and this is the worm of consciencâ— that never dyes Sinners believe it though you can now slight Christ at your pleasure and wilfully neglect this great Salvation and deipise the riches of Gods patience and long-suffering and will not be brought to repentance all the cords of Love cannot draw you to it and neither scourges nor scorpions can drive you when this shal be lookt back upon in hell and the time is near it will prove the most torturing torment in the bottomless pit the most tormenting torture that the damned can meet with through all eternity Then let the stundiest sinner refuse to submit to the sentence of Damnation if he can let him turn away his ear from the clamours of his conscience if he can let him break prison get out of hell if he can or if he cannot as it is more than infinitely impossible then let men set themselves sericusly and seasonably to the preventing of it and make use of Gods gracious warnings that they never come into those torments 3. They shal be plagued in their Wills with stubborness and wilfulness God would and they would not here they would and God would not when they were departing hence but neither they nor God will when they come to hell the sinner that could not be wrought upon to be made willing in the time of Love shal be of obdurate that he shal be wilfull in the day of his wrath sins of the damned do partake much of that wilfulness that is in the sinners against the Holy Ghost here as here they sin willingly so there they sin wilfully As by Adam's sin mankind was bound up to good let loose to evil and that is all the moral freewil they have till through regeneration the Son hath made them free indeed so after judgement is past upon them the damned are utterly disabled from all good and their hearts are set in them to do wickedly so that they are sinning and yet suffering suffering and yet sinning for ever and ever The damned could well enough away with a hell of sin but they cannot indure a hell of suffering if that might but be abated it were the haven where they would be Objection But if sin be their delight is this wilfulness in sinning their plague and punishment Answer yea and as great as any for as Pharoah's hard heart was the biggest plague in Egypt that pull'd down all the rest so this sining frame of Spirit this sinning wilfully and with a hard heart is one of the greatest plagues of hell for if the sins of a sinners life were not more than enough this would find fuel to supply the fire for ever and ever 4. I shall but touch upon some of the passions and pass over to the next Love Joy Hope Desire being bereft of their objects the damned are bereft of them they would not love God nor what God loves here and there they cannot they would not joy in believing here with joy unspeakable and glorious the joy of grace and Salvation would not relish with them and now they have nothing to rejoyce in while they lived they made a kind of a mock-consolation of the pleasures of sin of the Profits
the other of righteousness unto life and the sentence passed on them both you shall find very punctually recorded Mat. 25. from 31. to the end Wherefore is the word so exact in all these but to assure us that there is nothing of greater certainty than death and judgement O what should those have to do with sin that must be brought to judgement If they be brought to judgement in their sins that is before they have confessed forsaken their sins before they have accused and condemned themselves they cannot stand in the judgement Can dust stand before a whirlwind or stubble before a consuming fire Solomon throws this judgement as a stumbling block in the way of licentious youth to stop them in their full careere and to be a means to teach the young man how to cleanse his way Eccles. 11.9 Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart cheer thee in the daies of thy youth and walk in the waies of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes but know that for all these things God will bring thee to judgement The former part of that verse looks lovely in the eyes of a libertine and speaks to his very heart but it hath as sad a farewell as ever was heard In the former part the preacher speaks Ironically and in jest but in the last he speaks plainly and in good earnest thou maist if thou wilt do as thy list but do if thou darest for know this take it home with thee take it home to thy heart receive the point of this sword into the very heart of thy beloved sin and if it kill it not or give it a deaths wound tell thy self that thou hast a strong heart a heart that is sermon-proof tell God so desire him day night to take away thy heart of stone and to give thee an heart of flesh 3. Hell and condemnation is commended as the third subject of our Meditation for as after death cometh the judgement so after judgement cometh the death Had not men need to fear double least they dye a double death If men be so scared at the face of the death naturall what should they be at the thoughts of death eternal in comparison whereof the other death is but a shadow of death It was said of Jezebells children Revel 2.23 I will kill her children with death Though all dye yet believers are not kill'd with death as the Spirit directed John to say unto Sardis Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead Rev. 3.1 We may say the contrary of sound believers they have but a name to dye and are alive that 's the thing which kills the Soul that is but the name which kills the body This death beyond death is that which the Scripture calls the second deathâ— Revel 21.8 The fearfull and unbelieâ—â—ng and abominable and murderers and Whoremonâ—ers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death and Revel 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power O what should men do with sin when if they will have it they must have hell to boote durst a malefactour play his pranks if the Judge lookt on him that must condemne him and the torments were in sight that were prepared for him If sinners did but see God frowning upon them and hell gaping for them if they did but see death before them and Judgement beyond death and hell beyond Judgement they could not surely sin with such a swinge as they do they could not sin so damnably without check and controule Sinners do but go aside once a day and seriously meditate on the great damnation that you have heard of and the Eternity of it but one half hour and if you do not walke the more warily humbly and circumspectly say I am a Lyar. One that writes the life of Mr. Mâ— Fuâ—â—â—r it his Holy State Perkins reports of him that he did pronounce the word Damn with such an emphasis that it left an Echo in the ears of his hearers a long time after Oh that I could make such an impression of this Doctrine upon your Memories that it may stick like a barbed Arrow in your consciences that may never be shaken out untill you break off your sins and unfainedly turn to God who is ready to forgive abundantly and to give liberally 4. Heaven and Salvation is proposed as the fourth matter of meditation and both these last do follow Judgement which sends the Goats on the left hand to hell and the Sheep on the right hand to heaven The Libertines of the age would perswade us that there is neither Hell nor Heaven but what is in the conscience but let us assure our selves if there were no other Hell or Heaven there would be none there if a conscience excusing in well doing did not flow from a Heaven in hope and a conscience accusing for evil doing did not proceed from a hell in fear surely there would be no such consciences let the fancies of these vain men pass for strong delusions and let us mind the true sayings of the everlasting Gospel which tell us that as the wicked go into everlasting punishment so the righteous into life eternall Matth. 25. ult How positively and alluringly doth the Scripture speak of this blessed blessed making place calling it the third Heaven 2 Cor. 12.2 The throne of God I say 66.1 we are directed to prefer our petitions to him as our Father dwelling heaven Mat. 6.9 An house not made with hands eternall in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 the seat of the blessed The kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world Matth. 25.34 shadowed out by the Mount Sion Heb. 12.22 23 24. and the new Jerusalem Revel 21.10 to the end wherein many excellent things are spoken of this City of God But I have spoken so largely both of the Prison of Hell and the Paradise of Heaven in the antecedent Doctrines of Salvation Damnation that the less may serve here O what should those do with sin that make it their refuge to lay hold on the hope that is set before them Ther 's no sin in heaven and if unclean sinners should be carryed thither in their uncleanness heaven would not be heaven to them It s the Saints holiness that makes heaven their happiness and the grace they bring thither that prepares them for that Joy unspeakable and glorious When we meet with temptations to sin let us remember Hell with its forerunners death and judgement and that will prompt us to say with Joseph How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God Gen. 39.9 And when we meet with temptations from sufferings let us remember Heaven and that will prompt us to say with Paul I count that the afflictions of this present world are not
will repudiate you and give you a bill of divorce and because you were no more faithfull in keeping the Oracles of God your Candlestick shall be removed and you shall be left in darkness and that Land of yours which is the glory of all Lands shall be like a desolated Desert and a forsaken Wildernes what is it that hath made such havock of late years in Germany that hath destroyed so many Towns and made such depopulations as our ears have heard of was it not the Lords Covenant-quarrel What was it that opened such bloudy sluces in England Scotland and Ireland and the Netherlands without all peradventure this sin of Gospel-refusing hath stricken the deadlyest stroakes in all our Wars and we may say to this sin as once Zippora said to Moses thou hast been a bloudy sin to us and if we shall go on to dishonour God and slight his Gospel and notwithstanding the loud out-cries of his Word and Sword we shall nourish that viper in our bosoms and shall foment those blasphemies and heresies that strike at the foundation and shall help on those divisions that threaten to deprive us of Verity and Purity as well as Unity we may take up a lamentation when it is too late and Sword Pestilence and Famine may be sent upon that errand to bring our sins to our remembrance which the Gospel in the mid'st of peace health and plenty could not fasten upon us It should be written with a pen of iron in every thankfull heart what wonderfull deliverances the Lord hath wrought for us especially those of the Spanish Invasion and the Powder-plot of which we may say in Davids words if the Lord himself had not been on our side may England now say if the Lord himself had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quik when they were so wrathfully displeased at us but blessed be the Lord that hath not given us over as a prey unto their teeth Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the Fowler the snare is broken we are delivered And shall we after all this betray our native Land into the cruel hands of our religious adversaries that would borrow all the politicks of Julian or Machiavill and make use of all the Stratagems and strength of the Devils heads and borns to deprive us of the Gospel Surely we cannot take a likelier course to effect all this than by going on to neglect this great Salvation which if this Gospel-glutted Land shall persist in doing notwithstanding the warnings of all Gods Watchmen when the Sword of the Lord shall devour greedily your flesh and his arrows shall make themselves drunk with your bloud when your sins have made this populous and plentifull Land a place of sculls and a field of bloud when the hornet of your conscience shall sting you like the pangs of death and say unto you as Nathan to David you are the men that have done this you will then know that you are Traitors to the State who have betrayed your Country into the Enemies hand We read that the Cananites dwelled in garrisons walled up to Heaven and yet their sinns delivered them up into the hands of spoilers and though our fenced Cities had walls as high and thick as the walls of Babylon yet the sin that is within would let in the enemy Though our Armies were never so mighty and numerous Our Counsellors and Statesmen the very Oracles of the time Yet they are the faithfull Ministers and people that are the Charets of Israel and horsemen of it And our greatest security under Heaven lies in such as teach and live the Gospel such as know and do and declare the will of God and indeavour to keep a conscience voyd of offence towards God and man and order their whole conversation as it becometh the Gospel of Jesus Christ 4 Reason of the greatness of this sin is because it is a Church-confounding sin There hath been a great crying down of Churches in our dayes by giddy sectaries but this is a short cut to destroy all and to turne the Lords vineyard into a howling wilderness All the secret underminings of schismes within and the malignant batteries of persecutors without can do but little hurt so long as he is our keeper that never slumbers nor sleepes and is able to make his Church bear up against the gates of Hell but when by setting light by the Gospel we do put God from us open a wide dore to our own overthrow then the wild bore and beasts may make havoek the adversaries may fall on and cry downe with it downe with it even to the ground and the Churches Enemies may say as Davids enemies did of him God hath forsaken him persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him What it was that made the Lord God of Israel to forsake his tabernacle in Shilo and utterly to forsake the Jewes you hard in the last reason for it was their setting light by Christ that did overthrow their State and Church too What was it that made Babylon the great to fall and Rome to be unchurched whose fame and faith made the world to ring but because of Christian they became Antichristian and from Apostolicall did turne retrograde and became Antipostolicall and of a Church of the living God a pillar and ground of the truth they became an Hydra of Heresy and Synagogue of Satan What removed the Candlesticks from the seven famous Churches of Asia and fills their eares with the forgeries of Mahomet where the sound of the Gospel was wont to ring read the Prophesies that went of them in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation and you will find it was for turning their backs upon the Gospel and entertaining falshood insteed of truth And what hath made the Lord to stand so often upon the threshold amongst us as if he were ready to take his leave though like a long suffering God and he yet plaies â—oath to part If we do but take these following causes among many into close consideration we may easily informe our selves 1 How many in this Goshen and Land of light do stand in open opposition to the Gospel and as it were bid defiance to God and Christ How have sectaries swarmed of late and such as openly oppose the truths of God yea the very fundamentalls opening their black mouthes wide against God and Christ and the Spirit and the Word and Seales and Sabboth and Ministry some denying the immortality of the Soul and perswading men that they are without Law and that there is neither Heaven nor Hell And besides these how many dissolute and profane Spirits abound in all places even under searching and powerfull Ministries that in words profess Christ but in workes deny him 2 How few do close with the Covenant of God so visibly that they may pass for beleiver in a large sence and be conversed with