Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A76068
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A sermon shewing the meanes how we may escape the damnation of Hell. To which end it was preached and is published by N.B.
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Basely, N.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing B1012; Thomason E579_4; ESTC R206165
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14,766
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23
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properties If you aske me Who they are that shall suffer this Damnation of hell I will tell you in brief not only who they are but also why they are Damned Who they are that shall suffer these paines of hell the Prophet David tells us in generall terms Psal 9.17 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the people that forget God All wicked and impenitent Sinners shall be Damned because they forget God and neglect to serve Him and fulfill his commands But to speak more particularly The first that was cast into hell was Lucifer And the cause why was his disobedience of God arising from his abominable pride The Devil was the first Rebell and for that rebellion lost his part in the unconceiable joyes of heaven and suffered the eternall paines of hell And they that take part with him in that or any other sinne shall be sure to suffer the same punishment that he and his Angels doe Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels That is the doom of the wicked pronounced by our Saviour at the last judgement as you may see Mat. 25.41 It was prepared for the Devil and his Angels even all those that disobey God's commands and preferre their owne will before His. For The whole and onely cause of Damnation saith Tertullian is Perversa administratio conditionis à conditis the ill-managing of the Creation by the Creatures that they are the things of this world not according to God's commands but according to their owne will Which gave just occasion to one of the antient Fathers to say That nothing doth burne in hell so much as the stuborne will of a Sinner And hence it is that the sinne of an obstinate and impenitent mind is punished eternally although committed in time and that perhaps a short time because that which was short in acting was long in respect of his stuborne will So that if such Sinners should never die they would never leave off to sinne yea they would alwaies live that they might alwaies sinne As in this life they would not cease from sinne although God did exhort threaten intreat and use all meanes possible So in the other life God will not leave off to punish them although they howle and lament grievously But that which makes the torments of the Damned to be endlesse is a continuall hatred which they have of Almighty God whose justice thus punisheth them And as long as they continue to hate God what mervaile is it if God persevere to punish them As their sinne is so likewise is their punishment without any end Then shall that be truly fulfilled which is written Revel 9.6 In those daies shall men seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them Never was sleep so welcome to a drowsie head Jer. 51.57 as death such as the Prophet Jeremie calls a perpetuall sleep would be to those tormented soules It would be as Justine Martyr calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unexpected gaine For never did any condemned wretch at the houre of death so much desire life as the Damned amidst their everliving torments doe desire death such a death as might deprive them of all manner of beeing They would most willingly cease to Bee on condition that they might not be thus miserable Faction may drive men into strange opinions little lesse than blasphemie such as their's is who affirme that it is better to be eternally miserable than not to be at all But our Saviour's doctrine will alwaies be true Mat. 26.24 that it had been good for such men if they had never been borne that they never had any beeing at all It is in a case farre more tolerable onely in respect of the miseries of this life that Job wisheth Job 3.16 That he had been as an hidden untimely birth that he had not been as Infants which never saw light Accounting it much better not to have been at all than to suffer the miseries of this short and transitory life How much more were it to be desired by the Damned that they had no beeing at all than that they should alwaies suffer the unspeakable torments of endlesse burnings It is not more certaine that I speake or that you doe heare than it is sure that there is such a Damnation of Hell and that the paines thereof are more dreadfull than any tongue is able to utter or any heart to conceive But the greatest of all those torments is that which I have already told you and doe willingly touch it once againe to the end that you may alwaies remember it That after many thousand millions of ages the Damned are no neerer to the end of their torments than they were the very first minute that they entered into them Once into Hell and never out Then we cannot but now we may Escape this Damnation of Hell III. For unlesse there were a possibility for them to whom Christ spake to Escape this damnation of which He speaketh He would never have preached this Doctrine to them The end of Christ's preaching was the same which ought to be of all ours not to tell men that they are unavoidably damned but to teach them how they may be saved to shew them the meanes how they may escape this damnation The manner of speech which Christ here useth by way of question doth not argue an absolute impossibility but onely a a great difficulty to Escape this damnation of hell Although straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life Mat. 7.14 and few there be that find it yet some there are that find it and our fault it is and onely ours if we be not some of those few who find that way to heaven and so escape this damnation of hell For God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth They are Saint Paul's owne words 1 Tim. 2.4 Seing his will is that all men should be saved questionlesse he hath not absolutely decreed that any man should be peremptorily damned These two imply no lesse than a meere contradiction God forbid that Satan should so farre possesse the heart of any man as to perswade him that it were impossible for him to Escape the damnation of hell this were to make him cast off all the meanes which God in his word hath prescribed to that end This were to make all the exhortations admonitions promises and threatnings of God to be of none effect For why should God propose unto men or why should they use the meanes of obtaining salvation if it be not possible for them to Escape damnation God's promises are true and his threatnings serious As he is not mocked so neither doth he mock any man when he tells him Ezek. 18.28 that if he resent and turne from all his transgressions he shall surely live he shall not die God doth not will
houre that he entred into them This cannot chuse but strike the most hard heart that is into horrour When he shall consider that if all the lives of all creatures that have been from the beginning of the world with all those that shall be to the end of it were as I may say spun into one life it would be as nothing in respect of Eternitie When you meditate as I hope you often doe upon the paines of Hell doe but seriously thinke upon this one word Ever and you need say no more to expresse the paines of Hell that they are endlesse Mar. 9.44 That their worme dieth not neither is their fire quenched It is the property of this fire so to consume that it doth alwaies preserve And those that are punished with it doe so die that they doe alwaies live As the least paine in Hell is much more grievous than all the torments that can be suffered here on earth So the Eternitie of those paines and the continuall remembrance of it is more terrible than all those paines be they never so many and grievous I will not so much wrong this Christian audience as to go about to prove this truth unto you that the paines of hell are Endlesse That were to accuse you as either not knowing or not believing that which the very Heathen did acknowledge To signifie this they feigned one to be carried about continually in a wheele another to role a stone to the top of an hill which still returned back upon him others to fill a bottomlesse tub with water another to have his liver devoured by a Vulture all the day long and in the night-time to grow againe that it might alwaies be eaten but never consumed The Prophet David seemes to make the like allusion Psal 49.14 They lie in hell like sheep death gnaweth on them Signifying that as the grasse which is eaten by the cattell springeth and groweth againe because the root thereof which is the beginning of life still liveth So the damned being alwaies fed upon by the devouring fire shall never die because their soule the principall fuell of this fire is immortall Such as their soule is such shall be their torments immortall and endlesse The pasture of this field is immortall though it be alwaies eaten it alwaies springeth againe If you demand how it can stand with God's justice to punish a finite sinne with an infinite punishment Why he who hath sinned a few yeares should suffer eternall torments I answer that this dealing of God with impenitent sinners is most just not onely in respect of God against whom they have sinned whose Person is infinite and therefore the sinne against Him deserves the like punishment an infinite justice to be satisfied by an infinite torment But even in respect of the Sinner himselfe the punishment ought to be eternall For the paines of Hell are proportioned not only to the act of a Sinner which he hath done but to his will what he would have done if he might have lived for ever And then what wonder is it if he that would have sinned against God everlastingly if it had been in his power be everlastingly punished by God who hath power so to doe God does by him no otherwise than he would doe by God Neither are the torments of Hell more grievous to man than the sinnes of man are offensive to God Sinne is as much displeasing to the essence of God as torment is grievous to the nature of man And therefore no mervaile it is if God punish that with infinite torment which is infinitely displeasing to Him For in Hell the condition of the sinne and of the Sinner seeme to be somewhat alike in this respect that as the sinne may alwaies de punished but never cleansed so neither shall the torments in their body ever be ended nor the body be extinguished There the damned shall ever live to die and ever die to live That as there are eternall joyes prepared in heaven for those that love and serve God so there are everlasting torments ordained in Hell for those that disobey Him Which is the Damnation here spoken of How can ye Escape the Damnation of Hell II. Having shewed you not onely that there is a Hell but what this Hell is I need not stand to prove that there is a Damnation of this Hell that will follow by a necessary consequence No house is built but for some Inhabitant no punishment is prepared but for some Offender If there neither were nor would be Malefactors it were needlesse to build any Prisons God would never have made Hell but that in his infinite wisdome he foresaw that there would be some who would deserve it how intolerable so ever it were There have been and are some so malitious and obstinate in their sinnes that Hell it selfe if it were not infinitely miserable were not miserable enough to punish them for their wickednesse The Heathen who did acknowledge a Hell did believe that there was a Condemnation of all such as had lived wickedly in this life Those three Kings Aeacus Minos and Radamanthus who were famous for their justice here on earth were therefore feigned to have been Judges in the other world and to have rewarded each man according to his deserts the virtuous with faire Elysian fields and the wicked with burning and stinking rivers For seeing many who had committed notorious wickednesse as murder adultery rapine and the like haynous offences not onely to suffer no punishment in this life but even to enjoy great prosperity all their life long they did conclude as well they might that there was some time and place when and where God would execute upon them the effects of His justice and reward them according to their doings This opinion of theirs is very agreeable to the Christian doctrine which teacheth that justice is as proper to God as mercy that as by the one he doth reward the Godly with the joyes of Heaven so by the other he doth punish the Wicked with the eternall torments of Hell and Damnation Paravit coelum sed paravit tartarum c. God saith Saint Cyprian hath prepared heaven but he hath also prepared hell the one for the good the other for the bad He hath prepared everlasting rest but he hath also prepared everlasting torments He hath prepared unconceivable light but he hath also prepared the unspeakable darknesse of a perpetuall night As there are good and bad sheep and goates so there is heaven and hell Unto the eternall joyes of the one the good are mercifully Elected unto the endlesse miseries of the other the wicked are justly Condemned The Catholique Faith admits of a just Condemnation to the pains of hell as well as of a mercifull Election to the joyes of heaven Whereof the one depends on Gods mercy the other on his justice And they that deny either the one or the other of these two estates doe rob God of one of his essentiall