devouring Falcon Oh cursed be the day when I was born and the time when my mother conceived me c. Job 3. Sect. 6. And so death having given thee thy fatal stroke the Devil shall seize upon or snatch away thy soul so soon as it leaves thy body Luke 12. 20. and hale thee hence into the bottomless Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone where she is to be kept in chains of darkness until the general judgment of the great day Jude 6 7. 1 Pet. 3. 19. Rev. 21. 8. Thy body in the mean time being cast into the earth expecting a fearful Resurrection when it shall be re-united to thy soul that as they sinned together so they may be everlastingly tormented together Heb. 10. 27. At which general Judgment Christ sitting upon his Throne John 5. 22. shall rip up all the benefits he hath bestowed on thee and the miseries he hath suffered for thee and all the ungodly deeds that thou hast committed and all the hard speeches which thou hast spoken against him and his holy ones Jude 15. Eccles. 12. 14. and 11. 9. Within thee shall be thine own conscience more than a thousand witnesses to accuse thee the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness shall on the one side testifie with thy conscience against thee and on the other side shall stand the holy Saints and Angels approving Christs Justice and detesting so filthy a creature behind thee an hideous noise of innumerable fellow-damned Reprobates tarrying for thy company before thee all the world burning with flaming fire above thee an ireful Judge of deserved vengeance ready to pronounce his heavy Sentence upon thee beneath thee the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit gaping to receive thee Isa. 5. 11. 14. And in this woful and doleful condition thou must stand forth to receive with other Reprobates this thy Sentence Rom. 14. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 10 Depart from me there is a separation from all joy and happiness ye cursed there is a black and direful excommunication into fire there is the extremity of pain everlasting there is the perpetuity of punishment prepared for the devil and his angels there are thy infernal tormenting and tormented companions Mat. 25. 41. O terrible sentence from which there is no escaping withstanding excepting or appealing Then O then shall thy mind be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures which even perished before they budded thou hast so foolishly lost heavens joys and incurred hellish pains which last to all eternity Luke 16. 24 25. Thy conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder when thou callest to mind how often Christ by his Ministers offered thee remission of sins and the Kingdom of heaven freely if thou wouldst but believe and repent and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those days How near thou wast many times to have repented and yet didst suffer the devil and the world to keep thee still in impenitency and how the day of mercy is now past and will never dawn again Thy understanding shall be racked to consider how for momentany riches thou hast lost eternal treasure and exchanged heavens felicity for hells misery where every part and faculty both of body and soul shall be continually and alike tormented without intermission or dismission of pain or from it and be for ever deprived of the beatifical sight of God wherein consists the soveraign good and life of the soul Thou shalt never see light nor the least sight of joy but lye in a perpetual prison of utter darkness where shall be no order but horrour no voice but howling and blaspheming no noise but screeching and gnashing of teeth no society but of the devil and his angels who being tormented themselves shall have no other ease but to wreak their fury in tormenting thee Mat. 13. 42. 25. 36. c. Where shall be punishment without any pity misery without any mercy sorrow without succour crying without comfort malice without measure torment without ease Rev. 14. 10 11. where the wrath of God shall seize upon thy soul body as the flame of fire does on the lump of pitch or brimstone Dan. 7. 10. in which flame thou shalt ever be burning and never consumed ever dying and never dead ever roaring in the pangs of death and never rid of those pangs nor expecting end of thy pains So that after thou hast endured them so many thousand years as there are blades of grass on the earth or sands in the Sea hairs on the heads of all the sons of Adam from the first to the last born as there have been creatures in heaven and earth thou shalt be no nearer an end of thy torments than thou wast the very first day that thou wast cast into them yea so far are they from ending that they are ever beginning For if after a thousand times so many thousand years thy damned soul could but conceive some hope that those torments should have an end this would be some comfort to think that at length an end will come but as often as thy mind shall think of this word never and thou shalt ever be thinking of it it will rend thy heart in pieces with rage and hideous lamentation as giving still new life to those unsufferable sorrows which exceed all expression or imagination It will be another hell in the midst of hell Wherefore consider seriously what I say and that while the compassionate arms of Jesus Christ lye open to receive you and do thereafter Prov. 1. 24. c. take warning by Pharaoh's example We in the rich mans scalding torments have a Discite à me Learn of me Luke 16. 23. c. For he can testifie out of woful experience that if we will not take warning by the word that gentle warner the next shall be harder the third and fourth harder than that yea as all the ten plagues did exceed one another so the eleventh single exceeds them altogether Innumerable are the curses of God against sinners Deut. 28. but the last is the worst comprehending and transcending all the rest The fearfullest plagues God still reserves for the upshot all the former do but make way for the last Hell in Scripture is called a Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone and than the torment of the former what more acute than the smell of the latter what more noysome CHAP. XX Sect. 1. THus I say shall they be bid Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire c. while on the contrary the same Christ shall say unto the other Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world Mat. 25. 34. Which Kingdom is a place where are such joys as eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man to conceive 1 Cor. 2. 9. A place where there shall be no evil present nor good absent Heb. 9. 12. Mat. 6. 20.
ever If God would everlastingly have spared thee thou wouldst have everlastingly hated and provoked him What then can be more equal then that thou shouldst suffer everlastingly O then bethink thy self of this word eternal and everlasting and ponder upon it yea do but indeed believe it and it will be enough to break thine hard heart and make it relent and repent and thereby prevent the wrath to come It will put thee to a demur What have I done What am I now aabout Whether will this course tend How will it end What will become of me if I go on in chambering and wantonness surfeiting and drunkenness strife and envying swearing prophaneness earthly-mindedness and the like For indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish shall be upon the soul of every one that doth evil and continueth therein as the Apostle witnesseth Rom. 2. 8 9. O then break off thy sins without delay and let there be an healing of thy errours Sect. 3. Neither is the extremity of pain inferiour to the perpetuity of it it is a place full of horrour and amazedness where is no remission of sin no dismission of pain no intermission of sense no permission of comfort its torments are both intolerable 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. Jude 6. The pangs of the first death are pleasant compared with those of the second For mountains of sand were lighter and millions of years shorter than a tithe of those torments Rev. 20. 10. Jude 7. It is a death which hath no death it hath a beginning it hath no ending Mat. 3. 12. Isa. 66. 24. 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 intolerable and no man would endure it for all the profits and pleasures this world can afford and yet it is nothing to the 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 kinds infinitely various as our pleasures have been here every sense and member each power and faculty both of soul and body shall have their several objects of wretchedness and that without intermission or end or ease or patience to endure it Luke 12. 5. and 16. 23. Mat. 3. 12. and 5. 22. and 22. 23. The Schools affirm that the least torture in hell exceeds the greatest that can be devised by all the men on earth even as the least ioy in heaven surpasseth the greatest comfort here on earth There is scarce any pain here on earth but there is ever some hope of ease mitigation or intermission of some relief or deliverance but in Hell their torments are easeless endless and remediless unsufferable and yet inevitable and themselves left hopeless helpless pitiless It were misery enough to have the head-ach tooth-ach collick gout burning in the fire or if there be any thing more grievous Yea should all these and many more meet together in one man at one instant they would come infinitely short of the pains of hell Yea they would all be but as the stinging of Ants to the lashes of those Scorpions but as drops to those Vials of wrath as sparks to that flame as Chrysostome speaks The Furnace of Babel was but a flea-biting to this tormenting Tophet prepared of old Isai. 30. He hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it ver. 32. So that it were happy for reprobate spirits if they were in no worse condition than so many Toads or Serpents As consider If a dark dungeon here be so loathsom what is that dungeon of eternal of utter darkness If material fire be so terrible what is Hell-fire Here we cry out of a burning fever or if a very coal from the hearth do but light on our flesh O how it grieves us we cannot hold our finger for one minute in scalding lead but there both body and soul shall fry in everlasting flames and be continually tormented by infernal fiends whose society alone would be sufficiently frightful Sect. 4. Now consider Is one hours twitche of the worm of conscience here Yea is one minutes twitch of a tooth pulling out so unsufferable What is a thousand years What is eternity of hell torments If the Glutton being in hell in part only viz. in soul yet cryed out that he was horribly tormented in that flame what think we shall that torment be when body and soul come to be united in torment since the pains of Hell are more exquisite than all the united torments that the Earth can invent Yea the pains and sufferings of the damned are ten thousand times more than can be imagined by any heart under heaven and can rather through necessity be endured than expressed It is a death never to be painted to the life no pen nor pencil nor art nor heart can comprehend it Mat. 18. 89 10. and 25. 30. Luke 16. 23 24. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Isai. 5. 14. and 30. 33. Prov. 15. 11. 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 great pains of Hell-fire Now add eternity to extremity and then consider Hell to be Hell indeed For if the Ague of a year or the Collick of a month 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 So that it is an evil and bitter thing to depart from the living God We poor mortals until God does bring us from under 〈◊〉 power of Satan unto himself do live in the world as if 〈◊〉 were not so hot nor the Devil so black as indeed they are in Hell and Heaven were the one not worth the avoiding the other not worth the enjoying but the heat of fire was never painted and the Devil is more deformed than represented on the wall There are unexpressible torments in Hell as well as unspeakable joys in Heaven Nor will this be their case alone that are desperately wicked cursing and blaspheming Drunkards and shedders of blood but of all impenitent persons As for instance they who have lived in the fire of lust here must not think much to be scorched in the flames of hell hereafter Heb. 13. 4. Rev. 21. 8. and 22. 15. The detractor is a devil above ground his tongue is already set on fire from hell Jam.
3 6. Rev. 16. 10 11. which does sadly presage what will be his portion for ever unless repentance quench those flames and so of the like offenders Ps. 9. 17. Rev. 22. 12. As what says the Apostle Neither fornicators nor thieves nor murtherers nor drunkards nor swearers nor raylers nor lyars nor covetous persons nor unbelievers nor no unrighteous person shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but shall have their part and portion in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Rev. 21. 8. which did they well consider they durst not continue in the practice of these sins without fear or remorse or care of amendment Sect. 5. Now what heart would not bleed to see men run headlong into those tortures that are thus intolerable Dance hoodwinkt into this perdition O that it were allowed to the desperate ruffians of our days 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 mouths appall their spirits strike fear and astonishment into their hearts Yea if a sinner could see but one glimpse of hell or be suffered to look one moment into that fiery Lake he would rather chuse to die ten thousand deaths than wilfully premeditately commit one sin Nor can I think they would do as they do if they did but either see or foresee what they shall one day without serious and unfeigned repentance 〈◊〉 And indeed therefore are we dissolute because we do not think what a judgment there is after our dissolution because we make it the least and last thing we think on yea it is death we think to think upon death and we cannot endure that doleful hell which summons us to judgment Lam. 1. 9. Deut. 32. 29. Oh that men would believe and consider this truth and do accordingly Oh that thou wouldst remember that there is a day of account a day of death a day of judgment coming Heb. 9. 27. Mat. 25. wherein the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire to render vengeance unto them which obey not his Gospel and to punish them with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power as the Apostle speaks 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9. Jude 15. Isa. 33. 14. Mat. 25. 46. As consider seriously I beseech you whether it will not be worth the while so to foresee the torments of hell that you may prevent them Or if otherwise will you not one day wish you had when death comes and arrests you to appear before the great and terrible Iudge of all the world Luke 16. 23. to 32. Mat. 13. 30 38. at which time an Assizes or Quarter-Sessions shall be held within thee where Reason shall sit as Judge and Satan shall put in a Bill of Indictment as long as that Book in Zachary chap. 5. 2. Ezek. 2. 9 10. wherein shall be alledged all the evil deeds that ever thou hast committed and all the good deeds that ever thou hast omitted with their several circumstances that may aggravate them Eccles. 11. 9. and 12. 14. 2 Cor. 5. 10. and all the curses and judgments that are due to every sin Thine own conscience shall accuse thee and thy memory shall give bitter evidence against thee and thou shalt condemn thy self before the just condemnation of thy Judge who knows all thy misdeeds better than thy self John 3. 20. Which sins of thine will not then leave thee but cry unto thee We are thy works and we will follow thee Rev. 14. 13. And then who can sufficiently express what thy grief and anguish will be when the summons both of the first and second 〈◊〉 do overtake thee at once Prov. 1. 27. And when at once thou shalt think of thy sins past the present misery and the 〈◊〉 of thy torments to come and how thou hast made earth 〈◊〉 Paradise thy belly thy God and lust thy Law so sowing 〈◊〉 and reaping misery and finding that as in thy prosperity thou neglectedst to serve God so now in thy adversity God refuseth to save thee Prov. 1. 24. to 32. Ezek. 23. 35. When thou shalt call to mind the many warnings thou hast had of this doleful day from Christs faithful Ambassadors and how thou then madest but a mock or jeer at it Prov. 1. 25. and think how for the short sinful pleasures thou hast enjoyed thou must endure eternal pains Luke 16. 24 25. and Rev. 6. 12. to 18. Which yet thou shalt think most just and equal saying As I have deserved so I am served for I was oft enough offered mercy yea intreated to accept thereof but I preferred the pleasing of my senses before the saving of my soul and more regarded the words of wicked men and the allurements of Satan than the word of God or the motions of his holy Spirit Prov. 1. 24. c. Mark 16. 16. And which I would have thee think upon Hell-fire is made more hot by neglecting so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. This is the condemnation saith our Saviour none like this that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil John 3. 29. Now salvation is freely offered but men reject it hereafter they would accept of salvation but God will reject them Yea then a whole world if thou hadst it for one hours delay or respite that thou mightest have space to repent and sue unto God for mercy but it cannot be because thy body which joyned with thy soul in thy sinful actions is now altogether unfit to joyn with her in the exercise of repentance and repentance must be of the whole man Besides death will take no pity the devil knows no mercy and the God of mercy will have utterly forsaken thee Then wilt thou say O that I had been more wise or that I were now to begin my life again then would I contemn the world with all its vanities yea if Satan should then offer me all the treasures pleasures and promotions of this world he should never entice me to forget the terrors of this dreadful hour and those worse which are to follow Luke 16. 24. c. and 13. 28. But oh wretched Caitiff that I am how hath the Devil and my own deceitful and devilish heart deluded me Anâ— how am I served accordingly For now is my case more mâ—serable than the most despised Toad or Serpent that perisâ—â—â— when it dieth in that I must go to answer at the great Judgment Seat for all my sins that am not able to answer for one of the least of them Eccles. 12. 14. Mat. 18. 34. that I who heretofore gloried in my lawless liberty am now to be enclosed in the very claws of Satan as the trembling Partridge within the griping tallons of the ravening and
wilt come surely As the Clock comes slowly and by minutes to the stroak yet it strikes at last That those are only true Riches which being once had can never be lost That Heaven is a Treasure worthy our hearts a Purchase worthy our lives That when all is done how to be saved is the best plot That there is no mention of one in the whole Bible that ever sinned without repentance but he was punished without mercy For then there would not be a Fornicator or prophane person as Esau who for a portion of meat sold his inheritance Heb. 12. 16. Then they would not be of the number of those that so doted upon Purchases and Farms and Oxen that they made light of going to the Lords Supper Luke 14. 18 19 20. Nor of the Gadarens mind who preferred their Hogs before Christ Then would they know it better to want all things than that one needful thing whereas now they desire all other things and neglect that one thing which is so needful They would hold it far better and in good sadness to be saved with a few as Noah was in the Ark than in good fellowship with the multitude to be drowned in sin and damned for company Nor would they think it any disparagement to their wisdoms to change their minds and be of another judgment to what they are CHAP. XXIII Sect. 2. SEcondly Are the Joys of Heaven so unspeakable and glorious How then should we admire the love and bounty of God and bless his Name who for the performance of so small a work hath proposed so great a Reward And for the obtaining of such an happy state hath imposed such an easie Task Yea more is Heaven so unspeakably sweet and delectable is Hell so unutterably doleful Then let nothing be thought too much that we can either do or suffer for Christ who hath freed us from the one and purchased for us the other Though indeed nothing that we are able to do or suffer here can be compared with those woes we have deserved in Hell or those joys we are reserved to in Heaven And indeed that we are now out of Hell there to fry in flames of fire and brimstone never to be freed that we have the free offer of Grace here and everlasting glory hereafter in Heaven we are only beholding to him We are all by nature as Traytors condemned to suffer eternal torments in Hell-fire being only reprieved for a time But from this extremity and eternity of torment Jesus hath freed and delivered us O think then yea be ever thinking of it how rich the mercy of our Redeemer was in freeing us and that by laying down his own life to redeem us Yea how can we be thankful enough for so great a blessing It was a mercy bestowed and a way found out that may astonish all the sons of men on Earth and Angels in Heaven Which being so let us study to be as thankful as we can Hath Christ done so much for us and shall we deny him any thing he requireth of us Nor can any one in common reason meditate so unbottomed a love and not study and strive for an answerable and thankful demeanour If a Friend had given us but a thousandth part of what God and Christ hath we should heartily love him all our lives and think no thanks sufficient What price then should we set upon Jesus Christ who is the Life of our lives and the Soul of our Souls Do we then for Christs sake what we would do for a Friends sake Yea let us abhor our selves for our former unthankfulness and our wonderful provoking of him Hearken we unto Christs voice in all that he saith unto us without being swayed one way or another as the most are Let us whom Christ hath redeemed express our thankfulness by obeying all that he saith unto us whatever it costs us since nothing can be too much to endure for those pleasures which shall endure for ever As Who would not obtain Heaven at any rate at any cost or trouble whatsoever In Heaven is a Crown laid up for all such as suffer for Righteousness even a Crown without cares without rivals without envy without end And is not this reward enough for all that Men or Devils can do against us Who would not serve a short Apprenticeship in Gods service here to be made for ever free in glory Yea who would not be a Philpot for a month or a Lazarus for a day or a Stephen for an hour that he might be in Abrahams bosome for ever Nothing can be too much to endure for those pleasures that endure for ever Yea what pain can we think too much to suffer What little enough to do to obtain eternity For this incorruptible Crown of Glory in Heaven 1 Pet. 5. 4. where we shall have all tears wiped from our eyes where we shall cease to sorrow cease to suffer cease to sin where God shall turn all the water of our afflictions into the pure wine of endless and unexpressible comfort You shall sometimes see an hired servant venture his life for his new Master that will scarce pay him his wages at the years end and can we suffer too much for our Lord and Master who giveth every one that serveth him not Fields and Vineyards as Saul pretended 1 Sam. 22. 7. c. nor Towns and Cities as Cicero is pleased to boast of Caesar but even an hundred-fold more than we part withal here in this life and eternal Mansions in Heaven hereafter John 14. 2. St. Paul saith Our light affliction which is but for a moment causeth us a far more excellent and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. 17 18. Where note the incomparable and infinite difference between the Work and the Wages light affliction receiving a weight of Glory and momentany affliction eternal glory Suitable to the reward of the wicked whose empty delights live and die in a moment but their unsufferable punishment is interminable and endless Their pleasure is short their pain everlasting our Pain is short our Joy eternal Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tryed he shall receive the Crown of life James 1. 12. folly is it then or rather madness for the small pleasure of some base lust some paltry profit or fleeting vanity which passeth away in the very act at the taste of a pleasant drink dieth so soon as it is down to bring upon our selves in another world torments without end and beyond all compass of conceit Fourthly Is it so that God hath set before us life and death heaven and hell as a reward of good and evil leaving us as it were to our choice Whether we will be compleatly and everlastingly happy or miserable with what resolution and zeal should we strive to make our calling and election sure not making our greatest business our least and last care I know well thou hadst rather when thou diest go to reign