is the burden of the Psalmists song when he slew them then they sought him Psal 107. So many Manasses the Prodigall and many others have come to God in their poverty and misery who when they were wealthy waxed wanton and kickt up the heel against him And commonly ordinarily usually when poverty cannot part mens soules and their sinnes it parts them and his Spirit and he sayes I will smite you no more till I tumble you downe to the place of torments O that therefore for I say againe I say it for this that you might be warned O that ye poore would come in your povertie least after your earthly poverty you meet with that hellish misery where the breath of the Lord as a river of brimstone kindleth the fire So much to answer the objection in regard of mens Persons Now I come to that objection which respects Professions Object O say many this were true if it were preached among Pagans but we are Protestants and by being Protestants wee shall escape the lake of brimstone Answ To which I answer that as of all men Protestants indeed reall Protestants are most free most farre from Tophet such as stand for the Lord Jesus alone against the Devil the world and themselves so the wicked the wilfull Protestants such as call themselves so and thinke thereby to escape damnation and yet contrary to Gods commandment will sell their drinke to drunkards on the Sabbath whilst their poore families fast and famish in their owne houses I say such as say they are Protestants and are not shall above all the people in the world be sure to be damned severely tormented and that for these two reasons First from Gods Protestations Secondly From Gods Preparations For the first of these God hath protested solemnly sworne the damnation of such as have his voice sounding in their eares and will not hearken will not obey it It is every day read in our Church and wisely appointed by way of preparation to other parts of Gods word and holy worship To day if yee will hear his voice harden not your hearts and then to such as refuse and resist he saith I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest not into Canaan a type of the kingdome of heaven not into the kingdome of heaven and therefore necessarily must to hell I never read at least remember not that ever the Lord hath sworne the death and damnation of Pagans The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and it will lie heavy and hard on their souls to doome and damne them to everlasting woe unlesse at length they get the knowledge and faith of the Lord Jesus But as there is a main and manifest difference in those words of our blessed Saviour Whosoever shall fall on that stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder Matth. 21. So God himself turns Protestant for the cursing and confounding of such false Protestants as are and abide in their damned wayes untill they die as sure as he is truth who saith Verily Verily to such as professed the paths of pietie except a man be borne againe he cannot see the Kingdome of God For the second that is Gods preparations wee are to know that willfull Protestants are 1. Fitted for and then 2. Fatted for endlesse torments They are 1. Fitted with Sermons 2. Fatted with Sacraments First I say fitted with Sermons Gods Ministers words will make you without words their speeches will make you not cloke you but uncloke you their vocall trumpets will fit you to hear with horrour the reall trumpet at the last day if you wallow in the lusts of your souls and walke in your sinnes without repentance 2 Cor. 2. In a word the Word of life will be a savour of death to death to you as many of you as plead you are Protestants and live the lives of Pagans and Papists prophaning the sanctified Sabbaths of Christ by selling beer to such beastly base Belly-gods as make their wives for want of maintenance not feast but fast and ready to famish with their children and servants at home in their houses Secondly I say they are fatted with Sacraments Foolish false and feigned Protestants doe dayly drink down their own damnation in that most sacred Supper of the Lord so saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 29. But because he foresaw that it would touch and so trouble many mens minds he saith before as I of this and of all my whole discourse concerning this dreadfull damnation What I delivered to you I received of the Lord verse 23. as if he had said if ye will needs quarrell quarrell with my Master not with me his messenger But you will say that in so saying I doom and damne without all remedie for past helpe past hope also if there be no cure there needs no care To which I answer that as I and that Apostle say no more then your Common Prayer book saith which hath these very words and syllables then we are guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord we eate and drink our own damnation c. So I my selfe did three or foure times eate and drink mine own damnation also even in the 17. 18. 19. 20 yeare of my life Now the way to prevent our going into this Tophet this place of torments is to take a deep vomit of sorrow to purge out this poyson and prevent everlasting perdition and as Solomon saith to his sonne above all thy gettings get understanding so say I to my selfe and every one above all our sorrow let our chiefest sorrow be this that we were guilty and guilty of Bloud yea and guilty of the bloud of the Lord as it is in the 27 verse And still I beseech you remember that I speak all by way of prevention Now I come to render the reasons of the doctrine delivered to you to shew you why the torments of hell are so extreame or as strong as the breath of the Lord is and then why they are everlasting or abide as long as the breath of the Lord abides For the first Those torments are so extreame because of the 1. Nature And then the 2. Number of those that must inhabite in that Tophet that place of torments And both these are set downe together in one and the same Psalme and verse Psal 9. 17. The wicked shall be turned to hell and all the Nations that forget God The wicked shall be turned into hell There is the Nature of the Inhabitants namely that they are foes not friends who must goe thither And all the Nations that forget God There is the Number of the Inhabitants For the first of these wee are to know that they are not Gods friends but his foes who must there be tormented in fire and brimstone Indeed here on earth God hath scourges for his very friends his owne servants and wicked men are jocund and joviall glad at heart when they see them so
are some so discontent with their present condition that they think to ease themselves with their owne destruction by making away themselves as they say and as it is called But out alas as they cannot doe it as they cannot make away themselves at all their eyes may be plucked out their hands and feet may be cut off but the souls within them cannot be torn or cannot possibly dye cannot at all be destroyed so could they doe it could they teare it out of their bodies and bowels what would they gain or get by it to what purpose or profit were it for then alas the same minute the same moment they drop downe to this Tophet to these torments where they must forever be in woe and misery unspeakable uncessable unconceiveable uncomparable And therefore to these impatient ones I may say as the Prophet Amos saith to others in some thing like them Amos 5. 18. 19. 20. Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord to what end is it for you the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light As if a man did fly from a Lion and a Beare met him or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall and a Serpent bit him Shall not the day of the Lord be darkenesse and not light even very dark and no brightnesse in it O how much better were it for them I am sure the other is much more terrible to keep out of hell as long as they can like him that did eate and drinke though he not much mind to his meat that he might keep as much as might be from the company of damned dead ones and not to run and rush in affection and to desire to doe it in action into the lake of fire and brimstone into the horrible place of torments where the breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles it Now I come to the Use of Information which flows from the doctrine now delivered that the torments of hell are as long and as strong as the force of great Jehovahs breathings And these Informations have relations 1. To the High Priest 2. To the Preacher 3. To the People Concerning the first that is the high Priest the Lord Jesus the onely Priest if we speak strictly and every true Christian it a Priest as well as King if we take the words largely and not in such a retired meaning this doctrine informes us of these two things 1. How needfull it was for Christ to be God 2. How thankfull we should be for Christ to God For the first of these as the sufferings of Christ had not been proper to us so had they not been profitable for us if Christ had not been God For sith the torments of hell are so extreme and so everlasting what could the death of all the Apostles yea of all the Angels if it had been possible for them to be passible have done to the freeing of us from those extreme everlasting torments yea when we lye in the day of our deaths gasping and going towards heaven and hell for ever then will Sathan say unto us now you must be damnd for ever and ever No will we say we are redeemed and freed from it and that by the precious blood of Christ But he will reply unto us as deriding our helpe and hopes It is unpossible that Christ his bloud should free you from hell sith it is to last forever whereas the sufferings of Christ were In the Extremity but three dayes In his Ministry but three years In his whole Nativity but three and thirty years And what coherence or correspondence have the torments of hell with such kind of sufferings what now will an Arrian answere or any one else who is not akilled as well as schooled in the doctrine the excellent doctrine of Christs eternall Divinity or Deity surely then there will be no way to escape the eternall flames and Sathans furious fiery dart but by comforting his precious soul as the Lord commands us to comfort his people that is to say by telling and teaching them by that doctrine of Christ his Deity that the Lord hath received double for all our iniquities and abominations that is to say that by his sufferings who was an eternall person and by his suffering the wrath of his Father an eternall person the Lord hath freed us from an eternall lake of brimstone and brought and bought us an eternall weight of glory And therefore our Saviour when he had promised to his people to give them eternall life concludeth that promise with this confirmation I and my Father are one as if he should say as you by breaking my Fathers law who was an eternall God have deserved eternall torments by your temporary sinning here for a season so I being an eternall person have by my temporary sufferings in regard of time freed you from those eternall torments and provided for you an everlasting crown of glory sith I am as he is coeternall and coequall See therefore how meet it was that he should be God as well as man All the Apostles all the Angels not being able to free one soul from one sinne and that the least one and see how needfull also it is for us to say in the end of our lives In the beginning was the Word and that Word was with God and was God Secondly this truth teacheth us how thankfull we should be to God for Christ sith quanto gravior tanto suavior the deeper the misery the sweeter the mercy when we are freed from the feare of it as well as the danger And surely the thought of these unspeakable unquenchable flames sets an high price on that more then precious bloud which was shed for this very end that we may not be throwne to those endlesse torments And therefore as Paul when he sets himselfe to cry I thank God through Iesus Christ cryes first O wretched Rom. 7. 24. man that I am and O death where is thy sting O hell where 1 Cor. 15. 55. is thy victory So should we take a deep draught of the woefulnesse of hells horrour in our retiredst meditation that it may move us to praise the Lord for and prize the cratch and the crosse of our Saviour We should say as the Church in another case If the Lord himself had not been on our side if he had not endured extremities for us the waters had drowned us the Psal 124. deep waters had gone over our soules yea the fire the fire of hell had for ever burned our souls burned our bodies in the lake of brimstone the place of torments where the breath of the Lord is most hot and heavy and will burne to the very bottome without either brink or bottome But praised be God who hath not given us over as a prey unto their teeth Yea praised be God who by the precious blood of his Sonne hath freed us from those flames and purchased for us a
and lives in time past be never so many never so wicked And be sure to put together what the Lord hath there conjoyned to make them readily receive mercy when the Lord in exceeding tender mercy tenders it Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched forth my hand and no man regarded I will laugh at your destruction and mock when your fear commeth when death beginneth to seize on you and hell begins to swallow you when you fall to that fearfull Tophet to that unmatchable unquenchable fire which The breath of the Lord as a river of brimstone kindles 2. But as you must take the word of grace when you do go to them so you must goe to the throne of grace before you goe to them Before you speak to them on Gods behalf speak to God on their behalf to blesse your councels and comforts to them And surely as those Ministers who following their masters footsteps use to pray in private before they preach in publick have the secrets of God reveald to them and exceedingly edifie and profit their people whereas they doe little good yea have their gifts and graces wither who make not their prayers in chambers before they meddle with Scriptures in Churches O 't is 't is the powring out the soul to God which makes a man speak with power to God So yee if in self-deniall ye cast down yourselves before the Lord and before his footstoole when you see a fit person a meet man or woman to worke on saying Lord thou hast hearts in thy hands and hast wisdome and words irresistable O tell mee shall I speak to him and if yea make me able to speak to him give me an heart and words of weight worth the speaking and give him grace to receive my warning from thee in deepest mercie from mee in dearest love O blesse them sweet father breath with them that they may help that precious soul from the lake of fire and brimstone thou hast freely given mee an heart to desire and seek their escaping hell But thou desirest and seekest it infinitely more then I or any man or all men who hast said and that as thou livest I desire not the death of Ezek. 18. the wicked O be with us be all to us in speaking hearing doing that the poore precious soul to whom I am now going may not goe to the fire of hell which the breath of the Lord as a river of brimstone kindles And thus of the Pietie which must be used in your helping poor neighbours from hell Now the Pollicie which must be used consisteth also in two particulars Ye must 1. Give them their own Commendations 2. Draw from them their owne Condemnation For the first of these ye must alwayes remember to observe what good thing they have in them or what they doe that is worthy of praise though it be but morally or civilly good towards the Church or the Common-wealth And be carefull to commend the good before ye begin to discover their danger or tell them what dreadfull damnation awaits them if they be not bettered before their deaths Thus not onely did Paul deale with his people of Corinth crying to them I commend you Brethren before he cryeth I commend you not when he speaks of their abuse of the sacred Supper wherein they drinke their owne damnation 1 Cor. 11. 2. But also our Lord sixe times in two Chapters together cryes thou hast done Rev. 2. and 3. Chapters these and these things well before he cryes I have somewha◠against thee And surely this will 〈…〉 all the wormewood and gall in the words though they favour never so strongly of extreme and eternall damnation This will make them clearly conceive that ye doe not vent any malice in anger when they see you as willing as ready to commend what is good as condemn the evil And as ye must reward any good in your children as well as correct them when they doe evil which correction is the way to keep them that they goe not to hell below as the wisest of men hath taught us seven times in his book of his Proverbs so let every man say to his neighbour in whom he sees any shew or shadow of good when he goeth to be a means to five him from hell Surely Sir I must commend you you governe well your wife and children I doe not see in them any loytering nor heart from any of them any swearing or lying you are carefull for them couvteous to us free of your purse full of honest hospitality But I must tell you that commending the good makes way opens the care to receive any thing from the commender that for all this you are not regenerate you know not what appertains to a sanctified heart which you must needs get before you dye or be sure to be damned when you dye had you more common gifts and graces then had Herod or Iehu or Iudas Yea sure you must soundly be converted truly touched and troubled for sinne or all your formall fairnesse cannot keep you from the unspeakable unquenchable flames which The breath of the Lord as a river of brimstone kindles 2. For the other of the acts of holy pollicie ye must make them condemne themselves by some pretty proper simile such as this is Say to him I pray you neighbour if your house were burning which God keep you from and you were fast asleep on a bed or your body like to be burned if you be not away and then if one should come by you and find you asleep in that danger ought he to a wake you yea or no must he awake you or let you be burned He cannot chuse but answer you ought or else you shew your selfe an enemy and then reply ye as the Prophet Nathan did to David Thou art the man to your selfe belongs the simile alas I see you asleep in your sinnes your soul and body both are about to be seized on by death and damnation And surely I should betray you if I should not awake you and shew you your danger Or suppose you were asleep and your body ready to be burned and two men should come by you and see it and the one of them should say to his fellow let him alone doe not awake him doe not stirre him for if you doe he will swear and storm raile and revile you with all vile and villanous reproches the other replies I fear not his anger I care not one jot for his raging and railing all my feare is that he will be burned all my care is that he be not burned Now which of these two was the truely mercifull truly pittifull man why as sure as the Lawyer said He was neighbour who shewed mercy as sure as Simon said He to whom he for gave much will love most So sure would he say to him that asked him such a question He was the mercifull man who awaked mee and he cruell who would not
have the least in the Church to be employed in if not that which helpeth souls pretious souls to the place of torments But ô how farre was blessed Paul whose name is glorious from doing so who said considering this matter the unspeakable unquenchable torments of hell Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel So that we see that in 1 Cor. 1. comparison of preaching the chiefest means for the helping of men from endlesse torments burying of the dead providing for the poore yea Baptisme it selfe though the Ordinance of God and a proper a peculiar a particular institution are not at all to be mentioned or medled with save onely as this last is a means to keep men from hell as our Saviour hath delivered it with his owne mouth saying thus He that beleeveth and is baptized shall be saved but he that beleeveth not shall be damned Now the more dreadfull damnation is the more terrible those torments are the more amiable the more admirable should their feet be to all that have souls who are anointed and appointed to preach the Gospel on this very manner Mark 16. They therefore who think basely on the servants of God who serve in the Sanctuary in the times of the Kingdome of grace for the keeping poore souls from hell the least whereof as our Saviour informs us is greater then Iohn yea Iohn the Baptist who yet was feared of Herod the King Matth. 11. 11. Mark 6. 20. did neuer truely consider how terrible hell torments are did never meditate truly on the matter that here is taught when it is said of hell fire that the breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone kindleth it And thus much of the excellency of Ministers preaching Now from hence also I gather the efficacie of their preaching And I note this because me thinks I heare some of you say that I make a great puther to little purpose for thinke you no man regards it nor will reforme any thing for it To which I answer that as there was one good ground though the three other grounds were bad grounds so I have good hope that some will be warned at least some one though not every one And the torments of hell are so extreme so everlasting that if there be one soule saved from them it is worth all our labour yea the expence of the lungs and lights yea of the lives of all the Preachers that ever lived to be the men the means the instruments to helpe that precious poore soul to escape them Yea for let us suppose the very worst the very utmost if there were none no not one who would be warned yet this that liberavi animam meam I have delivered mine owne soule from those unspeakeable unquenchable flames is enough to support me and strengthen me against all oppositions and objections Surely I being importuned to preach the first Sermon and besides the importunity of Christian Friends requested by your Pastor to preach this second Sermon should have torments more then you be as the Lord threatned Ieremie consumed before you have your bloud laid to my charge have my soule guilty of your bloud if I should not speak unto you what God hath revealed and I haue received from his Spirit as proper from the Text and profitable for you and am free and farre from guilt if I doe and discharge this duty shall not be damned for not doing it though not one should believe and be obedient and that freedome for that very end is worth a world of carnall contentment with the having of which the soul of the Dawber may have an hell dayly within as a foretast of those endlesse torments to which he must be throwne for his dawbing and dallying with that Word at the hearing whereof our eares should tingle our hearts should tremble yea the thought the serious thought of these unspeakeable unquenchable flames will make us say that all Gods Ministers are in a sort also Samuels that is that all their words are full of force and very fruitfull not a word falls to the ground because like Iohn the Baptist they prepare the way for the sonne of God their sounding their vocall trumpets is a forerunning of that last Trumpet they have warned and made such way that the Lord shall be known to be just when he judgeth when he dooms and damns to eternall torments such as would by no means use the means of their great salvation There is a place in Exodus the 10. verse 1. wherein there is a duty enjoyned to Moses with a strange reason rendred to move him to the doing of it Goe and speake to Pharaoh saith the Lord unto him for I have hardened his heart we would think he should have said goe and speak to him for I have softned his heart now speak for this is a fit time to speak to him for it is like as if the Lord should have said to me this morning in my chamber goe now and preach at S. Georges for I have hardened their hearts alas should I surely have said if the Lord had said so to me to what purpose then should I goe what good am I like to doe if thou hast hardened their hearts if thou have softened their hearts and so made way for my profitable preaching I will goe and speak unto them yea will spend my lighte and life for them But as the Lord there answered Moses that my Name may be magnified and glorified Exod. 10. 2. 3. So would the Lord have answered me to such an objection such an evil-will wanting opposition to his sacred message and motive I will have thee goe and preach unto them now their hearts are hardened against that thou maist make them without excuse and me without shadow or shew of any injustice when I throw them to Tophet to the place of torments when I doome them when I damne them to that dolefull dreadfull damnation And hence it is that as the Lord said to the Prophet They are a stubborne people yet goe and speak to them that they may know they had Prophets among them Ezek. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. So the Apostle gives thanks even for this and looking on Gods glory triumpheth also in it that he was to some a savour of death to death as well as to others a savour of life to life 2 Cor. 2. 14 15 16. Indeed it is true that in humane apprehension that is a more grievous not so gracious an end but howsoever in respect of our intent we cry with the Prophet and Apostle We have spent our strength in Isai Gal. vaine I feare we have laboured in vaine when we cannot stop souls from hell and from galloping and gadding towards it and say diggers and ditchers doe some good but we like unsavoury salt are good for nothing no not for the dunghill sith we serve for no use in not keeping them from hels most terrible torments and alas that is
A Ladder 3. Water For the first you would get Company you would call upon one the other crying Fire fire fire fire save us from it help to quench it And O that you would do so directly for the saving of your soules for the preserving of you from those torments which are extreme and endure for ever O that you would get together that you would goe one to another that you aske one the other the question How doth your soule and How doth your soule O would you say to each other thus What say you neighbour to that which we heard to day Is it true that there is an hell and that there are such torments in it that they are so terrible so everlasting that they never shall end but abide for evermore O what what shall we doe what will you doe what shall I do I feare I shall even be damned in hell even in hell and that in such extremity and that for all eternity But me thinkes I heare some of you say to me I can finde in my heart to goe to his house but not to this house he is a Puritan but I tell you if there were a fire such a fire in your towne or houses there would no word at all of Puritan but all the noise would bee Neighbour neighbour fire fire helpe neighbour help And O that the thought of this fire which the breath of the Lord for ever kindleth would take away all hostilitle all carnall crooked conceit of enmity and make you joyn hearts heads and hands for the quenching of it so farre as concernes your escaping for the preserving of you from it as Saul was forced to depart from David when he was neare him at the mouth of the Cave to the end he might save his kingdome which the Philistines then had invaded O that you would walke and talk together like yet living creatures and now loving neighbours how you might escape hell the everlasting lake of fire and brimstone I assure you it would much availe you towards your freedome from the fiery flames which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it Secondly if there were fire in your Towne and houses which the Lord evermore keep same from you you would immediately seeke a Ladder And O that if any among you be stuck to the heart and stung with this Sermon at the hearing of these unspeakable unquenchable flames of hell O that you would goe to your Minister Ministers are Ladders Iacobs Ladders reaching from earth to the height of heaven and say to him when your soules are sinking Sir be good to us helpe us beale us heave us up from the sinks of sorrow we see death ready to seize on us hell ready to swallow us utterly Thus did that Jaylor those Pharisies those Converts before mentioned they roated and ranne to their Preachers crying Acts 16. Mat. 3. Acts 2. What shall we doe to be saved But O alas we the Ministers of the Gospel grow greedy of filthy lucre waxer wanton in spending our time upon trifling novelties niceties because we want worke or purer employment are not at all enquired after concerning the sores of your soules the bellowings and breathings of them the blemishes and breathes in them where is there almost a man among millions who makes the mone for a man of God one of a thousand to whom he may cry for counsell when his Conscience is almost confounded But you O people who have pretious soules in you and which soules must surely be turned to Tophet if you be not turned topsie-turvie from blindnesse and badnesse to true Religion and holy Righteousnesse doe you that which the fewest number doe they are many and often mighty ones which walke in the way which drawes to destruction get you Ladders and get upon them make your Ministers minde their studies when they heare you pouring out your hearts and posing them and putting them often times to their prayers for more wisedome to resolve your doubtaind difficulties But chiefly ah doe it as you doe not desire to be damned goe speedily to those Ministers by whose work men must be saved when you heare of hels extremitie and are afraid that you shall fall in it They will not with the Watchmen smite you they will reare you restore you recover you they have more leasure and more learning then I have more time to doe the thing which will stop your soules from sinking and stirre them from despaire as well as securitie when Satan sets before you your due desert of eternall damnation Above all I desire and require you that if any thing hath been spoken in my two Sermons which puts any of you to your plunges and puzzles your soules by saying you must be damned that you enquire of some Embassadour of Jesus Christ whether it were true as well as terrible holy Doctrine as well as threatned deepe damnation And I for my part if any of my Brethren being a word for it will be ready to recall and recant it and shew you a softer way if there be any such in the blessed Bible to escape this flaming fire of Tophet which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it The third thing that you would doe would be to cry Water water should the noise of Fire fire be heard among you which the Lord to his good pleasure keep far from you And O that this cry of Fire Fire this extremely tormenting fire this everlastingly tormenting fire would cause you to cry for a double Water and double your cry for it with single hearts and earnest spirits O that you would cry for the water of pardon for forgivenesse of sinnes for the washing of your soules through his bloud who came by Water and bloud not by water only but by water and bloud out of whose more then precious side came Water and bloud for the soules 1 Joh. 5. 6. even of Publicans most prophane ones of vicious villanous men or miscreants O that the feare of this quenchlesse fire would make you cry Lord have mercy upon us not as many try it without any sence of miserie and so without capability of mercy tossing and tumbling the Name of the Lord as I would be loath to have my name tossed crying Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us in such haste and show of heat as if they meant to sell their Lords have mercy upon us for money and would get as many of them into their hands as they could to sell them hereafter Whereas if they thought of hell of its extreme and eternall torments it would make them with deliberation yea with the utmost of their devotion to cry Lord have mercy upon us we are else undone for ever O I say that the feare of this fire would make you cry Christ have mercy upon us and to continue so crying till your hearts he sprinkled
from an evill conscience and your bodies washed with pure water And I Heb. 10. 22 beseech you as you would not suffer these unspeakeable unquenchable flames doe as our Saviour bids and binds you that is to say Aske Seeke and Knock for that holy water Mat. 7. 7. and the Spirit without which he telleth and teacheth us that there is no comming to the glorious Kingdome and so by consequence no escaping of hell Aske earnestly and if no answer seeme to come Seeke more earnestly and if you heare no answer yet Knock most earnestly for the water of the Spirit to regenerate renew and restore you from the death of sinne and the danger of death eternall death and dreadfull damnation Yea I would Knock downe the gates of heaven why should not I doe a thing impossible to escape the lake of fire and brimstone at well as the Lord bids us doe a thing impossible to be free from eternall damnation saying Make Eze. 18. 31. you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die though he knoweth that we cannot move an hand towards making new hearts therfore promiseth by the same Prophet yea and that Eze. 11. 19 and 36. 26. once and again that he will give us new hearts and new spirits rather then feele the fury of God in the fiercenesse and fulnesse of it in that Tophet that place of torments that hell of hels which hath such fire in it that The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it And thus much be spoken to such as have hitherto abode in darkenesse by not thinking on the place of torments too much considering the time not halfe enough in regard of the thing you may now depart at your pleasure I having shewed you the case you are in and the course you must take to come out of it I have onely two words to speak now to you who have such knowledge and such obedience wrought with in you either before this day it some good and Christian perfection or on this day in the beginnings of it in the seeds or desires of it or sound preparations to it Now to you who are soundly wrought on and so are freed from those extreme everlasting torments I am to perswade with you 1. To praise the Lord for your owne mercy 2. To pitty others in their misery For the first of these as oft as you thinke on the extremitie and eternitie of the torments of hell it must make you one by one cry with the sweet Singer of Israel Psal 86. 12. 13. I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorifie thy Name for evermore For great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell And to provoke you to this duty of praise which when we come to heaven and shall see that we cannot to hell we shall continually be employed in and which we are so more backward to bring our hearts to whiles we are in earth let us briefly think on these things 1. First if our Graces be well grounded strongthned and stablished we shall be sure without peradventures that wee shall not be thrown to the lake of brimstone Revel 21. 7. 8. 2. If we had been dead only and revived recovered to life again yea if we had been but deadly sick and had been restored to health again we should say with good Hezekiah The living Isai 38. 19. the living they shall praise thee How much more are we bound to doe it at the freeing our souls from the place of torments 3. Consider how many millions nobler richer learneder then we are are left to themselves and their soules to Satan to be extremely eternally damned And God hath made choise of us filly simple wormes who were first Elected and then Selected and after Neglected of all meere morall men and often in our owne soules Dejected in our owne apprehensions 1 Cor. 1. 26. 27. 4. Consider how many times how many thousand times the God of heaven did call and cry to us and yet we refused and often resisted He sent not only his Son and after his Son his Word to reveale his Sonne but also his Spirit from Sabbath to Sabbath from Sermon to Sermon and still we withstood our owne escape our owne deliverance our own freedome from those flames which have none end or ease at all in them 5. He fetched us from it called culled converted our soules from it when we were loath to come out of hell loathest of all to come out of the way to it loather it may be some of us then ever in all our lives before O the Lord dealt with us as he did in fetching Lot from Sodome whiles we lingred hee laid hands on us the Lord being exceedingly mercifull to us saying Fly for your lives Escape towards the mountaine lest ye be consumed in the lake of fire and brimstone And the cause why we so contemned our owne mercy in that our misery was our ignorance our not knowing what case we were in our thinking our selves safe and in the way to the Kingdome of Heaven when alas we were almost in hell in the very path the very porch of it 6. And lastly that as he sent when we never sought pardon so he hath not only knockt off the bolts and bonds not onely freed us from hels most fierce and fiery flames but also fitted us in some measure for the wearing of Royall Crownes of Glory So that now we can think on hell without horrour without astonishment because we can say with Paul to his Thessalonians God hath not appointed us to wrath but to abâ—â—inâ— Salvation by Iesus Christ 1 Thess 5. 9. The thought of these things should fill us full of joy and comfort and make us breathe out holy praises and breake forth into blessing the blessed Majesty crying with Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Ephes 1. 3. Christ According as he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world when he rejected millions of millions to be extremely eternally damned And with Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy in freeing us from those torments which know neither end nor ease hath begotten us again to a lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 3. 4. And wherein we shall shine as the Sunne in the Kingdome of our Father when all the wicked of the world shall be cast into Matth. 13. 42. 43. that furnace of fire which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it And thus much be spoken to you concerning your owne mercie Now a word of Information concerning others misery The Prophet Ieremie in one verse Ier.
20. 13. breaketh forth into this holy pang this heavenly passage Sing unto the Lord praise ye the Lord and in the very next verse unto it he breatheth forth this dolefull dismall out-cry Cursed be the day wherein I was born The Apostle Paul peradventure more proper and pat to our purpose when he had said I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height Rom. 8. 38. 39. nor depth nor any other creature shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord as looking on his owne most blessed condition being engrafted into the blessed body of Christ and endued with the blessed Spirit of Christ and so free from condemnation as it is in the 1. verse looking on his former familiars and friends and seeing them subject to death and damnation hath these words in the very next verse Rom. 9. 1. 2. 3. I say the truth in Christ I lie not my conscience also bearing me witnesse in the holy Ghost That I have great heavinesse and continuall sorrow in my heart For I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh And surely sith the torments of hell are so unconceiveable so uncessable wee should after we have rejoyced and praised God for our owne deliverance grone and grieve for our carnall friends case and more then cursed condition But as that Paul when he had sighed and sobbed with remembrance of and respect to the terrible torments that they must be throwne to if they abode in their wicked wilfulnesse addeth in the 1. verse of the next Chapter his Prayer to that his Pitty saying Brethren my hearts desire Rom. 10. 1. and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved So must we not onely weepe and waile for feare of our friends damnation but also doe the best we can use our true and utmost endevour that such sinners may bee converted and so escape everlasting torments And though I could shew did not time take me off what speciall course fathers and mothers must take to help their children from hell and set it downe in divers particulars yet I will onely shew in grosse or generall termes what we are to doe even you people as well as wee Preachers for all that dwell about us and to whom we have any accesse toward their escaping that fire which The breath of the Lordlike a river of brimstone kindles And to passe by our holy walking with which wee may draw them to like that Word which is able to save our soule Jam. 1. 21. from that fearefull wrath to come And not to presse you to presse hardest by Exhortation when you receive most kindnesse from them Luke 10. Luke 11. Luke 14. O who would not endure any thing to keepe any one from wanting water who will not see us here want drinke but will provide before we petition nor to call on them to number their dayes which will make them to become wise if anything will and not rush on their owne deep destruction for dayes and yeares and ages past numbring Psal 90. 12. Nor to shew you who must be reproved and who must not be reproved which is not to be done in this time were it never so incident to the Text I will onely shew what rules every one must use in speaking to such as we are to speake to and that in these three words only namely you must use 1. Pietie 2. Pollicie 3. Pittie Concerning Pietie Yee must 1. Take the Word of Grace to them 2. Speake to the Throne of Grace for them In doing the first of these ye must do two things carefully 1. Bring with you the Lords Authoritie 2. Leave them with a possibilitie of mercy 1. For the first ye must be carefull that ye doe not vent or utter your owne words but the words of the living God to shew them their duly deserved damnation and its extremitie and eternitie Ye must shew them the words of the Lord in the very Chapter and verse as well as Booke And say How O how will ye answer in the dreadfull dayes of death and of doome these words which are the words which you must bee judged by What will you say when the Bookes shall be Joh. 12. 48. opened and this text be brought against you which telleth us that every one who lives and dies in the course you walke in must be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes to render vengeance in flaming fire what must the Lord teare out this leafe for love of you which saith as ye evidently see The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God must He be so farre enamored of you as for your sakes to be false of his Word who are so farre out of love with him that you hourely not onely transgresse but trample also under your feet his sacred Precepts saving Promises Surely this is the way to win them to worke upon them if there be any way to say with the Prophets and the Apostles Thus saith the Lord The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and What I delivered to you I have received from the Lord. And I also that I may awake and affect you will follow the footsteps which I set before you and to my sixe Rules premised I will adde this as it were a seventh that is to say that what I have said they are not my words but the words of the Lord he was the Master I but the poore Messenger the words I meane which I have had in the present Discourse concerning Tophet or those torments or fiery flames of hell which The breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles 2. For the second when ye have told them of the terrible torments due to them and almost at hand to swallow them up and sink them down to the bottomlesse pit ye must at length least they grow resolute and wickedly desperate crying past help past hope past cure past care Let us eate and drink for to morrow we shall dye Let us revell and riot we can but be damned I say ye must at length let them know that if they come in there is yet hope in Israel concerning this very matter Ezra 10. 2. Prov. 1. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. ye must give them to understand that Wisdome cryeth even to scorners yea to those who have long how long delighted in scorning yea let them know that she cryes not burne ye as we would imagine and would doe in the like case also But turne yee and after Behold I will poure my Spirit on you As I will pawne my precious soul that none of you all shall goe to Tophet if you yet repent and cleave to Christ following the rules set before you let your sinnes