Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n
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A59770
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Practical meditations upon the four last things viz. I. Death, II. Judgment, III. Hell, IV. Heaven / by R. Sherlock ...
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Sherlock, R. (Richard), 1612-1689.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing S3245; ESTC R9873
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61,623
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132
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of others who have been guilty of any of these or of any other sinful pollutions and have not wept and bewailed the same with the tears of Repentance Wo unto you that laugh now in your sinful pleasures Luk. 6.25 for ye shall mourn and weep either here or hereafter And 't is sad and sottish to put off this necessity of weeping to the other world where the Tears of sorrow and sad Repentance shall avail nothing And this is all the water that Hell affords Luk. 16.24 not a drop to cool the tongue tormented in those scorching Flames only those driesly Tears which the violence of her Torments do extort which being salt and brinish and spent in vain shall the more encrease the bitterness and augment the miseries of the condemned sinner Weeping in this life as 't is a sign so 't is some ease to the inward sorrow of the Soul which outwardly evaporates it self by Tears But 't is not thus with the weepings in Hell there no Tears no Sighs not the saddest Lamentations can mitigate in the least the sorrows of the Soul because there is nothing but what doth torment without any intermixture of ease or allay which is manifest from the conjunction of weeping and gnashing of Teeth to intimate there is not such a Lamentation as gives ease to the Soul but rather embitters the same even to rage and madness and dire execrations of it self and of all its instruments and companions in her sins accompanied with blasphemous revilings of the justice of God O that now my head were waters Jer. 9.1 and mine eyes a fountain of tears by weeping here to prevent the weeping in Hell hereafter now to bewail my sins that I sorrow not when 't is too late where weeping and wailing shall not asswage but augment my sorrows Lament O sinner and gnash thy teeth through a holy indignation to be so foolish and mad as for a little sinful pleasure or dirty delight to run the hazard of being obnoxious to never-ending pains and sorrows Blessed are they that mourn Mat. 5.4 both for their own sins and for the sins of others through the fear of Hell and desire of Heaven for they shall be comforted their scars prevented their desires obtained A broken and a contrite heart Ps 51.17 O God thou wilt not despise A heart broken with godly sorrow for sin and venting it self in Tears with Prayers Humiliations and Confessions mixt with Faith in the Bloud of my dear Redeemer Thus Lord thus I humbly beg to be delivered from thy wrath and from the deplorable wailings of a sad eternity Amen MEDITAT VII Of the Perpetuity of Hell-Torments THE Perpetuity of Hell-Torments is in the thought thereof a Torment unspeakable for in every instant of the Sufferings of the Damned they suffer all the Torments of those infinite thousands of years to come the continuance whereof is not measured by Time but by the bottomless Abyss of Eternity and the immutability of Divine Justice and what is time to eternity Behold as a drop of water is to the sea Eccl. 18.10 and a gravel-stone in comparison of the sand so are a thousand years to the days of eternity In this life fear hath torment but torment hath no fear but hope rather of release and delivery but in Hell the Damned both fear what they suffer and also suffer what they fear even the everlasting duration of their sufferings Rev. 20.10 They that are cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever The Damned in Hell saith holy Bernard shall die unto life and yet shall for ever live unto death For therefore shall they live for ever that they may be the food of death eternal Are not they then without understanding that work wickedness Psal 14.4 who being endued with Reason and capable of Counsel who knowing the shortness of this life and the uncertainty of the same and withal believing the everlasting duration of the life to come do nevertheless bend all their thoughts and endeavours upon what concerns this present temporary Being even to the great hazard of being obnoxious to the Pains and Torments of a sad Eternity such madness in the hearts of men can never be throughly bewail'd even with Tears of Bloud Wo to them who now do laugh at what shall be hereafter most sadly bewailed and wo to them who shall feel by sad experience what they now either believe not or but slightly regard it Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come Matt. 3.7 That there is a wrath to come every Christian believes and 't is a fierce wrath and a terrible Rom. 2.8 9. even indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil and hath not repented him of the evil and of the iniquity he hath done Of the coming of this wrath also frequent warning is given both by the works and by the word of God and by the Ministers of his Church but who takes warning given who regards the power of this wrath very few regard it though the less it be regarded the more fierce it will be for even thereafter as a man feareth Ps 90.11 so is thy displeasure Fear thou the Lord Prov. 3.7 O my Soul fear the Lord and depart from evil Thou Psal 76.7 O Lord thou alone art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when thou art angry The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life Pro. 14.27 to depart from the gates of death Fear not them that can kill the body Mat. 10.28 but are not able to kill the soul but fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 For our God is a consuming fire The LXXXVI Psalm PARAPHRASED Verse 1. BOw down thine ear to him who now bows down his heart and hear me O Lord confessing for I am poor extremely wanting of the graces of thy Spirit which should make me rich towards God I have little or no treasures laid up in Heaven and therefore I am in misery liable to the eternal miseries of Hell But Preserve thou my soul from that dismal place of Torments for I am holy separate and devoted to thy Service though a poor unprofitable servant and upon this account I make bold to call thee my God whom I worship and serve and humbly beseech thee to save thy servant who putteth his trust in thee for the riches of grace and salvation wherein Be merciful unto me O Lord who art rich in mercy for I will call daily upon thee that it may please thee in great mercy to deliver me from that misery whereunto my poorness in grace but abounding sins make me obnoxious Comfort the soul of thy servant that the sorrows of death overwhelm me not For
the same fire but not in the same degree of pain and suslering As under the same heat of the Sun upon Earth all creatures are not alike scorched but some are more some less sensible of its darting beams according to their several constitutions So in the fire of Hell the degree of its burning shall not be alike in all because what here the diversity of bodies there the diversity of sins shall effect So that though all be tormented with the like flames yet not every one in the like manner and degree of torment Gregor But alas the lowest degree of suffering in that place of horror is punishment enough if seriously considered to afright the sinner from all the errors of his ways There be many who now think this or that to be severe commands Love your Enemies Deny thy Self Fast and Watch and Pray Take up thy Cross but surely 't will be much more hard and bitter to hear Tho à Kemp. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire There was an Hermite call'd Olympius who had a Cell near the River Jordan where he was constantly plagued both with excessive heat and the bitings of innumerable Flies who being demanded why he would continue there to endure such perpetual vexations Answered I suffer patiently the bitings of these Flies that I may escape the dismal bitings of that Worm that dieth not And this great heat I endure that I may escape the flames of Hell which are intolerable and everlasting and these Heats but for a moment Prat. Spir. c. 141. O let not then the severest commands of the Gospel nor the difficulties and labours of Repentance startle and afright thee let not the breach or neglect thereof seem a light and a small thing unto thee but Remember that to endure the pains of Hell but one hour is more exceeding painful and asslicting than a thousand years of the most strict and severe austerities in Fasting and Sackcloth and Ashes Remember the Worm that dieth not The Fire that is not quenched The inseparable society of tormenting Devils The horrid howlings of damned Souls The everlasting banishment from the presence of God and from the Regions of light The insufferable stench horror and stifling fumes The Eternal hunger and thirst lamentation and woe and surely if these remembrances will not move thee to imbrace the strictest commands of thy blessed Redeemer thy heart is hard indeed and harder than the nether Milstone 'T was otherwise with the Psalmist Psal 119.120 my flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgments But I humbly beg I may be here even here in this life punish'd for my sins but spare O spare me in the life to come and from those intolerable pains of the nether Hell good Lord deliver me through Jesus Christ MEDITAT V. Of the Bonds and Chains of Hell RIghteous art thou O Lord Psal 119.137 and upright are thy Judgments 'T is a justice becoming the just judge of the World that the Licentious and Profane who in this life would not be bound up nor restrained from following and fulfilling their exorbitant lusts but have walked in the counsel of the ungodly and stood in the way of sinners that they who bound up their hands from doing the works of God's Commandments and bound up their feet from walking in the paths of his most holy Laws that they whose sins are bound upon theirs Souls and not loosed by true Repentance through Faith in the Bloud of Christ 't is just I say that such should incurr this sad and dismal Sentence Mat. 22.1 Bind him hand and foot By the feet in holy Writ is frequently meant our affections whereby our Souls do move as our bodies do by our feet And by our hands our actions are meant so that by the binding of both in Hell is intimated that it shall not there be possible either to act or so much as affect what is good and conducible to our redemption thence To be bound to one place though in Silken Cords or Chains of Gold though 't were on a Bed of Roses or the sweetest Perfumes to be so tied as not to be able to stir hand or foot is a very great punishment to the free active and stirring soul of Man How much more then a sorer punishment is it to be bound in fiery Chains eating through the flesh into the very Bowels nay through all the most hidden and deepest recesses of the Soul and be forced to lie down in a Bed of Flames and therein not to be able to stir either hand or foot not to move or change from side to side for the least ease or mitigation of Torment For the binding of the feet implies there 's no escaping no flying from the place of Torment and the binding of the hands that there 's no fence against the tormenting Fiends that there 's no way to be gone no work to be done to mitigate in the least their insupportable sufferings 'T is therefore one great reason of God's forbearance with finners in this life to bring them to Repentance because there 's no possibility by Repentance to abate the sorrows of impenitent sinners in the life to come He must have a heart of Stone or rather of Flint the hardest of Stones who in remembrance of his sins is not greatly terrified and humbled in the very thought and apprehension of these fiery tormenting Chains of Hell And such a hardness of heart is contracted by a long continued custom in any sinful course And every sin unrepented is justly punished 1. By being insensible of sin and 2. without the fear or remembrance of future Judgments which makes that vast difference betwixt the wise man and the fool The wise man feareth and departeth from evil but the fool rageth and is confident Prov. 14.16 Blessed Jesus whose innocent tender hands were rudely seized and bound with Cords of injustice and violence vouchsafe to loose all the Bonds and Chains of my Sins wherewith both my hands and feet affections and actions are infettered and infested and grant that the wounds they have made in my Soul being washed with my Tears may be healed by the Soveraign Balsam which from thy Wounds and Stripes and Bonds does flow Ps 25.14 Pluck my feet out of the Net of every temptation to sinfulness and error Ps 119.48 and let my hands be continually lift up unto thy Commandments to do them that I be not liable to be bound by any of the Spirits of vengeance in the fiery Chains of the nether Hell where is weeping and wailing MEDITAT VI. Of the Laments of Hell THere shall be weeping Mat. 25.30 and wailing and gnashing of teeth They shall deservedly weep in Hell whose eyes upon earth have been full of Adultery 2 Pet. 2.14 Lasciviousness and greediness of the Creature whose eyes have been set upon their covetousness Prov. 13.30 and their eye-lids lifted up with scorn and contempt