Temple of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us And that it is the Soul the Apostle hath here in his Eye in this Discourse of his in my Text as that which he intends the Subject here wrought upon appears if we consult the Well-head of his Discourse about the Soul which is the 16. ver of the 4. Chap. Our inward Man says he is renewed c. there is your wrought upon here whilst the outward the Body perisheth Which Soul in being call'd the inward Man connotates at once both Grace and the Soul conjunct together and distinct from the Body as well as from Sin and Corruption Elsewhere it is declared the subject first and originally wrought on Eph. 4. 23. Be renewed in the Spirit of your Minds Look round about the Text and what is the Vs wrought on plainly this Inward Man by the Coherence afore and after Ask yet 1. If our earthly Tabernacle that is our Body be dissolved we have c. that is This inner Man our Souls have for the Body is supposed dissolved So likewise ver 4. We in this Tabernacle that is our Souls in these Bodies More expresly after ver 8. our very Souls not only whilst in our Bodies but when separated from our Bodies have the We given them We are willing to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord. The We present with the Lord and absent from the Body is nor can be no other than a separate Soul in its estate of Widowhood And so here ver 5. Hath wrought Vs the Soul bears the Person carries away the Grace with it Add to this the Time here specified in Observa quôd non in futuro dicit Parabit â—s Non demumparabitur ubi jam induendum est c. Musc in locum the Text in which we are wrought upon It is but this Life and during the term thereof Hath wrought us says the Apostle not in the future Who shall work us for it That hath wrought referring to the work of Conversion at the first Who hath made us meet to be partakers c. Col. 1. 12. and who doth continue still to work us the Peterperfect being often put by the Apostle for the Present God renewing the inner Man Day by Day Chap. 4. 16. So working upon it in order to this self-same thing continually Unto which Words there these here have an evident aspect yet so as that time of working is but during this Life For it is whilst the outward Man is mouldring and that by Afflictions which during this moment work an eternal weight of Glory ver 17. and that is expresly said to be but this present time Rom. 8. So then there is no Parabit in that other World But as Solomon says of Man There is no work after this Life No remembrance Eccl. 9. 10. says David namely which Psal 6. 5. hath any influence into a Man's Eternity So there is no working upon us in order thereunto after Death God hath done his Do hath wrought and Man hath finished his course as Paul of himself and in this Chapter of my Text ver 10. Every Man receiveth the things done in his Body be they good or evil Those things that are done in this Body only therefore only what in this Life he hath wrought And for this he hath wrought us says the Text. §. These things premised I come to the Argument to be raised out of them to prove the Point in hand First that Grace or Holiness because they are immediately wrought in the Soul that therefore when the Body dies the Soul shall be taken up into Life That this is a meet and congruous Ordination of God the Scripture it self owns and seems so to pitch the reason of it in Rom. 8. 10 11. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is Life because of Righteousness But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you He gives an account of what is to become hereafter both of the Bodies and Souls of them in whom Christ is 1. First for the Body that is condemned to die The Body is dead because of Sin By Body I understand the same which he in the 11th Verse terms the mortal Body to be raised up which says he is dead that is appointed to die as one sentenced to Death you term a dead Man And this because of Sin It was meet that that first threatning of dying should have some effect to evidence the Truth of God therein Only God is favourable in his Ordination in this that he arresteth but the Body the less principal Debtor but that to be sure shall pay for it It is appointed to all Men once to die even for Men that are in Christ as this place of the Romans hath it Then 2. follows what remains the Soul of such an one when the Body dies But says he speaking by way of exception and contrary fate too The Spirit is Life because of Righteousness The Spirit is the Soul in contradistinction to the Body this when the Body dies is Life He says not Living only or immortal but is swallowed up into Life And why because of Righteousness which is Christ's Image and so preserves and by God's ordination upon dying elevates the Soul which is the immediate and original Subject of it which is the Point in hand For this thing it is God hath wrought it But then because the Query would be Shall this Body for ever remain dead because of this first Sin and bear this Punishment for ever No Therefore 3. he adds He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies So at last and then bringing both Body and Soul together unto compleat Glory And the congruity of Reason that is for this appointment is observable something like to that 1 Cor. 15. As by Man came Death so by Man came also the Resurrection from the Dead For that Sin that condemned us to this Death we had from the first Adam by bodily Generation as the channel or means of conveying it who was as other Father of our Flesh The Arrest therefore goes forth against the Body which we had from that Adam because of that Sin conveyed by means of our Bodies for tho I must not say the Body defiles the Soul or of it self is the immediate Subject of Sin yet the original Means or Channel through which it comes down and is derived unto us is the Generation of our Bodies The Body therefore congruously pays for this and the Death thereof is a Means to let Sin out of the World as the propagating it was a means to bring Sin in But an holy Soul or Spirit which is the Off-spring of God having now true Holiness and Righteousness from the second Adam communicated to it
of it For I argue asking this Question What is able to fill the Soul of Man with good or evil The Soul which was created in so large a Capacity as to be filled with God and with none but God himself He only is able to fill the vast corners of it with either Creatures like it self may afflict and torment it much especially whilst in the Body so much as to cause it to desire Death and a being out of the Body but the Soul they are never able to destroy The Soul is a Castle so strong built as it can bear the Assaults of all its fellow-Creatures and sustain it self and not sink into Destruction Nothing can destroy the well-being of the Soul but God's Power For it is said They may kill the Body but God only can kill the Soul And else according to that Argument of Christ Fear not them that can kill the body only c. they were to be feared as God himself is if they could kill the Soul as God can do For Christ says God is therefore to be feared and only to be feared because he can destroy both Body and Soul And he redoubleth it with an Emphasis Fear him yea I say unto you Fear him Luke 12. 5. Indeed one Evangelist says Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell which expresseth no more but an act of Authority to sentence and cast into Hell as the Judge doth into Prison Yet the other Evangelist puts it upon this because he is able to kill the Soul and that only he is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell He says not barely to cast into Hell as by way of Authority but adds kills and destroys in Hell when they are cast thither For God is both Judg and Avenger And therefore if it be Destruction 't is evident He only can and must do the execution And therefore in the Text 2 Thes 1. 8 9. their being punished with everlasting Destruction is attributed to the glory of his Power These are some of the Reasons of this great Point CHAP. VII A fourth sort of additional Confirmations drawn from the Harmonies that are between it and other Divine Truths I Shall in the last place cast in some Harmonies or Congruities and Correspondencies which this holds and makes up with other Divine Truths And in such Harmonies and Concords there is much of Reason at least to confirm if not demonstrate Truths in Divinity 1. To begin where I left Hereby it comes to pass that as the Souls of Men and other Spirits were immediately made and created by God who is therefore in a peculiar respect and with an opposite distinction to the Fathers of our Bodies said to be the Father of Spirits and the God of the Spirits of all Flesh So that their last termination or end should be into and by his immediate Hands also This makes up a congruous and suitable Dispensation That look as they receive their first Being from him likewise they should return to him as Ecclesiastes speaks as to their sole and immediate Author and Creator and so receive from him as a Father of Spirits their Portion at his immediat Hands And Man 's ultimate end either way is called their Portion Psal 11. 6. Mat. 24. 51. whether it be in blessedness as their Inheritance out of his Love or Misery as the wages of their Sin And thus hereby God himself is made the end and the beginning or terminus the Alpha and Omega of Souls to whom be Glory for ever 2. Thereby also there comes to pass an answerableness and a proportion held between the two conditions of Heaven and Hell Which the Apostle seems to make the ultimate aim and determination of God's Counsels Unto which all in this World are but preparations as he calls them Thus Rom. 9. 22 23. for the shewing forth of his own immediate Glory What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction And that he might make known the riches of his Glory on the Vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared unto Glory And thirdly also It is said that after that Christ the Judg of All hath delivered up his Administration and Kingdom unto his Father then God should become all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. not in respect of Being that is not as if the Being of all things shall return into God again as some have wickedly dreamed Or that God's blessed Being and the Creatures should become one that can never be 'T is a contradiction to say a Creature made out of nothing should come to be of it self and such God in his Being is But all in all in respect of immediate Dispensation And so look as to the Vessels of Mercy he will then be all in all so that they shall not need the light of the Sun and the Moon c. that is the comfort of any Creature though all created Excellencies in the Spirit and quintesence of them shall be there why should it not be also meant that the same God which makes up a Parallel seeing Mens Sins deserve it shall be all in all in Hell too in a contrary way to the other 4. And the rather this may be thought because when God shall have caused this visible World to pass away the Earth and the Heavens we now behold as some judicious Divines have inclined to think from Job 14. 12. and other Scriptures either by turning them into nothing or into their first Chaos And so there being none that is of this old World left but pure Heaven and Hell which are as two spiritual Places or Worlds and therein these two sorts of Creatures rational either those who are wholly Spirits as Angels good and bad or the Spirits of Men whose Bodies are raised Spiritual and so fitted for that other kind of World both of which are capable of Happiness or Wo from him That then these two sorts of intelligent Natures God and they being left thus alone the bruitish part of the World being done away should have to do with him for ever immediately either in a way of Wrath or Blessedness And so God shall be all in all in either Worlds and this to be the final ending and Catastrophe of all But these I urge not but only mention THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN in HELL SECT II. The dreadfulness thereof argued from all and each of the Particulars treated of in the former Section HEB. 10. 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God THe second thing at first propounded to be handled was the dreadfulness of this Punishment It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God Which being an inference from the foregoing words and not a simple affirmation only do come in with an amazing kind of implication wherein the Apostle leaveth it to our own Thoughts to conceive
Soul is left in upon its parting with the Body unless God takes it up into Glory First For its Rank or Kind of Being Therein two things 1. This Soul was by its first Creation a Spirit and that in the substance or native kind thereof and in that respect considered apart for its Union with the Body is in a more special manner allied unto God than all other Creatures but Angels are You have the Pedigree of Man both in respect of Body and Soul set out Acts 17. The Extract of our Bodies in v. 26. He hath made of one Blood all Nations of Men. So then on that side as we say in respect of our Bodies there is a Consanguinity of all Men being made of one Blood between one another But then in respect of our Souls we are God's Off-spring v. 28. and so on that side there is an Alliance not of Consanguinity unto God upon the account of having been created immediately by him and in the very substance of our Souls made like him and in his Image and yet we are not begotten of his Essence or Substance which is only proper to his Great Son And in a correspondency unto this God is stiled Heb. 12. 9. The Father of our Spirits in distinction from the Fathers of our Flesh or Bodies see the words Which Alliance or Fatherhood take it as in common with all Mens Spirits lieth in this That he not only created our Souls immediately out of nothing but in his own Image as to the substance of them which Image or Likeness other Creatures did not bear which yet were made out of nothing as the Chaos was both which appear by putting two places together Zech. 12. 1. He frameth their Spirits speaking of the Souls of Men and that altogether saith the Psalmist Psal 33. 15. so Ainsworth and others read it that is both each of those Spirits and also wholly and totally every whit of the substance of them Creatio est productio totius entis for Creation differs from Generation in this that it is a raising up or producing the whole of a being out of meer nothing that is to say altogether whereas Generation presupposeth pre-existent matter as in the generation of our Bodies which are not wholly and every whit of God immediately but the Parents afford the matter and the formative virtue besides by which our Bodies are framed So then in respect of our first Creation our Souls apart considered are thus allied to God to which our Bodies are not being Spirits in the very Being of them that altogether do owe that their Being to him But there is a taint come upon the Souls of all Men by Sin so as this alliance is thereby worn out yea forfeited until it be restored Now therefore these Souls the only subject of our Discourse being such as God hath wrought and so are become his Workmanship by a new and far nobler Creation and thereby created Spirit anew according to what Christ says That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Hereupon these Souls are Spirit upon a double account as you say of Sugar it is double-refined so this is now become a spiritual Spirit or Spirit spiritualized and sublimated yea and thereby the inward Sanctuary the Holy Rom. 7. 22. 25. of Holies the seat of God's most spiritual Worship which the Body is not but only as it is the outward Temple or Instrument of this new-made Spirit And hereupon that original Affinity to God of Spirit is not only restored but endeared for now there is both the stuff or the ground-work and then the workmanship or embroidery upon it and both of them the Works of God that so look as the Gold wrought upon commends the Enamel and then again the Enamel enhaunceth the value of the Gold so as both are considered in the price so it 's here with this Soul wrought by God in both respects §. Secondly Consider we now again the Case and outward Condition of such a Soul that of it self would fall out to it upon the Dissolution of the Body 1. It fails of all sorts of Comforts it had in and by its union with the Body in this World Luke 16. 9. When you fail says Christ speaking of Death 't is your City-phrase when any of you break and perhaps are thereby driven into another Kingdom as the Soul now is 2. Then if ever a Mans flesh and his heart fails Psal 73. 26. 3. And which is worse a Man's Faith faileth or ceaseth after Death and all his spiritual Knowledg as in this Life 't is the express phrase used 1 Cor. 13. at the 8th verse and which is prosecuted to the end of that Chapter And so all that communion it had with God in this Life is cut off It is of all Creatures left the most destitute and forlorn if God provides not And yet fourthly It is now upon Death which it never was afore immediately brought into the presence of God Naked Soul comes afore naked God Eccles 12. 7. Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return unto God that gave it it is put out of house and home and turned upon its Father again This as to the Souls Condition II. God's part §. This is a special season for God to shew his Love to such a Soul if ever afore or after an opportunity such as falls not out neither afore whilst it was in the Body nor after when it is united to the Body again at the Resurrection if ever therefore he means to shew a respect unto a poor Soul which is his so neer Kindred and Alliance it must be done now We read in Psal 73. 26. My Flesh and my Heart faileth as at Death to be sure it doth but God is the strength of my Heart both in this Life and at Death to support me and my portion for ever in the Life to come without any interruption or vacant space of time as that ever imports and that David spake this with an Eye unto the Glory to come when Heart and Flesh and all in this World he foresaw would fail him is evident by what he had immediately meditated in the words afore ver 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel so in this Life and afterwards that being ended shall receive me unto Glory The contemplation whereof makes him cry out again ver 25. Whom have I in Heaven but thee for all things else will fail me one day when my Flesh utterly fails me also And There is none upon Earth where he had at present many Comforts and Comforters in comparison of thee You see God is the portion of the whole of his time even for ever as ver 26. and his Estate in Heaven and Earth divide that time and portion between them and no middle state between both but when the one ceaseth the other begins for between them two must be the for ever and when all fail him
TWO DISCOURSES I. Of the Punishment of Sin in Hell Demonstrating the Wrath of God to be the immediate Cause thereof II. Proving a State of Glory for Just Men upon their Dissolution BY THO. GOODWIN D. D. LONDON Printed by J. D. for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-Yard M. DC XCIII To the Reader THo we judg it needless to speak much of this eminent Author whose Praise is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches yet we could not but give some account of the publishing of these small Tracts at this time Many who well knew how mighty this Man of God was in the Scriptures and how skilful from his great Abilities and long Experience in the interpreting of them have impatiently desired the publishing of his Labours but that being a Work of time it was thought fit to gratify them in the interim with this short Treatise And tho his excellency lay chiefly in wading into the great Deeps of the Gospel yet among many other Discourses this of Hell was made choice of wherein we think you have the true scriptural Notion of it We judged that such a rousing Argument might not be unseasonable in so secure and Atheistical an Age as this and that the Profound Mysteries of the Gospel excellently discovered in his Lectures upon the Ephesians might be the more welcom to those who have known the Terrors of the Lord or have their Senses exercised to discern spiritual things Upon the request of some we have also added a Discourse of the State of Glory for the Saints immediately after this Life being very suitable to Times of Suffering since it was the constant Method of the Apostles to keep up in the Eyes of the Primitive Saints the Glory of another World as what was proper to support them under the Sufferings of this And 't was one main design of the Transfiguration of Christ in the presence of Peter James and John who were to be great Sufferers in the Times of the New Testament as Moses and Elias had been under the Old intimating what the Saints in after Ages might expect in a Conformity to Christ after all their Sufferings We therefore judg both Treatises fitly joined together Punishments and Rewards being great Motives which God proposeth to Obedience and Perseverance in Holiness and are both necessary at this time to be urged the one to awaken hardened and secure Persons the other to encourage Christians to go on in a holy Course through all the difficulties of this degenerate Age. That both Discourses may be bless'd of God to the ends for which they were designed shall be the Prayer of Thankfull Owen James Barron The Contents HEb 10. 30 31. 2 Thes 1. 8 9. Rom. 22. explained at large from page 1 to 5. § I. Chap. 1. The Subject of the Discourse set out and reduced to 2 Heads 1. That God's Wrath is the immediate Cause of the Punishment of Sin in Hell 2. The dreadfulness of that Punishment inferred and argued therefrom from p. 5. to p. 8. Chap. 2. The first Sort of Proofs from divers Scriptures from p. 8. to p. 21. Chap. 3. Rom. 9. 23. explicated only so far as concerns the Execution Several particulars in the words that shew the power of God's Wrath to be the immediate inflicting Cause and immediately inflicting the Punishment An Explication of Rom. 2. 8 9. added for confirmation of all p. 21 to 35. Chap. 4. That this immediate Wrath of God is set forth in Scripture unto us under the similitude of Fire and fiery Indignation The Examples of persons devoured by Fire in the old Testament shadows of this Punishment by the immediate Wrath of God This the fire wherein the Devil and his Angels be tormented p. 36 to 55. Chap. 5. A second sort of proofs Demonstrations from Instances both of wicked and holy Men who have felt in this life Impressions of God's immediate Wrath And that such Impressions are Evidences of what in the fulness is in Hell p. 55. to 78. Chap. 6. Containing the Reasons 1. God's Justice 2. Avenging Wrath otherwise not satisfied A Demonstration added p. 78 to 111. Chap. 7. A fourth sort of additional Confirmations drawn from the Harmonies that are between it and other divine Truths p. 111 to 115. § II. The dreadfulness of the Punishment in Hell argued from all and each of the particulars treated of in the former section page 115 to 117. § 1. The first head of Demonstrations from this in general that it is a falling into the hands of God immediately p. 117 to 132. § 2. The 2d head of Demonstrations from the capacity of the Soul the subject of this Punishment and this that it is the destruction of the Soul p. 132 to 140. § 3. The 3d. head of Demonstration drawn from the final causes formerly mentioned As 1. The Glory of God 2. The manifestation of his Power p. 141 to 156. § 4. Demonstrations taken from the satisfying God's Justice which is the 2d particular Attribute p. 156 to 167. § 5. Demonstrations taken from the satisfying of avenging Wrath the 3d. particular Attribute p. 167 to 177. § 6. A fourth head of Demonstrations drawn from those Instances both of good and bad Men their having suffered those kind of Terrors in this life p. 177 to 191. § 7. The last head of Demonstrations that it is a falling into the hands of the living God and what that further superadds to the dreadfulness of the Punishment p. 191 to 197. § III. Some Vses Corollaries Meditations p. 197 to 257. A SERMON intituled An immediate State of Glory for the Spirits of Just Men upon dissolution demonstrated from 2 Cor. 5. 5. pag. 259. ad finem A DISCOURSE OF THE Punishment of Sin in HELL DEMONSTRATING That the Wrath of God is the immediate Cause of that PUNISHMENT HEB. 10. 30 31. For we know him that hath said Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompence saith the Lord. And again The Lord shall judg his People It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God 2 THESS 1. 8 9. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power ROM 9. 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endureth with much long-suffering the vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction WHat Hell and Destruction are is a Mystery as well as what Heaven is And the true and proper Notion or Conception of either are a Riddle to the most of Men. As Eye hath not seen Ear not heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of Man the Natural Man what God hath prepared for those that love him so nor what God hath prepared for them that hate him For it is the same and no other punishment but that which is prepared
and God's Wrath. Again ver 10. destroyed of the Destroyer Who was the Destroyer then Angels So Heb. 11. 28. And what Destruction or Destroyer under the Gospel is it that is typified out by these even God Himself who as by Christ is said to kill the Soul and destroy Body and Soul in Hell So ere the Apostle took off his Pen from prosecuting that Argument in the very same Chapter he in full effect says as much in setting afore them how it was God's Power and Wrath instead of those other Destroyers with which Sinners have now to do ver 22. Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousie are you stronger than he I might confirm this Notion from other Types 1 Cor. 15. 44 45. This fore-laid To approach nearer to our purpose in hand there are two things further to be done 1. as touching the Type it self what kind of Fire that was which devoured them And the manner of their Deaths The Fire was another manner of Fire than this our Elementary common Fire This was Fire from Heaven and therefore said to be a Fire from the Lord that devoured them it was such a Fire as blasts of Lightning are which strike and blast and shrivel the Spirits of a Living Body in an instant which is evident by the manner of their Deaths The Hebrew Doctors say of it that it was a Fire which burnt their Souls not their Bodies their meaning is their Bodies were not consumed or devoured by it for Lev. 10. 5. 't is said They carried their Bodies and Coats into the Tent as untouch'd It was therefore such a Fire as Lightning is from Heaven which useth to strike and lick up Mens Spirits in an instant when yet in the mean time it consumes not breaks not so much as Skin or Flesh which our Elementary Fire preys first and most upon It was therefore a far subtiller Fire then Culinary or Kitchin Fire which suitably served as the fittest and nearest Type of this fiery Indignation and of the vengeance which it executes And this was but the Shadow The second is What the substance answering to these Types should be This I shall set out by two things 1. What is the thing or subject devoured by this fiery Indignation It is the immortal Souls of Men these are the Fewel which this Fire doth prey upon As to the truth of the thing it self I need not insist on it But the Analogy of that as the Shadow and this as typified thereby that is the matter afore me Let it be considered that the Death and Destruction of the immortal Soul in Man could not any other way be more lively shadowed forth than by such a devouring as Moses word is or licking up the vital and animal Spirits that run in the Body when yet the Body it self remains unburnt Thereby demonstrating that it was such a Fire as struck immediately at that which is the Fountain of Life it self in the Body and at that which is the Bond the Vinculum the Tye of Union between Soul and Body for such are those Spirits And yet not so much as to singe the outward bulk or carcase of the Body There could have been nothing invented in the whole compass of Nature to have born a resemblance so near to shadow forth the Immortal Soul as those spirits running in Man's Blood and Arteries do which some affirm to be the very Animal and Vital Soul in Man Sure I am they are as the Oyl whereby Life is preserved and fed and in the Blood is the Life says Moses our best Interpreter in this Neither doth this Shadow hold a Similitude in this particular only but in another like case as evidently The pouring forth of the Blood of the Beasts that were Sacrificed under the Old Law was particularly ordained to signify Christ his pouring forth his Soul unto Death as Esay speaks As well as in general that the Sacrifice of those Beasts did typifie forth Christ's Sacrifice in the whole of it And this was as near a Representation of that Particular as could any way be made by what was corporeal in Beasts or else in the whole Creation for a Sacrifice of Mankind or the Blood of Men God liked not to be made to him in his Worship could possibly have been found to pourtray it forth The second thing is that the substance shadowed forth by that Fire was no other than the Indignation or Wrath of the great God Himself which is termed Fiery Indignation here For Proof of which I insist not that some Shim thereof this Shadow it self doth cast in Moses his saying again and again in Terminis that a Fire from the Lord c. which hath a great Emphasis and Resemblance of this in it But for proof I ask First Where shall we find or how Omnes ignes hujus Mundi sunt ut ignis Pictus ad ignem 〈◊〉 shall we imagine any created Fire so to exceed that Fire from Heaven recorded in that Story and so far exceeding it as the Substance doth a Shadow or such as should melt down Immortal Souls You may sooner invent or imagine a Fire so much comparatively hotter than that of the Sun it self which is the contract of Fire and Light and so much exceeding it as should be able to shrivel up this Sun into a burnt black Coal as to imagine any such created Fire so transcending this of Lightning from Heaven as shall thus devour reasonable Souls and Immortal Spirits that in the substance of them as being Spirits do bear the image of God In what Furnace will you think to find such a Fire No where but in the Bosom of him who hath here said Vengeance is mine even of God himself 2. To confirm this What created Fire can be conceived more subtile or powerful than the Angels themselves are conceived to be whom as Heb. 1. 7. out of the Psalms the Apostle compareth to Flames of Fire that is in our European Language to Lightning Now then I ask when Christ says Mat. 25. 41. Go into the Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels shewing that Man's Punishment shall be from the same hand that the Punishment of those evil Angels is what Fire can be supposed such that can work on Angelical Natures who themselves have Power over Fire of Fire of Lightning from Heaven as in Jobs case was seen None other but that which as the Apostle resolves us if we will rest in it That our God is a consuming Rev. 14. Fire Heb. 12. ult So that considering the State and Condition of the Devil I cannot but celebrate that fore-cited conclusive Speech of Luthers Ira Dei est infernus Diaboli omnium damnatorum It is the Wrath of God that is the Hell of the Devil and of all the damned For there can be no other Fire in which the Devils can be tormented Outward washings may as soon reach Conscience as Heb. 9. 9. 1 Pet. 3. 21. as such created
and cut me off Which with other Passages in that Chapter I shall after open at large Again Chap. 13. 24 26. Thou holdest me for thine Enemy thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the sins of my Youth also Chap. 16. ver 12 13 14 15. God He also hath taken me by my Neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark His Archers compass me about he cleaveth my Reins asunder and doth not spare He breaketh me with breach upon breach He runneth upon me as a Gyant I shall here only single out that of Heman which is a most full one and alone sufficient and reserve the explicating that of Job's Case wholly unto the setting forth the dreadfulness which is the subject of the second Section Heman complains at the third verse of that Psal 88. My Soul is full of Trouble c. And what was the matter of that trouble and the inflicting cause hereof ver 7. Thy Wrath lies hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves Selah those Words Thy Wrath lies hard c. others read sustains it self or bears up it self upon me which is as if a Giant should with his whole weight stay himself upon a Child And thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves The Waves of that immense Ocean of Wrath for unto such Waves he again compares these Terrors in ver 16 17. he says they came over him continually and overwhelmed his Soul as billows of the Sea wallowing and tumbling upon a Jonah cast into them And ver 14 15 16. he sets out his condition such as wherein there was not only a privation of God's Favour and that God seemed to reject his Soul as if he never meant more to look upon it or regard it so ver 14. Why castest thou off my Soul But further positively ver 15. I suffer thy Terrors And ver 16. Thy fierce Wrath goes over me Thy Terrors have cut me off The blows which God gave his Soul were so hard and sharp that to his feeling they not only wounded or cut into but cut off his Soul at every stroak The like follows ver 17. And this put him into the condition of Men in Hell I am free among the dead ver 5. that is of that Society Number and Company and as one of them that are cut off from thy Hand or as the Margent renders it by thy Hand All which are as if he had said they are not the stroaks of Creatures I feel or of thine Anger as conveyed by Creature distresses but of thine own immediate hand and such as those that are in Hell it self do feel from thee These are Notes and Degrees beyond and higher than the Ela of Dolours from or by the hands of Creatures though set on by God They are Strains of another Key the doleful Air of which doth sound another hand and stroak purely Divine that did immediately strike upon their Heart-strings that spake these things These are the resoundings of blows and stroaks which God's own immediate Hand gave upon the bare Spirit of one wounded by him he that attentively listens to them will soon perceive and esteem as they said this Man stricken and smitten of God himself Creature-distresses give a far less report But that it was God's own immediate hand is more plainly by himself expressed ver 16. Thy Terrors have cut me off and ver 15. while I suffer thy Terrors I am distracted and ready to dye from my Youth up as in the same verse Thy Terrors so he termeth them he speaking to God or the Terrors of Thee that is first From Thee efficiently and from thy hand setting them on And 2. Of Thee as arising As David stiles his Thoughts of God Psal 139. 17. Thy Thoughts in me from and with dreadful apprehensions and thoughts of Thee objectively and of Thy sore displeasure represented to my Soul by Thee And so God's Terrors are every way set forth in distinction from distresses from Creatures or such as are made mediately by or from Creature-afflictings although they also be from God Thus in like Phrase of Speech it is appositely said 1 Pet. 3. 14. Be not afraid of their Terror he speaks it of Men that were Persecutors and threatned the Saints Their Terror objectivè That is The Terror of them or that Terror which the apprehension of their Power Greatness Strength Threatnings c. may possibly work in you In a like Sense thy Terror here is spoken of God And the other great Apostle speaking of this ultimate Punishment of Hell he in like Phrase termeth it The Terror of the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 11. That is that Terror which is peculiar and proper to him in and to the Souls of Men who is the terrible God as he stiles himself in Moses and says Nahum Who can abide or stand in the fierceness of his Anger There are further two effects which Heman there relateth of this his having suffered these Terrors or that befel his Spirit whilst these Terrors were upon him 1. That he was continually ready to die the Wrath that lay on him was so heavy as it even well-nigh thrust his Soul out every moment and made the Spirit to fail And secondly it made him not himself as we say put him out of his right Mind Whilst I suffer thy Terrors I am distracted For the intention of a Soul taken up with and extended by the Wrath of God is such and is wound up so high as the String is ready to crack You usually term this in such Persons deeply wounded trouble of Conscience but that is more common whereas this Dispensation requires an higher Word it is indeed the Wrath of God or the Terror of God in Conscience making it as a fiery Oven within it self as the Psalmist speaks This for the instances of Good Men. A second Instance is of Bad and Wicked Men. What was it caused Judas to hang himself The Prophecy of the Psalmist and the Apostles reference to it have resolved us That it was the Curse or Wrath of God entring into his Soul The Psalm is the hundred and ninth which was penned on purpose about him the Apostle's Reference and Application is in Acts 1. 20. In the Psalm 't is said ver 18. as he loved Cursing that is Sin which is that accursed thing afore God so the Curse of God came into his Bowels or inwards like Water and like Oyl into his Bones and filled all within him full of Anguish and Torment And so was fulfilled that Saying Indignation and Wrath namely of God caused Tribulation and Anguish in his Soul The Similitudes or Allusions there are Elegant That as there are Spiritual Oyls which Mens Bodies being annointed withal they soak into the Bones c. they cool refresh and repair Spirits and Strength and allay fervent Heats and Pains into which more inward parts other Medicines more crasse and druggish cannot soak or come In the way
lusting after or enjoyment of things created or sinful Comforts in Creatures yet that the great and Foundation evil of it lieth in an aversion or turning off from God and therein and thereby there is a reflecting upon God an immediate slight or undervalue to an infiniteness of dishonour and contempt cast upon his Goodness Blessedness that is to be had in him as also to his Soveraignty Prerogative Supremacy Holiness c. which are shewn forth and laid at Stake of every of his Laws whereof Sin is the Transgression Now if indeed it could have been supposed that Sin were nothing else but that gross and crass part spoken of the enjoyment of Creatures than a punishment by Creatures only might equivalently have been even with that its obliquity of debasing its own excellency unto Creatures But it being an immediate reflection upon God Himself none can fill up the proportion of a meet and full Punishment which Justice doth require for this but God Himself I may make use of Eli's speech 1 Sam. 2. 25. If one Man sin against another the Judg shall judg him and revenge it but if against God who shall intreat for him Thus he And upon the same or like ground of Reason I infer if one Creature wrong another a Creature of the same kind can revenge it If a Man shed Man's Blood so far as it is wrong to the bare Creature By Man shall his Blood be shed so says the Law in relation to Man's day in this World But if Man sin against God who shall recompence it when God's day comes wherein he is to be glorifyed none so as to give satisfaction to his most exact Justice but God Himself Yea further if we retained to that opinion of many Learned Men That Adam's enjoyment of God for ever in that holy Estate of Innocency should have been of God but as manifested in and by Creatures and his holy Law and not as in Himself or as in Heaven c. yet this would not serve for a Rule whereby to estimate or make proportion that therefore this Punishment should oppositely be only from God by and through Creatures For whatever his enjoyment should have been whether of God mediately or of God as in Himself immediately I dispute not yet to be sure when God was cast off by him or is by us immediately and directly reflected upon even God as God which is that whereby every Man's Sin is heightned in Rom. 1. 21. the meaning whereof is that God as in Himself is debased by Sin So that as the Apostle says in the like case Rom. 5. 15. Not as the Offence so is the free Gift On the contrary upon the like ground Not as was the case or merit of Adam's Righteousness so is the demerit of Sin and so nor of Punishment Because there is so transcendent an undueness yea an injury done to the great God Himself by the Creature in Sinning over and above the proportion of all created Grace or Obedience For all Obedience was due and all Man's Reward in obeying was from the meer goodness of God which He and his Obedience and all depended upon and so the proportion thereof is no way to be lookt at either as the measure of the evil of Sin or of what is to be the Punishment thereof Sin we are sure is so great an Evil as no meer Creature but Christ God-Man and his Obedience or Suffering could have satisfied God for in the behalf of another And why may it not also be said that as none but He that was subjectivè God could satisfy God for the demerit of Sin committed against God objectivè so that Sin is such an evil as cannot in the Sinner himself be throughly punished unto the satisfaction of Justice but by God Himself efficiently that is God to be the inflicter thereof immediately A second equitable rule of Proportion that Justice requiring the fullest satisfaction that may be had will exact is that the principal Author and Actor in the Sin should principally bear the Punishment This not only Vengeance which is the second Topick doth in a more eminent manner aim at and affect but Justice doth call for it also The Justice both of God and Men. Now the principal in Sin is known to be the Soul of Man Which I shall urge when I come to shew how Vengeance also seeketh to wreck it self thereon That which serves to my present purpose which is this that in the point of satisfaction to be made unto God's Justice it is most proper for God Himself to punish Sin in the Soul in order thereunto is First to enquire What is it in Soul or Spirit of Man which God when he comes to deal strictly and down-rightly as a Judg of Mens Souls hath principally to do withal All must acknowledg that it is Conscience that hath to do with God as a Judge for it must be that in Man which is the most proper seat of the guilt of Sin which guilt is the obligation unto Judgment and Punishment And this to be Mens Consciences the Scriptures hold forth and every Man 's own Soul feels Hence also to be purged from an evil Conscience is all one and to be perfectly acquitted from the Guilt of Sin And for God no more to remember our Sins or to be atoned with us as a Judg is all one as to say that we on our parts have no more Conscience of Sins Heb. 10. 2 3 10 11 17. verses compared Conscience is that part of the Soul whereby God as the Judg arraigneth every Man It is the Hand which a guilty Soul holds up at God's Bar for all the rest of Man and is God's Witness within Man against himself Rom. 2. 15. and that in order unto Judgment as follows in verse 16. Again 2. I enquire when it shall come to the execution of the Punishment sentenced What is it in the Soul or Spirit of Man that is most directly and naturally capable of Anguish and Torment and what that part is which God may most properly strike a Man's Soul in when he would rebuke him for Sin Certainly still a Man's Conscience All Beasts have one tender part above any other that most grieves them if smitten This in guilty Man is Conscience We see it in Cain and Judas God burnt them both in this Hand in the Hand of Conscience in this World Having by these two Enquiries stated the Principal both in Guilt and in being the Seat of the Execution I shall for the Proof hereof as also in order to the clearer making forth the Argument afore us namely that Justice requires God's immediate Hand c. I shall in a more ample manner set together these five ensuing Assertions The First That Conscience and the intellectual or understanding Power in Man's Soul are God's Engagee and the Principal in a double respect 1. Conscience is responsible for the whole in Man or if you will principal in the Obligation As being that
which by its own acknowledgment of a Judgment made unto God when he shall come to judge binds over it self and with it self the whole Soul for the Payment And upon that account is to be reckoned the chief Obligee and therefore the Execution is justly to be served upon it and through it upon the whole Soul 2. If we take in together with Conscience the understanding part in Man the Intelligentia or the Spirit of the Mind in the summity of it That is really to be accounted also the Principal in respect of its share in the very acts of Sinning so as justly the Guilt of every act is refunded upon it as the principal Actor For it is betrusted by God with the steering and management of the whole Soul with the conduct of it as the General By reason of that Light God at first seated in it it was appointed for ever to be the Guide and Leader of the Will and Affections And therefore God justly requireth the account or the defaults and miscarriages of the whole at its Hands According to the equity of those Rules declared concerning Rulers of the People Jer. 5. 4 5. These have known the way of the Lord c. As also from that other like to it given forth touching the Priests and which we find so often inculcated in Ezekiel I will require their Blood at the Priests Hands And all these founded upon one and the same common ground common unto Conscience with these namely Conscience and Knowledg there being the Guides And yet in that Conscience gives but an ineffectual weak warning against Sin which should powerfully sway the whole and the Spirit of the Mind or the practick Understanding doth still wickedly give secret consent unto Sin c. Hence therefore that denunciation in Ezekiel holds that God will require the Blood of the Soul at its hands Although the Soul the Will and Affections do perish too in their Iniquity as it is there spoken And for this cause it becomes Justice to punish this chief Agent and Offender or this great Minister of State in sinning and to make these the Seat of the Execution above any or all other Faculties 2. It will furthermore agree with the Rules of Justice yea it will be a special Trophy unto Justice to have Sin it self in the Guilt of it made as far as possibly to be it's own Tormentor and Instrument of the highest Punishment in and unto the Soul that hath sinned There is no Sword like unto that will Justice say to slay a Sinner withall It is of all other the most proper and exquisite way of punishing For the Sinner to eat for ever of the Fruit of his own Ways and Prov. 1. 31. to be filled with their own Devices and their Iniquity to slay them This is the justest and highest Doom which Wisdom it self can invent or God's Power execute The very same doth Jeremy also speak Jer. 2. 19. Thine own Wickedness shall correct thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God Certainly for the Sinner to feel in the most intimate and immediate manner that may be the bitterness of the Guilt of Sin and to find that that above all other Punishments that can be inflicted is the sharpest and severest this is a transcendent strain of Justice indeed Now this is most exquisitely accomplish'd through that proper capacity which Conscience and the intellectual part in Man have as to this very thing And in their being the Seat of the Guilt of Sin they are thereby further fitted to become the Vessel or Receptacle of this the highest Punishment This is in a great measure verified by that in Isa 59. 11 12. We roar all like Bears And what was it that caused this For our Transgressions are multiplied before thee and our Sins testify against us For our Transgressions are with us they dwell with and possess us and we possess them as Job also speaks And as for our Iniquities we know them It was their very knowing of their Sins as set on by God that made them thus roar which is the loudest and wildest Tone of Grief and Note of insufferable Torment And observe how that that Knowledg had two things in contemplation which caused the Roaring 1. Sin together with the Wrath of God Our Transgressions are multiplied afore thee And so they had God in their eye as a Judge which those words shew We look for Salvation but it is far from us v. 11. And 2. They testify against us This was the accusation of their own Consciences themselves So as it was Conscience which was the Seat the Habitation as it were where these two took up their dwellings continually quartered upon and possessed Jeremy says the same To see and know how bitter a thing it is to sin c. And though these Scriptures speak not immediately of Hell yet they do clearly point out to us what and wherein the most exquisite punishment of Sin lieth and by what effected namely Knowledg of Sin and Wrath whether it be in Men in forerunning Anguish in this Life or hereafter in Hell in the fulness of it 3. It is not nor can it be the meer Spiritual evil that is in Sin as Sin is Sin and an opposite to true Holiness and as it stands in a contrariety to the Holiness and Goodness of God that is not it which Men in Hell shall spiritually know and see so as to lay to heart the evil thereof in that respect No for that is the peculiar effect of Grace and proper to the Saints even as to see the Beauty that is in Holiness as it is Holiness likewise is It is therefore Sin in the bitter effects thereof only whereby Souls still remaining wholly sinful as those in Hell do can come to know this bitterness of Sin Now to prosecute this The evil of Sin is not sufficiently or perfectly felt no not in the effects of it by the Conscience of a Sinner so as it may be until it be felt in that which is the highest and most transcendent and proper most immediate and first-born effect thereof of all other And that is no other than the Wrath and Indignation of the All-powerful God For that his Wrath shall break in upon the Sinner and so considered it is the most proper effect of all other of the demerit of Sin God being stirred up and provoked thereunto by Sin Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy 1 Cor. 10. 22. The like Jer. 7. 19. Sins are as a heap of Charcoal wicked Mens Consciences the Oven and God's Wrath the Fire Let this Fire be put into this Coal and let both meet in a guilty Conscience and it instantly becomes a fiery Oven within it self And as concerning all other Punishments I may say it That all other of what kind or from whomsoever although they are all the effects and deserts of Sin according to that
Job Thou writest bitter things against me and causest me to possess the Sins of my Youth Job 13. 26. Let no Man therefore imagine that Devils are the greatest Tormentors of Men or of their Consciences in Hell or if any would affirm it I would demand Who it is that torments the Consciences of Devils themselves Certainly none but God They now believing there is a God do tremble but in Hell they fear him and for ever have to do with him And it is as sure that the same God with whom those Spirits and their Consciences have for ever to do the Consciences of Men shall also And as for all other mediate or outward ways of Judgments executed in which the Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven but as at the second hand take the sorest and severest of them that ever God executed by Creatures yea suppose all of the several kinds of Providential Judgments I call them such which are executed upon Men in this World afore-hand which God hath as Judg of all the World in his riding Circuit through all Ages since the Fall revealed his Wrath from Heaven by against all sorts of Unrighteousness of Men as the Apostle speaking of these Judgments says in Rom. 1. 18. Suppose I say they were let flie upon any one Sinner all at once yet would they not reach or touch that Man's Conscience further than as God should over and above the efficacy of them strike the Conscience it self with his anger and displeasure revealed more or less by himself therewith And although in all such Judgments his goings forth are as of a Judg and he accompanies such Judgments more or less but as with some ordinary light and glimmerings of an angry Deity yet his coming as a Judg upon Mens Consciences at the Day of Wrath and Revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God as if he had never revealed his Wrath before this is another manner of coming and shewing himself a Judg indeed rendring Indignation and Wrath upon the Souls of Men And of that Judgment it is the same Apostle in the second Chapter treats as of that other in the former And I may say of all the former in comparison to this latter that they all are but as the Batteries of the Out-works and as Bullets shot against the Walls in a Siege which may indeed terrify the Inhabitants and make them tremble Deut. 32. Rom. 2. and so these the Soul as by remote effects in the Suburbs of it But the latter is as shooting in of Granadoes which have been laid up with him in his Treasury carrying Fire from thence in them the Fire of his fierce and sorest Indignation and these himself alone can shoot into the inwards of Mens Souls And this is as shooting Fire into the the very Magazine into that which is the most inward in the Soul and fortified against the entrance of all created Powers the Magazine where all the Gun-pouder lies that is the guilt of a Man's Sins so as there needeth nothing else to blow up all If his Wrath doth but touch it takes and sets all on Fire Yea give me leave upon the same ground and by the like reason further to say That all the material Fire in Hell by which the Soul shall and will suffer by way of a Compatibility as it is termed or suffering by and with the Body an unspeakable Torment and this for the Sins a Man is guilty of yet these Flames nor these Punishments taken materially and abstracted from this Revelation of God's Wrath would not break into Conscience not until God did therewithal break in with the Fire of his Wrath and make the Conscience and intellectual Spirit of the Mind a fiery Oven within it self as the Psalmist expresseth it in Psal 21. 9. almost in these very words This being the state of matters between God the Judg of all and the Souls and Consciences of Sinners as touching that due and equitable Punishment for Sin and the execution thereof which Mens Souls are capable of I shall now compleat the reason why the Justice of God should move him to be willing yea and that there is in respect unto Divine Justice a kind of requisiteness if not necessity for the Great God to take this course to punish the Sinner by the Revelation of his own immediate Wrath. And this I shall do by gathering together what hath been said from which the Arguments for both these two Assertions that follow lie fair 1. That God for his Justice sake should be willing For Conscience being the principal Engagee obliged unto God as a Judg and the understanding Power in Man the eminent Transgressor and both lying so naked and immediately exposed unto God's Wrath and capable to receive the Revelation of it An Anguish made thereby in the Soul is the most proper natural suitable Reward unto Sin to pay the Sinner home in his own Coin as also the most ready direct and short way for God to take If therefore we suppose Justice be left to have but its free and full course if Justice according to the Prophet's language and God's own rule and direction given unto us run down as Waters and Righteousness as a mighty Stream in its proper natural Channel and so as to fall into that most capacious Vessel or Receptacle that is in Man to receive it Again if Divine Justice hath a will to put and lay its charge and execution where principally it is to be laid even against the Principal whether in the Obligation for Sin or in the guilt of the Act of sinning Or if it be deemed that Divine Justice will take a recovery where the fullest and fairest advantage lies and recover his principal Debt of that which is the principal Debtor and from that in Man which is capable to afford the most due satisfaction and punishment as being that which is the Treasury of all the Guilt of Sin and most exquisitely capable to suffer and thereby to make fullest payment for all Then we may conclude that assuredly God is willing to wreck his just Anger and in his Wrath to break forth upon the Conscience and Intellectual Faculty of the Sinner in Hell by the immediate Revelation of his Wrath and that upon all the accounts fore-mentioned thereby to punish it And we may well suppose that his Justice is willing to do this because God is as the Psalmist with an Emphasis Judg Himself Psal 50. 6. And judgeth for Himself Prov. 16. 4. And for the Recovery of his own Glory and Revelation of his Righteous Judgment And this Course of immediate Wrath being a way above all other so natural so ready so direct so compendious and so suited to the demerit of Sin as hath been shewn we may well think that God will be rather willing to shew his Wrath as the Apostle speaks this way if we could suppose there might be another because this so falls in with and agrees unto the rules and
of and is as if he had said How dreadful must it needs be which I leave to your own Thoughts to conceive of I not being able says he to utter or express the Terror of it Hence the genuine and natural way of handling this part is to set it forth by way of Inference or Corollary from that former Point which we have dispatch'd I shall therefore accordingly draw forth Demonstrations of the dreadfulness thereof from those fore-cited Scriptures or Grounds already laid in the fore-gone Section which doth afford sufficient Topicks unto this Head SECT I. The first Head of Demonstrations from this in General That it is a falling into the Hands of God immediately FIrst let us take the main Doctrine it self as in the General it is uttered here That it is a falling into the Hands of God Himself and not of Creatures only And a being punish'd from his Presence and the Glory of his Power immediately as 2 Thess 1. 9. And then extend and widen your apprehensions to take in how fearful this must be which I shall demonstrate by a comparative Gradation raised thus I. If it were but a giving us up into the Hands of meer Creatures to afflict and they assisted by God but with the common and ordinary concurrence of his Power which joins with and upholds the Agency of all things in their workings whether in comforting us or in distressing of us this is the lowest degree of supposition And yet consider how dreadful this Supposition would render to our Thoughts such a punishment to be if God should be but as the looker on and withal the setter of them on or as in the Scripture phrase Mat. 18. 34. but only deliver us up to these Tormentors As when it is termed a being cast into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone suppose it were a Lake of material corporeal Fire only wherein thy Body is cast and thy Soul no otherwise to suffer than by what the Spirits of that Body it is united to and dwells in is by that Fire made sensible of And suppose withal the Spirits thereof were kept up in their utmost sensibleness of what torment that Fire could inflict and thy Body continually flaming as the Bush in Exodus and yet never burnt up how terrible is it for Flesh and Blood to think but this of it Or to use another comparison If a Man were bound Hand and Foot with his Mouth set open and were cast into a Pit wherein as in the Apostles Sheet let down from Heaven were all manner of Creeping things Toads Serpents of all sorts fiery Scorpions Cockatrices Vipers Adders Snakes c. Flies Hornets Lice Pismires and Frogs c And that these should bite and sting thee with exquisite Pain and Torment also creep in at thy Mouth down into thy Inwards gnaw and swell thee there How did but one sort of these Creatures when sent by God afflict Pharaoh and all the Aegyptians A Man in this case should endure not only the Pains mentioned but beyond them the torture which Antipathy cotrariety and natural abhorrency Works which is of all other most exquisite and turns nature backward as of Jordan it is said into a recoyl and wresteth it against it self and throws it off its hinges I need not instance how by this way of Antipathy a Cock makes a Lion roar a Mouse the Elephant to tremble a Serpent or a Toad a Spider sets the whole of nature in Man into an inconsistency a Man knows not how to bear up sustain himself or be himself But besides what Pains or Torments these or any of these can inflict II. Let us proceed in our Supposition a step further If God should so far further assist as to set his Wisdom a-work and that only to find out and invent what mixture of Torments from Creatures would be most exquisite of all others As if a King whose Wrath is compared to the roaring of a Lion who yet sets but others to Torment should but order ten Men to invent Torments for one poor Man as the Sicilian Tyrants did Hence Majus tormentum siculi non invenire Tyranni And then consider for the exaggeration of this unto your Thoughts 1. That the nature of Man is so framed as it is capable to recieve discomfort as well as comfort from every Creature the least Creature hath a sting in it as well as Honey unto something or other in Man's Nature if it be applyed and turned against it 2. God knows all the Ingredients in the Creatures Natures as also it is said he knows our frame and so there with the suitableness of Sense in Man's Nature thereunto Think then what Punishment from their mixture can he invent and temper and put all the Venoms the dregs into one Cup as the Psalmist speaks And as by some lesser proportion we may estimate this by what those that know the secrets of Nature can effect above what other Men as Solomon did Now 3. Raise up your apprehensions from these two steps of comparison thus first laid If as the Psalmist says He that made the Eye shall not he see speaking of that infinite Omniscience in God Himself above what is in the Creatures Say I then in this case if the Creatures that God hath made may thus be supposed able to work anguish to a Man Dolour and Misery what then can God the great God that made all these himself immediately inflict As the Prophet Isaiah slighteth the Aegyptians and their Assistance Isa 31. 3. Thus Their Horses are Flesh not Spirit and the Aegyptians that ride them are Men and not God So we may of all these Suppositions and still say these are but of what Creatures can do who are Creatures and not God Flesh and not Spirit III. That we may yet heighten the dreadfulness of this immediate Hand of God let us make a third Supposition beyond the former that God not only should use his ordinary concurrence with Creatures but as sometimes he hath done arm those Creatures with his own Wrath over and above the activity of their ordinary Sphere of Workings heating that Sword of created Powers he strikes with red hot in the Furnace of his fiery Indignation And so intending the power of Creatures beyond their Strength yet still so as to use them as the sole Instruments of that anguish wrought conveying his Anger with them but as at second hand And so as the Man so afflicted is sensible not of the Stroke of the Creatures only but of God and his Wrath accompanying and seconding it through them This would be yet more dreadful than the former and yet still fall short of what the Doctrine hath held forth that Himself is the Avenger and strikes immediately 1. This latter is more dreadful to suppose than the former yea is not a bare supposition for if God conveys his Wrath with the least Affliction and in his Providences fight against a Man and the Heart is thereby made sensible of
his Wrath therein this as it often falls out so it useth wonderfully to enflame and rage in Man's Spirit even as a poysoned Arrow useth to do the Flesh which it self alone would only pierce and wound but as it is an Arrow but if further dipp'd in Poyson or as the Apostle's comparison is Eph. 6. made a fiery Dart it works a further Anguish and Torment Now there is no Creature but if armed with God's Wrath or if it be but a Messenger and a Representer of God's Anger but it is infinitely more dreadful than of it self otherwise it is What is less than the shaking of a Leaf which seems it self to tremble But if God send faintness of Heart and Terror with it and by it into a Man's Heart the very Sound of the shaking of a Leaf chaseth them Lev. 26. 36. Every Grass-blade burnished with God's Wrath strikes terror into the Heart as that flaming Cherub did into Adam's This is experimented in Men troubled in Mind unto whom Iratumque refert quaelibet herba Deum Every Creature presents an angry God and strikes trembling of Heart into them They fear where no fear is The Light which of all Creatures is the most amiable and pleasantest yet to a Spirit wounded the Beams thereof are dreadful and when it is day he wisheth it were night and that Darkness might for ever cover him and why should the Light arise says he to disclose my Rebellion against my Maker Thus Job Job 4. 20. Wherefore is the Light given to him that is in misery Even as on the contrary to a Soul God's Face shines on every Creature strikes up comfort and gladness into it He hears the Thunder which made Caligula tremble 'T is my Father's Voice says he views the Stars these are mine saith he The greatest Afflictions to such an one do turn into Joy knowing he hath a Treasury of Love in the Bosom of his Father that sent them The perfect contrary is here 2. This latter Supposal of God's arming the Creatures with his displeasure and conveying it by them falls yet lower and is less than God's immediate Wrath from himself even as God's Love conveyed by Ordinances and Means is a a far lower Dispensation than the immediate Communication thereof from himself God's power tho never so great yet in working by and through an Instrument is abated lessened stinted in working You may have read and heard perhaps the comparison between God's Power and the Creatures in respect of Torment thus expressed That the one is but as if a Child should strike a Blow in comparison of a Giant But to the case in hand I have used to raise it thus A Giant that can of himself give a great Blow immediately if he yet should take but a Straw to strike withal the Stroke would prove but small and yet it would be greater than if a Child should strike with it Why because his Power is limited and enervated by the Instrument he strikes withal Now what are all the Creatures though in God's hand but as Straws in a Giant 's And yet how terrible is his Wrath when conveyed by them I conclude this with allusion to that Speech of Rehoboam 1 Kin. 12. 10. The weight of God's little Finger is heavier than that of the whole Creation And if they be able or God by them to scourge us with Whips then God himself immediately with Scorpions Having thus considered how the immediateness of God's working doth comparatively exceed that of the Creatures or of himself by the Creatures In the Fourth place Let us go on more sadly in a positive way to consider What his immediate Power is what the Strength of those hands is which Men must fall into And how may this amaze you As it is said of God's Wisdom There is no end of it no searching of his Vnderstanding so nor of his Power And how can I discover or unbare that Arm before you I begin to do it thus God had begun to enter into a Contest with Job and touched him but with his little Finger and Job soon felt him and cries out If I speak of Strength or think that way to grapple with him He is strong Job 9. 19. If but his little Finger be so strong as Job found it what is his Fist which Ezekiel next sets forth his Strokes of his Wrath by And what God himself there speaks against covetous and bloody Men Ezek. 22. 13 14. do you apply to every Sin you live and go on in Says God I will strike with my Fist at thy dishonest Gain And can thy Heart endure or thy Hands be made strong in the Day in which I shall have to do with thee Let every one that heareth or readeth this who yet go on in their Sins consider with themselves Am I able to stand it out and encounter this God And encounter him thou must if thou goest on in thy Sins Or can my Heart endure say thou The Apostle puts the very same consideration upon the Corinthians Spirits when guilty of Idolatry And 't is the same case of uncleanness or any other known Sin Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy Are you stronger than he 1 Cor. 10. 22. As if he had said Do you not consider what a powerful God you have to do withal and that immediately Can you grapple with him think you or make your part good with him Hear yet further by what way it is that the Apostle sets forth to us the Strength of God and let us make a further estimate thereby as to the matter in hand The Apostle in the same Epistle though upon another occasion Chap. 1. 25. had said That the Weakness of God is stronger than the Strength of Men. In which Speech he evidently puts our thoughts upon making of a measure of what is to be accounted more or less stronger or weaker in God in respect of the putting forth his Power by what the Scriptures do express of him after the similitude of Man as in Job the comparison is of his little Finger and in Ezekiel of his Fist whereof the one is weaker in Man and the other stronger Now in Man what is weaker than his Breath which will scarce blow away a Straw and his weakness is usually expressed by this that his Breath is in his Nostrils Now estimate the Strength of God according unto what is said in the Scriptures of God and that as to this point of destroying us after the manner of Men. By the very Breath of his Nostrils we are consumed Job 4. 9. His Power is such that he needs put forth no more as it were to destroy us His very Weakness is enough Job had in the same verse first said By the Blast of him we perish but because a Blast imports some forcibleness the utmost might of what is in a Man's Breath and it is a Man's putting forth his Breath with a more than ordinary violence therefore by way of Diminution and
and Body c. or his downfal from a petty Kingdom Did these begin now at length so sadly to return upon him so as in the end his Spirit should begin to take them in and lay them at length to Heart which at first he in an holy Gallantry had made so light of Oh no he had fully concocted and digested all that had been occasioned from all or any of these and had quieted himself with one or two good Cordials namely that the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken and blessed be the Name of the Lord Chap. 1. 21. And again shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord and not evil Chap. 2. 10. which had carried away all that Sorrow might have been stirring in him from these What might be the matter then that was the cause of these so high disturbances The next Words ver 4. do enform us For the Arrows of the Almighty are within me the Poyson whereof drinks up my Spirits The Terrors of God do set themselves in Array against me Let us go on duly to weigh and consider these Passages of his Heman he in his Horrors had complained Psal 88. 7. That God's Wrath lay hard or heavy on him and says no more of it But Job here He in like manner feeling the like weight thereof goes about to express how heavy and how great the burthen was of his Grief that was caused thereby And he calls for a mighty Scale to weigh it in Such a Scale as might be large enough to contain all the Sands of the Sea Oh that my Grief were throughly weighed and my Calamities laid in the Ballance together for now it would be heavier than the Sand of the Sea His meaning is that to have his Grief and Calamity put in one of the Scales and the Sand of the Sea in the other his Calamity would be infinitely heavier His invention was heightned by what he really felt The greatness of it made him Eloquent For as Love so deep sense of Misery useth so to do And he pitcheth as you see upon the weightiness of Sand to express it by which is of all things the weightiest as Solomon tells us Prov. 27. 3. A Stone is heavy and the Sand is weighty Yea and the Sand of the Sea which take both those Sands within the Sea at the bottom of it and those also scattered without on the Shoar they do make an immence bulk and body condensated if they were gathered together into one heap as the Waters were into one place when God made the Sea Job had a most sublime Fancy as the high strains of that whole Book shew And this is in view a compaparison vast and great enough one would think as could be used But yet further observe how he breaks off that attempt of his to express it by this or by any such comparisons though in appearance never so hyperbolical Which breaking off his next Speech utters My Words says he are swallowed up As a small thing is swallowed up of a greater as a drop of the Ocean as one small scattered Sand would be in the bulk of all those Sands of the Sea when cast in among them So were all these his vast expressions and comparisons he had used although thus great which yet from all Rhetoricians would have had the name of Hyperboles far exceeding the reality But yet in his sense and feeling were swallowed up by the thing it self I feel my Words fall short says he so Broughton paraphraseth on those Words And therefore he cuts himself off from using any more or higher decipherings of it of any kind if any could have been found as being all but meer Metaphors too light and holding no weight with that far exceeding weight of Misery he felt as the Apostle on the contrary comparing present Afflictions and the Glory to come together speaks but Job here he gives it clean over as a thing unexpressible And in stead of all Essays that way he chooseth rather to speak and shew the Cause thereof the same which I in this Treatise have endeavoured to do And thereby he sets forth in a Reality the dreadfulness of it indeed And more than by all things whatever that his Grief could have been compared unto This you have in these Words For the Arrows of the Almighty are within me he had sores without in his Body and Afflictions in his outward Man or Condition Fears without and Terrors within he complains not that you hear of them at all Oh but they are these Arrows that are within me says he the Arrows of the Almighty That is which none but an Almighty Hand could shoot and shoot so deep such Arrows as could come out of no other Forge or Quiver The Soul of a Man is a Spirit of a vast depth and God and God alone can shoot up into it unto the Arrow Head And yet again besides the strength of the Arm that shoots them and the forkedness of the Arrows themselves they were all as Arrows that are dipt in Poyson envenomed with the guilt of his Sins which as Chap. 13. 23. 26. God had now set on upon his Soul Thou makest me possess the Sins of my Youth Thus it follows in the next Words And the Poyson thereof drinks up my Spirit They do not only let out the Spirits which Wounds made by other Arrows use to do but they drink them up The Strength and Violence of the Venom of them had such an Efficacy on his very Soul and the very Spirit and Life thereof as they drank all up Again it follows And the Terrors of God have set themselves in array against me God drew forth his Wrath as it were into an ordered Army into Rank and File at once to fall upon him If one Man had an whole Army set against him and each armed Man therein were to shoot a Bullet or an Arrow into him at once and if withal we could make the Supposition that that Man should have his Life still renewed after each Wound given so as never to dye and yet they still to renew to shoot all at once every moment how dreadful is this to any ones Thoughts thereof but yet these are but Men not God whose Arrows he says these were Oh that he would destroy me says Job that is kill me out-right so ver 8 9. Oh that I might have my Request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please God to destroy me and that he would let loose his Hand and cut me off Well But Job canst thou not stir up thy Spirits and harden thy self against all these present Sorrows The Spirit of Man will bear its Infirmity if it be steel'd with resolution To this Job himself gives answer by way of preoccupation to this effect That if Death indeed or a being utterly cut off should come upon me with all that Host of Fears whereof elsewhere Job tells us Death
also And to be sure it cannot be that extraordinary way of entrance into Glory by such a sudden Change both of Soul and Body into Glory at once without dissolution should be the self-same thing here aimed at For it was not the Lot of any of those Primitive Christians of whom the Holy-Ghost here speaks this He hath wrought us for this thing that they should be in that manner changed and so enter into Glory but the contrary For they all and all Saints since for these 1600 years have put off their Tabernacles by Death as Peter did and speaks of himself 2 Pet. 1. 14. and therefore the Scripture or Holy Ghost foreseeing as the Phrase is Gal. 3. 8. this change would be their fate would not have uttered this of them God hath wrought us for this whom he knew God had not designed thereunto Neither is it that those groaning desires spoken of in the foregoing verses 2 3 4. is that self-same thing here as some would for indeed as Musculus well If the Apostle had said He that hath wrought this thing in us c. that Expression might have carried it to such a Sense But he saith He that wrought us for the self-same thing And so 't is not that desire of Glory in us is spoken of But us our selves and Souls as wrought for that Glory If it be asked what is the special proper scope of these words as touching this Glory of the Soul The answer in general It is to give the rational part of this Point or demonstrative Reasons to evidence to Believers That indeed God hath thus ordained and prepared such a Glory afore the Resurrection And it is as if the Apostle had said Look into your own Souls and consider God's dealings with you hitherto viz. First the operation of his hands For what other is the meaning or mystery says he of all that God is daily so at work with you in this Life What else is the end of all the workings of Grace in you and of God that is the Worker This is his very design He that hath wrought us that is our Souls for this very thing is God Besides the evidence the work gives there is also over and above the earnest of the Spirit given to your Souls now whilst in your Bodies in Joy full of Glories of the same kind as Earnests are of what fulness of Glory they are both capable of then and shall be filled with when severed from your Bodies Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit §. We Preachers have it in use as to allege Proofs of Scripture for the Points or Subjects we handle So to give Reasons or Demonstrations of them And so doth our Apostle here of this great Point he had been treating of and such Reasons or Demonstrations run often upon Harmony and Congruity of one Divine Thing or Truth kissing another Also upon Becomingnesses or Meetnesses that is what it becometh the great God to do For instance In giving an account why God in bringing many Sons to Glory did choose to effect it by Christ's Death rather than any other way It became him says he Heb. 2. 10. For whom are all things and by whom are all things c. And so in the point of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 21. Since by Man came Death by Man came also the resurrection of the dead that is it was congruous harmonious it should thus be the one answering correspondently to the other The like congruity will be found couched here in God's bringing Souls to Glory afore that Resurrection Now there are two sorts of harmonious Reasons couched in the fore-part of these Words He that wrought us for this is God I. That it is Finis operis opérantis The End of the Work it self upon us and of God as an Efficient working for an End God hath wrought on us for this very thing II. It is Opus Dignum Deo Authore A Work as he is the great God and as a thing worthy and becoming of God as the Author of it He that hath wrought us for this thing is God There is a third point to be superadded and that is It is the Interest of all three Persons Which how clearly evidenced out of the Text will appear when I have dispatched these former Doctrines I. Doctrine That it is a strong Argument that God hath provided a Glory for separate Souls hereafter That He hath wrought us and wrought on us a Work of Grace in this Life Ere the Reason of this will appear I must first open three things natural to the words which will serve as materials out of which to make forth that Argument First that the thing here said to be wrought is Grace or Holiness which is a preparation unto Glory 1. Grace is the Work And so Phil. 1. 6. termed The good Work A frame of Spirit created to good works Eph. 2. 10. We are his Workmanship created unto good Works The Text here says Who hath wrought us There similarly We are his Workmanship And 2. Secondly this Work is a preparation to Glory For for one thing to be first wrought in order to another is a preparation thereunto Now saith the Text He hath wrought us for this thing and Rom. 9. 23. it is in terminis The Vessels of Mercy which he had afore prepared to Glory which was by working Holiness for it follows ver 24. Even us whom he hath called Likewise Col. 1. 12. Who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in Light Meet by making us Saints So then Had prepared Hath made meet is all one with Who hath wrought us for this thing Here The second what is the principal Subject wrought upon or prepared and made meet for Glory 'T is certainly the Soul in Analogy to the Phrase here We use to say when we speak of our Conversion Since my Soul was wrought on And though the Body is said to be sanctified 1 Thess 5. 23. yet the immediate Subject is the Soul and that primitively originally the Body by derivation from the Soul And hence it is the Soul when a Man dies carries with it all the Grace by inherency All Flesh is Grass which withers that is the Body with all the appurtenances saith Peter 1 Pet. 1. 24. But you having purified your Souls being born again of incorruptible Seed our Bodies are made of corruptible Seed which is the opposition there by the Word of God which lives and abides for ever And this is the Word he says he means which by the Gospel is preached every day unto you ver 25. and by preaching is engrafted in your Souls purifying your Souls ver 22. In no other Subject doth that Word as preached for ever abide For the Body rots and in the Grave hath not an inherent but a relative Holiness such as the Episcopal Brethren would have to be in Churches consecrated by them because once it was the
follow me AFTERWARDS So here NOW believing which is the Principle at the present which you live upon you see him not but when the end of your faith shall come you shall then see him and in this it is consisteth the salvation of your soul So that still it carries on what I have afore spoken unto That when Faith ceaseth Sight cometh yea perfects and swallows it up as was said even now out of 1 Cor. 12 13. And let me add this That the Apostle on purpose doth bring the mention of this supereminent fruit of faith Even now when we see not that believing ye yet rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious On purpose I say to make way for the raising up their thoughts apprehensions how infinitely transcending that salvation of their souls must be when Faith ending they attain to Sight to see him face to face whom their souls have loved It is implicitly as if he had said unto them Oh! think with your selves what Joy what Glory that must needs be which exceedeth and surpasseth this that now accompanies your faith in an answerable proportion as much as sight of Christ's presence and face to face must be supposed to excel the knowledge of him by faith which sees him but as absent darkly And further give me leave to improve this Notion You may take this assured evidence That your souls shall then see and enjoy God when your faith shall CEASE which will be when once your souls shall come to be separate from your bodies by death In that even now in this life it is your Souls and Spirits that are the immediate receptives or partakers and subjects of such glorious Joys The soul enjoys them though in the body yet without the help or concurrence of the body or the phantasms of it yea such Raptures do pass understanding that is the common way of understanding which by the use and help of the body or images in the fancy the Mind exerciseth in other things and which do concur with the understanding ordinarily in faith But this joy falls into and is illapsed within the soul it self immediately yea the weakness of your bodies and bodily spirits will not permit you to have so much of this joy as otherwise the soul is now capable of by faith And therefore by this experimental taste aforehand in your own souls you may be ascertained That your souls when separate from your bodies by death as well as when united again unto their bodies shall enjoy this great Salvation And thus much for the first Point raised out of the words which did undertake an Argumentation for a separate soul's Glory and Happiness 1. From the Condition of the Soul as the immediate subject of Grace wrought in it 2. From God's Ordination of the Work wrought To raise the soul up to life whilst Sin should bring Dissolution upon the Body 3. From the Scope of the Worker God himself who as an Efficient will accomplish the End when his Work for that end is finish'd And all these as comprehended in what the very first view and front of the words of my Text hold out God hath wrought us for the self-same thing §. But lo a greater matter is here It is not simply said God hath wrought us for this but He that hath wrought us for this thing is God Thereby calling upon us to consider How great an Hand or Efficient is here even God who hath discovered in a transcendent manner his Glory in the ordaining and contriving of this Work unto this great end Take it not therefore as a bare Demonstration given from God's working Vs to this end such as is common to other Agents as hath been said But further a Celebration of the Greatness and Glory of God in his having contrived this with so high an Hand like unto the Great God And is as if he had said There is a Design in this worthy of God He hath shewn himself in this to be the Great God indeed He that hath wrought us for this is God When God's ordinary Works are spoken of it sufficeth himself to say God did thus or this But when God's Works of Wonder then often you find such an illustrious Note of Reflection upon and pointing at Him to have done as God And it is ordinary among Men when you would commend the known Worth of the Artist to say He that wrought this is such a Man so to commend the Workmanship And thus both when the Holy-Ghost speaks of this Glory it self which is the End for which here his stile is Wbose Maker and Builder is God Heb. 11. 10. And in like equipage here of Preparation to that End he saith He that hath wrought us for this thing is God In this very Chapter 2 Cor. 5. to go no further when the great Work of Salvation in the whole of it is spoken of he prefaceth thus to it All things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself c. That is in this Transaction he hath appeared like that God of whom all things else are and so more eminently in this than in all or at least any other Work What there is said of Salvation in the whole is here of that particular Salvation of a separate Soul You have the like Emphasis put Heb. 2. 10. of bringing many Sons to Glory It became him says the Text. Now put all together and the result is The Second Point That to have provided a Glory for separate Souls of Just Men wrought upon in this Life is a Dispensation becoming the Great God yea and that there is an Artifice and Contrivement therein worthy of God and like unto himself such as he hath shewed in other his Works of Wonder There are two Branches of this Doctrine which I set otherwise out thus 1. That it is a thing becoming the Great God thus to deal with such a separate Soul having been wrought upon 2. That God hath designed and brings forth therein a glorious Artifice and Contrivement such as argue him a God Wise in Counsel and Wonderful in Working I. First Branch of this second Doctrine That it becomes God The Account of this Becomingness is best made forth by comparing and bringing together into an Interview both the inward and outward Condition of such a Soul and then the Relations which God bears to it such as should thereupon move him through his good pleasure thus to deal with it You know I at first undertook chiefly Reasons of Congruity or Becomingness and such always consist of two parts and when the one answereth and suiteth to the other then the Harmony of such a Reason is made up Let Us therefore consider 1. What is on the Soul's part 2. What is on God's part §. I. On the Soul's part Therein two things 1. The Species the Kind and intrinsecal Rank of Being which this Creature we call the Soul thus wrought upon stands in afore God 2. The outward Condition or Case this