precepts who were never broken in heart for breaking those sacred saving precepts and breaking over those patterns and those promises These wanting that depth of earth can never got to heaven but must to hell if they doe not hereafter lament their not lamenting before they began to be knowne to be of that number which must escape the fiery flames which the breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles For the third That obedience which goes for currant in the court of heaven and saith to such as professe it that they cannot be cast to tormenting Tophet is growing it daily encreaseth groweth duly bigger and better more and more savory sollid and setting downe all objections which strive to stop it in its holy paths of purity in the way in which he walketh in whom it is in life and power in truth and spirit But alas mens growings blinder baser back warder in all the things which helps towards heaven and would heave us higher had we hearts to them proves plainly to such as see it that most men are made of another kind of mould then they were composed of in respect of Christianity then they were in those primative purest holy dayes when Christians were so glewed together were so full of growing and groning Now search I beseech you your soules yee men and women who would not be damnd see whether your seeming obedience glew you to Christians as well as commandments have opened your hearts with such dew-distilling sorrow for sin ihat as plants refreshed with raine your soules grow more enamored with those paths which are pleasant as well as pure leading from hel to life everlasting Of a truth that I may grow nearer towards conclusion as they who are so qualified may not onely qualifie their feares concieved at the hearing of hell crying weepe and wail without end at the thoughts of Tophet whose torments haue no end but also make them truly merry at the very heart because they are free and far from the place and case in which Gods fury for ever kindles the fiery flames So they who cull and chuse in their doing duties take on them a profession without taking on or making confession of their false foolish filthy wayes or rather wandrings they that stand at a stay continually never growing or groning heavenwards but grow weary of precise and punctuall performances religious rules doctrines disciplines are traviling towards Tophet and will run unlesse they return into that fire which my text treats of and which the breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles And this be spoken to all in generall search your selues yee search your selves O ye who would not be damned for ever before the decree come forth before ye be as chaffe before the fiercenesse of the Lord come upon you before the day of the Lords wrath come upon you Zeph. 2. 2. I am to speak to those being commonly the greatest number who are ignorant or disobedient in such sort as is here discovered and so should they dye in that case would be shortly in a dolefull dreadfull case howling in hell crying out that ever they were borne frying in the fire which The breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles Now to these our blessed Saviour cryes again and againe And if thy hand offend thee out it off it is better for thee to enter into life maimed then having two hands to goe into hell into the fire that never shall be quenched Where their worme dieth not and the fire is not quenched And if thy foot offend thee cut it off it is better for thee to enter halt into life then having two feet to be cast into hell into the fire that never shall be quenched Where their worme dieth not and the fire is not quenched And if thy eye offend thee plucke it out is it better for thee to enter into the Kingdome of God with one eye then having two eyes to be cast into hell fire Where their worme dieth not and the fire is not quenched Mark that he would have the hand and foot off and the eye out but here 's not a word of the eare off men and women must have their ears on still as a speciall meanes to keepe them from the fire there is no cropping ears in heavens court but they who will not part with their hair how should wee think they will part with their hands yea it is to be greatly feared that sith these will come to our Churches and carry Bibles who will by no meanes leave their lusts as near as their hands as deare as their feet I say it is to be feared that they will be bound hand and feet and be throwne to utter darkenesse where is weeping and gnashing of teeth and then they will become speechlesse having nothing to say for themselves when their feet are bound which brought them to the temple when their hands are bound which handled the Bible when their hands are bound and then no fighting when their feet are bound and then no flying Mat. 22. 11. 12. 13. And I call upon you as loud as I can to doe that which my master means that is to say to avoid and abhor any thing every thing never so deare to you never so neare to you unlawfull profits pomps or pleasures which any wayes hurt or hinder from seeking the way of saluation that so you may escape those everlasting flames of fire yea I beg of you and beseech you to doe any thing every thing all things which will doe any thing in that matter of greatest moment towards the escaping of that Tophet that place of torments O put to all you are and all you haue all the powers of your souls and parts of your bodies imploy improve all your minutes as well as your mites in saving your selves from this froward generation and so from those unspeakeable unconceiveable unmatchable torments Doe as Solomon sheweth that you should doe as wee shewed at the begining The way of life is above to the wise that he may escape hel below Prov. 15. 24. As if the spirit had said if any man or thing shall arise in your hearts to hold from heaven shew to your souls the burning flames which are below in the lake of fire and brimstone and you will quickly shew your selves wise men you will esteeme the word and the preaching a speciall means to make us able to say in truth we shall not be damnd above objections above oppositions above all that stops or staies us from seeking striving struggling for life You will happily say what must wee doe that we may escape that place of torments To the which I answer that though time passeth swiftly I will shew you 1. What the word 2. What the world would would have you doe in the present case For the first The word in a few words bids us doe these three things as wee have them in three examples Or these three
20. 13. breaketh forth into this holy pang this heavenly passage Sing unto the Lord praise ye the Lord and in the very next verse unto it he breatheth forth this dolefull dismall out-cry Cursed be the day wherein I was born The Apostle Paul peradventure more proper and pat to our purpose when he had said I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height Rom. 8. 38. 39. nor depth nor any other creature shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord as looking on his owne most blessed condition being engrafted into the blessed body of Christ and endued with the blessed Spirit of Christ and so free from condemnation as it is in the 1. verse looking on his former familiars and friends and seeing them subject to death and damnation hath these words in the very next verse Rom. 9. 1. 2. 3. I say the truth in Christ I lie not my conscience also bearing me witnesse in the holy Ghost That I have great heavinesse and continuall sorrow in my heart For I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh And surely sith the torments of hell are so unconceiveable so uncessable wee should after we have rejoyced and praised God for our owne deliverance grone and grieve for our carnall friends case and more then cursed condition But as that Paul when he had sighed and sobbed with remembrance of and respect to the terrible torments that they must be throwne to if they abode in their wicked wilfulnesse addeth in the 1. verse of the next Chapter his Prayer to that his Pitty saying Brethren my hearts desire Rom. 10. 1. and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved So must we not onely weepe and waile for feare of our friends damnation but also doe the best we can use our true and utmost endevour that such sinners may bee converted and so escape everlasting torments And though I could shew did not time take me off what speciall course fathers and mothers must take to help their children from hell and set it downe in divers particulars yet I will onely shew in grosse or generall termes what we are to doe even you people as well as wee Preachers for all that dwell about us and to whom we have any accesse toward their escaping that fire which The breath of the Lordlike a river of brimstone kindles And to passe by our holy walking with which wee may draw them to like that Word which is able to save our soule Jam. 1. 21. from that fearefull wrath to come And not to presse you to presse hardest by Exhortation when you receive most kindnesse from them Luke 10. Luke 11. Luke 14. O who would not endure any thing to keepe any one from wanting water who will not see us here want drinke but will provide before we petition nor to call on them to number their dayes which will make them to become wise if anything will and not rush on their owne deep destruction for dayes and yeares and ages past numbring Psal 90. 12. Nor to shew you who must be reproved and who must not be reproved which is not to be done in this time were it never so incident to the Text I will onely shew what rules every one must use in speaking to such as we are to speake to and that in these three words only namely you must use 1. Pietie 2. Pollicie 3. Pittie Concerning Pietie Yee must 1. Take the Word of Grace to them 2. Speake to the Throne of Grace for them In doing the first of these ye must do two things carefully 1. Bring with you the Lords Authoritie 2. Leave them with a possibilitie of mercy 1. For the first ye must be carefull that ye doe not vent or utter your owne words but the words of the living God to shew them their duly deserved damnation and its extremitie and eternitie Ye must shew them the words of the Lord in the very Chapter and verse as well as Booke And say How O how will ye answer in the dreadfull dayes of death and of doome these words which are the words which you must bee judged by What will you say when the Bookes shall be Joh. 12. 48. opened and this text be brought against you which telleth us that every one who lives and dies in the course you walke in must be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes to render vengeance in flaming fire what must the Lord teare out this leafe for love of you which saith as ye evidently see The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God must He be so farre enamored of you as for your sakes to be false of his Word who are so farre out of love with him that you hourely not onely transgresse but trample also under your feet his sacred Precepts saving Promises Surely this is the way to win them to worke upon them if there be any way to say with the Prophets and the Apostles Thus saith the Lord The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it and What I delivered to you I have received from the Lord. And I also that I may awake and affect you will follow the footsteps which I set before you and to my sixe Rules premised I will adde this as it were a seventh that is to say that what I have said they are not my words but the words of the Lord he was the Master I but the poore Messenger the words I meane which I have had in the present Discourse concerning Tophet or those torments or fiery flames of hell which The breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles 2. For the second when ye have told them of the terrible torments due to them and almost at hand to swallow them up and sink them down to the bottomlesse pit ye must at length least they grow resolute and wickedly desperate crying past help past hope past cure past care Let us eate and drink for to morrow we shall dye Let us revell and riot we can but be damned I say ye must at length let them know that if they come in there is yet hope in Israel concerning this very matter Ezra 10. 2. Prov. 1. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. ye must give them to understand that Wisdome cryeth even to scorners yea to those who have long how long delighted in scorning yea let them know that she cryes not burne ye as we would imagine and would doe in the like case also But turne yee and after Behold I will poure my Spirit on you As I will pawne my precious soul that none of you all shall goe to Tophet if you yet repent and cleave to Christ following the rules set before you let your sinnes
A Ladder 3. Water For the first you would get Company you would call upon one the other crying Fire fire fire fire save us from it help to quench it And O that you would do so directly for the saving of your soules for the preserving of you from those torments which are extreme and endure for ever O that you would get together that you would goe one to another that you aske one the other the question How doth your soule and How doth your soule O would you say to each other thus What say you neighbour to that which we heard to day Is it true that there is an hell and that there are such torments in it that they are so terrible so everlasting that they never shall end but abide for evermore O what what shall we doe what will you doe what shall I do I feare I shall even be damned in hell even in hell and that in such extremity and that for all eternity But me thinkes I heare some of you say to me I can finde in my heart to goe to his house but not to this house he is a Puritan but I tell you if there were a fire such a fire in your towne or houses there would no word at all of Puritan but all the noise would bee Neighbour neighbour fire fire helpe neighbour help And O that the thought of this fire which the breath of the Lord for ever kindleth would take away all hostilitle all carnall crooked conceit of enmity and make you joyn hearts heads and hands for the quenching of it so farre as concernes your escaping for the preserving of you from it as Saul was forced to depart from David when he was neare him at the mouth of the Cave to the end he might save his kingdome which the Philistines then had invaded O that you would walke and talk together like yet living creatures and now loving neighbours how you might escape hell the everlasting lake of fire and brimstone I assure you it would much availe you towards your freedome from the fiery flames which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it Secondly if there were fire in your Towne and houses which the Lord evermore keep same from you you would immediately seeke a Ladder And O that if any among you be stuck to the heart and stung with this Sermon at the hearing of these unspeakable unquenchable flames of hell O that you would goe to your Minister Ministers are Ladders Iacobs Ladders reaching from earth to the height of heaven and say to him when your soules are sinking Sir be good to us helpe us beale us heave us up from the sinks of sorrow we see death ready to seize on us hell ready to swallow us utterly Thus did that Jaylor those Pharisies those Converts before mentioned they roated and ranne to their Preachers crying Acts 16. Mat. 3. Acts 2. What shall we doe to be saved But O alas we the Ministers of the Gospel grow greedy of filthy lucre waxer wanton in spending our time upon trifling novelties niceties because we want worke or purer employment are not at all enquired after concerning the sores of your soules the bellowings and breathings of them the blemishes and breathes in them where is there almost a man among millions who makes the mone for a man of God one of a thousand to whom he may cry for counsell when his Conscience is almost confounded But you O people who have pretious soules in you and which soules must surely be turned to Tophet if you be not turned topsie-turvie from blindnesse and badnesse to true Religion and holy Righteousnesse doe you that which the fewest number doe they are many and often mighty ones which walke in the way which drawes to destruction get you Ladders and get upon them make your Ministers minde their studies when they heare you pouring out your hearts and posing them and putting them often times to their prayers for more wisedome to resolve your doubtaind difficulties But chiefly ah doe it as you doe not desire to be damned goe speedily to those Ministers by whose work men must be saved when you heare of hels extremitie and are afraid that you shall fall in it They will not with the Watchmen smite you they will reare you restore you recover you they have more leasure and more learning then I have more time to doe the thing which will stop your soules from sinking and stirre them from despaire as well as securitie when Satan sets before you your due desert of eternall damnation Above all I desire and require you that if any thing hath been spoken in my two Sermons which puts any of you to your plunges and puzzles your soules by saying you must be damned that you enquire of some Embassadour of Jesus Christ whether it were true as well as terrible holy Doctrine as well as threatned deepe damnation And I for my part if any of my Brethren being a word for it will be ready to recall and recant it and shew you a softer way if there be any such in the blessed Bible to escape this flaming fire of Tophet which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it The third thing that you would doe would be to cry Water water should the noise of Fire fire be heard among you which the Lord to his good pleasure keep far from you And O that this cry of Fire Fire this extremely tormenting fire this everlastingly tormenting fire would cause you to cry for a double Water and double your cry for it with single hearts and earnest spirits O that you would cry for the water of pardon for forgivenesse of sinnes for the washing of your soules through his bloud who came by Water and bloud not by water only but by water and bloud out of whose more then precious side came Water and bloud for the soules 1 Joh. 5. 6. even of Publicans most prophane ones of vicious villanous men or miscreants O that the feare of this quenchlesse fire would make you cry Lord have mercy upon us not as many try it without any sence of miserie and so without capability of mercy tossing and tumbling the Name of the Lord as I would be loath to have my name tossed crying Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us in such haste and show of heat as if they meant to sell their Lords have mercy upon us for money and would get as many of them into their hands as they could to sell them hereafter Whereas if they thought of hell of its extreme and eternall torments it would make them with deliberation yea with the utmost of their devotion to cry Lord have mercy upon us we are else undone for ever O I say that the feare of this fire would make you cry Christ have mercy upon us and to continue so crying till your hearts he sprinkled
from an evill conscience and your bodies washed with pure water And I Heb. 10. 22 beseech you as you would not suffer these unspeakeable unquenchable flames doe as our Saviour bids and binds you that is to say Aske Seeke and Knock for that holy water Mat. 7. 7. and the Spirit without which he telleth and teacheth us that there is no comming to the glorious Kingdome and so by consequence no escaping of hell Aske earnestly and if no answer seeme to come Seeke more earnestly and if you heare no answer yet Knock most earnestly for the water of the Spirit to regenerate renew and restore you from the death of sinne and the danger of death eternall death and dreadfull damnation Yea I would Knock downe the gates of heaven why should not I doe a thing impossible to escape the lake of fire and brimstone at well as the Lord bids us doe a thing impossible to be free from eternall damnation saying Make Eze. 18. 31. you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye die though he knoweth that we cannot move an hand towards making new hearts therfore promiseth by the same Prophet yea and that Eze. 11. 19 and 36. 26. once and again that he will give us new hearts and new spirits rather then feele the fury of God in the fiercenesse and fulnesse of it in that Tophet that place of torments that hell of hels which hath such fire in it that The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it And thus much be spoken to such as have hitherto abode in darkenesse by not thinking on the place of torments too much considering the time not halfe enough in regard of the thing you may now depart at your pleasure I having shewed you the case you are in and the course you must take to come out of it I have onely two words to speak now to you who have such knowledge and such obedience wrought with in you either before this day it some good and Christian perfection or on this day in the beginnings of it in the seeds or desires of it or sound preparations to it Now to you who are soundly wrought on and so are freed from those extreme everlasting torments I am to perswade with you 1. To praise the Lord for your owne mercy 2. To pitty others in their misery For the first of these as oft as you thinke on the extremitie and eternitie of the torments of hell it must make you one by one cry with the sweet Singer of Israel Psal 86. 12. 13. I will praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorifie thy Name for evermore For great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell And to provoke you to this duty of praise which when we come to heaven and shall see that we cannot to hell we shall continually be employed in and which we are so more backward to bring our hearts to whiles we are in earth let us briefly think on these things 1. First if our Graces be well grounded strongthned and stablished we shall be sure without peradventures that wee shall not be thrown to the lake of brimstone Revel 21. 7. 8. 2. If we had been dead only and revived recovered to life again yea if we had been but deadly sick and had been restored to health again we should say with good Hezekiah The living Isai 38. 19. the living they shall praise thee How much more are we bound to doe it at the freeing our souls from the place of torments 3. Consider how many millions nobler richer learneder then we are are left to themselves and their soules to Satan to be extremely eternally damned And God hath made choise of us filly simple wormes who were first Elected and then Selected and after Neglected of all meere morall men and often in our owne soules Dejected in our owne apprehensions 1 Cor. 1. 26. 27. 4. Consider how many times how many thousand times the God of heaven did call and cry to us and yet we refused and often resisted He sent not only his Son and after his Son his Word to reveale his Sonne but also his Spirit from Sabbath to Sabbath from Sermon to Sermon and still we withstood our owne escape our owne deliverance our own freedome from those flames which have none end or ease at all in them 5. He fetched us from it called culled converted our soules from it when we were loath to come out of hell loathest of all to come out of the way to it loather it may be some of us then ever in all our lives before O the Lord dealt with us as he did in fetching Lot from Sodome whiles we lingred hee laid hands on us the Lord being exceedingly mercifull to us saying Fly for your lives Escape towards the mountaine lest ye be consumed in the lake of fire and brimstone And the cause why we so contemned our owne mercy in that our misery was our ignorance our not knowing what case we were in our thinking our selves safe and in the way to the Kingdome of Heaven when alas we were almost in hell in the very path the very porch of it 6. And lastly that as he sent when we never sought pardon so he hath not only knockt off the bolts and bonds not onely freed us from hels most fierce and fiery flames but also fitted us in some measure for the wearing of Royall Crownes of Glory So that now we can think on hell without horrour without astonishment because we can say with Paul to his Thessalonians God hath not appointed us to wrath but to abâ—â—inâ— Salvation by Iesus Christ 1 Thess 5. 9. The thought of these things should fill us full of joy and comfort and make us breathe out holy praises and breake forth into blessing the blessed Majesty crying with Paul Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in heavenly places in Ephes 1. 3. Christ According as he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world when he rejected millions of millions to be extremely eternally damned And with Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy in freeing us from those torments which know neither end nor ease hath begotten us again to a lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 3. 4. And wherein we shall shine as the Sunne in the Kingdome of our Father when all the wicked of the world shall be cast into Matth. 13. 42. 43. that furnace of fire which The breath of the Lord like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it And thus much be spoken to you concerning your owne mercie Now a word of Information concerning others misery The Prophet Ieremie in one verse Ier.
doe it Then say ye Thou art the man some flatter you for feare of loosing your face and favour but I will not suffer you to sleep in your sinnes I will affright every veine in your soule and body before I le suffer you through my default to be cast to the fiery flames of hell which The breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles And thus of the acts of Pollicie Now pitty must also be used in speaking do others to helpe them from hell And because the time is past that I cannot come to the comfort which come to the Saints from this holy doctrine for out of this strong comes swâ—â—â— and Gods children from hells extremity and eternitie may gather the excellencie and eternity of heaven may be sure they shall not be thrown into it may with more patience endure any misery on earth may be the more joyfull in their escaping such terrible torments as well as more certain of them escaping them c. I say because I want time to deliver those and such like holy comforts from the serious thought of the doctrine of hells extremitie and eternity I will end it as I began it in pressing the using Pitty when we warne men and women to take heed of it As I told you at the beginning that I should speake hereof with compassion so in the end I call upon all to use the like commiseration as our Lord and his Apostle did when they told of destruction and damnation Many walke saith blessed Paul whose end will be Phil. 3. 18. damnation and I tell you of it weeping The enemy shall cast a bank about thee saith Christ but he said it with weeping eyes for when he drew now to Ierusalem be beheld the Citie and Luk. 19. 41. wept over it As it is related of Bias the Judge that he never sentenced any man with dry eyes Shew to them whom you doe admonish that you speake to them of hell and of their going to it if they turn not with griefe of heart with groning in spirit knowing that the wrath of man doth not accomplish the will of God as the sonne of thunder hath taught us not James at all that part of his will wherein he binds us to doe our utmost in keeping poore souls from the wrath to come from the place of torments the fire of hell of which it is said in the Text that the breath of the Lord like a river of brimstone kindles it FINIS WHen this last Sermon thus was brought to end Our Vincent from the Pulpit did descend Into the Pew and blessed be our Lord Who so much grac'd this Preacher of his Word That though his foes exceedingly desir'd To interrupt him in it and conspir'd To that same purpose yea besides although They had both power and pollicie enough To doe it yet they could not for their heart Touch him or cause one person to depart Till he had finisht But when that was done His foes by heaps did at the Church doore run John 18. 1. Rev. 11. 7. To doe him mischiefe And a wonder 't is But that we certainly may learn by this That God had other work for him to doe And better souls for him to preach unto That knife or Halberds or that presse of men Had not destroy'd his smoaking body then But blest be God at length he got away And preacht at Mary Magdalens that day i th Evening And since that by Gods great power Full many a Sermon he hath preacht in our Great London Citie But no thanks to you Ye preaching-hating bloud-desiring crew Of sottish slauderers yea sure you should Be sharply punished for what you would But could not compasse that you so might be A warning unto others and to mee Idem A. F. qui scripsit This was the Sermon c. Qui punit ponit MR. Packington before the Iustices required me to produce the testimonie of some Ministers of my own Countrey I therefore am compelled to produce this written by them and subscribed every one with his owne hand VVE whose names are underwritten doe certifie that Mr. Humfrey Vincent whom we have known for a good space of time is of a very honest life and conversation he hath at our desires at sundry times preached in our severall Cures The Lord hath endued him with singular gifts which he hath denied to his Brethren although faithfull in their places Indeed he is one of a thousand either to break or to bind up by Gods help a broken heart He is a Iohn Baptist to humble and to lay low a proud exalted spirit He hath beene sent for to preach in many places about us where we have heard his Doctrine hath been sound and his carriage as a Minister of the Gospel and we hope he hath done much good in our Countrey In witnesse whereof we Ministers of the Gospel have put to our hands John Needham Preacher of Stafford Seth VVood of Armitage Sampson Newton of Canck Thomas Thomas of Beckbury William Fletcher of Albrington Simon King of Codsall VVilliam Brue ton of Nosehall George Baxter of VVenlock VVilliam Peake of Shemton Robert Ashton of Bednall Deliverance Fenny house of Shassal John Chapman of Dunnâ—ngton VVilliam Madestart of Bridgnorth Thomas Mocket of Newport Roger Linsh of Norton juxta Canck All these Preachers of the VVord