them, in their barrenness) shall not be healed; (seeing they spurn the only remedy) they shall be given to salt, (left under eternal barrenness, set up for the monuments of the wrath of God, and concluded for ever under the curse,) Ezek. xlvii. 11. 2dly, Let all cursers consider this whose mouths are filled with cursing themselves and others. Hc that clothes himself with cursing, shall find the curse come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones, Psal. cix. 18. if repentance prevent it not. He shall get, all his imprecations against him fully answered, in that day wherein he stands before the tribunal of God; and shall find the killing weight of the curse of God, which he makes light of now.

II. I proceed to speak of the misery of the damned. under that curse: a misery which the tongues of men and angels cannot sufficiently express. God always acts like himself; no favours can be equal to his, and his wrath and terror are without a parrellel. As the saints in heaven are advanced to the highest pitch of happiness, so the damned in hell arrive at the height of misery. Two things here, I shall soberly enquire into; the punishment of loss, and the punishment of Sense, in hell. But since these also are such things as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, wę must (as Geographers do) leave a large void for the unknown land, which the day will discover.

First, The punishment of Loss, which the damned shall undergo, is separation from the Lord; as we learn from the text: Depart from me ye cursed. This will be a stone upon their grave's mouth, as the talent of lead, Zech. v. 7, 8. that will hold them down for ever. They shall be eternally separated from God and Christ. Christ is the way to the Father: But the way, as to them, shall be everlastingly blocked up; the bridge shall be drawn, and the great gulf fixed; so shall they be shut up in a state of eter pal separation from God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They will be locally separated from the man Christ, and shall never come into the seat of the blessed, where he appears in his glory, but be cast out into utter darkness, Matth. xxii. 13. They cannot indeed be locally separated from God; they cannot be in a place where he is not, since he is, and will be present every where: " If I make my bed in he says the Psalmist belold thou art there," Psal.

cxxxix. 8. But they shall be miserable beyond expression in a relative separation from God. Though he will be present in the very centre of their souls (if I may so express it) while they are wrapt up in fiery flames, in utter dark'ness, it shall not only be to feed them with the vinegar of his wrath, to entertain them with the emanations of his revenging justice; but they shall never taste more of his goodness and bounty, nor have the least glimpse of hope from him. They wiil see his heart to be absolutely alienated from them; and that it cannot be towards them; but that they are the party against whom the Lord will have an indignation for ever. They shall be deprived of the glorious presence and enjoyment of God; they shall have no part in the beatific vision, nor see any thing in God towards them, but one wave of wrath rolling at the back of another. This will bring upon them, overwhelming floods of sorrows for evermore. They shall never taste of the rivers of pleasures the saints in heaven enjoy ; but shall have an everlasting winter, and a perpetual night, because the Sun of righteousness has departed from them, and so they are Jeft in utter darkness. So great as heaven's happiness is, so great will their loss be; for they can have none of it for ever.

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This separation of the wicked from God, will be, (1.) An involuntary separation. Now they depart from him, they will not come to him, though they are called, intreated and obtested to come : but then they shall be driven away from him, when they would gladly abide with him. though the question, "What is thy beloved, more than another beloved?" is frequent now amongst the despisers of the gospel, there will be no such question among all the damned crew; for then they will see, that man's hap piness is only to be found in the enjoyment of God; and that the loss of him, is a loss that can never be balanced, (2.) It will also be a total and utter separation. Albeit the wicked are in this life separated from God, yet there is a kind of intercourse betwixt them: he gives them many good gifts, and they give him, at least, some good words: so that the peace is not altogether hopeless. Butthen there shall be a total separation; the damned being cast into utter darkness, where there will not be the least gleam of light er favour from the Lord: the which will put an end unto

all their fair words to him. Lastly, It shall be a final separation they will part with him never more to meet; being shut up under everlasting horror and despair. The match betwixt Jesus Christ and unbelievers, which has so often been carried forward, and put back again, shall then be broken for ever: and never shall one message of favour or good-will, go betwixt the parties any more.

This punishment of loss, in a total and final separation from God, is a misery beyond what mortals can conceive, and which the dreadful experience of the damned can only sufficiently unfold. But that we may have some conception of the horror of it, let the following things be considered:

1st, God is the chief good, and therefore to be separated from him must be the chief evil. Our native country, our relations, and our life are good; and, therefore, to be deprived of them, we reckon a great evil: and the better any thing is, so much the greater evil is the loss of it: wherefore, God being the chief good, and no good comparable to him, there can be no loss so great as the loss of God. The full enjoyment of him is the highest pinnacle → of happiness the creature is capable of arriving at; to be fully and finally separated from him, must then be the lowest step of misery which the rational creature can be reduced to. To be cast off by men, by good men, by the best of men, is heavy; what must it then be to be rejected of God, of goodness itself!

2dly, God is the fountain of all goodness, from which all goodness flows unto the creatures, and by which it is continued in them and to them. Whatever goodness or perfecton, natural as well as moral, is in any creature, it is from God, and depends upon him as the light is from and depends on the sun for every created being, as such, is a dependent one. Wherefore a total separation from God, wherein all comfortable communication betwixt God and á rational creature is absolutely blocked up, must of necessity bring along with it a total eclipse of all light of comfort and ease whatsoever. If there is but one window or open place in a house, and that be quite shut up; it is evident there can be nothing but darkness in that house. Our Lord tells us, Matth. xix 17. "There is none good but one, that is God." Nothing good or comfortable is

originally from the creature; whatever good or comfortable thing one finds in one's self, as health of body or peace of mind; whatever sweetness, rest, pleasure, or delight, one finds in other creatures, as in meat, drink, art or sciences; all these are but some faint rays of the divine perfections, communicated from God unto the creature, and depending on a constant influence from him for their conversation; which failing, they would immediately be gone; for it is impossible that any created thing can be to us more or bet ter than what God makes it to be. All the rivulets of comfort we drink of, within or without ourselves, come from God as their spring-head the course of which towards us being stopt, of necessity they must all dry up. So that when God goes, all that is good and comfortable goes with him; all ease and quiet of body or mind, Hos. ix. 12. “Wo also unto them, when I depart from them." When the wicked are totally and finally separated from him, all that is comfortable in or about them, returns to its fountain, as the light goes away with the sun and darkness succeeds in the room thereof. Thus, in their separation from God, all peace is removed far away from them, and pain in body, and anguish of soul succeed to it; all joy goes, and unmixed sorrow settles in them; all quiet and rest separate from them, and they are filled with horror and rage; hope flees away and despair seizeth them; common operations of the Spirit which now restrain them, are withdrawn for ever, and sin comes to its utmost height. And thus we have a dismal view of the horrible spectacle of sin and misery which a creature proves when totally sepa Fated from God, and left to itself; and one may see this separation to be the very hell of hell.

Being separated from God they are deprived of all good. The good things which they set their heart upon in this world, are beyond their reach there. The covetous man cannot enjoy his wealth there, nor the ambitious man his honours, nor the sensual man his pleasures; no not a drop of water to cool his tongue, Luke xvi. 24, 25. No meat nor drink there to strengthen the faint, no sleep to refresh the weary; and no music nor pleasant company to comfort and chear up the sorrowful. And as for these good things, they despised in the world, they shall never more hear of them nor see them. No offers of Christ there, no pardons,

no peace; no wells of salvation in the pit of destruction. In one word, they shall be deprived of whatsoever might comfort them, being totally and finally separated from God the fountain of all goodness.

3dly, Man naturally desires to be happy, being withal conscious to himself that he is not self-sufficient; and therefore has ever a desire of something without himself to make him happy; and the soul being by its natural make and constitution capable of enjoying God, and nothing else being commensurable to its desires; it can never have true and solid rest till it rest in the enjoyment of God. This desire of happiness the rational creature can never lay aside, no not in hell. Now, while the wicked are on earth they seek their satisfaction in the creature; and when one fails they go to another; thus they put off their time in the world, deceiving their own souls, and luring them on with vain hopes. But in the other world, all comfort in the creature have failed together at once, and the shadows they are now pursuing, having all of them evanished in a moment, they shall be totally and finally separated from God, and see they have thus lost him. So the doors of. earth and heaven both are shut against them at once. This will create them unspeakable anguish, while they shall live under an eternal gnawing hunger after happiness, which they certainly know, shall never be in the least measure satisfied, all doors being closed on them. Who then can imagine how this separation shall cut the damned to the heart! How they will roar and rage under it! and how it will sting them and gnaw them through the ages of eternity!

4thly, The damned shall know, that some are perfectly happy in the enjoyment of that God, from whom they themselves are separate: And this will aggravate the sense of their loss, that they can never have share with these happy ones. Being separated from God, they are separated from the society of the glorified saints and angels. They may see Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, Luke xvi. 23. but can never come into their company; being as unclean lepers, thrust out without the camp, and excommunicated from the presence of the Lord, and of all his holy ones. It is the opinion of some, that every person in heaven or hell, shall hear and