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in hell, he was wrapt up in purple flames, and could not have a drop of water to cool his tongue? Alas! that men should indulge themselves in sin, which will be such bitterness in the end; that they should drink so greedily of the poisonous cup, and hug that serpent in their bosom, that will sting them to the heart, and gnaw out their bowels at length! (2.) What a God he is, with whom we have to do; what a hatred he bears to sin, and how severely he punisheth it. Know the Lord to be most just, as well as most merciful, and think not that he is such an one as you are; away with that fatal mistake before it be too late, Psal. 1. 21, 22. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." The fire prepared for the devil and his angels, as dark as it is, will serve to discover God to be a severe revenger of sin. Lastly, The absolute necessity of fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith; the same necessity of repentance, and holiness of heart and life. The avenger of blood is pursuing thee, O sinner! haste and escape to the city of refuge. Wash now in the fountain of the Mediator's blood, that you may not perish in the lake of fire. Open thy heart to him, lest the pit close its mouth on thee. Leave thy sins, else they will ruin thee; kill them, else they will be thy death for ever.

Let not the terror of hell fire, put thee upon hardening thy heart more, as it may do, if thou entertain that wicked thought, viz. There is no hope, Jer. ii. 25. Which, perhaps, is more rife among the hearers of the gospel, than many are aware of. But there is hope for the worst of sinners, who will come unto Jesus Christ. If there are no good qualifications in thee, (as certainly there can be none in a natural man, none in any man, but what are received from Christ in him) know, that he has not suspended thy welcome on any good qualifications; do thou take himself and his salvation, freely offered unto all to whom the gospel comes. "Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely," Rev. xxii. 17. "Him that cometh to me, I will in no ways cast out," John vi. 37. It is true, thou art a sinful creature, and canst not repent; thou art unholy, and canst not make thyself holy; nay, thou hast es

sayed to repent, to forsake sin, and to be holy, but still missed of repentance, reformation, and holiness; and therefore, "thou saidst, there is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.” Truly, no marvel, that the success has not answered thy expectation, since thou hast always begun thy work amiss. But do thou, first of all, honour God, by believing the testimony he has given of his Son, namely, that eternal life is in him; and honour the Son of God, by believing on him, that is, embracing and falling in with the free offer of Christ, and of his salvation, from sin and from wrath, made to thee in the gospel, trusting in him confidently for righteousness to thy justification, and also for sanctifica tion; seeing of God he is made unto us both righteousness and sanctification, I Cor. i. 30. Then, if thou hadst as much credit to give to the word, as thou wouldst allow to the word of an honest man offering thee a gift, and saying, take it, and it is thine; thou mayest believe that God is thy God, Christ is thine, his salvation is thine, thy sins are pardoned, thou had strength in him for repentance and for holiness; for all these are made over to thee in the free offer of the gospel. Believing on the Son of God, thou art justified, the curse is removed. And while it lies upon thee, how is it possible, thou shouldst bring forth the fruits of holiness? But, the curse is removed, that death, which seized on thee with the first Adam, (according to the threatening, Gen. ii. 17.) is taken away. In consequence of which, thou shalt find the bands of wickedness (now holding thee fast in impenitency) broken asunder, as the bands of death: so as thou wilt be able to repent indeed from the heart; thou shalt find the spirit of life, on whose departure, that death ensued, returned to thy soul, so as thenceforth thou shalt be enabled to live unto righteousness. No man's case is so bad, but it may be mended this way in time, to be perfectly right in eternity; and no man's case is so good but another way being taken, it will be marred for time and eternity too.

III. The damned shall have the society of devils in their miserable state in hell; for they must depart into fire prepared for the devil and his angels. O horrible company! O frightful association! who would chuse to dwell in a palace haunted by devils? To be confined to the most

pleasant spot of earth, with the devil and his infernal furies would be a most terrible confinement. How would mens hearts fail them, and their hair stand up, finding themselves environed with the hellish crew, in that case! But ah! how much more terrible must it be to be cast with the devils into one fire, locked up with them in one dungeon, shut up with them in one pit! to be closed up in a den of roaring lions, girded about with serpents, surrounded with venomous asps, and to have the bowels eaten out by vipers all together, and at once, is a comparison too low, to shew the misery of the damned, shut up in hell with the devil and his angels. They go about now as roaring lions seeking whom they may devour; but then shall they be confined in their dens with their prey, they shall be filled to the brim with the wrath of God, and receive the full torment, Matth. viii. 29. which they tremble in expectation of, James ii. 19, being cast into the fire prepared for them. How will these lions roar and tear! how will these serpents hiss! these dragons vomit out fire? what horrible anguish will seize the damned, finding themselves in the -lake of fire, with the devil who deceived them; drawn hither with the silken cords of temptation, by these wicked spirits, and bound with them in everlasting chains under darkness! Rev. xx. 10. "And the devil that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever.

O! that men would consider this in time, renounce the devil and his lusts, and join themselves to the Lord in faith and holiness. Why should men chuse that company in this world, and delight in that society they would not desire to associate with in the other world? Those who like not the company of the saints on earth, will get none of it in eternity; but as godless company is their delight now, they will afterwards get enough of it; when they have an eternity to pass in the roaring and blaspheming society of devils and reprobates in hell. Let those who use to invocate the devil to take them, soberly consider, that the company so often invited will be terrible at last, when come.

IV. and Lastly, Let us consider the eternity of the whole,

the everlasting continuance of the miserable state of the damned in hell.

First, If I could, I should shew what eternity is, I mean, the creature's eternity. But who can measure the waters of the ocean, or who can tell you the days, year, and ages of eternity, which are infinitely more than the drops of the ocean? None can comprehend eternity, but the eternal God. Eternity is an ocean whereof we will never see the shore; it is a deep where we can find no bottom; a labyrinth from whence we cannot extricate ourselves, and where we shall ever lose the door. There are two things one may say of it, (1.) It has a beginning. God's eternity has no beginning, but the creature's eternity has. Sometime there was no lake of fire, and those who have been there, for some thousands of years, were once in time, as we now are. (2.) It shall never have an end. The first who entered into the eternity of wo, is as far from the end of it, as the last who shall go thither, will be at his cntry. They who have lunched out farther into that ocean, are as far from land, as they were the first moment they went into it; and thousands of ages after this they will be as far from it as ever. Wherefore, eternity which is before us, is a duration that hath a beginning, but no end. It is a beginning without a middle, a beginning without an end. After millions of years, still it is a beginning. God's wrath in hell will ever be the wrath to come. But there is no middle in eternity. When millions of ages are past in eternity, what is past bears no proportion to what is to come; no not so much as one drop of water, falling from the tip of one's finger, bears to all the waters of the ocean. There is no end of it; while God is, it shall be. It is an entry without an outgate, a continual succession of ages, a glass always running, which shall never run out.

Observe the continual succession of hours, days, months and years, how one still follows upon another; and think of eternity, wherein there is a continual succession without end. When you go out in the night, and behold the stars of heaven, how they cannot be numbered for multitude, think of the ages of eternity; considering withal, there is a certain definite number of the stars, but no number of the ages of eternity. When you see a water running,

think how vain a thing it would be to sit down by it, and wait till it should run out, that you may pass over; look how new water still succeeds to that which passeth by you: and therein you will have an image of eternity, which is a river that never dries up. They who wear rings have an image of eternity on their fingers; and they who handle the wheel have an emblem of eternity before them; for to which part soever of the ring or wheel one looks, one will still see another part beyond it, and on whatsoever moment of eternity you condescend, there is still another beyond it. When you are abroad in the fields, and behold the piles of grass on the earth which no man can reckon, think with yourselves, that, were as many thousands of years to come as there are piles of grass on the ground, even those would have an end at length, but eternity will have none. When you look to a mountain, imagine in your hearts, how long would it be, ere that mountain should be removed, by a little bird coming once every thousand years, and carrying away but one grain of the dust at once; the mountain would at length be removed that way and brought to an end, but eternity will never end. Suppose this with respect to all the mountains of the earth; nay, with respect to the whole globe of the earth, the grains of dust whereof the whole earth is made up are not infinite, and therefore the last grain would, at long-run, come to be carried away in the way supposed; but when that slowest work would be brought to an end, eternity would be, in effect but beginning.

These are some rude draughts of eternity; and now add misery and woe to this eternity, what tongue can express it? What heart can conceive? In what balance can that misery and that woe be weighed?

Secondly, Let us take a view of what is eternal, in the state of the damned in hell. Whatsoever is included in the fearful sentence, determining their eternal state, is everlasting; therefore all the doleful ingredients of their miserable state, will be everlasting; they will never end. The text expressly declares the fire into which they must depart, to be everlasting fire. And our Lord elsewhere tells us, that in hell, the fire shall never be quenched, Mark ix. 43. with an eye to the valley of Hinnom, in which, besides the already mentioned fire for burning of the children to Molech, there was also another fire, burning

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