SECT. I.

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 [Page 118] 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; [Page 119] 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 [Page 120] 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 [Page 121] 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 [Page 122] 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 [Page 123] 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, Iratum (que) 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,) 'Tis 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 [Page 124] 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 [Page 125] 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 Ʋnder­standing; 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 [Page 126] 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 'tis 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 [Page 127] 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 [Page 128] putting forth his Breath with a more than ordinary violence; therefore by way of Diminution and Correction he adds, By the Breath of his Nostrils; that is, (still measuring it, as spoken, after the simili­tude and manner of Men) by the most ordinary and weakest putting forth of his Power. And yet we see if he puts forth no more, he blows us to Destructi­on, when his intent is to destroy: And why? For of us the Scriptures use a comparison suitable thereto, in saying that We are but as the Dust of the Bal­lance, Isa. 40. 15. Yea, all the Nations (put all together) are but as the small Dust of the Ballance: As that little that is left in the Ballance, when what is weighed is taken forth, which is easily blown away with a Man's Breath. Again, yet lower, in Man; his Nod is of less force than his Breath: and yet, Lo, at the rebuke of his Countenance we perish, Psal. 80. 16. He can look on one that is proud, and abase him; and his Eye can cast about Rage and Destruction, Job 40. 11, 12, 13. He had said before, ver. 9. Hast thou an Arm like God? He riseth from the Power of his Nod, the weak­ness of his Power, unto the Power of his Arm: And so may we, from his Looks to his Breath, from that to his [Page 129] little Finger, from that to his Fist, from that to his Arm and Hands, in which his Strength is said to lie, Luke 1. 51. O think how dreadful then it must needs be, to fall into those Hands, (as here in the Text,) into those Hands, I say, that measure the Waters in the hollow of them, that span the Hea­vens, and at the same time compre­hend also all the Dust of the Earth in one grasp, as one of us doth a little Pebble. And verse 15. Takes up the Isles as a very little thing; as you would do Hazel-nut-shells out of a Pail of Water. Now for thee, a poor Grashopper, to be taken into those hands, and to be grip'd and crush'd, and squeezed with the might thereof. But the Scripture expressions go further yet, to have this God like a Mill-stone fall upon thee with his whole weight, which is Christ's comparison, Mat. 21. 44. Thy Wrath lies hard upon me, said Heman. You see in Summer little green Flies, creeping upon green leaves, which if a Man doth but touch, they die: such a slight Creature art thou in comparison to this God. Or further, (as Job's com­parison is) that this Great and Mighty God should run upon thee as a Mighty Giant, with his full force, the utmost of [Page 130] his Force, as a Man doth upon his Ene­my; yet so Job speaks of it, Chap. 16. 14. And in another place, the same Job, that he should take thee about the Neck, and throttle thee. O what do we, poor Potsheards of the Earth, striving with our Maker? as Isaiah speaks, chap. 45. 9. Or, as Christ spake from Heaven, will Flesh think to kick and spurn against such Iron Pricks and Pikes, which run up into the Soul, whilst it strikes upon them.

And that we may yet further have a through sensibleness of our obnoxious­ness and exposedness to this Great God, let us withal consider his absolute Sove­reignty over us, as well as his Power. What an inconsiderable portion doth any one Soul (and every one is singly to deal with him for his own particular) bear unto this Infinity of Being and Glo­ry; to whom not one Nation, but all Nations; and not only all Nations that are now extant in the World, but that ever have been, or shall be, are counted as nothing, yea, less than nothing. What a little thing is this Island of ours, to the whole Body of Nations? And yet all Isles are to him but a little thing, as Isaiah speaks. Lord, think thou, what am I to Thee! or any Man! that thou [Page 131] shouldest regard him! Yea, and being sinful, why should any Man (as he is of himself) think that God should have any stick or demurr within him, to with­hold himself from destroying him every moment? For lo, even the greatest of Men, that have been of greatest Wis­dom, Parts, (being Sinners) he hath in his distance and greatness laid them aside, and regarded them not at all, Job 38. last: He regards not the Wise in Heart. What is all or any Excellency in thee to him?

There is therefore no way but to turn unto him, and seeing you must fall into his hands, prevent him by putting your selves into his hands. This great Arm of his may be held: Isa. 27. 5. Let them take hold of my Strength; Fury is not in me. There is an Arm also of another one, that is, Christ, who can deal with God for thee, and overcome him. [Isa. 53. 1. To whom is the Arm of the Lord (so he termeth Christ) revealed?] Thus you have seen and heard something of the Greatness of this God, and that but in general, as he is the Author of this Punishment, and thereby this Punish­ment aggrandized unto us, and yet how little do we know of him? as Job speaks.

§. II.

II. SUbjoin hereunto the consideration of what is the eminent Subject of this Punishment, the Soul of Man; and that the Issue of this Punishment is no less than the Destruction of that Soul. And these two (which I join together) will afford further Reflections, to help us to conceive of the fearfulness of this Punish­ment. And the Consideration hereof cometh in most pertinently next unto the foregoing, wherein the Power of the Agent was spoken to; but now in this the Capacity of the Subject or Patient, and the Receptivity thereof of Impressi­ons from this Worker.

That the Soul is the immediate Ves­sel of this Wrath, that I spake to afore, Mat. 10. 28. Fear not them that kill the Body, but are not able to kill the Soul: but rather [Page 133] fear him which is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell. The former part of which words evidently import: 1. That the Soul alone, and immediately in it self, and not only in respect of what it suffers with or from the Bodies suffering, is the Subject of this Punishment, tho the Body also is: And 2. Christ con­cludes, that it is the Destruction of both Body and Soul.

You know also the Rule, That the Measure of every Agent's working upon another must be taken from the Capacity of the Subject which the Impression is made upon, as well as from the Power of the Agent that works. Fire works more fiercely upon Oil and Brimstone, than upon Stones, or upon Dust or Sands. You may discern this in the parts of your own Body: Rheum falling upon the Lungs doth not torture so, as falling up­on a Tooth, a Joint, or Eye. How al­so are the inward parts capable of more exquisite Torment, as by the Stone, &c. bred in them, than the outward are, by any Cuttings or Wounds?

Now the Soul of Man is capable of more exquisite Impressions from God's hand, in that it is an intelligent Spirit, and in the substantial Faculties of it as­simulated to him, made in his Image, [Page 134] a Spirit as God is, that hath an Under­standing, and other Faculties, to receive and take in from him what he is pleased to pour forth into it by them; and is accordingly more sensible thereof, than the Senses of the Body are or can be sup­posed to be from Creatures. The Pro­phet Nahum seems to have considered this, chap. 1. v. 5, 6. When setting out God's Wrath to Men in the effects of it, he first considers, how it works upon inanimate Creatures, that are at such a distance (in respect of the kind of their being) from God's: It kindleth a Fire, says he, which maketh the Hills to melt, and the Eaath is burnt up at his presence: yea, the World, and all that dwell therein, (which he will one day burn up with Fire.) Now from these the Prophet in­fers and raiseth up our thoughts. Doth he work thus upon insensible Creatures, as the Hills, and the Earth, and the whole World? Do the Elements melt with fervent heat? Are the Heavens shrivel'd up as a Scrole of Parchment afore him, by the violence of that Fire which he sends forth? Consider then, O consider, ye Sons of Men, how will the Fire of his Wrath work upon your intellectual Souls? And as unto this Scope and Co­herence with the former, I understand [Page 135] what follows, verse 6. Who can stand a­fore his Indignation? who can abide in the fierceness of his Anger? He here turneth his Speech, and applieth it to Men. For the Souls of Men being in their beings and kind nearer of kin to him, Spirits, as he is the great Spirit, and the Father of Spirits, which were made only for God, and to be filled with God, have accordingly a more intimate sense of his Workings on them. And 'tis as if he had said, If then he sends forth such a Fire as melts and dissolves the Earth, Mountains of Iron or Brass; how much more will it be able to melt Wax? And such are Mens Souls to God, compara­tively to other Creatures. Christ speak­ing of his Soul, when he had thus to do with God, in the Day of his Anger, Psal. 22. 14. (that Psalm was all made of him) My Heart is melted like Wax, it is melted in the midst of my Bowels. And towards this Sence doth Sanctius seem to understand that Complaint of Job's, uttered to his Friends concerning those Terrors of God, which he felt within him, Job 6. 4, 11. verses compared; Is my Strength the Strength of Stones? Or is my Flesh, my Nature or Constitution, of Brass, that I should be able to en­counter with this Indignation of the [Page 136] Almighty? Stones and Brass have no sense in them, (or but a dull sense, if their Opinion should hold true, de sen­su rerum,) they have no Blood nor Spi­rits to make them sensible of these Ar­rows of God's Anger he had spoken of, vers. 4. Ay, but Job meaneth to say, I have a Soul made of other Metal, suited to God, the great Spirit, whose Arrows I feel, which is exquisitely sensible of all his Actings. Take the Statue of a Man made of Brass, or cut out of Stone, and slash and cut him, and he feels it not; but cut the same Limbs that answer to these in a living Man, made of Flesh and Blood, with the same knife, and what Torture is it? You may see this, and aggravate it to your selves, by what in­ferior Spirits to this great Father of Spi­rits, as Angels and Devils, can work up­on Man's Soul, that is a Spirit like them­selves, being yet inferior to them. When Saul had but one evil Spirit sent from the Lord, how distracted and terrified was he, tho in the midst of the enjoi­ments of a Kingdom? 1 Sam. 16. 14. Also that great Apostle, that had his Spi­rit fortified, as having been newly feast­ed with the Joys of Heaven, and that not as at a distance only, but as a Specta­tor, that stood by, present there, 2 Cor. 12. [Page 137] Yet one Angel, Satan buffeting him, he was so disturbed and put to it, as he knew not what to do, or how to bear it: only God told him, My Grace is sufficient for thee. Well, but do Mens Souls in Hell fight with Flesh and Blood, yea, or with Principalities and Powers chiefly? No, that is but whilst they are the Rulers of this World, as there 'tis added. And yet if these Spirits have such power over our Spirits to buffet and terrify them; what hath God the Father of them?

Again, consider how the Soul is capa­ble of more Joys and Sorrows, than the Bodily Senses are, and this by how much it doth exceed them in its Eminency and Capacity. The Soul is able to drink up all the Pleasures the whole Creation can afford the Bodily Senses, or they bring in: to drink them up (I say) even at one Draught, and yet would in the midst of it, still cry, Give, Give. Now as it is in the Body of a Man, look whatever part is capable of more Pleasure, it is also ca­pable more of Pains: So the Soul pro­portionably; look how capable it is of greater Joys (as it is from God) it is as much of Sorrows also, unto the same ex­tention and intention of them.

Add II. As to this Point, That as the Soul is thus vastly capable of more Sor­row [Page 138] and Anguish; So further, that these Souls to be punisht are filled with Sin, and in that respect termed Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction, Rom. 9. 22. Take a Barrel of Wood; and of it self it will burn as it is Wood: but if withal it be Pitcht within, and full of Tar and com­bustible Matter, it will burn more rage­ingly. Of unfruitful Branches, Apostati­zing from Christ, it is said John 15. 6. That they are cast into the Fire, and they are burned, that is, they burn to purpose; make a mighty Fire. That Clause [And they are burned] is added by way of Aux­esis or Emphasis, else it needed not. We see when Sins were but laid upon Christ by Imputation, who in himself was separate from Sinners, and had no Con­science of Sin, how yet the Anger of God against Sin dealt with him, as undertaking to be a Surety for Sin. And can you drink, says Christ, the Cup that I am to drink of, that is, so as to bear it and not be overcome with it? Now in Luke 23. 31. you may see, how Christ infers from his Sufferings, as being the Sufferings of one who had not been himself personally guilty of Sin, what therefore, with diffe­rence, those in whom Sin is inherent, must expect. Weep for your selves (says he) for if they do those things to the green [Page 139] Tree, what will be done in the Dry? that is, who are fit combustible Matter for the Fire; and as the Prophet says, are as Stubble fully dry, Nahum. 1. 10. And of the terribleness of God's Anger, he had afore discoursed (as was even now obser­ved) in all that Chapter.

Again III. In the Soul, some Faculties are more capable of Anguish from his Wrath than other; even as in the Body some Parts are more of Pain. If a Man would avoid a scalding drop to be let fall upon any Part, of all other he would fence his Eye. You see how a Mote, a Flie troubleth it: a scalding drop of Oyl would much more. So it is in the Facul­ties of the Soul. You read there is the Spirit of the Mind, Eph. 4. 23. Now God will wound, even that, and aims at it, in this Punishment. A wounded Spirit who can bear? (says Solomon) If a Man's Flesh be torn and cut, he may yet bear up himself, but if his Bones be broken, who can stand? Now the immediate Stroaks of God are so compared by Da­vid, as unto the breaking of the Bones, in comparison of other dealings of God with, and Inflictions from God to­wards us.

The next thing which I mention but as an Appendix to this Head, is, that it is the Destruction of the Soul. So, Christ and the Apostle again and again. They are said to be lost: and though Men may Metaphysically dispute, that it is better to Be, though in Hell, than not to Be: Yet Christ hath said, it were better not to have been born. I shall say no more as to this Head, than what the Apostle expresseth this by, in the 1 Tim. 6. 9. in saying, [That Men are drowned in Perdition and Destruction] one would think, for him to have expressed Death and Destructi­on, it might have been enough to have said, that a Man were drown'd, or sunk down to the bottom of Waters, or the like Materials that would suffocate a Man: But to say he is drowned in Perdition it self, or that Perdition and Destruction are the Pit, the Lake, he is plunged into; what can be said beyond it? And yet here, he is not content with one single Word to express that by neither, as to have said drowned in Perdition, but must double it: and add another Word [De­struction] also. Destroyed, therefore over, and over: Drowned over Head and Ears, as we say, and all that is in them, drowned and sunk into Perdition; the whole Soul: [Page 141] yea, the whole Man. No part above Water. Destroyed with a double Destru­ction: both for Object double, and also for the Subject of it, both Body and Soul: So Christ says.

§. III.

THe third Head, that affords matter of Exaggeration to our Thoughts, whereby to infer the fearfulness of this Punishment, is taken from the Ends, or Final Causes mentioned in that first Secti­on. The Ends, I say, which God hath in, and is provoked by, unto this Punish­ment. And as I then singly argued from each of them the immediateness of God's Hand therein; so now I shall from each of the same, The dreadfulness here­of. There were three Attributes of God in Special, and his Glory in Common, which God aimeth at the Manifestation of, in this ultimate Guerdon or Reward for Sin. 1. The Manifestation of the [Page 142] Glory (that's in Common;) then parti­cularly, 1. Of his Power. 2. The satis­fying of his Justice. 3. Of his Wrath. The Scriptures I then had recourse to, do specify all these. I shall speak to these in this Section, and to the other in the following.

1. In General, that he aimeth at his Glory in it (which is God's general aim, and is common to these and all other At­tributes) is evident. His Glory, (as it is to be manifested to us) is but the result or shine of all or any of his Attributes manifested. In that place of Prov. 16. 4. The Lord hath made all things for himself, that is, for his Glory (for that is himself: My Glory I will not give to another) it fol­lows, yea even the wicked for the day of evil. The day of evil there is the day of Punish­ment: the Wicked themselves also making and preparing themselves by Sin thereto; but so as thereupon God manifests his Glory upon them, as well as upon all things else; which he hath made in their several seasons and kinds. And Solomon doth mention this of Punishment as one Eminent Instance of all things else, what­ever, that are for his Glory, and which will be ordered then by him, thereunto in a special manner: And because (it be­ing [Page 143] so great an evil) Men might think o­therwise; Yea, but says Solomon, God seeks and will have a Glory out of this Punishment, as well as out of all things else; of which ye all acknowledg, that God made them for himself. And so in that 2 Thess. 1. 9. They are said to be punisht from the Glory of his Power, that is, from his Power, glorifying himself on them, as I afore expounded it. And as, it is for the Glory of this his Power, so by the same reason of all, or any of those other Attributes, he is pleased to put forth therein.

I shall premise two Maxims, from whence fore-laid the Inference, for the dreadfulness of this will more readily rise, in an infinite height, unto our more serious and sober Apprehensiions.

The first: That all things which God doth for his own Glory, he will perform them like himself, that is, like God: and so make the utmost of every thing, that that subject Matter, whatever it be, will afford of Glory to him. This Rule is ascertained to us, as from the Nature of God; so from that saying of the Apostle, Rom. 1. 21. where he condemns the Gentiles, that they glorified him not as God, that is, in such a manner as was worthy of him; they came not up to that height [Page 144] of Glory, so great a God must have gi­ven unto him from Creatures. Now if it be the Sin of Creatures, that they fall short in glorifying God as God; then be assured that if God himself undertakes and professeth to do a thing for his Glo­ry, he will, in the whole of it, and issue thereof, either glorify himself as God, or never begin to essay or meddle with it, but would have let it alone, for ever.

2. From hence, take this also along with you, to carry it in your view; through each particular that follows: That then, if God seeks to glorify himself in a way of Punishment, that Punishment must be answerably great and proportioned to raise up a Glory unto God, such as shall glori­fy him, As God, in that way. For it is the Punishment or the Judgment it self which he executes (as the Psalmist says) out of which this Glory must spring. This Punishment, as it is a Punishment, is that, wherein God will be glorified as God. That is, it is the Soil which this Crop of his Glory is to grow up out of, and the Crop or Harvest of Glory can be but what the fertility of that Soil, as such, affords: These things in general fore-laid.

Now, 3. The greatness or vast comings in of that Glory, God reckons upon from [Page 145] this, may rise up in your view, by these Particulars.

1. Had it not been that in comparison of other works of his, an infinitely ex­ceeding Revenue of Glory would have arisen unto him from this, God would never have set his Heart or Hand to this work of all other: I say it again, He would never have set his Hand to this work of all other. For as he is Creator, he hath a love to all, and hates nothing that he hath made, he loves no such bloody work for it self; nor would have ever embrued his Hands in the Destruction of his Creature, had it not been for an ex­ceeding weight of Glory; and as being justly provoked thereto, it becometh a just Prize, on that Hand presented to him: which he will be sure withal to manage and perform with the utmost Righteous­ness. It is certain, that this is to him opus alienum, a work strange to his Na­ture, as the Prophet speaks. He does not naturally, no nor willingly (says the Lamentations) afflict, or grieve the Chil­dren of Men. Lament. 3. 33. Mens Quar­rellings and Cavils hereabout did put him long since to his Oath, and he hath clear­ed himself by Oath in Ezekiel, As I live, I will not the Death of a Sinner, that is not simply, as if I delighted in it for it self, [Page 146] as a God that is cruel; (which was obje­cted) and therefore I say peremptorily it must be an infinite mass of Glory, after much long-suffering and impenitency of Men, that moves him to it. And if so, then according to the Principles even now mentioned, do you that are impe­nitent Sinners look to it, for ex vestro ca­rio (I allude to Job's Speech, Skin for Skin) out of the Blood of your Souls, and their Destruction, shall this Tribute and Tax of Glory be raised, according unto what your sinfulness shall be found to have been. And oh then, do you col­lect how fearful it is like to be! View it in a contrary, and indeed though an In­stance far transcending the Proportion of this, yet in respect of holding some like­ness to God's proceeding in this, will conduce to heighten our Thoughts about this. It is a Consideration that helps our Faith (and 'tis a great one) that for God to deliver up his own Son to Death, and for himself to bruise him, (you have it all in a short Saying, Isa. 53. 10. It pleased the Lord to bruise him) and that this should be the Object of his good Plea­sure, there must have been some incom­prehensible vast design of Glory to accrue there-from, to be attained by doing it; some high End and far transcending De­sign [Page 147] that was to be the Issue and Product of it. Which as you know was the Glo­ry of his Mercy and Love in the Salvati­on of Men; Glory to God on High, Good Will to Men. And this is as great an Evidence and Argument to our Faith, that God is resolved to save Sinners, as can be given. For what hath been thus done to Christ is past recalling; not to be recompensed any other way than by saving many by the Knowledg of him, as God there speaks. Now as this Instance of the highest kind serves to evidence this thing to us, so though in a far lesser Pro­portion, you may take somewhat alike Illustration, at least, in the Point in Hand; That certainly it must be a great surpas­sing mass of Glory that will come in unto him by this Punishment for Sin, which should any way gain him to be so much as willing to it, against which, otherwise he hath so much in his own Nature; who had it withal in his absolute Power to have given effectual Grace to all, as well as to some; which latter all acknow­ledg he hath done. Even as it was in his Power to have saved the World without Christ's Death, Mark 14. 36. Oh! ye Sons of Men, know and understand your God, and be moved thereby to turn un­to him: and the more by this, that it [Page 146] [...] [Page 147] [...] [Page 148] must and will prove an infinite Punish­ment that is coming upon you; because were it not an immense sum of Glory would accrue to him out of it, and that but upon your final impenitency: He that is a God so good in himself, would never else bring it upon you. And ac­cording to that first Maxime premised, it must be the soreness of the Punish­ment from whence that Glory must a­rise.

2. Consider herewith, how that he hath reserved this, as his last work, in that other World: when this World shall come to be folded up as a Garment; and a final conclusion be put to all these other Dispensations and Works of Glory that are now on Foot. And as Solomon told us that he hath made the wicked for him­self and for the day of evil; So Job also tells us, That the Wicked is reserved to the day of Destruction, and shall be brought forth at (or to) the day of Wrath: [Reserved] by God, till after all his other works of wonder are ended and gone, then to be brought forth as a Trophie of his Glory. Both themselves and all their Sins are re­served till then, and laid up amongst God's Treasures, to be then made publick. The Salvation of his Elect, and the Destructi­on of the Wicked, are the last and only [Page 149] Works that then remain, and do remain, and are purposely kept unto that time, when he means to shew himself to be God indeed; and to make all Men and Angels know that he is God. It is an Argument of the fearfulness of that Punishment the Devils shall undergoe, Jude 6. 2 Pet. 2. 4. That he hath reserved them in everlasting Chains unto the Judgment of the great day. It is a certain Rule, that God's latter works do still exceed and put down the former: So far, as the former shall not in compari­son be remembred, Isa. 65. 17. Jer. 3. 16. When God would make his Apostles (as to this World) the greatest spectacle of Misery that (excepting what he made his own Son, who was the first-born a­mong many Bretbren) he ever put upon Saints, Prophets or Martyrs, that had preceeded and were afore them. How doth the Apostle express his Design in it, 1 Cor. 4. 9. I think (says he) that God hath set forth us the Apostles [last] as it were Men appointed to Death, for we are made a Spectacle unto the World, and to Angels, and to Men. Alluding to those Gladiators, brought up last upon the Stage, as a Spectacle to the People. The thing I cite it for, is, that the greatest work in that kind, he appointed to be at last: As also, was that which immediate­ly [Page 150] preceded it, the coming of his Son in the last days. And but this of punishing the Wicked is his last, and very last, of all that he will do for ever.

Especially let us withal, 3. Consider besides, how all his Actings and Works whereby to glorify himself for ever, shall be reduced and contracted to these two. He gives over all other of Providence, and Spiritual Dispensations by Ordinan­ces, and sets down and betakes himself to these two alone. God hath nothing else to do in the other World. And he hath no other revenue of manifested Glory that remains extant; he lives and reigns eternally in or upon these two: And yet this is then, when he is resolved, to the ut­most to be glorious. And yet all is but what comes out of these two Works, the Salvation of the Elect, and Destruction of the Wicked.

Again, 4. Consider these two are uni­form Works, and unvarying; and with­out shadow of turning: In this World he makes a variety and enterchange of Pro­vidences; which are exercised in such Works as he sometimes takes up, and then lays down again, at Pleasure; he sets one thing against another as Solomon speaks. Eve­ry Day and Age produceth a Variety and Alteration. And this is, because his Glo­ry [Page 151] that appeareth but imperfectly in some one (as in this and that particular) may have an additional perfection in some o­ther; that so, all that Variety, may like small pieces in Tapestry, make that piece of Work compleat. And yet we see how in this Mixture, and often, but in some one single Work or Piece, wrought and done but once, how much of God's Glo­ry appears to the wonderment of Men and Angels. Whereas now this last work of punishing Wicked Men (as likewise that other of Salvation) are but as one continued Dispensation of one Woof, and uniform for ever, without Change, Variety or Interruption. The whole stream of God's Activity contracts it self unto, and runs in these two Channels and no more, in omne volubilis aevum: And how strong must you needs suppose these two Streams, each of them to be? when as the Manifestation of the Deity, doth now run so strongly in a thousand Rivo­lets. This in General, from the Manife­station of his Glory.

I named three Attributes in Particu­lar, which God doth more eminently shew forth in this great, and last Work of His. 1. His Power. 2. Justice. 3. Avenging Wrath, to the end to gain [Page 152] a Glory to Himself out of all these.

1. His Power: That you have in two Places, Rom. 9. 22. What if God willing to shew his Wrath, and to make his Power known? His Power you see, is mention­ed distinct from his Wrath, though in­deed it will provoke to be the Power of his Wrath; But I shall distinctly speak of it. You have it also mentioned as that Attribute which shall be most glorified hereby, in 2 Thess. 1. 9. Who shall be pu­nished with Destruction from the Glory of his Power. I afore spake some things of the greatness of God's Power, as in relati­on to this Punishment, in shewing how fearful it is to fall into the Hands of God, in the first Head of Demonstration in this Section, I shall only here add,

1. This general Rule concerning it, That the drawing forth of Power or Acti­vity by God in any work, is still, but what is proportionable and answerable to the work: that is, the effect shall be answerable in greatness to the Power that is said to be put forth. It is certain, God over-acts nothing. Now the Effect, wherein this Power of his is put forth, is here said to be Destruction. And therefore that De­struction must be conceived proportion­ed to the Power, that is said to be exert­ed. There was never Work which God [Page 153] ever did, wherein he professed to shew forth a transcendency of Power, or of any other Attribute, but it was wonderful and glorious in its kind. All his Attributes are himself, and so as great as himself. This visible World, in its kind, what a glorious Building is it? Consisting of Heaven and Earth: and to what end was it that he professed he made it? You have it Rom. 1. 20. That by the Creation of the World, might be understood his eternal Power and Godhead. And if He that cre­ated and raised up such Beings out of no­thing, shall profess yet further, to make his Power known, and will use that Pow­er, and put it forth in Destroying, to shew forth the Glory of it, How great will that Destruction be? which must bear a Proportion to such a Manifestati­on, That after God hath in so great and so various Works preceeding this, suffici­ently (as we might think) shewn himself God, in point of Power, or what a pow­erful God he is; that yet after all as if in all these he had not given so full Proof or Demonstration of Power, and as not satisfyed with all the former, as not e­nough: he should be after all, willing, as the Apostle says here at last, to begin a new Work, which should make the Ears of the whole Creation tingle, on purpose [Page 154] to make his Power known! This is it swallows up my Thoughts into Astonish­ment, knowing both, that according to the rule afore given, His last Works or­dained to shew forth any Attribute, must infinitely exceed the former, that served to the making known thereof. And that again puts a new amazement into my Thoughts, to think how, or wherein so much a greater proportion of Power should be spent. If it were barely to an­nihilate, and bring the Creature to its first Nothing, there needs not an extensi­on of Power; it were but withdrawing that Word of his Power that holds up, and bears up all things, Heb. 1. 3. and these, as all, would fall to nothing. But over and above, you read here, of such a De­struction, as draws out his Power posi­tively, and makes his Power known a­fresh. Specially, when again I consider as to this Particular, that to destroy the well being of any thing, is in the ordina­ry Experience, of us Creatures, more easy than to give Being. A Man that cannot make alive the least of Creatures, not the least Fly or Flea, can yet with an easy touch destroy them. I hinted a­fore §. 1. ch. 3. p. 188. some respects, wherein this Destru­ction might exceed, in respect of Power concurring to it, that of the Creation. [Page 155] In the Creation there was but a single ex­pence of Power, namely, of or meerly rai­sing up out of Nothing: But in this a double. For the Wrath of God exerted in the fierceness of it, hath a tendency to bring, and would if no other Power in­tervened, bring the Sinner unto nothing; as that speech of Jeremy doth imply, Cor­rect Jer. 10. 24. me not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing; as also that of Nahum, Who can stand in the fierceness of his Anger? so as under this his pressure of the Creature unto nothing, for God to uphold that Creature, in Being, is equivalent unto a continual educing it out of nothing again. Oh what Destruction must that then be in the Execution of it, in which God will positively put forth more Power than in Creating! and thereby after all other works of Power shewn, get himself the name among the whole Creation, of be­ing a powerful God indeed: But of this Destruction more hereafter. Thus much for that of Power.

§. IV.

THe second Attribute is Justice, which he will to the utmost shew forth in this Punishment. So in the Text, The Lord shall judg his People. And 2 Thess. 1. 9. [...], they shall lay down, or pay a Punishment: And v. 6. It is a righteous thing in God to [recom­pence] Tribulation, &c. And indeed God's Power herein is not put forth sim­ply out of Soveraignty, or for it self, but is drawn out by Justice and Wrath, to execute what they are provoked un­to. I afore gave this as one reason why God himself must execute this Punish­ment, because else the Punishment will not come up to satisfy his Justice. But now I make use of the same, to infer the Dreadfulness thereof: That it is the falling into the hands, as of a potent God, so of a just God recompencing for Sin, and extending his mighty Power [Page 157] to inflict a Punishment, which should in Justice hold proportion with the deme­rit of Sin, that so the exactness of his Justice might appear.

Now to heighten our Apprehensions of the Dreadfulness of this Punishment, from this particular: Consider,

1. The Infinite Demerit of Sin. Which is not enough known or considered by the miserable Subjects thereof; because indeed God himself, in his Holiness, and in his Greatness, is not known by them. Now because Men will not otherwise know, nor be sensible of Sin, in the Spiritual evil of it, against God; there­fore it is that God is put upon it, thus to make Men know it; and what God himself is, for Men to sin against him, by such dreadful Effects, as in Justice shall hold proportion with their Sin, and the Desert thereof. And God profes­seth, he will herein be exact, Heb. 2. 2. So, As every Transgression shall receive [a just Recompence] of Reward. Not such or such Sins, some few more eminent Sins only, but [every Transgression] shall have a Reward proportionate. He that is the Judg of all the World, shall not he be exact? as Abraham in another case, Gen. 17. Yes, in this ultimate Punish­ment he will be sure to be, as Isaiah [Page 158] speaks, Chap. 28. vers. 17. To lay Judg­ment to the Line, and Righteousness to the Plummet. As Carpenters do, when they would fit things one to another, and make things uniform and correspon­dent, and square them adequately, to an hairs breadth, as we say. And thus will God do in Judging. He will bring his Line and his Plummet, take measure of the hainousness of every Sin, and mete a Punishment adequate thereto. And if so, then this Punishment how dreadful will it be? If thou wilt be se­vere to mark what is done amiss, who will be able to stand? says the Psalmist. The Psal. 130. 3. Hainousness of Sin is measured by the Greatness of that Glory whereof it is the debasement; and that Debasement done to him, further measured by this, that it is, by so mean things, as we Crea­tures are to God. And so is estimated by the worth of that Person against whom it it is committed, which there­fore could by no other means be expi­ated, but by the debasement and empty­ing of as great a Glory, due to the Per­son of the Son of God, appearing in our Nature, as one Person therewith. Sin, the Apostle tells us, Rom. 7. 13. is above measure sinful. And hence accordingly this Punishment is estimated to be above [Page 159] measure fearful. Thus Jer. 30. 11. and Isa. 27. 7, 8. God putting this very difference between his punishing godly Men, his own Children, and his punish­ing wicked Men: Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? No; for he puts this difference in the 8th ver. He smites his own in measure. You may then take the Compass, the Magnitude, and Depth of it by this; that therefore oppositely his Punishing the other ex­ceeds all measure. Sin is the Creatures proper work, and Punishment is God's work. [Vengeance belongeth unto me,] says the Text; he challengeth it as his. Now it is certain, God will shew him­self as perfect and as exact in his Work, as Man and Satan have been in theirs; he will not be exceeded or out-gone by them. The Lord is known, says the Psalmist, by the Judgment that he execu­teth, Psal. 9. 16. If the Creature be so wicked, as to bring forth so hainous an Evil (in genere moris) as Sin is, which is Malum Catholicum [a Catholick Evil] and accordingly hath the Name of all Evil given it, as virtually and transcen­dently containing all that God or Man calls Evil; then be assured, that God, who is so just, will be as sure to bring forth, by way of return upon the Crea­ture, [Page 160] a Punishment, that shall be in ge­nere Poenae, in it's kind, Malum Catholi­cum, an universal Evil also. And such Ezekiel terms it, speaking of the Evil of Punishment: It is an Evil, and an only Evil, Ezek. 7. 5. That is, such an Evil as shall be nothing but evil, and that shall contain the Spirit, the Quin­tessence of all Evil in it. Therefore, Psal. 75. 8. In the hand of the Lord there is a Cup, and it is full of Mixture. As if an Artist, that knows the Nature of all Simples, should temper a Cup, that is full of all sorts of Poysons, and which is a Compound of the bitterest, loathsomest Ingredients this Earth puts forth. Even thus hath God strained the quintessence of all Evils into one Cup; and it follows there, The Wicked of the Earth must drink the dregs of it. Which Phrase also argues such a Mixture as this we speak of; the bitterest of all is at the bottom; and 'tis Eternity to the bottom, and they must not, nor shall not leave a drop, but suck out the Dregs, as the Prophet's Phrase is, Ezek. 23. 34. Thou hast a Cup of Abomination, and when thou hast fill'd up thy measure, then will God take measure of thy Cup, and fill the same proportion of Dregs and Mixture to thee, in a Cup of his tempering.

[Page 161] 2. Consider, that in the manifestation of this Attribute of Justice, there must of all other (next unto that of Mercy) be a more special Glory intended and designed by God himself, unto which this Punishment must bear an eminent proportion, as being the Matter wherein it appears. I said afore, that if God professed to manifest any Attribute of his whatever, it still hath been done in such Effects of Wonder, as all the Cre­ation is set admiring of. Now of all other Attributes, these two of Justice and Mercy are the prime, which he sets the greatest value upon the manifestation of. And therefore still look how they are more eminent, or by how much the more eminently he intends to manifest them above other Attributes; by so much must the Effects, in and by which he manifesteth them, exceed and excell all other Works.

Now that these are the brightest Jewels in that Crown of his Glory, and which he intends most to embelish, may be seen in this: 1. That he hath chosen the choicest and most excellent of his Creatures, as the Stuff or Materials in which to set these forth; namely, Angels and Men, and Christ himself the Head of all. That look as curious Engravers, [Page 162] when they would shew their best Art, and chiefest Workmanship, they cull out the choicest Materials, as either precious Stones, Cedar, or Marble, to work up­on; and so Embroiderers, the finest Stuff or Cloth for the Ground-work, they would embroider Gold or Pearls upon: Thus hath God singled forth Angels and Men, the chief of, and more noble Creatures (in the Stuff they con­sist of) than the rest of his whole Cre­ation. Power and Wisdom is seen in other Creatures, but Vindicative Justice, as also Grace and saving Mercy, only on Men and Angels. And, 2. Although he hath shewn forth more of Wisdom and Power in the Frame and Fabrick of Men and Angels, than in the whole of Heaven and Earth; yet still, comparatively, more of Justice and Mercy in these two, than that all, or any of the other Attributes, shewn forth in and upon them, comes unto. Whereof this is sufficient evidence, that they have the Name of Vessels of Mercy, and Vessels of Wrath, Rom. 9. You read no­where, that they are termed Vessels of Power, or Vessels of Wisdom: which is a Token that they are fill'd with these, in that they carry away the Denomi­nation, (which is usually à Principaliori,) [Page 163] as if no Attributes else in comparison seemed to appear: and yet how much of Power and Wisdom is seen in the Fabrick of Man, David tells us, I am wonderfully or fearfully made. So then, those that shall prove to be the mise­rable Vessels of this his Wrath and Justice, shall be so fill'd with a Punish­ment, whereby this Justice is made known, as shall deservedly bear the Name of Wrath and Judgment engra­ven upon it, of all other Attributes. The Day in which he will judg the World, Acts 17. 31. is elsewhere called, the Day of Destruction, the Day of Wrath, the Day of Judgment, &c. It beareth its Denomination from this very Work we speak of.

And further, consider how he hath given out afore-hand, almost six thou­sand years before, concerning this Work, above all Works else, and hath posted it upon Enoch's Pillars, (you know the Tradition I allude to) as you use to do Citations, Jude 14, 15. or as you do indicere diem, set a Day for the most solemn Works. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied hereof, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints, to exe­cute Judgment upon all, &c. And fur­ther [Page 164] and besides, God speaks of Prepa­rations to have been all along made by him, during the time of this World, against that Day. The Persons are a fitting, Rom. 9. The Punishment a preparing; prepared for the Devil and his Angels, even from their very first Fall. Now certainly God would never raise up in us, by such words given out by himself, so great expectations, if the Reality, the Execution, the Thing it self, should not answer to all these. Yea, after all his other Works of Won­der finished and perfected, he profes­seth to come on purpose to be glori­fied. And in what? as well in ren­dring Vengeance in the Destruction of Wicked Men, as in the glorifying his Saints, 2 Thess. 1. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God, to recom­pence Tribulation to them that trouble you: And to you that are troubled, Rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven, with his mighty Angels, 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 punish'd with everlasting De­struction from the Presence of the Lord, and from the Glory of his Power: When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints, [Page 165] and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day. He carries on the glorifying himself, and of his Power, in the one, as well as in the other.

Yea, and to render the Solemnity of this Work and Day yet greater, he calls a General Assembly of all Men and Angels, that are, or have been, or of Men that yet shall be, in either Worlds, to be present, and see the Exe­cution.

To conclude: It is therefore called the Great Day, as that, Reserved to the Judgment of the Great Day, Jude 6. and other Speeches. And why the Great Day? but from this Work of that Day, that shall be done upon it; which this Day shall then bring forth, and produce. As Days have their Stile and Denomination from the Work of the Day. Opus diei in die suo. So this (as was said) is called the Day of Destruction, Wrath, &c. And if so, then that Stile of Greatness must be from the Greatness of the Work that shall be done thereon. And so the Judgment of the Great Day, because great will the Judgment be that is to be executed on that Day.

Lastly; God hath in the mean time suffered his Glory to be debased, him­self [Page 166] to be least regarded in the World, Sin and the Devil to carry all before them, and Sinners to have the Glory: relieving himself in the mean time, that he hath a Treasure of Glory to be broken up at that day, Rom. 2. 3. When he will come on purpose to be glorious. He hath suffered an Ecclipse of six thousand Years, that in the end he may break forth with a redoubled Glory. And all that Glory must come in this way, even from this Punishment he shall exe­cute. And it must be a recovery of greater Glory, than he should have had by Man's Holiness, in that first State by Creation, or God would never have let Sin have come into the World; he meant not to be a Loser.

§. V.

I Come next to argue this from the third Attribute, his Wrath: or if you will, his Power and Justice, as in­tended, and heightned to extremities by Wrath: And though he will be just in what he doth; yet it is Justice put on by Wrath. He recompenseth Sin, not on­ly as Rector Ʋniversi, Judg of all the World, and so upon the account of Publick Rules given forth, to vindicate the equity and righteousness of which, he punisheth the transgressions of them; but over and above he doth it, as re­senting an Injury, a personal Affront given to himself, his Person; and this draws forth his Wrath and Vengeance on his own behalf.

As it is termed Vengeance, so Zeal, in Heb. 10. 27. and 1 Cor. 10. 22. Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy? In Nahum 1. 2. See what a Conglomeration there [Page 168] is of Attributes and Effects. [God is jealous,] that's the first. He compares that in God unto that in Man, which, Solomon tell us, is the Rage of Man, Prov. 6. last. Again, 2. The Lord re­vengeth, the Lord revengeth. That is the Effect; and he says it twice, as speaking of one who is enflamed with Anger. Then, 3. To shew how fiercely in re­venging he executes it, even with Fury, he adds, The Lord revengeth, and is furi­ous, who yet professeth elsewhere of himself, Fury is not in me; that is, of my self it is not, Isa. 27. 4. But as he is provoked by Sin and Impenitency, so Fury is in him. The Lord is furious. Then, 4. follows the Subject thereof, and what they are to him, whom his Fury waxeth so hot against, Enemies and Adversaries. [The Lord will take Venge­ance on his Adversaries, and he reserveth Wrath for his Enemies.] Which accords with this Text: Vengeance is mine, I will recompence the Adversaries, verse 27. And, 5. If any urge: Yea, but is not God merciful, and slow to Anger? Yes, says he, v. 3. The Lord is slow to Anger. But he brings it in to shew, that in this case it is that very Patience of his, which in the issue works up unto that Fury: Laesa Patientia fit Furor. And then, [Page 169] 6. He further warns them to consider, that in the execution of this Fury to the utmost, his Power comes to be engaged: The Lord is great in Power. And lastly, He will not at all acquit the Wicked, that lives and dies in his Sins: Which is a Clause or Proviso he still puts in, even when he speaks the greatest things of his Mercy. See Exod. 34. 6, 7.

And although the very reading this Description of God, as an Avenger, shews forth alone its own Dreadfulness, yet further to clear, and enlarge upon it, consider,

1. How it is Justice heightned by Wrath to a Fury, and all of these whet­ting on, and drawing out the Greatness of Power. And to this purpose we find, as was observed, Power and Wrath joined, in Rom. 9. 22. and Psal. 90. Who hath known the Power of thine Anger? His Jealousy draws out his Strength, and his Power works in a way of Wrath. Take a Man, let his Blood, his Fury be up, and thereby all his Spirits ars inten­ded and stirred, and he is able to strike a greater and heavier blow than at ano­ther time. As Sampson in his Fury against the Philistims, he pulls down the Pillars of the House. Now bring this to God, and though his Power is [Page 170] the same, and not greater, when he exe­cuteth Vengeance on his Enemies, than at all other times; yet being attributed to him after the manner of Men, it im­ports to us something of Analogy, (whereby the working of his Power in such a case is set out) which it holds with what is in Men in the like case. And so shews, 1. That if ever he did or will upon any occasion, or can be supposed to shew forth Power and Strength, it will be in this, for he is in Fury; and in that Fury talks of the Greatness of his Power, which in Men in their Fury useth to be at the highest, and they shew forth their Strength in no Acts so much as those which they do in Fury.

2. That comparatively therefore unto other Works of his, wherein he shews forth Power, he is to be supposed to shew forth more of Power in this. Con­sider therefore, if God shewed forth Power in creating the World, &c. Yet according to this Analogy, I may say of all those kind of Works whatever, (speaking after the manner of Men) that he did them cooly, as it were; but this he doth in Fury, and so may well be supposed to put forth more of Power in these, in that respect, than in those other.

[Page 171] 2. Avenging Wrath is more than sim­ply Anger. A Man is angry with a Friend, and so is God often with his Children. And then he stirs not up all his Wrath, as Psal. 78. But the Butt and Mark, which Revenge shoots its Arrows at, is an Enemy, as both out of Nahum, and the 27th verse of this Chapter, was observed. And not only so, but such as are irreconcileable Enemies: for that is the state of Men in Hell, and the po­sture of their Spirits there towards God, to be fixed in Malice. Now when Ven­geance in God shall be extreme, who shall be able to bear it?

3. Justice hath a mixture of Pity mingled with it, but when 'tis a case of Revenge, there is a Decorum put upon the extremity of Justice. It is the revenge of an Injury. Which though in the Creature, who it self is a Subject of God's, (who only hath the Soveraignty of Power,) it is therefore in-glorious and unworthy, yet in God, who is the Supreme, in case of wrong and injury to himself, this hath a glory in it. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. No wonder then if it be termed Severity, Rom. 11. 23. and James 2. 13. expresly, Judgment without Mercy. And perhaps in that respect also it is, that, Rev. 14. 10. it is termed, [Page 172] Wrath without mixture, that is, pure Wrath which hath no mixture; Not a drop to cool ones Tongue. And again, Wrath to the uttermost, as 1 Thess. 2. 16. the Apostle speaks of that Wrath, which upon the Destruction of Jerusalem (the Type of the day of Judgment) befel that Nation. And so it is set forth in the Language of the Wrath at the great Day, as Grotius hath observed, which is Wrath to the uttermost. And as God is said to rest in his Love shewn to his Children; so his Wrath satisfies it self in accomplish­ing Vengeance, Ezek. 7. 8, 9. I will ac­complish mine Anger upon thee: and I will Zeph. 3. 17. judg thee according to thy Ways, and I will recompence thee for all thine Abominations. And mine Eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompence thee according to thy Ways, and thine Abominations that are in the midst of thee, and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth. And Isa. 27. 11. therefore is often called a Sacrifice, as Mark 9. 49.

And this answers an Objection may be made. Did not David expresly choose rather to fall into the Hand of God than Man? 2 Sam. 24. 14. The answer is at hand in the same place, for his Mercies are great. That is David's Reason for it there. And so indeed the difference lies [Page 173] in chastising Anger, and avenging Wrath. And David there speaks of God's chasti­sing his Children in this World, but in the World to come you see the case is al­tered: It is the falling into the Hands of an Avenger, who in that execution pro­fesseth to shew no Mercy: He that made them, will have no pity on them.

Lastly, consider how Wrath sets all that is in God against a Man, whets and shar­pens the whole Activity of every Attri­bute. What is the reason that in the Text when this dreadful execution is spoken of, the Attribute of the [living God] is mentioned rather than Power? &c. The Life of God speaks the whole of his Attri­butes. The whole of his Nature and Godhead, as it is active and working: this Life imports. In Hell God draws out all his Forces, all his Attributes into the Field, whereof Wrath is the Leader and General. All his Perfections conspire either to stir up and enkindle Wrath, or to assist him in the Execution. How Power is drawn forth and intended I shewed afore. Wisdom, that marshals all into Order, sets both thy Sins in order in the view of thy Conscience, Psal. 50. 21. and sets his Terrors in Battel aray a­gainst thee, 'tis Job's Expression, Chap. 6. 4. and the same Word in both places. And [Page 172] [...] [Page 173] [...] [Page 174] as it marshalls all, so whets on to Venge­ance, Prov. 1. 25. Ye have set at naught all my Counsel, I will therefore laugh at your Calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh. 'Tis Wisdom speaks this, ver. 20. Be not deceived (says the Apostle) God is not mocked, Gal. 6. 7. it imports two things. 1. That Sinners think to illude and de­ceive God. As what is it else to think to defer Repentance to the last, and then to come and flatter, and look to be sa­ved, as if they had served him from the very first Moment of their Lives? they herein think to go beyond God. 2. That in such cases, God's Wisdom takes it and resents it to the height. Nothing adds unto Provocation more, in a Man that is Wise, than to perceive how another Man thinks to go beyond him, and impose up­on his Wisdom. And it is Wisdom in a Man, that makes him he would not be mockt, deceived or trifled withal; this Principle riseth up in God's Heart, the Judg of all the World. Again, his Holi­ness crys out to him against the Sinner: Thou art a pure God, and I can endure to behold no Iniiquty, and the Eyes of my Glo­ry have been provoked by this Sinner con­tinually. Then says Justice too, I must be satisfyed to the utmost Farthing, and have the last drop of Blood that is in their [Page 175] Souls; and this their Punishment execu­ted on their own Persons, is all I shall have or can recover for all the dishonour hath been done thee. For Christ through their unbelief, hath not taken off one Farthing of their Debt, but all is left and remains upon their own Score. And I can no other way recover Glory, but by having it out of them: And therefore it is that an Eternity is required, because, but by an Eternity of Suffering, it is, that they can come to satisfy. Prov. 27. 20. Hell and Destruction are never full, or [satisfied] as the next Words shew the meaning to be. Then says Truth and Righteousness, their whole Lives have been contrary to my Love, the whole actings and the courses of them have been but a making a Lye, a Web of Hypocri­sy, continually woven and vended. Rev. 22. 15. That love and make a Lye, and Rom. 3. 13. Their Tongues are full of falshood and deceit; and again, Give them their Portion with Hypocrites: whom of all else I hate, says Truth. Then boyls up Jea­lousy, Every Creature hath been an Idol, and made their God, and set up in God's stead, and they have been enflamed with them (as of Idolaters the Prophet speaks.) Idols of Jealousy have all their Lusts been: and the Glory due to me hath been given [Page 176] to them. But you will say, will not Mercy at last speak a good Word for them? will it not allay and moderate all these? No, but turn as fiercely against them as any other Attribute, and plead, I indeed did a long while restrain all these other Attributes that were provok­ed every Moment, [Whom God endured with much long suffering, says Rom. 9. 22.] And that they have lived so long free from Wrath, hath been by means of me; I waiting for their Repentance, which hath cost me Millions. I have spent Ri­ches on them, in forbearance of them: All which now is to be reckoned to them in Wrath. You have it Rom. 2. 4, 5. They have despised the riches of his Goodness, and Forbearance, and long-Suffering, not know­ing that the Goodness of God leadeth them to Repentance. But after their hardness and impenitent Heart, treasure up unto themselves Wrath, &c. And says Grace, I was pre­sumed on, and made a stale to, and defen­der of their Lusts; and was turned into Wantonness, Jude 4.

And thus all in God, is set (as it were) a Fire against a Sinner, and (as I may so speak) do turn all in him into fury. And look as to God's People all in God is as­simulated into Love towards them, and they live in and dwell in Love, and see [Page 177] nothing else, as it were in God, but Love: God is Love (says the Apostle) namely, to his own, 1 John 4. 16. Nothing else appears; or rather all that is in him, ap­pears in that Hue, under that Dye, with that Tincture. So here on the contrary, all in God is turned into Fury: Laesa patientia fit furor. Though he is not so of Himself: Fury is not in me, says he, Isa. 27. but Sin hath made him such.

§. VI.

A Fourth Head of Demonstrations, is taken from the Instances given both of Good and Bad Men. Which In­stances, as I then alledged to prove the immediateness of God's inflicting it: So now I shall from thence present some In­ferences of the fearfulness hereof. Do but sit down a little with Job and Heman, who were the Instances of Good Men: [Page 178] Or go to that Roll which the Scrip­tures have recorded of Cain and Judas, and others, or which Ecclesiastical Stories, or present Examples of our Age have af­forded, of Men in Horror: weigh and perpend their crys and roarings, and con­sider what a sad Spectacle such Instances afford.

1. Of Good Men: Heman I insisted in afore, and acquainted you with his Com­plaints as sad as Man can utter: I reserved that of Job, specially for this Place, as I then professed. All the while that he had but Afflictions common to Men; and al­though he was every way surrounded with them, as being visited with a loath­som Disease, his Body fill'd with Dolours and Pains, his Children lost, Servants destroyed by Fire from Heaven; his E­state quite gone unto an Extremity of Poverty; his Wife abhorring his Breath, and tempting him to Blasphemy: All this while the Text tells us Chap. 2. 10. That in all this did not Job sin with his Lips, but was quiet and patient, as the Holy Ghost in the New Testament takes notice of him, Jam. 5. You have heard of the Pati­ence of Job. Well, but God himself in the end came in upon him with his im­mediate Wrath. And now will you hear of his Impatience too? He was not prickt [Page 179] to the quick till now. But then he be­gins to Curse the day of his Birth, Chap. 3. 1, 2, 3. and at that rate talks all along that Chapter. For brevity let us only consult, his Lamentations in Chap. 6. ver. 2, 3, 4. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my Calamity laid in the Bal­lances together, for now it would be heavier than the Sand, therefore my words are swal­lowed up. The rest that follows, I shall add by and by. What was it caused this sudden out-cry and alteration in Job's Spirit, from that still and sedate frame we left him in before? What was it the thoughts of his lost Estate, Children, Wife's unkindness, or the Pains of his Bones 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? [Page 180] 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 [Page 181] 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 [Page 182] 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 [Page 183] 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 [Page 184] 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 is the King) I could harden my self against that; yea, and to endure the pains of the most exquisite Tortures any kind of Death could inflict: if thereby [Page 185] God would thus cut me off. Then indeed (if such News of Death were brought me) I should yet have comfort; yea, I would harden my self in Sorrow. So ver. 10. And let it be the worst Death, he can put me to, for so it follows, let him not spare. Oh but they are these Arrows of his own within me, these I cannot bear. So ver. 12. Is my Strength the Strength of Stones, or my Flesh Brass? that I should be able to endure, and bear up my self a­gainst these Encounters? Oh no. Read on those his Expressions further roared forth by him, in Chap. 16. ver. 12, 13, 14. He hath broken me asunder: he hath also ta­ken me by the Neck, and shaken me to peices, and set me up for his Mark. His Archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my Reins asunder, and doth not spare; He poureth out my Gall upon the Ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach; he runneth upon me like a Giant. What should I instance in more, or how to comment on them!

That which in the second place, is proper next to be done, is to provoke those that are secure Sinners, &c. and o­thers also that are awakened, to raise but up their Thoughts from the Considerati­on hereof, to infer and gather how dread­ful this Punishment in Hell must be, a­bove [Page 186] all, that these Dispensations can re­present unto us. And this is most strong­ly inferred from these Examples, whether they be the Examples of Good Men, as Job was; or bad Men, as Cain and Judas were, in both which I formerly instanced in. I shall make Inference from each of these apart, as in the first Section, I also did, in arguing from them, the immedi­ateness, &c.

1. From these of good Men. If you consider that all these Terrors, wich Job and Heman endured from God, were yet all in Love, out of so solid and sub­stantial a Love, permanent and abiding in God's Heart, all this while towards them; and that all these were but chasti­sings of them for tryal, and to make them partakers of his Holiness. And besides, what manner of Anger was it towards them? It was but Anger, which Love stirred up: and those his Afflictions were accompanied and joyned, all with ever­lasting kindness and thoughts of Peace all the while. According to that in Isa. 54. 8. In a little Wrath I hid my Face from thee, for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redemer. Yea, those two known Cordial Recipes, so frequently made use of, and commonly taken by most Christians in [Page 187] their distresses; and cited by two Apo­stles and Christ himself from Heaven, Happy is the Man whom God correcteth Jam. 1. 12. chap. 5. 11. Heb. 12. 5. Apoc. 3. 19.: Therefore despise not thou the chastning of the Almighty; were first spoken and directed unto this our Job, whilst in the midst of these Afflictions, in chap. 5. 17. And are par­ticularly applyed to that his Condition, in the worst of it by the Holy Ghost, Jam. 5. 11. Yea and all this, that was upon Job, was in it self (how great soever it seemed to his sense) but the touch of God's little Finger, Job 1. 11. Oh think then how great will that Vengeance be, which is pure Wrath, Rev. 14. which is out of Fury, as was shewn: which is, the fiery Indignation of Patience abused; boyl'd up into Fury! This that befel them, is said to be but a little Wrath, and for a Moment. And yet (as also it is said Psal. 2. ult.) If God be angry but a little, who is able to abide it! then what will this last and extream Vengeance reserved for Hell be? These Chastisements of Job's and Heman's were in comparison of what awaits Men in Hell, but as Rods of Birch or Rushes, which we use to whip our Children withal, Psal. 89. 32, 33. Then will I visit their Transgressions with the Rod, and their Iniquity with Stripes: Neverthe­less, my loving-kindness will I not utterly [Page 188] take from them, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. These were all Rods of Mercies own gathering and making, the Stripes where­of are not so deep, but they may be and were healed again, as in the same Book you also find it, chap. 5. 18. He maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole: and so was Job in the Issue thus healed. And Heman likewise, and 1 Kings 4. 31. made thereby one of the wisest Men in the World. Yea, but these wherewith wicked Men in Hell are eternally lash'd and cut off, are Rods of Revenges making; Rods of Iron (as the Psalmist in that se­cond Psalm speaks) to break them in pieces like a Potters Vessel, never to be set toge­ther again or made whole. Again, those stroaks on the Children of God, are in measure, as Isa. 27. 7, 8. but of these in Hell, it may be, and is said, that Wrath cometh upon them without measure. Again, in the midst of these Corrections, he re­members Mercy; but in this of Hell, there is Judgment without Mercy, Jam. 2. 13. In those other Stripes given his Chil­dren, God himself is afflicted, and feels e­very Stroak he gives them, as Jer. 31. 20. and Isa. 64. But in these in Hell, Vengeance and Justice do satisfy themselves in their deserved Dam­nation. It is stiled a Sacrifice to him. [Page 189] Mark 9. 48, 49. compared, and elsewhere.

2. The same Inference, may be much more raised from those Instances given of bad Men, suffering in this Life the like Terrors, to these mentioned: If we but consider that when they fall and seize upon them in the greatest extremity, that yet then they are in comparison to what remains to them in Hell, but as the sip­pings of the top of that Cup here, the Dregs whereof are reserved for them, there, to drink to the bottom, as Psal. 75. 8. In the Hand of the Lord there is a Cup, and the Wine is red: it is full of mix­ture, and he poureth out of the same: but the Dregs thereof all the Wicked of the Earth shall wring them out, and drink them. Those Words he [poureth out of the same] and [but the Dregs thereof] are an opposition each to other; shewing how that in this Life, God promiscuously poureth forth the same from the upper part thereof, both upon good and bad. And that all that, is but the overflowings of what is uppermost; but the Dregs, the brackish bitter Stuff, is reserved for Hell. And the truth is, Men can bear but the sip­pings thereof here. Should they drink but a little deeper, their Souls would be giddy, and reel out of their Bodies in a Moment. As the Joys of Heaven cannot [Page 190] be inherited by Flesh and Blood, so nor the Torments of the fulness of this Wrath. Tam Bo­norum quam Ma­lorum in­tollerabilis magnitudo est. But in Hell their Bodies shall be nealed (as we speak of Glass) that they may endure this Fire. All the Terrors of Conscience here, are as is said of the Joys of the Saints, but the earnest-Pennies, Farthing-Tokens, in comparison to that great, immensely vast Treasure of Wrath to come, you have heard the Scriptures speak of. All here is but the Shadow of Death; and yet if that can wither Mens Souls so, what will the blackness of darkness do? as the Apostle speaks of this. The ut­most threatned here, is, that The Anger of the Lord shall smoke against a Man, Deut. 29. It is but Smoke: but in Hell, it breaks forth into raging Flames Luke 16. 24. of the fiercest Fires, that fill every Corner, and break out at all the Win­dows of the Soul.

§. VII.

THe fifth and last Head, which repre­sents the dreadfulness of all this un­to an infinity, is, that it is a falling into the Hands [of the living God,] The li­ving God. The former exaggerations have been raised from falling into the Hands of the Great, Powerful, Just and Avenging God; but this further, of the Living God. Which of all other Attri­butes, the Apostle hath singled forth to set out the dreadfulness of it by, and is therefore most of all to be heeded by us; as having as much weight in it, to the thing in Hand, as any of the other. [The Living God] notes out, not only God's Activity, and how the whole of his Life and Being is engaged and active in this Punishment (as was noticed) [Page 192] But further, both, that, 1. He shall execute this to Eternity, and 2. That during that whole space of Eternity, he will permanently continue, to inflict it. His being the Living God notes out 1. Eternity, 2. With a continuation of acting all that while: And so his being the Living God, both threatens and effe­cteth, 1. an eternal, and 2. a continual Death in those that are the Subjects thereof. And to imply so much it is, that he hath that Denomination spe­cially and so eminently given him here, when this Punishment is spoken of.

First, consider thy Soul is an immor­tal Soul, as to the duration of it: and that this Great God is the Living God. And Sin in thee and the Injury of it to God is an eternal Stain, which Hell Fire cannot eat out, or satisfy God for, but in an Eternity of time. And therefore whilst God lives, and thou livest, he will inflict it on thee. That's one meaning.

Again, God's Life, as it is in himself a continual Act, so in its being attributed to him with respect to this Punishment, it imports his continued acting therein without cessation or intermission. For he doth it, as the Living God. Job, whilst he endured the Terrors of the [Page 193] Almighty, complains they were so un­cessant, that God suffered him not to take Breath, Job 9. 18. he followed his Stroaks so thick, with one Breach (as he there speaks) upon another.

You have both these set forth in one and the same Scripture, Rev. 14. 10, 11. He shall drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God, and he shall be tormented with Fire and Brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoak of their Torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And they have no rest Day nor Night. First, they have no rest Day nor Night; That shews they have no intermission. And then that the smoak of their Torment ascends up for ever, shews the Eternity. Yea and further, to strike out dull Hearts, with the sense of this Eternity, if one [ever] be not enough, another is added, [For ever and ever.] Which Eternity as you know, our Savi­our is still careful to indigitate, when he speaks of Hell, in love and warning unto Mens Souls, that they might be moved by the moment thereof, to endeavour to escape it.

Now it being thus, this infinitely su­peradds unto all the former. The for­mer Heads have given Demonstration to us, wherein the substance of this great [Page 194] Punishment consists: And then comes in this, as the fatal and final rowling Stone upon the Grave or Sepulchre of Souls: And with the Grave, Hell is oft parral­lel'd. Or these two imports thereof, are as two Mill-Stones hung about the Necks of those that are plunged into this Lake, to sink them down for ever: For these two things mentioned, do work in the Spirits of those that undergoe it, Perfect Fear: and perfect Despair. The Effects of both which make up a perfection of Misery in such a State.

1. Perfect Despair. Hope was given to reasonable and intelligent Natures (and in peculiar unto them) to be as a breathing hole in time of Misery, to keep up Life in such an one, whereby to sustain it self. And the reasonable Soul being in its duration Eternal, and having an Eternity of time to run through and sail over, hath this Priviledge (denied to Beasts) to take a prospect or fore-sight of time, that is yet to come, and if it can spy out any space or spot of time, in which it shall have happiness or ease, or out-live its Misery, it will not utterly die; yea it will harden it self against present Misery with this Thought, that however it shall not always be thus with me. But on [Page 195] the contrary here, by reason of this abi­lity of fore-sight, it comes to pass, that a wretched Soul in Hell, viewing and turning over all the Leaves of Time to Eternity, both finds that it shall not out-live that Misery, nor yet can it find one space or moment of Time of Freedom and Intermission, having for ever to do with him who is the Living God. And then it dies and dies again, and sinks in­to a Gulph of Despair, for the future, as well as it is swallowed up with present sense of Wrath.

2. Perfect Fear. Which these like­wise cause, and keep up within that Soul; and that continually of all their Misery, that is yet to come. And the nature of Fear is, to out-strip a Man's Misery; and to take them up afore they come, as Hopes use to do our Com­forts: So as by reason thereof, it comes to pass that the Soul is not only tor­mented by what it at present feels, but with the thought of all that is to come; which still further strikes that Soul through and through. So as this Thought, that it will be with me thus for ever and ever, makes it compleatly miserable. Yea hereby, the Soul doth come all along in every in­stant [Page 196] to endure and be possessed in Fears and Dreadful Apprehensions of all that Woe, that in Eternity is yet to come, as well as that at pre­sent.

A COROLLARY.

IF God in his Wrath be the immedi­ate Inflicter of that Punishment for Sin, then certainly he is not the Lib. 1. de Praedest. ad Mony­mum cir­ca medium Author of Sin. Fulgentius, among other highly-evincing demonstrations of it, [Page 198] casts in this: Iniquitatis cujus est Ʋltor, non est Autor; God is not the Author of Sin, whereof he is the Avenger. Which Maxim is founded upon an high Princi­ple of Reason and Equity. God puts the whole of this matter so far off from himself, that he lays all, both Sin and Punishment, wholly upon Man; so as although the Punishment it self be from his own just Wrath, that is provoked to inflict it, yet even thereof he thus speaks, Do they provoke me to Anger? ('tis true, they do;) but do they not provoke them­selves, to the Confusion of their own Faces? So as he ascribes his own Wrath that in­flicts that Punishment whollly to them­selves, returns even that upon them­selves. As if he had said, I am angry indeed, &c. 'tis true, yet they are more the provoking Causes of that Anger than my self. They spight but them­selves, when they sin against me. Like un­to which is that Speech also, Rom. 2. 4, 5. Thou treasurest up Wrath unto thy self: [Thou to thy Self] although it be God's Wrath in his Breast that is treasured up, yet the treasuring of it up is aseribed un­to themselves.

God will send his Son Jesus Christ on purpose to clear all such imaginable Sus­picions and Suppositions that Men or [Page 199] Devils can cast upon him, for condem­ning of Men, or executing this Punish­ment himself. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints, to execute Judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly Deeds, which they have ungodlily committed, and of all their hard Speeches which ungodly Sinners have spoken against him. His work at that Day is to convince, (yea, and to convince is named first) as well as to execute Judgment. And it is certain, that in order thereto he will speak all Fairness, Equity, Justice, and Reason, ('twere not Conviction else); and he will have all his Saints and Angels about him, as Judges and Witnesses. He will have all the World to hear it; and how equal it is for him to execute so sore a Vengeance. And as he will convince them of their Deeds to be ungodly and deserving it, so of their hard Speeches; and that (whatever his Decrees were,) they themselves were ungodly, and their Deeds ungodly, and ungodlily commit­ted. Mark but how he doth ungodly them. And he will convince them, and stop their Mouths for ever. Christ sent him in the Parable speechless to Hell, [Page 200] Mat. 22. 12. And this is one great Ser­vice the Man Christ Jesus is to do for God at the latter day: And if he should not do this satisfyingly, and clear all these things, he must shut up his Books, and come off the Bench, and proceed no further, either to Sentence or Exe­cution.

A MEDITATION.

LEt our Meditation upon what hath been delivered, be what Moses hath prompted to us; and let us make the same use thereof which he also did.

The 90th Psalm was penned by Moses, (as the Title shews, A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God,) and it was composed by him in his latter days, after he had seen in forty years, an whole Generation in a Nation of Men removed out of this World, and their Carcases fallen in the Wilderness; a Spectacle so sad, as per­haps not any one Man in the World hath seen, or Age afforded, (but at the Flood) afore or since, in so short a com­pass of time. His Song is a Funeral Elegy, or Meditation of Death, made upon that whole Generation, verse 3. [Page 201] Thou turnest Man to Destruction; and sayest, Return, ye Children of Men. And verses 5, 6. Thou carriest them away, as with a Flood. In the morning they are like Grass which groweth up; in the mor­ning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. And God from that time began also to stint and limit Man's years to that mea­sure which it hath held to unto this day. Vers. 10. The Days of our years are three­score years and ten; and if by reason of Strength they be fourscore years, yet is their Strength Labour and Sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Our Souls fly away like Birds when the Shell is broke; and then Hell follows, (as the Revelation speaks) as in reality, so in Rev. 6. 8. Moses's Discourse. And that was it which was the matter of deepest and sad­dest thoughts in this Meditation unto him of any other. Verse 11. it follows, Who knoweth the Power of thine Anger? Even according to thy Fear, so is thy Wrath.—Which he utters,

1. By way of Lamentation. He sigh­ing forth a most doleful complaint against the Security and Stupor he observed in that Generation of Men in his times, both in those that had already died in their Sins, as well as of that new Gene­ration [Page 202] that had come up in their room, who still lived in their Sins. O! says he, Who of them knoweth the Power of thine Anger? namely, of that Wrath which followeth after Death, and sei­zeth upon Mens Souls for ever; that is, who considers it, or regards it, till it take hold upon them? He utters it,

2. In a way of Astonishment, out of the apprehension he had of the great­ness of that Wrath: Who hath known the Power of thine Anger! that is, who who hath or can take it in according to the greatness of it? Which he en­deavours to set forth (as applying him­self to our own apprehensions) in this wise, Even according to thy Fear, so is thy Wrath. Where those words [thy Fear] are taken objective, and so is all one, and the Fear of thee: And so the meaning is, that according to whatever proportion our Souls can take in, in fears of thee and of thine Anger; so great is thy Wrath it self. You have Souls that are able to comprehend vast Fears and Terrors; they are as extensive in their Fears, as in their Desires, which are stretched, beyond what this World or the Creatures can afford them, to an Infinity. The Soul of Man is a dark Cell, which when it begets Fears once, strange and [Page 203] fearful Apparitions rise up in it, which far exceed the ordinary proportion of worldly Evils, (which yet also our Fears usually make greater than they prove to be:) But here, as to that Punishment, which is the effect of God's own imme­diate Wrath, let the Soul enlarge it self, says he, and widen its apprehension to the utmost; fear what you can imagine: yet still God's Wrath, and the Punish­ment it inflicts, are not only propor­tionable, but infinitely exceeding all you can fear or imagine. Who knoweth the Power of thine Anger? [It passeth knowledg.]

Now the Use Moses makes of all this Doctrine of Death and Wrath, in the next following verse 12. is this: So teach us to number our Days, that we may apply our Hearts to VVisdom. This he spake to God in behalf of that present Generation that then survived; and by spreading afore them all these Conside­rations, thereby also exhorteth them to that which is the only true Wisdom, even to turn unto the Lord, so to escape that Wrath that is to come. And he, as an holy Man, that knew the Terror of the Lord, doth thus persuade Men: And O let our Souls be persuaded by it. And to this end,

USE.

I Would first persuade you to believe, that there is this Wrath to come. VVe knowing the Terror of the Lord; that is, our selves being assured by be­lieving, that such a Wrath is in the Heart and Breast of God against impenitent Sinners, as also understanding what and how dreadful that Wrath is, we do per­suade Men, 2 Cor. 5. 11. And for Men to apprehend and believe it, is the first most effectual Engine to persuade them by. God did not, ere he placed these Souls of ours in our Bodies, first carry them down to Hell, and then up to Hea­ven, that so we having a fore-knowledg of either by Sight and Sense, might then be left to act in this World accordingly: But God hath left only the Revelation of both these unto Faith, in this World, by the Word.—Heb. 11. 7. 'Tis said, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with Fear, prepared an Ark to the saving of his House: By the which he condemned the VVorld, and be­came Heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith.

You know how the Day of this great Wrath to come (the Day of Judg­ment) is assimilated by Christ to the Days of Noah, Mat. 24. 37, 38, 39. And that (among other) in respect of the Security and Unbelief that is and will be afore it comes, in the Hearts of Men about it, (which is Christ's special scope there.) And the place in the Hebrews cited answerably, reckoneth that Faith of Noah, (who being forewarned of the Flood, was moved with Fear, and prepared an Ark to save himself and his Family,) amongst those other Instances of Saving Faith, which that Chapter doth enumerate, as that which had this Wrath to come signified thereby in his eye. Shewing withal the Foundation of the Condemnation of that World to lie in this, That though Noah declared this Wrath to come unto them by his Preaching and Example, (for as he was a Preacher of Righteousness, so of this Wrath, as Enoch also had been,) yet they believed it not, because it was un­seen; as the words of that 7th Verse are. For these things then happened in Types of what was to fall out concern­ing this great Wrath to come; that De­struction of the old World being but the shadow of this, as expresly 'tis interpreted [Page 206] to be, 1 Pet. 3. 20. The Spirits in Prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the Long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the Ark was a preparing. The like Figure whereunto is Baptism, which now also saves us. If the Ark was of Salvation, then the Flood of Damnation; and that, then, as the word [also] now evidently shews. This Wrath, it is a thing to come, as that of the Flood then was to them, stiled there­fore the Wrath to come; and so it is a thing not seen, and so is reckoned a­mongst the Objects of Faith.

Men indeed have some lesser stitches in Conscience afore-hand, both from it and about it, but little do they imagine that these will or should ever become the matter of such torturing Aches, as they rise up to in the end: Men do as little imagine this of these fore-running War­nings, or secret Gripings and Twitches, as the Old World did then, that the usual Clouds of Heaven that caused Storms, would have ever swell'd to the drowning of the World. Nor indeed doth this fall out to Mens Souls, until the Curse or Wrath of God enters, like Oil into their Bones, as the Psalmist speaks of Judas, Psal. 109. 18.

For this Wrath is in the mean time a thing hidden in the Breast and Bosom of the Almighty, and is therefore termed, a Treasure of Wrath: A Treasure, because hid, so Treasures use to be; (they are termed hidden Treasures, Prov. 2. 4. and elsewhere.) And for the same reason the coming of it upon Men is called the Revelation of the righteous Judgment of Luk. 19. 42. God: As the things belonging to Mens Peace, so their Destruction, are hidden from their Eyes. Though Damnation slumbers not, 2 Pet. 2. 3. but is in its March, and proceedeth in its approaches towards them, every hour nearer and nearer; yet Men slumber in respect of the belief thereof, and not so much as dream of it in their Slumber, 1 Thess. 5. 3, 6, 9. The Apostle's complaint there, is the same in effect with that of Moses, Who knows the Power of thine Anger, so as to apply his Heart to Wisdom?

The Baptist, who began the pub­lishing of the Gospel, he began it with forewarning Men of this Wrath, and stiled it, the Wrath to come: And Christ, whose office was to preach that Gospel, seconds him therein, and terms it Hell-Fire, &c. Now observe, how he speaks to the Pharisees about it: O ye Generation of Vipers, who hath [Page 208] warned you to flee from the Wrath to come! Mat. 3. 7. 'Tis Vox admiran­tis; as if he had said, 'Tis strange, that the Preaching of Wrath to come should any way startle yours so har­dened Hearts, as to see you here at­tending at my Sermons; and that the Consideration thereof should any way arrest, or make any dint upon your Souls. The reason of his Wonder was, because indeed Men believe it not, or very slightly. Who hath demonstrated it unto you? as his word is. And Christ useth the very same word about this matter, Luke 12. 5. I will fore­warn you, (or demonstrate to you) whom you shall fear, even him that can destroy in Hell. All this still tends to shew, how hidden it is from the most of Men. The very same Unbe­lief is more darkly, and in other terms, expressed in the Old Testa­ment: Deut. 32. 29. O that they would consider [their latter end!] And, Eccles. 11. 8, 9. Remember the Days of Darkness, for they are many: But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment.

Now to help you a little in the be­lief of this:

Besides what the Scriptures speak hereof:

1. Consult thine own Heart. Thou hast a busy Principle within thee, Con­science, that like a Spy sent in from an adverse Party into anothers Quarters, observes and takes notice of all that pas­seth; not thy Actions or Speeches only, but what is done in thy Privy-Chamber, or Closet of thy Soul; and not only so, but thou mayest hear the noise of his Pen still a running, and punctually writing that which it observeth; and there is not a Motion, a Lust, a Desire, a Purpose, an End, a flying Thought, but it diligently doth set down, and can give thee the Sense thereof; and thou canst not stop the Course hereof. And what is the meaning of all this? but that thy Judgment is continually a preparing, thine Examination a taking all thy Life long. For, where there is a Register, a Clerk of the Assize thus busy at work, there is a Judg, whose Officer he is. Be wary therefore what thou dost, Man! Thou art surprized and undone, if thou heedest not; for [Page 208] [...] [Page 209] [...] [Page 210] all this is in order unto Judgment. And as Letters written with Onion or Limon Juice, appear not at the present, so may not the Impresses of these sad Lines against thee, yet bring but thy Soul to this Fire we have been speaking of, and every Character, Tittle, yea, Ac­cent, or Aggravation of Sin, will be made visible and legible: And hence it is the Books are said to be opened, Rev. 20.

2. Again, do you not hear daily the Noise of Cannon-shot from Heaven let off, and the Bullets fly about your ears, and see them strike this Man and that Man in your view? It is the Apostle's Conviction to the Gentiles, Rom. 1. 18. That therefore there is a Treasury of Wrath to come, which he speaks of, chap. 2. 4. because at present even in this World, The Wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all Ʋn­godliness and Ʋnrighteousness of Men, that withhold the Truth in Ʋnrighteous­ness. The meaning whereof is, There is no sort or kind of Unrighteousness or Ungodliness, but in the Instance or Example of some Man or other, God hath by some manifest Judgment shewn his Wrath against it, in the view and observation of the very Heathens [Page 211] themselves, of and to whom it is he speaks this. There was never a Nation of the Heathens, but the Stories of it would have afforded a Theatre of God's Judgments against all sorts of Evils in in one Person or other, singled out by Decimation (as it were) in this World, to shew thereby that there was an hid­den Wrath to come in the other World, which would fall upon all the rest, who yet escaped at present. Those few and scattered Instances manifested a Trea­sury, a Magazine of Wrath in Heaven; his Phrase is, from Heaven, that is, in and from God: which the Heathens also were sensible of, witness their Sacrifices of Atonement directed unto Heaven. And this to be the Apostle's Scope is clearly seen, in that he prosecutes this in the following Chap. 2. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O Man, whosoever thou art, that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou con­demnest thy self; for thou that judgest, doest the same things. But we are sure that the Judgment of God is according to Truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O Man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the Judgment of God? Or despisest thou [Page 212] the Riches of his Goodness, and For­bearance, and Long-suffering, not know­ing that the Goodness of God leadeth thee to Repentance? But after thy hardness, and impenitent Heart, [treasurest up unto thy self Wrath against the Day of Wrath, and Revelation of the righteous Judgment of God. And unto this ac­count you may put the enumeration of those Instances of Judgment made by the other Apostles, as those upon the Angels that fell, and on the Old World, on Sodom and Gomorrah, Corah, &c. whereof though some were outward and temporal Punishments, yet because they were Evidences of that Wrath to come upon like impenitent Sinners, both these Apostles do to that purpose allege them, and make use thereof to beget this Belief in us. For so expresly the one begins his Discourse thereof: 2 Pet. 2. 3, 4, 5. Whose Judgment now of a long time lingreth not, and their Dam­nation slumbreth not. For if God spa­red not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into Chains of Darkness, to be reserved unto Judgment; and spared not the Old World, but saved Noah, the eighth Per­son, a Preacher of Righteousness, bring­ing in the Flood upon the World of the [Page 213] Ʋngodly: And turned the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into Ashes, condemned them with an Overthrow, making them an En­sample unto those that after should live ungodly. Then the other Apostle adds: Jude v. 7. They suffering the Vengeance of Eternal Fire. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of Temptations, and to reserve the Ʋnjust unto the Day of Judgment, to be punished. Consider also what his Wrath hath been to whole Nations; and how he says, he will one day turn all the Nations into Hell that forget God, as the Psalmist tells us, Psal. 9. 7. He hath Prisons large enough, and Chains strong enough, to hold them all. When the Jews saw one hundred & eighty thousand of the Assyrians Host killed in a night, afore the very Walls of Jerusalem, Fearfulness surprized the Hypocrites; their Hearts mel­ted with Terror to think what the Wrath of God must be for ever: Isa. 33. 14, &c.

USE.

Then learn to adore and fear the Great­ness of our God, to the end to turn to him.

Where he shews Favour, his Favour is Life, Psal. 30. 5. yea, his Loving-kindness is better than Life, Psal. 63. 3. Whom have I in Heaven but thee? There needs no other there.

On the contrary, if he be provoked, there needs no other Judg or Avenger but himself. I may say, The Weapons of his VVarfare within himself, are mighty to revenge all Disobedience. This great General needs not borrow, nor call in the Aid of his Creatures, (though in respect of their being his Militia, he is stiled the Lord of Hosts,) to make War, and destroy. That very Face of his gives Life, and strikes dead and kills. In thy Presence is Fulness of Joy, Psal. 16. ult. And from his Pre­sence is Destruction, 2 Thess. 1. 9. O hide us, say they, Rev. 6. 16. from the Face of him that sits on the Throne, and from the Wrath of the Lamb. They point to the Fountain of their Anguish, and speak what above all was it they dreaded. It is greatly observable, what and how God talks to Job, to this very purpose: Says God to Job, chap. 40. Wilt thou contend with me? So verse 2. he begins to dare him: Come, says he, let this be among other one Trial of thy Power, (who had been a Prince, &c.) in comparison of mine: Take upon thee, (as I mean to do) and be Judg of all the World: Put on thy Judges Robes, and thy biggest Looks: Thus verse 10. Deck thy self with Majesty and Excellency, [Page 215] and array thy self with Glory and Beauty. And particularly try; try what thou canst do or effect, when thou art most angry, by thy meer Looks: Cast abroad the Rage of thy Wrath, v. 11. Throw Sparkles of thy most fiery Indignation from thine Eyes.—Canst thou look a Man dead, and cover a Man's Face for ever with Confusion? Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low: So vers. 12. Hide them in the Dust together, be they never so many; and bind their Faces in secret: that is, cover them with Confusion of Face, with a Look or Rebuke of thy Face; make them run into Holes, or seek Mountains to cover them, to avoid the Terror of thy Looks. Now all this I can do (says God) with a meer Look, whenever I please: And I can as easily save also, as I can thus destroy, (which thou canst not do thine own Soul) as the next Verse insinuates, Then will I con­fess thine own hand can save thee. You see he resolves saving and destroying in­to the same Power of his, and maketh the same estimate of either; which the Apostle also doth, chap. 4. 12. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.

My Exhortation therefore in fine is, Let us not fear Creatures, but fear Him, [Page 216] and make him your dread: and learn to know what a God ye walk before every day, and have for ever to do withal, Christ that came out of his Bosom know­ing him, doth (Luke 12. 4. & 5. compa­red with Mat. 10. 26. & 28.) upon know­ledg of this God make this same Exhorta­tion; I say to you, (says he) and I will forewarn you, (he says it twice, and it is as if he had said, Take it from me that know him) Fear him that is able to destroy Bo­dy and Soul. The Apostle succenturiates, We know him that hath said, Vengeance is mine: so here, Heb. 10. And again, We knowing the terror of the Lord, 2 Cor. 5. 11. which they know, by an estimate taken from his Goodness, that his Wrath must be answerable. And Moses also, that had seen his Back-parts, and his Glo­ry; He cries out, Who knows the power of thine Anger? Hypocrites and carnal Pro­fessors (as those were whom God profes­sedly takes to task Psal. 50.) think to play with the great God, and deal with him any how, (as we say) as with a Man that is their Fellow. They know him not. Psal. 50. 21. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence, and thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self: And what things they had done and were guilty of (see if thou hast not been guilty [Page 217] of the same or like) the 18, 19, & 20 verses shew; When thou sawest a Thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with Adulterers. Thou givest thy Mouth to Evil, and thy Tongue fram­eth Deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy Brother, thou slanderest thine own Mo­thers Son. And God was silent or long-suffering. (The like you have Isa. 57. 11, 12. Of whom hast thou been afraid, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembred me, nor laid it to thy Heart? Have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not, &c.) But mark what is the issue of all this; in Psal. 50. 21. it follows, But I will reprove thee, and set them in or­der afore thee. They had never felt the smart of his Anger in all their Lives, and little thought that the Lion was in him: but it follows, Consider this ye that forget God, lest I [tear] you in peices, and there be none to deliver. Oh take heed and turn to him, or on the sudden he will start up like a mighty Lion, and tear your Souls in pieces, as a Giant might do Cobwebs, and prey upon the Blood of your very Souls, and break the Bones thereof as a Lion could of the most silly Creature. Add to this,

MEDITATION.

Consider, What it is to die, and what the State and Condition of the other World is. It is to have to do with God imme­diately, either in Wrath or Love; and from his own hands, as well as from the immediate Sentence of his Mouth, to re­ceive thy Weal or Woe.—That we come naked into this World, and go as naked out of it, was Job's Meditation first; after that David's, Psal. 49. 15. We shall carry nothing away, that is, of what belongs to this World; then after him Solomon the Son, Eccles. 5. 15. As he came forth of his Mothers Womb (speaking of Man) naked shall he return, to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his Labour, which he may carry away in his Hand. The Effect of which divine Meditation comes to this, To put secure and careless Man upon the consideration of his immortal Souls Condition, which first cometh into this World naked (as well as his Body:) And poor thing! the meaning of its first cry (if the Soul it self could then speak out its mind) is, I am an empty thing, and have brought nothing with me; who will shew me any good? But after its being grown up, it begins to find a World richly [Page 219] furnished with all things to enjoy, as the Apostle's Phrase is, 1 Tim. 6. 17. But yet again when he goes out of this World, he is then turned out of House and Home, as perfectly naked as he came into it: and as Rev. 18. 14. The Fruits that thy Soul lusted after, and all things which are dainty and goodly, are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. Death is therefore compared unto the breaking or failing of a Merchant or Tradesman proving Bank­rupt, Luke 16. 9. That when ye fail, &c. says Christ; of which I have elsewhere spoken.

Now if this be thy case as to this and that other World, think with thy self what thine eternal Soul must then betake it self unto, and also unto whom in that o­ther World. My Doctrinal part hath in­formed you that it is God himself, God im­mediately,—Eccl. 12. 7. The Spirit returns unto him that gave it. To explain which, There was that evident difference put in the making man's Soul at first from that of his Body, That God made the Body out of the Earth, but the Soul was breathed in by God; and therefore not out of any preexistent matter, as the Souls and Forms of all other living things are. And upon this dissolution or separation of each from other, it is that Solomon says, Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was: [Page 220] and the Soul to God that gave it; that is to say, the same common Law befalls either in their kind, that to other things in their kind; they are reduced unto their first Principles. And so look as the Body is materially resolved into the Earth, which was the first matter of it; so according to some kind of Analogy thereunto, (and so far as the Soul is ca­pable of a like return unto God,) the Soul returns to God that gave it; as ha­ving been the immediate Original of it, not materially, as a Spark is out of the Fire, but as the immediate Efficient. It came from God by way of Gift, God gave it; that is, freely and voluntarily pro­duced it by a sole, single, free Act of his Will and Power, whereby he created it out of nothing; and so in the whole of it, it was an entire and meer Gift of his. And therefore in the beginning of his Exhortation, verse 1 of this Chap. he had aforehand laid this as a Foundation for it, Remember thy Creator, or Creators, and is so stiled, because he is in a more special manner thy Creator, than of our Bodies, or of other Creatures; and that because himself immediately gave thy Soul, in such a manner as he produced not our Bodies, nor material Substances.—And hence it is it returns to him, as [Page 221] the immediate Judg or Arbiter of its eter­nal Condition. It returns to Elohim; which, as A Lapide and Ferdinandus Ad Deum qui dedit] Tanquam ad suum uti Facto­rem sic & Judicem; (hunc e­nim signi­ficat Heb. Elohim:) ut illi actionum suarum per omnem vitam exercitarum rationem reddat. A Lapide, in Eccles. 12. 7. In Hebraeo ponitur nomen Elohim, Judex, Inspector, Testis; unde Chald. vertit [ut stet in Judicio ante Dominum.] Ferdinandus in verba. have observed in their Comments, signi­fies also a Judg as well as a Creator, and so was chosen out here, as a word more fitly serving that his scope, than any o­ther Name of God's. Now then think what it is to die; it is to return to God, so as eternally and immediately to have to do with him.

And then withal consider the different Dispensations of this Great God towards you in this World, and that next. In this World Mens Souls having Creature-Comforts, God communicates himself unto them thereby; and by reason of his Patience and Long-suffering to them added hereto, they hear not of, nor from him immediatly; the most of Men do not otherwise than in these mediate ways. I was altogether silent, says God, Psal. 50. He answers them neither good nor bad. And thus tho he is not far off from any of us, but Men live and move in him, in respect of his Power to uphold them, as Acts 17. 28. or, as verse 25. He giveth Life [Page 222] and Breath unto all things; (which Clause doth interpret that other, v. 28.) Yet as to converse with, or intimate knowledg of him, he is the unknown God, v. 23. and Men live without God (in that re­spect) in this World, as Eph. 2. 12.

But altho Men thus live without God here, they shall not live (I might say [not die] rather, for it is a Death,) with­out God in the World to come. I be­seech you think with your selves, how that your Converse with this Great God in this World is (I express it by that of Men with a Lion, comparatively,) but as through a Grate, (as that of the Spouse's with him is said to be but through a Lettice, Cant. 2. 9.) And he keeps to the Laws of his ordinary Providence: he breaks not forth immediatly, but lies still and quiet; and through his patience suffereth and permitteth Men to walk by him, and do all their Hearts desire, and lets them a­lone. But, Brethren, when you come to die; it is as if one were turned in unto that Lion with the Grate open; and those Repagula of his Patience removed, your poor Souls, your naked Souls, are upon him immediatly, and must (in a clean contrary way to what the Saints do) dwell with him for ever.—The Consideration of this struck dread and [Page 223] horror into the Hearts of the Sinners of Sion, (as it may well do in any Soul that hath not Communion with God.) Isa. 33. 14. The Sinners in Sion are afraid, fearfulness hath surprized the Hypocrites; [who among us shall dwell] with the devouring Fire? Who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (I opened that place afore, and shewed that this devouring Fire was God himself:) These speak one to another as Men af­frighted use to do, and as struck on the sudden with apprehensions of the great­ness of that God, whom their Consciences (now awakened) told them they had to do withal for ever. And they look trem­bling one on the other, and the common cry and voice among them thereupon is, Whose Portion will this prove to be? For it will be the Portion of some: or, Who of us, or all Creatures, is able to bear it or endure it? And upon this Conference (as I may term it) and inquisition among themselves, God by the Prophet steps out and answers them, but in a clean contrary way, and to their further confusion, and tells them: There are those that shall dwell with me thus immediately, unto whom I will be Glory and Happiness, who shall walk in the comfort of this Fire which you thus dread; and who (like the [Page 224] three Children in that fiery Furnace) shall be refreshed therein. So it follows, He that walks righteously, and speaks uprightly, he shall dwell on high. And therefore it fur­ther follows, 1. as a Promise to the upright and pure in Heart, ver. 17. Thine Eyes shall see the King in his Glory. And 2. with a further threatning to the Hypocrites, Thine Heart, who art an Hypocrite, shall meditate Terror, ver. 18.

Now then again, seeing you have thus to do with the great God alone for ever, let every one of us prepare to meet our God. Amos 4. This necessarily puts you upon seeking of him here in this World, and to seek that Face and favour of his, in which alone is Life. You must therefore also give up your Souls unto him here, to live in him, as in your chiefest Good, and not in your Lusts; and to live to him, as your highest End and constant Interest; and as whose Glo­ry should act and steer you in all your ways; and not unto your selves. And therefore you, that have neglected this great God, or served him but in Forma­lity and Hypocrisy, (which in Scripture hath the denomination of those that forget God) who never knew what it is to have intimate Communion and Fellowship with him through Faith in Prayer and o­ther Converses, joined with hearty Love [Page 225] unto him, and to the Interest of his Glory: Think, O think with your selves, when you come to die, that you must go to him, and be with him for ever, in that sence I have given. Think with thy self thus: My Soul will be turned naked out of this World, and there is nothing, no not a Rag of any of the Comforts I pursue after here, which shall be carried with it from hence; but it is the great God I must be turned naked unto, and appear afore; and if my Soul be found naked of his Image too, (which to have renewed in me was the only Errand he sent my Soul for into this World) and if I bring not that along with me, as my current Token, Ticket, and Pass into the other World, there will not be a dwelling-place of Bliss for me, to re­ceive me into; not such an one as the Apostle speaks of for the Comfort of the Saints, 2 Cor. 5. 1, 3. We know that if our earthly Tabernacle be dissolved, we have a Building of God; if so be we shall not be found naked, v. 3. that is, devoid of his Image, as also of Christ's Righteousness. But instead thereof this great God will be unto me as a Furnace, and I must dwell with those everlasting Burnings spoken of, even for ever.

And then think with thy self again: What communion or correspondency hath my Soul kept and held with God? [Page 226] what acquaintance hath it had with him? For otherwise it will be strange you should commend your Souls into his hands, (as Christ did, and the Saints use to do when they die) and that with a desire and in­tention to live that Eternity with him which is to come, and yet not to have li­ved at all with him or to him here. How dost thou think thou canst look him in the face at thy first appearance afore him? If they should take thy Soul away from thee Luk. 12. 20 this Night, as Christ's speech is, how canst thou think God should then at first look on thee, much less take thee into eternal, immediate Bosom-communion with himself for ever? I pray, upon what acquaintance? And so may God also say unto thee. O there­fore remember thy Creator in the days of thy Youth; learn to know and fear him; Ac­quaint thy self with him, and be at Peace: Re­ceive Job 22. 21, 22. the Law, I pray thee, from his Mouth, &c.

Again, think with thy self, What do I pursuing after the things of this Life with my dearest affections, and utmost intenti­ons? Alas! I am to live for ever with God, and not with these. The Apostle sets forth a Manifesto upon it, 1 Tim. 6. 7. We brought nothing into this World, and it is certain (or manifest, says he, [...],) we carry no­thing out: and thereby provokes them to pursue with might and main after Godlines, [Page 227] which alone is great Gain, and only cur­rent Money in the other World. And this is the manifest coherence of those two Sayings, following immediatly one the o­ther in those two verses, v. 6, 7. But Godli­ness with Contentment is great Gain. For (says he) we brought nothing into this World, and it is certain we can carry nothing out: the latter being a Motive to the for­mer. And therefore also upon the same ground it follows, Trust in the living God, and not in Riches, (so neither in Learning, Wisdom, Credit, &c.) v. 17. For why? It is the living God whom you are to have to do withal for ever. Altho he hath for the present given you, and provided all things in this World richly to enjoy, (as it fol­lows there) yet he hath reserved himself for you to enjoy in the other World. And it is the [living God] in my Text likewise, Heb. 10. into whose hands you fall as of a Judg and Avenger, if you fall short of Godliness. And it is this living God you must be made happy in and by for ever.

The great Theme and Subject of Eccle­siastes, you know, is, that All is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit. Now you may observe, how Solomon upon this very ground and account I have now been pressing, doth set a fresh stamp upon, and his last Seal unto that Truth, that all is vain, Eccl. 12. 8. even [Page 228] from this ground, That a Man's Spirit re­turns unto God that gave it, v. 7. Read and observe the coherence of those two Verses, v. 7, 8. Then shall the Dust return unto the Earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it. Vanity of Vanities, (saith the Preacher) all is Vanity. He had in the beginning of this Book pronounced them Vanities, chap. 1. Vanity of Vanities, &c. And he had all along proved them vain at the best, as they are enjoyed in this World, unto those who enjoy them most abundantly, most freely. But now when in the conclusion he had brought Man himself, that is, the en­joyer of them, and discoursed him into his Grave, laid him in the dust, and said there­upon that his Soul must then immediately go to God, then he cries out anew, (having reserved it for the conclusion of all, and that also upon an account greater than all the former:) [Vanity of Vanities, saith the Preacher, all is Vanity:] and thereupon infers, as the close, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, Fear God, and keep his Commandments, v. 13. For God shall bring every Work unto Judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. You may observe how the Apostle in a parallel manner also speaks, It is appointed for all Men to die, and after this the Judg­ment, Heb. 9. ult. just as Solomon here.

USE.

Let me next deal strictim, or at down­right blows with you. I first serve every Soul here with an Arrest, That he was once a Child of Wrath, Eph. 2. 3. Children of Wrath by Nature as well as others; let every Man clear himself of it unto God as he can; all were born such, and continue such until now, 1 John 2. 9. if they have not become other­wise, by an escape made (from the sense of this danger) which is termed by the Bap­tist a flying from the Wrath to come, Mat. 3. 7. an escaping the Damnation of Hell, by Christ, Mat. 23. 33. As the Murtherer did when he ran to the City of Refuge from the attach of the Avenger of Blood, (as in Heb. 6. 18. the allusion is) a flying for refuge unto Christ. Which escape is made by a solid, and seri­ous, and over-powring apprehension of that estate to be such, as that a Man con­tinuing therein, he apprehends he is every moment obnoxious to this Wrath, which drives him unto Christ as a Deliverer from that Wrath, joined with a giving a Man's self up to him: Both which, through the Power of the Holy Ghost accompanying them, do work a change of Heart and Life in him, an actual turning of the Soul unto God from all Sin to Godliness. And until [Page 230] a Man be thus ingrafted into Christ, and thereby made a new Creature in him, All this Wrath, as Christ says John 3. ult. remains or abides upon him. Which word [remains] imports (as was said) his condition to have been originally, and in it self, and from the beginning, and uninterruptedly un­der Wrath; until saving Faith, which is accompanied with Regeneration and true Repentance, puts the difference. So as there needs no more to be enquired of such a Man, but what have you to say for the alteration of your Estate? without which it is one and the same that it was at the first; he continues under Condemna­tion until now: Wrath remains. As we use to say, An Outlawry, a Sentence of Death remains upon a Man till pardoned. He says not only that the Wrath of God is coming upon such a Man, (as the Apostle's Phrase is) but it abides, &c. the Apostle indeed says, it comes, as in respect to the execution John 8. of it; but Christ says, it abides on a Man, in respect of a Man's being bound over unto it, until the Son doth make him free.

Then again think with your selves, how that this Wrath of God is declared to be against all ungodliness and unrighte­ousness of any kind, continued in a way of Disobedience. And be thy Sins small or great, yet whilst thou art in that E­state, [Page 231] this Wrath is in their proportion due unto all that ungodliness and unrigh­teousness in thee, and remains upon thee for them. First, against all ungodliness, though it be but in deadness, averseness unto, and turning aside from God unto the Creature: whereupon follow Neg­lects, Contempts of him, Enmities to him, and thence Omission of Duties to­wards him, and not glorifying him as God, as there ver. 21. And secondly, all un­righteousness unrepented of and continu­ed in; the enumeration of the Particu­lars of which you may have in the same Chapter, vers. 29, 30. being filled with all Ʋnrighteousness, Fornication, Wickedness, Covetousness, Maliciousness, full of Envy, Murther, Debate, Deceit, Malignity, Whisper­ers, Backbiters, Haters of God, Dispiteful, Proud, Boasters, Inventors of evil Things, Disobedient to Parents, &c. And to strike thy Heart yet more, think what Sins the Apostle more especially singleth out, as those for which he specially indigitates that the Wrath of God cometh upon the Chil­dren of Disobedience, Col. 3. 5, 6. Even For­nication, Ʋncleanness, inordinate Affection, evil Concupiscence, and Covetousness, which is Idolatry: For which things sake the Wrath of God cometh upon the Children of Disobedi­ence; that is, that live in them in a way of [Page 232] Rebellion and Disobedience unto God.

And consider, they are not Heathens only, whom the Wrath of God is poured forth upon; though so, Psal. 79. 6. Pour out thy Wrath upon the Heathen that have not known thee; and Psal. 9. 17. All the Nations that forget God shall be turned into Hell: But it is also those that live under and obey not the Gospel; and those especially. In 2 Thes. 1. 7, 8, 9. The Subjects of this Wrath are reduced to these two, those that know not God, they were these Heathens; and those that obey not the Gospel, that is, who professing it, and living under the means of it, even the Children of the Kingdom, (as they are called Mat. 8. 12. and Mat. 13. 41.) there shall be gathered out of the Kingdom (that is, the visible Professors of Religion in the strictness of it) all things (that is, Persons) that do offend, and do Iniquity, or are work­ers of it. Those first and especially, that have given scandal by doing Iniquity o­penly, and repented not, and then those that secretly [do Iniquity;] that are found workers of it in any kind, they shall be ga­thered (says Christ) and cast them into a Furnace of Fire; and Hypocrites especial­ly, they are made the measure and standard of all other that are cast into it, both by Christ and the Prophet Isaiah.

But not only these, but in Mat. 12. 22. He that but wanteth the Wedding-Garment; not the positive doers of Iniquity only, but that want true Grace, Sincerity of Faith, and Love unto Jesus Christ; the wanting all those Graces, Col. 3. 12. Gal. 6. 15. which as a Garment he should have put on (as in those places) that came to such a Wedding, the Wedding of so great a Person. And when there, he says to such an one, Friend; it is an upbraiding Speech, such an one as Christ used to Judas, Matth. 26. 50. because he had professed himself to be a Friend, but is discovered to be a false and feigned one; How comest thou hither? here is no room for thee. And though Christ is said to spy out but one such among that Company, yet it is the case of many: For, that the conclusion of that Parable, vers. 14. importeth, Many are called, few are cho­sen: and so that one Person is professed­ly made but the Instance or Example of what Christ will do with all others that are such; who will prove many. And it is said that he was speechless, or strang­led as with an Halter (as the Original Word signifies) through obstupefaction of Spirit. Now of this Man, and all other such, Christ the King saith, ver. 13. Bind him Hand and Foot, (that he may [Page 234] not be able to help himself or deliver himself) and cast him into outer Darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth. And the true reason is, because if Mens Estates be found unrenewed or unrege­nerate, (as this Mans was through want of true Grace) then the Sins of their whole Lives do abide upon their score, and are charged upon them. And eve­ry such an one, even the finest-spun Hy­pocrite, hath Sins enough (if he had no other) in those very deficiencies and fal­lings short of true and spiritual Grace, which he wholly wants. And the high­est and most sublimated work of the Spirit, which a Man remaining unrege­nerate is any way capable of, through heavenly enlightnings, and tastings of the Powers of the World to come, stir­ring up but self only, and the Affections thereof towards spiritual things, is capa­ble of being discovered, not only that it is a deficient work, and short of true Holiness at that day: but also when all the inward Obliquities, Motives, Ends, Purposes, Affections, that are in such Mens Hearts; that were the influencers and guides of their Ways and Actions, are discovered, it will be found that they all are matter of Wrath, as truly as their other Sins: And their Persons will be [Page 235] proved to have continued under the Wrath of God abiding on them, as well as grosser Sinners. And that there will be the discovery of these things in such Men, is the genuine scope of that Pas­sage, Heb. 4. 13, 14. The Word of God (understand it whether of Christ, or the Word of Christ) is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged Sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit, and of the Joints and Marrow, and is a Discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart: Neither is there any Creature (that is, of the Heart of Man) that is not manifest in his Sight, with whom we have to do. For unto such Professors among the Jews, as had been enlightned, &c. as chap. 6. of whom you also read up and down in that Epistle; and yet still re­mained in real and spiritual unbelief, as vers. 11. of this very Chapter compared with Jude vers. 5. is this Passage particu­larly directed, and of them intended.

Consider moreover, that the longer thou goest on in this Estate, or in thy Sin, the more of Wrath thou treasurest up unto thy self, as Rom. 2. Every Moment Sins do add unto that heap. And all thy Sins are barrel'd up in thy Consci­ence, as Gun-powder fully dry; and an answerable Proportion and Measure [Page 236] of Wrath is laid up in God's Heart; and when these meet, and that it comes to pass that the Fire of God's Wrath breaks forth out of his Heart into thine, then thy Soul is blown up in an instant, and a Fire kindled that burns for ever in Hell.

And meditate also how frail thy Life is, how thin and slight a Skreen of Flesh there is betwixt all this Wrath and thy bare Soul; which if worn, or any way sliced through, the Soul runs out. Nay, that venemous Spider, thy Soul, dwells but in a Cobweb, which if bro­ken, or any violence be done it, it instantly flies away into the other World.—Job, in several places, de­lights to compare our Lives and Conditi­on in this World unto a Candle or Lamp: Now let the Candle be let alone to burn it self out fairly to its full length, yet some last but a very little while, and those of the greatest size cannot long. Oh, but how many intervening Casual­ties are there, that afore do put it out? The Candle of the Wicked shall be put out, and Destruction cometh upon them, Job 21. 17. that is, ab extrinseco, from with­out. How many Thieves in the Candle, or fatal Accidents do Men meet with, that unawares consume it? Immoderate Sorrows and Cares swale it; Intempe­rance, [Page 237] like too much Oyl poured there­on to feed it, choaketh and extingui­sheth it; Too much Intention of Mind turns the Flame downwards upon it self, and so it evaporates. Often another Mans Breath in seasons of Malignity (which fall out more or less every year) blows and puffs it out. A Friends Breath comes in with an infectious Vapour, and throws his Soul out who visits him: Yea, an unskilful or else a mistaking hand of a Physician, who undertakes to snuff and brighten it; unwarily clean snuffs the Candle out.—Yea, Men strong and vi­gorous go to the Grave in a moment, as in the same 21. chapter of Job, ver. 13. Yea, as Psal. 55. 15. they go quick to Hell: it is an allusion to Corah, Dathan, &c. Numb. 16. 30, 33. of whom 'tis said twice, They went alive to Hell. Many die so suddenly, that they are in Hell in a trice, and as it were ere quite dead. And truly the most of Men live in this World like silly Sheep in a Pasture, as Da­vid's Similitude is Psal. 4. 9. 14. They are See Ainsw. put into Hell like Sheep, (so some:) It notes out their Security in respect of that slaughter which comes upon them. This Man dies, then that, then another, and they regard it not; even as the Sheep do not, when the Butcher (as his Pleasure is) [Page 238] takes out first one, then another, and car­ries them to the Shambles, whilst the rest feed on; and know not that themselves are a fatting to the day of Slaughter also.

Let us consider also, what millions of Transgressions are we guilty of in one Day? Oh then what in thy whole Life? And what a reckoning will the Sins of thy whole Life come to, when every Commandment shall bring in their Bills? and that thou hast to do with a God, who, 1. hath all thy Sins before him, Isa. 65. 6. Behold, it is written afore me, but I will recompence, &c. 2. That will never forget any one of them, Amos 8. 7. The Lord hath sworn, Surely I will never forget any of their Works. 3. With a God who will bate thee nothing, Every Transgression shall receive a just recompence of reward: He spa­red not his own Son. Rom. 8. and will not thee, unless by regeneration thou hast a Portion in his Son. Think with thy self what a case thou art in, if thou must an­swer Justice for all and every one of these.

DAVID's Meditation, Psal. XLIX.

The most of these things hitherto by way of Use spoken by me, are no other than what David himself spends one whole Psalm together upon; it is Psal. 49. [Page 239] and styles it The Meditation of his Heart, vers. 3. which caused me to entitle that former about what it is to dye, a Medi­tation rather than an Ʋse; as I had done that of Moses also, Psal. 90. This of David's I shall here add, to set the deeper seal and weight upon all that hath been treated.

He begins the Psalm, and shews the moment of these matters, though in view but ordinary, with as solemn a Preface and Proclamation, calling upon attention and heed hereto, as any where we find in Scriptures. 1. In the first verse he summons all the World into a Ring a­bout him, Hear ye this all the People; give Ear all the Inhabitants of the World. And 2. particulariseth forth his Auditors into all sorts of Conditions, vers. 2. Both low and high, rich and poor together. For why? what he was to utter to them, did as much concern the one as it did the other, and behoved them all alike to look to; as being that which especially concerned them in respect unto their Be­ing in the other World, how different soever their Condition was in this. And 3. he cries up the matter it self, as the greatest Wisdom, vers. 3. and a deep mysterious Parable and dark saying, vers. 4. My Mouth shall speak of Wisdom, and the Meditation of my Heart shall be of Ʋn­derstanding: [Page 240] I will incline mine Ear unto a Parable, I will open my dark saying upon the Harp.—Now what should this mat­ter be! It was to declare two things, which take up that whole Psalm.

The first, how in the style of a Be it known to all Men, (for we have seen he publisheth it to all) he aloud declares, I for my part am not afraid to die, and go into that other World. Which confidence of his he greatens by this Supposition su­peradded: That if, when he should come to die, all the Sins of his whole Life were presented afore his view, yet notwith­standing he should not be afraid: thus ver. 5. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the Iniquities of my heels shall compass me about? A strange confidence! which yet he found reason for from God: For he challengeth all or any thing to bring in reason to the contrary; let them all say, [Wherefore should I fear?] And yet his other Psalms, as well as his Story, tell us what an infinite number of Sins were upon his score, and how sensible he was thereof.—And that this bold Speech of his relates specially to the day of Death, or days wherein he might have cause to fear it, (though I will exclude no other times of Trouble, that were yet to come before, in this Life, to be intended [Page 241] by him; which Interpreters wholly carry it unto) that this is his scope, I shall make appeal to the whole drift of what follows throughout the Psalm: which concerns the state of wicked Men in their Death, (which I shall by and by shew:) But spe­cially I argue it from the reference and correspondency this Speech hath with and to vers. 15. God will redeem my Soul from the Power of the Grave, for he shall receive me. Selah. There you have the reason or ground of this his Confidence, which he had at first uttered in ver. 5. perfectly ex­pressed, as that which he opposed unto all Therefore's or Wherefore's to the contrary; yea, though they should be fetch'd from his very Sins, that might (if any thing) make him afraid. But there in that re­solve of his, ver. 15. he centers, and landeth this which he had so confidently uttered in ver. 5. And all the rest of his discourse that comes between, is appa­rently about the opposite condition of wicked Men; As that they must die, and what their estate is in and after Death; all which was but to illustrate this Con­fidence of his.

He plainly in this ver. 5. puts himself into the supposition, as if he were then to die, and as if Death (the King of terrors, Job 18. 19.) were setting down his siege [Page 242] about him, and that all the Iniquities of his heels or ways, (which are Deaths strongest Forces, The Sting of Death is Sin, and the strength of Sin is the Law, 1 Cor. 15. 5, 6.) were as an Army formed up, encompassing him round, (which out of Psal. 40. 12. I have shewed to have been his case, and the very Metaphor he there also useth.) But now David was so steeled, as though he placed himself (thus aforehand) in the full view and face of all these, single and alone in the midst of them; he yet outdares them all, as the Apostle did Rom. 8. ult. strength­ned with this, for the Lord will receive my Soul; which Phrase of Speech to be the same that a dying Saint useth, you all know.—And this part of his Speech, v. 5. might have come in as comfortable an Use as any other, of that former Doctrine, [the innumerable number of Sins;] but that this other part that now follows doth properly belong unto what hath been now last in­sisted on; and so I rather placed both here.

The second thing is, The opposite state of wicked Men in their Lives, and in relation to their dying, and also at and after Death; by which he both illustrates and expounds his meaning in ver. 5. to be to utter his own blessed condition at his Death, v. 15. and to that purpose it is, he further di­lates upon the death of wicked Men in [Page 243] the rest of the Psalm: And which is in­deed a kind of Summary of what in the former Meditation I have prest.

During their Lives, they trust in their Wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their Riches, v. 6. and yet they see (as the word is, v. 10.) that they cannot redeem their own or others precious Souls from bodily Death, or obtain of God by a Ransom, that they should live for ever. For he sees the wise Man die like as the Fool, and so leave their Wealth to others: Thus in v. 7, 8, 9, 10. That which therefore (mi­serable Wretches) they relieve themselves with against this, is, Their inward thought is, that their Houses shall continue for ever, and their Dwelling-places to all Generations: They call their Lands after their own Names, and their Posterity approve their Sayings, v. 13. Tho when he dies, he shall carry no­thing away, his Glory shall not descend after him, &c. And whither goes he when he dies? His Soul (so 'tis in the Original, and varied in the Margin,) shall go to the Generation of his Fathers, (to the Company of those Giants of the Old World, from whom Hell hath its Name so oft in the Proverbs.) And where are they all? The Spirits in Prison. So the Apostle resolves us, speaking of the Men of the old World, 1 Pet. 3. 19. And they shall never see Light [Page 244] or comfort more, says the Psalmist. But as for me (says David, v. 15.) God shall receive me into the bosom of his Love and Bliss.—And then again upon their dying, They are laid as Sheep in the Grave; Death shall feed on them, and prey upon them: The first Death upon their bodies in the Grave, the second Death upon their Souls. And their Beauty shall consume in the Grave: so as at the mor­ning (as there) of the Resurrection, the greatest Personages, that have had such a Gleam of Glory to attend them whilst they lived, accompanied perhaps also with dominion over others, shall then rise such ugly shabby Death-eaten and Hell-eaten Creatures, (as we use to say, Moth-eaten) all their Beauty being preyed upon, (that's his word) and consumed: And such shall they appear in Judgment, where the up­right (whom they despised) shall have do­minion over them, ver. 14. But (says Da­vid) God shall redeem my Soul from the power of the Grave: For he shall receive me. Selah.

And for the further illustration of all this, and how it relates unto Death, I shall only cast in a manifest parallel be­tween what David here had meditated a­bout the condition of wicked Men at Death, with what our Lord himself hath seconded it withal, in expressions fully herewith agreeing, treating of wicked [Page 245] mens dying also; Luke 12. 16. unto ver. 21. 'Tis the Parable of that rich Man, whose Soul was taken away that night. 1. Says David, Their inward thought is, &c. ver. 11. And says Christ, He thought with­in himself, so ver. 17. 2. Whilst he lived he blessed himself, so David ver. 18. namely, in those his inward Thoughts about his Goods and Posterity: And the like speaks Christ, to be the inward speech and ap­plauding himself, of his rich Man; He says to his Soul, Soul, thou hast many Goods laid up for many years, take thine ease and be merry. Again 3. of this Man Christ says, Thou Fool, this night, &c. ver. 20. And David of his, This their way is their Folly, ver. 10. 4. And finally, the reason of that their Folly, which both Christ and David give, do center in one and the same: This Night thy Soul shall be required thee, then whose shall these things thou hast provided be? Thus Christ, ver. 20. and David cor­respondently, His Soul shall go, &c. They shall never see light, ver. 19. and he shall carry nothing away, but leave his Wealth to others, verses 10, 17.

But still withal, let us remember what David's conclusion is concerning himself at his Death, and which he placeth in the midst as the center of his Discourse, which hath all this other about wicked Men [Page 246] round about it, to the end to magnify the Mercy thereof to himself; But God shall redeem my Soul, and shall receive me. Selah. The Mercy of both which the last Use of all, that next follows, doth concern; and so shuts up this Discourse.

USE.

Let all Believers from hence learn, how to set a due and full value upon that Sal­vation, which they profess to expect, and which God hath designed to give them.

Our great and gracious God, the more to bind and oblige the redeemed of the Sons of Men unto himself, hath twisted their Salvation of a double Cord of Love. 1. A privitive one, seen in what they are snatcht out of, which is termed a being sa­ved from Wrath, Rom. 5. A delivering from Wrath, 1 Thess. 1. 10. An escaping the Damnation of Hell, Mat. 23. 33. A not (so much as) entring into Condemnation, John 5. 24. 2. The other a positive part, The Glory to be revealed; the greatness of which no Tongue can utter, or Heart con­ceive. That Blessedness or Glory con­ferred on the elect Angels, and that fa­vour shewn them, hath not this privative part of Salvation to greaten it; further then as by way of prevention, in that God [Page 247] upheld them from falling into the Merit or Desert of it. Whereas we Men are all become guilty afore God, were actu­ally under Wrath, Children of Wrath even as others, one as well as another, Ephes. 2. And the weight of this he in that Scrip­ture would have them put into the Scale whenever they thought of Salvation; By Grace ye are saved: so as with a Note of Remark it follows, v. 8.—God hath thus doubled the Mercy of Salvation to us, on purpose to make it Salvation in­deed; So great Salvation! as the Apostle speaks, Heb. 2. which duplication is seen in all parts of our Salvation as well as this, as might be largely shewn.

There are many gracious Saints that have had no Impressions of Wrath, no fears and terrors of Hell, set upon their Souls in their first Humiliation; nay, the Consideration thereof hath had but small influence into their Hearts by way of Mo­tive, in turning them unto God; but it hath been pure free Love hath taken their Hearts, and swallowed up their thoughts. Yet mark what I shall say unto thee in this Case, altho indeed the less thou hast been moved in thy turning to God with such fears or impressions of Hell, it be in some respect the better, for the more kind­ly hath God's Work been in that respect [Page 248] upon thee; and it also argues a special tenderness in God's Heart towards thy Soul, to have restrained the Roughness of the East-Wind from blowing on thee, as the Prophet speaks. Yet let me withal say, That the more any one hath (after Con­version) taken into consideration this Wrath, (I do not mean by Terrors, but) by a practical meditation of it, and his own desert thereof; the more (when joined together with the former, of God's pure Love) it will move his Heart to Thankfulness to God for saving him. And the more thine Heart hath this way been enlarged, the more of God's Love, which thou art either assured of, or reliest upon, must needs be greatned to thee; yea, and prove the higher incentive of Love unto God again from thee. Whereas on the contrary (that I may give a Cau­tion) because there seemeth to be such an Ingenuity in Grace its working in that first respect mentioned, that Wrath hath had no influence at all. Hence such Per­sons are apt too much to neglect, or not to mind the Consideration of God's Wrath at all; no not so much as in this latter way mentioned; but thinking to keep up an Ingenuity of Love, they entertain not this at all in their Meditations. But sure this is far more blame-worthy than [Page 249] that other is commendable; and that by how much there comes thereby to be a Loss, of so much and of so great a part of God's Love purposely thereby designed to be shewn: (I term it a Loss, for what is not seen, and the Heart considers not, nor is sensible of, is as if it had not been.) And further I add, that this valuing of God's Love herein shewed, at its own full rate in both respects, is a matter of greater moment than the working of thy Love to him, in so ingenuous and kindly a way, (as thou supposest) without all or any consideration of Hell or Wrath, can arise unto. And this by how much God's Love to us, in the full latitude of it, is a thing more precious than our Love to him. Of the two, God had rather have us apprehend his Love towards us in the utmost extent thereof, than have our Love, or Love from us to him, to work but in that one way of Ingenuousness: yea, and in the issue you will all find, that if you join the Considerations of both together, they will concur to work an higher Ingenuity of Love, than that other way alone can do.

If we will come to comprehend with all Saints the Heighth, and Depth, &c. of the Love of God and Christ, in all the dimen­sions of it, we must take that course and [Page 250] way in our Meditations about it, which God himself hath laid out and designed on purpose to set it forth and greaten it unto us by. Which he hath done as well by so great a deliverance from so great a Wrath due to us, as by conferring so rich an Inheritance of Glory upon us. And look as God hath two such vast Contri­vances, of infinite weight each of them, the one in his right hand, the other in his left, for the manifestation of his Love; so we should have two Scales in the hand of our Faith to weigh each by: And of the two it may perhaps be hard to say which is the more massy, that is, in the apprehensions of some of those who have been deeply humbled for Sin, and under sense of Wrath, (tho I think Glory car­ries it by far.)

I observe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself, tho but made a Surety for Sin, and tho it was impossible he should be holden of Wrath or any thing he was to suffer, Acts 2. 24. yet he doth consider, as well for his blessing God, as also to his own Comfort, in Psal. 16. 7. and 10. (a Psalm made wholly of him) and magnify the delivering part of Sal­vation; Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell, nor suffer thine Holy One to see Cor­ruption: I say, he considers this as well [Page 251] as the Joy which followed thereon: which yet also follows there, v. 11. Thou wilt shew me the Path of Life. In thy pre­sence is fulness of Joy; at thy right hand there are Pleasures for evermore. He rec­kons up both, as two distinct parts of Fa­vour shewn in that Salvation of his, which is both the Cause and Patern of ours. And that it was to bless God for both these, which he thus distinctly and apart menti­ons, his Preface to both, v. 7. I will bless the Lord, &c. shews. Thus as Man. And there is this further evidence of it, That look as what any one exerciseth Faith for, and prays for much afore it is obtained, that proportionably he is thankful for af­ter. And the same is seen in Christ in this very particular. For as we read in that Psalm, that he exercised Faith for this De­liverance as well as for that Glory: So in like manner, Heb. 5. 7. That he offered up Prayers and Supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able [to save] him from Death, and was heard in what he feared. And hence it came to pass, that we find him after his Deliverance so greatly blessing God for it. So you read of his praising God for the same, in Psal. 22. from v. 2. to the end, and in express words, v. 25. even as well as you may read his Prayer for this Deliverance in the former part of that Psalm.

If He, who (but for us and our sakes) needed no deliverance; then how much more lies this upon us, the Persons saved, and unable to save our selves, distinctly to remember both these parts of our Salvati­on with infinite Praise and Blessing of God's great Name? Bless the Lord, O my Soul; and all that is within me bless his holy Name, and forget not all (that is, not any of) his Benefits, says the Psalmist in his own Person, Psal. 103. 1, 2. And what sort of Benefits were they? it follows ver. 3, 4. Who forgiveth all thine Iniquities; Who redeemeth thy Life from Destruction; there is Salvation from Sin and Hell, the privative part: Who crowneth thee with Loving-kindness and tender Mercies, (over and above deliverance) and satisfieth thy mouth with good things; there you see also is the positive part. You might observe the very same in this 49. Psalm, Thou shalt redeem me, &c. and, Thou shalt receive me.

By all that hath been spoken (although you are saved from it, yet) look down into Hell a little, as it hath been set out to you; And think with your selves, Hath God delivered me from so great a Death, and given me such a deliverance as this, from a death so dreadful and eternal also? How would the Devils and Spirits in Pri­son prize an escape and deliverance from [Page 253] Wrath present and to come, if they could be supposed capable thereof; yea, if they had no more? A Nobleman or Favourite that hath run into great and high Trea­sons, to have but meer Life given him, how would he value it, though he never saw the Court more, nor were never re­stored unto his Estate and Dignities, had he but wherewithal to live? If a Man were in danger to be drowned, and a Rope were thrown him and a Crown, and bidden take his choice; with promise, Thou shalt be King of all the World, if thou come to shore safe with the Crown on thy Head: of the two he would in this case take hold of the Rope, and refuse the Crown. And why? because it is Salvation and his Life. But for a Man to be both wasted safe to shore, and then ar­riving there, to have this Crown besides! how great Salvation would this be valued, stupendous Grace and Love!

These things the Saints should consider chiefly unto two ends and purposes;

• 1. To be thankful to God and Christ.
• 2. To comfort their own Souls.

I. To be thankful both to God and Christ.

1. To God the Father. It was his part to contrive the whole design of our Sal­vation, to the end to set forth his Love to [Page 254] us. And the Scripture spreads afore us the Love of the Father herein upon this dou­ble consideration; 1. That he appointed us not to Wrath, (which otherwise we should have in the issue and execution, by reason of Sin fallen under.) 2. That he ordained us to Salvation. You have an express Scripture for both these, setting forth the Love of God the Father hereby; 1 Thess. 5. 9. God hath not appointed us to Wrath, but to obtain Salvation. Here are first, two parts of the Mercy vouchsafed, 1. Deliverance from Wrath. 2. Salvation. Then the Love of the Father in his not appointing us to Wrath, (and so not to leave us under it) as well as appointing us to Salvation; and both as appointments of God, the one as well as the other.

And then in the second Epistle, chap. 2. ver. 13. he provokes them unto thankful­ness for this; But we are bound to give thanks always unto God for you, who hath from the beginning chosen you unto Salvation, through Sanctification of the Spirit, and be­lief of the Truth: which he speaks with re­ference to what was done to others, (ver. 12. compared.) Let me speak to you then in the Apostles Language; Oh what thanks are your selves then bound (if the Apo­stle gave them for others) to give unto God for your selves, to whom God hath [Page 255] given Faith and Holiness, upon both these respects?

2. To Jesus Christ, for that hand which he had in this our Deliverance from Wrath: thus expresly, 1 Thess. 1. ult. Ye wait for his Son from Heaven, even Jesus, who delivered us from the Wrath to come. Here again you have these two parts of Salvation set together. 1. His coming from Heaven, which they waited for, with hopes of his carrying them thither, as he tells them chap. 4. ver. 17. We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the Air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Then 2. (which the Apostle adds with an Emphasis) even Jesus, who delivered us from the Wrath to come. Take in that too, says he, and for­get it not, to endear your Jesus to you: and for ever know him by this Character, [It is that Jesus who delivered you from the VVrath to come.] It was the Fathers work indeed to appoint and ordain this Deli­verance, and us unto the benefit of it through Faith; but it was our Jesus, his Son's work, to effect and accomplish it; 'twas his Soul that paid for all.

And the manner or way how he deli­vered us from this Wrath, heightens this his Love yet more; for he delivered us from it by being made himself a Curse for us, Gal. 3. 23.

The second thing I propounded was, To comfort your Souls in the consideration of this Salvation and Deliverance. Thus Christ, Psal. 16. 9, 10. for his deliverance, Therefore [my Heart is glad] my Flesh also shall rest in hope; for thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell, thou wilt shew me the path of Life, &c. And David in the 49. Psalm, which led on to this, doth comfort himself also ver. 15. when of wicked Men he had said, Like Sheep they are put into Hell, (as some read it) Death shall feed on them: He then for his own particular comforts himself with this, But God shall redeem my Soul from the power of Hell, for he shall re­ceive me. And the Apostle to the Thessa­lonians, epist. 1. chap. 5. having ver. 9. set before them (as was afore opened) that God had not appointed them to Wrath, but to obtain Salvation, he subjoins, ver. 11. Wherefore comfort your selves together.