sit upon, a crown on their head, and a sceptre in their hand, will raise it up again. Are they reduced to poverty? Heaven is a treasure. If they be forced to quit their own habitations, yet Christ's Father's house is ready for them. Are they driven to the wilderness? There is a city prepared for them. Are they banished from their native country? They shall inherit a better country. If they are deprived of public ordinances, the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple there, whither they are going; a temple, the doors of which none can shut. If their life be full of bitterness, heaven is a paradise for pleasure. If they groan under the remains of spiritual bondage, there is a glorious liberty abiding them. Do their defiled garments make them ashamed? The day cometh, in which their robes shall be white, pure, and spotless. The battle against flesh and blood, principalities and powers, is indeed sore but a glorious triumph awaits them. If the toil and labours of the Christian life be great, there is an everlasting rest for them in heaven. Are they judged unworthy of the society of angels in heaven? Do they complain of frequent interruptions of their communion with God? There they shall go no more out, but shall see his face for evermore. If they are in darkness here, eternal light is there. If they grapple with death, there they shall have everlasting life. And, to sum up all in one word, "He that overcometh, shall inherit all things," Rev. xxi. 7. He shall have peace and plenty, profit and pleasure, every thing desirable; full satisfaction to his most enlarged desires. Let the expectants of heaven, then, lift up their heads with joy; let them gird up their loins, and so run that they may obtain; trampling on every thing that may hinder them in their way to the kingdom. Let them never account any duty too hard, nor any cross too heavy, nor any pains too great, so that they may attain the crown of glory.

3. Let those who have no right to the kingdom of heaven, be stirred up to seek it with all diligence. Now is the time, wherein the children of wrath may become heirs of glory: when the way to everlasting happiness is opened, it is no time to sit still and loiter. Raise up your hearts towards the glory that is to be revealed; and be not always in search of rest in this perishing earth. What can all your worldly enjoyments avail you, while you have no solid ground to expect heaven after this life is gone? The riches and honours, profits and pleasures, that must be buried with us, and cannot accompany us into another world, are but a wretched portion, and will leave men comfortless at length. Ah! why are men so eager in their lifetime to receive their good things? Why are they not rather careful to secure an interest in the kingdom of

heaven, which would never be taken from them, but afford them a portion to make them happy through the ages of eternity? If you desire honour, there you may have the highest honour, which will last when the world's honours are laid in the dust; if riches, heaven will yield you a treasure; and there are pleasures for evermore. O be not despisers of the pleasant land, neither judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life; close with Christ, as he is offered to you in the gospel, and you shall inherit all things. Walk in the way of holiness, and it will lead you to the kingdom. Fight against sin and Satan, and you shall receive the crown. Forsake the world, and the doors of heaven will be opened to receive you.

PART VI.

OF HELL.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.MATT. XXV. 41.

WERE there no other place of eternal lodging but heaven, I should here have closed my discourse of man's eternal state; but as in the other world there is a prison for the wicked, as well as a palace for the saints, we must also inquire into that state of everlasting misery; which the worst of men may well bear with, without crying, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" since there is yet access to flee from the wrath to come; and all that can be said of it comes short of what the damned will feel; for "who knoweth the power of God's anger ?"

The last thing which our Lord did, before he left the earth, was, "He lifted up his hands, and blessed his disciples," Luke xxiv. 50, 51. But the last thing he will do, before he leaves the throne, is to curse and condemn his enemies; as we learn from the text, which contains the dreadful sentence, wherein the everlasting misery of the wicked is declared. In which three things may be taken notice of: 1. The quality of the condemned: "ye cursed." The Judge finds the curse of the law upon them as transgressors, and sends them away with it, from his presence, into hell, there to be fully executed upon them. 2. The punishment which they are adjudged

to; and to which they were always bound over by virtue of the curse. And it is twofold, the punishment of loss, in separation from God and Christ, "Depart from me;" and the punishment of sense, in most exquisite and extreme torments, "Depart from me into fire." 3. The aggravations of their torments. 1. They are ready for them, they are not to expect a moment's respite. The fire is prepared and ready to catch hold of those who are thrown into it. 2. They will have the society of devils in their torments being shut up with them in hell. They must depart into the same fire, prepared for Beelzebub the prince of devils, and his angels; namely, other reprobate angels who fell with him, and became devils. It is said to be prepared for them; because they sinned, and were condemned to hell, before man sinned. This speaks further terror to the damned, that they must go into the same torments, and place of torment, with the devil and his angels. They hearkened to his temptations, and they must partake in his torments: his works they would do, and they must receive the wages, which is death. In this life they joined with devils, in enmity against God and Christ, and the way of holiness; and in the other, they must lodge with them. Thus all the goats shall be shut up together; for that name is common to devils and wicked men, in Scripture, Lev. xvii. 7, where the word rendered devils, properly signifies hairy ones, or goats, in the shape of which. creatures, devils delighted much to appear to their worshippers. 3. The last aggravation of their torment is the eternal duration thereof; they must depart into everlasting fire. This is what puts the top-stone upon their misery, namely, that it shall never have an end. DOCTRINE, The wicked shall be shut up under the curse of God, in everlasting misery, with the devils in hell.

After having proved, that there shall be a resurrection of the body, and a general judgment, I think it not needful to insist on proving the truth of future punishment. The same conscience there is in men of a future judgment, bears witness also of the truth of future punishment. (And that the punishment of the damned shall not be annihilation, or a reducing them to nothing, will be clear in the progress of our discourse.) In treating of this awful subject I shall inquire into these four things: 1. The curse under which the damned shall be shut up. II. Their misery under that curse. III. Their society with devils in this miserable state. IV. The eternity of the whole.

I. As to the curse under which the damned shall be shut up in hell; it is the terrible sentence of the law, by which they are bound over to the wrath of God, as transgressors. This curse does not first seize them when standing before the tribunal to receive their

sentence; but they were born under it, they led their lives under it in this world, they died under it, rose with it out of their graves; and the Judge finding it upon them, sends them away with it into the pit, where it shall lie on them through all the ages of eternity. By nature all men are under the curse; but it is removed from the elect, by virtue of their union with Christ. It abides on the rest of sinful mankind, and by it they are devoted to destruction, separated to evil, as one describes the curse, from Deut. xxix. 21, "And the Lord shall separate him unto evil." Thus shall the damned for ever be persons devoted to destruction; separate and set apart from the rest of mankind, unto evil, as vessels of wrath; set up as marks for the arrows of divine wrath; and made the common receptacle and shore of vengeance.

:

And the

This curse hath its first-fruits on earth, which are a pledge of the whole lump that is to follow. Hence it is, that as temporal and eternal benefits are bound up together, under the same expressions, in the promise to the Lord's people, as Isa. xxxv. 10, ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion," &c. relating both to return from Babylon, and to the saints' going to their eternal rest in heaven; even so, temporal and eternal miseries, on the enemies of God, are sometimes included under one and the same expression in the threatening, as Isa. xxx. 33, "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large the pile hereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." Which relates both to the temporal and eternal destruction of the Assyrians, who fell by the hand of the angel before Jerusalem. See also Isa. lxvi. 24. What is that judicial blindness to which many are given up, "whom the god of this world hath blinded," 2 Cor. iv. 4, but the first fruits of hell and of the curse? their sun is going down at noon-day; their darkness increasing, as if it would not stop till it issue in utter darkness. Many a lash in the dark doth conscience give the wicked, which the world doth not hear of: and what is that but the never-dying worm already begun to gnaw them? And there is not one of these but they may call it Joseph, for "the Lord shall add another;" or rather Gad, for "a troop cometh." These drops of wrath are terrible forebodings of the full shower which is to follow. Sometimes they are given up to their vile affections, that they have no more command over them, Rom. i. 26. So their lusts grow up more and more towards perfection, if I may so speak.

As in heaven grace comes to its perfection, so in hell sin arrives at its highest pitch; and as sin is thus advancing upon the man, he

is the nearer and liker to hell.-There are three things that have a fearful aspect here. 1. When every thing that might do good to men's souls, is blasted to them; so that their blessings are cursed, Mal. ii. 2; sermons, prayers, admonitions, and reproofs, which are powerful towards others, are quite inefficacious to them. 2. When men go on in sinning still, in the face of plain rebukes from the Lord, in ordinances and providences. God meets them with rods in the way of their sin, as it were striking them back; yet they rush forward. What can be more like hell, where the Lord is always smiting and the damned always sinning against him? 3. When every thing in one's lot is turned into fuel to one's lusts. Thus, adversity and prosperity, poverty and wealth, the want of ordinances and the enjoyment of them, do all but nourish the corruptions of many. Their vicious stomachs corrupt whatever they receive, and all does but increase noxious humours.

But the full harvest follows, in that misery which they shall for ever lie under in hell; that wrath which, by virtue of the curse, shall come upon them to the uttermost; which is the curse fully executed. This black cloud opens upon them, and the terrible thunderbolt strikes them, by that dreadful voice from the throne, "Depart from me, ye cursed," &c. Which will give the whole wicked world a dismal view of what is in the bosom of the curse. It is, 1. A voice of extreme indignation and wrath, a furious rebuke from the Lion of the tribe of Judah. His looks will be most terrible to them; his eyes will cast flames of fire on them; and his words will pierce their hearts, like envenomed arrows. When he will thus speak them out of his presence for ever, and by his word chase them away from before the throne, they will see how keenly wrath burns in his heart against them for their sins. 2. It is a voice of extreme disdain and contempt from the Lord. Time was when they were pitied, admonished to pity themselves, and to be the Lord's; yet they despised him, they would none of him but now they shall be buried out of his sight, under everlasting contempt. 3. It is a voice of extreme hatred. Hereby the Lord shuts them out of his bowels of Depart, ye cursed." I cannot endure to look at you; there is not one purpose of good to you in mine heart; nor shall you ever hear one word more of voice of eternal rejection from the Lord. gone, and so casts them off for ever.

love and mercy. "C

hope from me.

4. It is a

He commands them to be Thus the doors of heaven are

shut against them; the gulf is fixed between them and it, and they are driven to the pit.-Now, were they to cry with all possible earnestness, "Lord, Lord, open to us;" they will hear nothing but, "Depart, depart ye cursed." Thus shall the damned be shut up under the curse.