The Punishments of the Damned
The punishments of the damned considered as intO’ lerable and everlasting, and as unquesttonablt, certain. What the reflections upon kell-ioj’ments may and ought to teach us,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” the entrance into the way of life, as it is ordinarily one of the first means to awaken the soul to a serious concern for eternity: let me, therefore, first consider the endless punishment of the wicked in the other world, before I enter upon the ravishing prospect of the blessedness of heaven, promised to the righteous. And with what serious trembling should I think of the terrors of an destruction, which our Lord shall be revealed from heaven to render, to all who know not God, and obey not the gospel.” When “the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment; as the righteous into life eternal.”
The dreadfulness of that punishment, the endless duration of it, joined to the consideration of its unquestionable certainty, deserves the most attentive thoughts of every man who loves his soul, and would manifest he doth so, by securing his greatest in* terest.
The description of that misery, under unsupportable and eternal torments, demands more than a transient view; because no words can sufficiently express the horror of that state. What is it, O my soul! to he banished from the blessed sight and presence of God for ever, -and all the impressions of his holy image and likeness? and to know that this is the fruit of my own choice; that I lost it by my own fault and folly; that I deserved to lose it; that the sentence is as just as it is irrevocable! Who can fully imagine the dismal despair of a condemned sinner under this anguish of a guilty, self-accusing mind! while under the stroke of God’s almighty revenging justice, with a distincter view and knowledge than now of God and his excellencies; of himself and his own vileness and malignity; which must greatly increase his rage and torment. Add to this, his being enraged by the accusations and cries of wicked acquaintances and relations, and his being mocked and insulted over, and tortured, by malicious damned spirits; with a clear understanding of that glorious felicity he despised, refused, and forfeited; with a deep sense of his former madness in preferrihg the sinful pleasures and advantages of this world; and this after many warnings, and invitations, and calls, from God, to have prevented it; and never to be diverted one momxvx.
from the consideratioiiy sense, and feeling, of bis misery, and the duratioo of it; to have all his fn&snooB let loose with the greatest violence, and nothing to satisfy them; and continually to preserve a hell of wickedness and horror in himself; and to endure the reproaches, convictions, regrets, and stinging refleotions, of conscience, ^’ the gnawing worm which shall never die.” Who can conceive the unspeakahle misery of such an accursed state I So great a calamity, and yet everlasting!
How long doth one day or night now seem to a man under some violent racking pain, in any one part of his body, though he be under the means for cure, and have his friends about him to pity, comfort, and assist him, with the hopes of ease in a little while, and the certain knowledge that it cannot last long? Oh I what then will be the dismal state of tormented sinners in hell I how infinitely must it exceed the most terrible idea we can now frame of it! to languish out a long eternity, in that gulf of darkness and despair, under unpitied, intolerable torments, without intermission or hope of end! miseries without measure! judgment without mercy! pains and sorrows intense, and yet endless! without the least succour or relief, relaxation or remedy, diminution or change 1 without a drop of comfort, without a moment’s rest, without the smallest beam of light, or the least glimmering of hope! perpetually dying, and never dead! under. unsuSerable wrath, which yet will be for ever ‘* wratH to come!’* seeking death, and never able to find it, but eternally to endure all that calamity which the conjunction of death and life together can render dreadful I
What groans and cries will these thoughts and these suflSsrings wring from their hearts! bat no re» fbge will then be found, no excuses admitted, no prayers, no entreaties, will then prevail, no tears move to pity. “He that made them will show them no mercy, and he that formed them will show them no &vour.” It is never, never ,- that is the killing word, that breaks the hearts of those hopeless prisoners in the place of torment. When once delivered over to that prison of God’s wrath, they shall no longer be “prisoners of hope.” Judgment shall be brought forth unto final victory, and the redemption of the soul shall cease for ever.
The vain hopes of sinners shall then be ended in eternal desperation; hell will be full of those who did once hope they should never come there, and full of those who despair of deliverance from thence; but shall suffer exquisite pains that cannot be numbered, or measured, or endured: but that eveiy minute of an hour will seem a whole year, and yet must eternally be endured by miserable sinners, who will not be wise in time to prevent such an intolerable portion. Let me therefore, O my soul, descend into hell, by meditation, whilst I live, that I may not descend thither when I die, and be shut up for ever in that prison, the place of endless torment.
Might we but suppose, that one of those miserable souls did let fall but one tear, in a hundred thousand years: and if, after he had by these means wept so much as that his tears would equal the drops of water in the whole sea, his misery should have an end; this were hope, this were comfort. But, alas after that period, his misery will be aa {ax ^totck ixi end as when he first began to feel it. It will then be but “the beginnings of sorrows,” which will never, never, never, end!
Think, O my soul! that this is the portion of the sinner’s cup; this is the wages of sin; and the certain doom of final impenitence and unbelief. It is no politic cheat or melancholy dream, but the express repeated word of God and Christ, the holy prophets and apostles, and the voice of reason too. Supposing but the immortality of the soul, and the power of self-reflection, the punishment of sinners must needs be everlasting, as carrying continually a hell within them, unless God work a miracle to prevent it, which there is no ground to. imagine he will, or shadow of reason why he should. God hath pledged his truth and his eternity to execute this sentence of his threatened wrath. He is a God of infinite mercy, it is true; but he hath told us how far his mercy shall extend. He will not exercise one attribute to the dishonour and the disparagement of the rest. That obstinate and impenitent sinners shall thus perish, is not because the goodness and mercy of God are not infinite, but because his other perfections are so; namely, his holiness, justice, truth, sovereignty, and wisdom. Was it wisdom and goodness to annex such a penalty to the violation of his law; and can it be inconsistent with them to inflict his threatened wrath?
Shall we suppose God to uphold his dominion and government by a falsehood? to keep the world in awe by the menaces of such punishments as shall no where, never, be executed! Is it unlikely that God should exercise so much severity? And is it not as improbable that his repeated word and oath should prove false? Is it not a righteous thing with God» as the governor of the world, thus to punish the obstinate despisers of his grace? who slighted his authority, disobeyed his law, a£Pronted his sovereignty, derided his power, denied his truth, contradicted his holiness, and joined issue witK the devil to pull him from his throne; who abused his patience and long-su£Pering, and scorned all his threatenings; who thrust away, their own happiness, and would not take warning; who burst all his bonds asunder, and broke through all obstructions; and wquld not be stopped in their course of vanity and folly, or so much as consider their danger: who rejected his call to repentance, and refused his mercy when it was offered; and preferred a lust before his favour, and the pleasures and profits of this world before the heavenly glory; and, notwithstanding all the methods of his grace, and the checks of his providence, and of their own conscience, they will go on, they will die I
Let me, O my soul! adore the sovereign justice of God in all his judgments, and tremble at the threatenings of that eternal wrath, which so few consider or believe till it is too late. Let the foresight and the fear of such an intolerable, endless punishment, be the means to save me from it! Let me herein read the evil of sin, and learn to abhor and avoid it. Let me pity, and warn, and counsel, and pray for, those of my relations or acquaintance, who live in sin, and run the hazard of this eternal ruin. Let me not envy the foolish mirth and momentary prosperity of the wicked, whose present “opy mxx^V “long expire, and an everlasting deetniction snceee- in its room. “How short is the joy of the hypo erite! and the triumph of the wicked is but for a moment,” Let me fear and dread every thing thai* leads to this dismid issue, and improve every thing that may help me to escape it. And, by eonsequeoee, let me less value all the good and evil of this present lift; judge of all things by this light; be patient under temporal calamities, and thunk Grod that this is not hell; and thank him more, that present su& ferings do help to save me from eternal ones.
Whatever I can suffer in this world, let my con-^ dition be ever so dark, and sad, and afflicted, it is not, it cannot be, such, but that every one of the damned would think it an infinite happiness to exchange with me, and be as I am. I^et me think of those exquisite and eternal flames, to cure my impa* tience under the sharpest trials and afflictions I may now suffer.
Did I believingly consider an everiasting hell, I should not think much of any thing that is required to prevent it. The severest exercises of religion, the strictest temperance, the nicest chastity, the largest charity, the greatest self-denial, all the hardships of repentance and mortification, and continuance therein to the death, though for many years more than I am like to live, would be reckoned easy, as well as just, if set in the balance against the eternal miseries of the damned.
What will not men do and suffer, to prevent a tem«> poral death? They will endure a painful course of physic; tear out their very bowels by purges and vomits; and are content to be cut and sacrificed; lis
aad ta Sttffiar «iiy thing almoet to Mte iheir IiTet; bol bow lUtU will they do to be saved fiom the wnvkb to csonia I One would think they should hate no xett, ov peaco» or be able to life a quiet hour,, till they have nado some povisioo against the htaard oC ibia elernal destruction; and look upon all men as thebr friends or enemies, according tfo the help or hinderaDcea they received from them, tn ftietenc tait* Bat the direct contrary is every where apparent* Men are careless and secure jovial and merry, in the way that leads to bell; and esteem, and love and choose, that company that will help to bring them to this jdace of torment: yea, such is their stufndity and strange perverseness,^ that they will not sujffer to be told of their danger. If you tell them» that, by such a course or such an action, they will lose m» much moneys or their lives will be in danger; they reckon it an oUigation, will take it kindly, and re* turn you thanks: hut when they are told, by sodi courses and acticuis they will lose their souls, and the favour of God, and the hopes of heaven, and must perish for ever, this they will not receive they despise the message, and scorn and hate the mes senger; are displeased and angry at such fiiithfixl* ness.
“O bless the Lord, O my soul I” for any good faopo) through grace, of escaping this intoJerahle and endless misery. “And let all that is within me bless his holy name.” I have deserved the same endless and unsupportable wrath, which thousands are now under, and shall be under to all eternity; hut he did not suffer me to fall into it. To he de-« livered out of those torments, after tnvu ^^{^ax misery, would be thought an adiiiirable5 unspeakable kindness; and is it not a greater favour never to be thrown into hell, which I have so often deserved? How grateful would a damned person be to be freed from those flames, and placed in the same condition I now am in! What a life of serious, self-denying obedience would he lead! And hath not God done more for me? Am I not more indebted to his goodness? He hath kept me out of hell, and offers me the heavenly glory upon reasonable, honourable, and easy terms. Blessed be God, I may yet escape the wrath to come!
Let me heartily compassionate the delusion of those multitudes of deceived, perishing souls, whose eyes are blinded by the god of this world; who will not believe it, till they are convinced by the light of that fire which shall never be extinguished. Yea, when I read or hear of ten or twenty thousand men slain in war, (whether of infidels or Christians,) let me think of it with other apprehensions than for* merly I was wont to do. Considering that many, it may be the most of these, shall never have any comfort or mercy more; fearing lest the same sword or bullet that gave them a mortal wound, hath fixed them under God’s everlasting wrath; and that by dying they are undone for ever.
In very many other cases, the faith of this article would rectify my opinion, and direct my actions, if seriously considered and improved. This would make me think of death under another notion than it is commonly considered. For, without the consideration of hell annexed to it, it is not so very formidable, but that heathens have been able to despise it The most contrary sects among them, on different grounds, have been able to do it; but, consider death as a passage to eternal misery, as the gate of hell, as the end of all comfort, to a wicked man, and the beginning of an endless calamity, and nothing can be imagined more dreadful to a guilty, unholy soul. Some of my acquaintance, it may be, who died this last year, are now among those hopeless, despairing, wretches, who expect the final judgment of God to consummate their insupportable misery. If they were permitted to come and tell us what they suffer, and what they know, what a terrible consuming fire God is; what vanity, lust, and folly, brought them to this place of torment; what diligence they would advise us to, while in a state of hope, to prevent the like; if we have any love and kindness for ourselves, any bowels of compassion to our own souls; what a change do we think it would work upon us I But, “if we will not hear Moses and the prophets,” Christ and his apostles, “neither should we believe, though one came from the dead.”