0A.33. Chapter I.
Chapter I. The EXTREMITY of the punishment.
Before the particular description of the pains of the damned, I shall observe in general, that the full representation of Hell is beyond all human expression; nay our most fearful thoughts cannot equal the horror of it, "Who knows the power of your anger?" Psa 90:11. What are the prepared punishments, by infinite justice and Almighty wrath, for obstinate sinners? It is impossible for the most guilty and trembling conscience to enlarge its sad apprehensions according to the degrees of that misery. "The Lord will show forth his wrath, and make his power known in the vessels fitted for destruction." None can tell what God can do, and what man can suffer—when made capable to endure such torments forever, as now would presently consume him. As the glory of Heaven cannot be fully understood until enjoyed, so the torments of Hell cannot be comprehended until felt. But we may have some discovery of those unknown terrors, by the following considerations. The most heavy judgments of God upon sinners here on earth, are light and tolerable in comparison of the punishment of sinners in the next state. For,
1. Temporal evils of all kinds and degrees, such as pestilence, famine, war, are designed for the bringing of men to a sight and sense of their sins, and are common to good and bad here. And if his anger is so terrible when he chastises as a compassionate father, what is his fury when he punishes as a severe judge! If the correcting remedies ordered by his wisdom and love for the conversion of sinners be so sharp, what is the deadly revenge of his irreconcilable hatred?
2. The miseries of the present state are allayed with some enjoyments. None are so universally afflicted, so desolate, but something remains to sweeten the sense of their sufferings. Judgments are tempered with mercies. No man is tortured with all diseases, nor forsaken of all friends, nor utterly without comfort. And when the affliction is irremediable—yet if our grief produces sympathy in others, it is some ease to the troubled mind, and by that assistance the burden is made lighter. But in Hell, the damned are surrounded with terrors, encompassed with flames, without anything to refresh their sorrows, not a drop of water to lake of fire. All that was esteemed felicity here, is then totally withdrawn. Death puts a period to their lives and pleasures of sin forever. For it is most just, that those objects which were abused by their lusts, and alienated their hearts from their duty and felicity, should be taken away. And which is extreme misery, in their most pitiful state, that they are absolutely unpitied. Pity is the cheap and universal lenitive, not denied to the most guilty in their sufferings here; for the law of nature instructs us to pity the man, when the malefactor suffers. But even pity is not afforded to the damned. All their agonies and cries cannot incline the compassion of God, and the blessed spirits in Heaven towards them; for they are not compassionable objects, their misery being the just effect of their perverse obstinate choice. In Hell all human tender affections are extinguished forever. Now it is the perfection of misery, the excess of desolation, to be deprived of all good things pleasing to our desires, and to suffer all evils from which we have the deepest aversion and abhorrence. As in Heaven all good is eminently comprised, and nothing but good; so in Hell all evil is in excessive degrees, and nothing but evil.
Temporal evils are inflicted by second causes that are of a limited power to hurt; but in the next world the more immediately torments the damned by God’s absolute power. The apostle tells us, that the wicked "are punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power." What is the sting of a gnat, compared to a blow given by the hand of a giant that strikes dead at once? This comparison is below the truth.
More particularly the state of misery is set forth in Scripture by such representations as may powerfully instruct and terrify even the most carnal men. Nothing is more intolerably painful than suffering the violence of fire enraged with brimstone; and Hell is described by a lake of fire and brimstone, wherein the wicked are tormented. Whether the fire is material or metaphorical, the reality and intenseness of the torments is signified by it. But the ordinary fire, though mingled with the most torturing ingredients, is not an adequate representation of Hell-fire. For that is prepared by men, but the fire of Hell is prepared by the wrath of God for the devil and his demons. Divine power is illustriously manifested in that terrible preparation; so that, as some of the fathers express it, if one of the damned might pass from those flames into the fiercest fires here on earth, it were to exchange a torment for a refreshment. The Scripture speaks of the vehement heat and fiery thirst, and outer darkness in which the damned suffer, to satisfy the rights of justice in the torments of those senses, for the pleasures of which men willfully broke the laws of God. But the soul being the chief sinner, shall be the chief mourner in those regions of sorrow. An image of this we have in the agonies of spirit, which sometimes the saints themselves are in here, and which the most stubborn sinners can neither resist nor endure. Job was afflicted in that manner that he complains, "The arrows of the Almighty are with me, the poison whereof drinks up my spirit, the terrors of God set themselves in array against me." If a spark of his displeasure falls on the guilty conscience, it tears and blows up all, as a fire-ball cast into a magazine of gunpowder.
Solomon, who understood the frame of human nature, tells us, "The spirit of a man can bear his infirmity;" that is, the mind fortified by principles of moral counsel and constancy, can endure the assault of external evils; but "a wounded spirit who can bear?" This is most insupportable when the sting and remorse of the mind is from the sense of guilt; for then God appears a righteous and severe enemy. Who can battle with offended Omnipotence? Such is the sharpness of his sword, and the weight of his hand, that every stroke is deadly.
Satan, the cruel enemy of souls, exasperates the wounds. He reveals and charges sin upon the conscience with all its killing aggravations, and conceals the divine mercy—the only lenitive and balm to the wounded spirit. What visions of horror, what spectacles of fear, what scenes of sorrow—are presented to the distracted mind by the prince of darkness! And, which heightens the misery, man is a worse enemy to himself than Satan; he falls upon his own sword, and destroys himself! The guilty conscience turns "the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood." The precious promises of the gospel, that assure favor and pardon to returning and relenting sinners, are turned into arguments of despair, by reflecting upon the abuse and provocation of divine mercy, that the advocate in God’s bosom, has become the accuser. Whatever the soul-wounded sinner sees or hears, afflicts him; whatever he thinks, torments him. All the diversions in the world, business, pleasures, merry conversation, comedies, are as ineffectual to give freedom from those stings and furies in the bosom, as the sprinkling of holy water is to expel a raging devil from a possessed person.
Those who in their pride and jollity, have despised serious religion, either as a fond transport and ecstacy towards God, or a dull melancholy and dejection about the soul, or an idle scrupulosity about indifferent things—yet when God has set their sins with all their killing circumstances in order before their eyes—-how changed, how confounded are they at that apparition! How restless, with the dreadful expectation of the doom that attends them! Belshazzar in the midst of his wine cups and herd of concubines, by a few words written on the wall, containing his judgment, was so terrified by his guilty jealous conscience, that his joints were loosed, and he sunk under the apprehension.
Now all these troubles of mind are but the beginnings of sorrows, but the smoke of the infernal furnace, but pledges of that terrible sum which divine justice will severely exact of the wicked in Hell!
Indeed these examples are rare, and not regarded by the most, and by some looked on as the effects of derangement; but to convince the bold and careless sinners, who never felt the stings of an awakened conscience, what extreme terrors seize upon the wicked in the other world, consider,
(1.) The apprehension shall be more clear and enlarged than in the present state. Now the soul is oppressed with a weight of clay, and in drowsiness and obscurity. The great things of eternity are of little force to convince the conscience, or persuade the affections. But then the soul shall work with the quickest activity. The mind shall by an irresistible light take a full view of all afflicting objects. The most stupid and unconcerned sinners shall then see and feel their ruined state—what a glorious felicity they have lost, what a misery they are plunged into, without any possibility of lessening it by false conceits, and receiving any relief by the error of imagination.
(2.) The mournful thoughts shall be always fixed upon what is tormenting. The soul in conjunction with the body, cannot always apply itself to one sort of object. For the ministry of the sensible faculties is requisite to its operations. And the body must be supported by eating and drinking and rest, which interrupts troublesome thoughts. Besides, the variety of objects and happenings here avert the mind sometimes from what is afflicting. But the separate soul is in no dependence on the body, and after their reunion, there shall be no necessity of food or sleep, or any other animal actions to support it, but it shall be restored to a new capacity for new torments, and preserved in that miserable state by the power of God. There will be nothing then to divert the lost soul from sad reflections upon its misery. There are no intermissions in the sufferings of Hell.
(3.) All the tormenting passions will then be let loose at once upon the guilty creature. And if there is no single passion so weak, but heightened, will break the spirit, and render life so miserable, that a man will take sanctuary in the grave to escape—then how miserable is the condition, when the most fierce and united passions war against the soul? This is signified by the "never-dying worm" that gnaws on the tenderest parts, and of quickest sense. Shame, sorrow, despair, fury, hatred and revenge, are some of that brood of vipers that torment the damned!
SHAME is a passion of which human nature is very sensible, and this in the highest degree of confusion shall seize on the wicked. Dan 12:2. For all the just causes of shame shall then meet. The inward source of shame is the consciousness of guilt, of turpitude and folly in the actions; and all these are the inseparable adjuncts of sin. The guilty soul by a piercing reflection upon its crimes, has a secret shame of its degeneracy and unworthiness. The shame is increased, when a discovery is made of vile practices that defile and debase a man, expose to contempt and infamy, before people of high quality and eminent virtue, whom we admire and reverence, and whose esteem we value. To be surprised in an unworthy action by such a person, disorders the blood, and transfuses a color into the face, to cover it with a veil of blushing. The more numerous the spectators are, the more the disgrace is aggravated! And if derision is joined with the shame, it causes extreme displeasure. O the universal confusion, the overpowering amazement that will seize on sinners in the great day of discovery, when all their works of darkness, all their base sensualities shall be revealed before God, angels and saints! When all the covers of shame shall are taken off, the excuses and denials, to extenuate or conceal their sins, shall vanish, and their hearts be transparent to the eyes of all! How will they be ashamed of their foul and permanent deformity in the light of that glorious presence? How will they be astonished to appear in all their pollutions before that bright and immense theater? How will they be confounded to stand in all their guilt before that sublime and severe tribunal? How will they endure the upbraidings for all the sins which they have so wickedly committed, and the derision for the punishment they so deservedly suffer? The holy Judge will "laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear comes. The righteous also shall see, and shall laugh at them;" lo these are the men who made not God their portion, but perishing vanities; who preferred sweet folly before godly wisdom. The devils will reproach them for that scornful advantage they had over them, that as children are seduced for things of luster to part with real treasures, so they were easily persuaded for the trifles of time to exchange eternal happiness. Those black sinners who here never change color for their filthiness, who hardened by custom in sin, are impenetrable to shame, as the brute beasts that are absolutely destitute of reason; nay, who have not only overcome all tenderness, but "glory in their shame"—they shall be abased at the manifestation of their sordid lusts, their vile servilities, and be covered with confusion; and the sense of it shall be revived in their minds forever. To open shame, is joined the greatest inward SORROW. This passion, when violent, penetrates the soul in all its faculties, and fastens it to the afflicting object. When it dwells in the bosom, it gives an easy entrance to whatever nourishes and increases it, and rejects what might assuage and lessen the sense of the evil. The most pleasant things do not then excite desire or joy, but exasperate grief. Like those animals that convert the best nourishment into their own poison; so deep sorrow receives mournful impressions from all things, and turns the sweetest comforts of life into wormwood and gall. The causes of sorrow are either the loss of some valued good, or the sense of some present evil. And the sorrow is more violent, as the cause is great in itself, and in the apprehension and tenderness of the sufferers. Now both of these causes, with all the heavy circumstances that can multiply and aggravate sorrow, meet in Hell the center of misery. The loss of Heavenly bliss is inconceivably great. If Cain, when banished from the society of the saints, where God was publicly worshiped, and by spiritual revelations and visible apparitions, graciously made himself known, cried out in anguish of soul, "My punishment is greater than I can bear; from your face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive upon the earth!" Then how intolerable will the final separation from God’s glorious and joyful presence be? In the clear and transforming vision of his glory, and the intimate and indissoluble union with him by love, consist the perfection and satisfaction of the immortal soul. The felicity resulting from it, is as entire and eternal, as God is great and true, who has so often promised it in Scripture.
Now the damned are forever excluded from the glorious presence of God. It is often seen how tenderly and impatiently the human spirit sorrows at the the loss of a dear relation. Jacob for the supposed death of Joseph, was so overcome with grief, that when all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him, he refused to be comforted, and said, "I will go down mourning to the grave." Indeed this overwhelming sorrow is both a sin and a punishment. It is ordained by the righteous and unchangeable decree of God, that every inordinate affection in man should be his own tormentor. But if the loss of a poor frail creature for a short time is so afflicting, then how insupportable will the sorrow be for the loss of the blessed God forever! Who can fully conceive the extent and degrees of that evil! For an evil rises in proportion to the good of which it deprives us; it must therefore follow, that celestial blessedness being an infinite eternal good, the exclusion from it is proportionably evil. And as the felicity of the saints results from the fruition of God in Heaven, and from comparison with the contrary state; so the misery of the damned arises both from the thoughts of lost happiness, and from the lasting pain that torments them!
It may be replied: If this is the utmost evil that is consequent to sin, the threatening of it is likely to deter but few from the pleasing their corrupt appetites; for carnal men have such gross and vitiated affections that are careless of spiritual happiness. "They cannot taste and see how good the Lord is." To this a clear answer may be given: In the eternal state, where the wicked shall be forever without those carnal objects that here deceive and delight them, when deprived of all things that please their voluptuous senses—then their apprehensions will be changed; they shall understand what a happiness it is to enjoy God, and what a misery to be expelled from the celestial paradise. Our Savior tells the Jews, "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Luk 15:28. How will they pine with envy at the sight of that triumphant felicity, of which they shall never be partakers? To see that blessed company entering into the sacred mansions of light, will make the loss of Heaven infinitely more discernible and terrible to the wicked, who shall be cast into "outer darkness," and forever be deprived of communion with God and his saints. "Depart from me!" will be as dreadful a part of the judgment, as "into the eternal fire!" With the loss of the most excellent good, the suffering of the most afflicting painful evil is joined. The sentence is, "depart from Me, you who are cursed into everlasting fire." And if an imaginary sorrow conceived in the mind without a real external cause, as in melancholy people, when gross vapors darken and corrupt the brightness and purity of the spirits that are requisite for its cheerful operations, is often so oppressing, that nature sinks under it; then how insupportable will the sorrow of condemned sinners be, under the impression and sense of God’s almighty and avenging hand, when it shall fully appear how pure and holy he is in his anger for sin, and how just and dreadful he is in punishing sinners!
It may be that the indulgent sinner may lessen his fear of Hell, by imagining the the vast number of sufferers will assuage the sense of their misery. But this is a foolish mistake; for the number of sufferers shall be so far from affording any relief, that the misery is aggravated by the company and communication of the miserable. Every one is surrounded with sorrows, and by the sights of woe about him—feels the universal grief. The weeping and wailing, the cries and dolorous expressions of all the damned, increase the torment and vexation of every one. As when the wind conspires with the flame, it is more fierce and spreading. The attendant of sorrow will be fury and rage against themselves, as the true causes of their misery. For God will make such a discovery of his righteous judgment, that not only the saints shall glorify his justice in the condemnation of the wicked—but they shall be so convinced of it, as not to be able to charge their Judge with any defect of mercy, or excess of rigor in his proceedings against them. As the man in the parable of the marriage feast, when taxed for his presumptuous intrusion without a wedding-garment, "How did you get in here?" was speechless; so they will find no plea for their justification and defense, but must receive the eternal doom with silence and confusion. Then conscience shall revive the bitter remembrance of all the methods of divine mercy for their salvation, which were ineffectual by their contempt and obstinacy. All the compassionate calls by his word, with the holy motions of the Spirit, were like the sowing of seed in the stony ground, which took no root, and never came to perfection. All his terrible threatenings were but as thunder to the deaf, or lightning to the blind, that little affects them. The bounty of his providence which was designed "to lead them to repentance," had the same effect as the showers of Heaven upon briars and thorns, which only make them grow the faster. And that a mercy so ready to pardon, did not produce in them a correspondent affection of grateful obedient love; but by the most unworthy provocations they plucked down the vengeance due to obstinate rebels, will so enrage the damned against themselves, that they will be less miserable by the misery they suffer, than by the conviction of their torn minds, that they were the sole causes of it. "What repentings will be kindled within them," for the stupid neglect of "the great salvation" so dearly purchased, and so earnestly offered to them. What a fiery addition to their torment, that when God was so willing to save them—they were so willful to be damned! They will never forgive themselves, that for the short and base pleasures of sin, which if enjoyed a thousand years, cannot recompense the loss of Heaven, nor requite the pains of Hell for an hour—they must be deprived of the one, and suffer the other forever! The sorrow and rage will be increased by despair; for when the wretched sinner sees the evil is peremptory, and no outlet of hope, he abandons himself to the violence of sorrow, and by cruel thoughts wounds the heart more than the fiercest furies in Hell can! This misery which flows from despair, shall be more fully opened under the distinct consideration of the eternity of Hell.
Briefly, as the blessed are in Heaven, and Heaven is in them, by those holy and joyful affections that are always exercised in the divine presence; so the damned are in Hell, and Hell is in them by those fierce and miserable passions that continually prey upon them.