triumph is awaiting them. If the toil and labours of the Christian life be great, there is an everlasting res for them in heaven. Are they judged unworthy of society in the world? They shall be admitted into 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, gird up their lions, and so run as they may obtain; trampling on every thing that may hinder them in the way to the kingdom. Let them never account any duty too hard, nor any cross too heavy, nor any pains too much, so as they may obtain the crown of glory.

Lastly, 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 and 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 do not always lie along on 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? These 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 long run. Ah! why are men so fond, " in their life time, to receive their good things!" Why are they not rather in care, 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 eter nity! If you desire honour, there you that may have highest honour, and 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 ever more." O be not despisers of the pleasant land, neither judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life! But marry the Heir, and heaven shall be your dowry; close with Christ, as he is offered to you in the gospel, and ye shall inherit all things. Walk in the way of holiness, and it will lead you to the kingdom. Fight against sin and Satan, and ye shall receive the crown. Forsake the world, and the doors of heaven will be opened to receive you.

HEAD VI.

HELL.

MATT. XXV. 41.

Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his - angels.

WE

ERE there no other place of eternal lodging but heaven, I should here have closed my discourse of man's eternal state: but seeing 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; the 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 fly from the wrath to come, and all that can be said of it comes short of what the damned will feel "who knoweth the power of God's anger?"

for

The last thing our Lord did before he left the earth, was, "he lift up his hands, and blessed his disciples," Luke xxiv. 50, 51. But the last thing he will do, before he leave 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

wrapt up. In which three things may be taken notice of, First, 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. Secondly, The punishment which they are adjudged to; and to which they were always bound over, by virtue of the curse, and it is two-fold, 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. Thirdly, 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 unto 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 emnity 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 torments in the eternal duration thereof, they must depart into everlasting fire. This is it that puts the capestone 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 evinced, that there shall be a resurrection of the body, and a general judgment, I think it not needful to insist to prove the truth of future punishments. The same conscience there is in men of a fu

ture judgment, bear witness also of the truth of future punishments. (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. (2.) Their misery under that curse. (3.) Their society with devils in this miserable state. (4.) 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, they receive their sentence; but they were born under it, they led their life 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 may describe the curse from Deut. xxxix. 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 among the rest of mankind unto evil, as vessels of wrath, set up for marks to the arrows of Divine wrath and made the common receptacle and shore of vengeance.

This curse hath its first-fruits on earth, which are a pledge of the whole lump that is to follow. And 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. " And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion," &c. relating both to the 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 some times wrapt up 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 thereof 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. Ixvi. 24. What is that judicial blindness, to which many are given up, "in whom the god of this world hath blinded their eyes, (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 that the never-dying worm is 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 evil 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 the more like to hell. There are three things that have a fearful aspect here. First, 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. Secondly, When men go on sinning still, in the face of plain rebukes from the Lord, in ordinances and providences; God meets them with