HELL is a place and state utterly unknown to any in this visible
world, excepting the souls of men; nor shall any for ever be capable
of understanding the miseries thereof, save souls and fallen angels.
Now I think as the joys of heaven stand not only in speculation or
in beholding of glory, but in a sensible enjoyment and unspeakable
pleasure which these glories will yield to the soul; so the torments
of hell will not stand in the present lashes and strokes which by
the flames of eternal fire God will scourge the ungodly with; but
the torments of hell stand much, if not in the greatest part of
them, in those deep thoughts and apprehensions which souls in the
next world will have of the nature and occasion of sin, of God, and
of separation from him--of the eternity of those miseries, and of
the utter impossibility of their help, ease, or deliverance for
ever. Oh, damned souls will have thoughts that will clash with
glory, clash with justice, clash with law, clash with themselves,
clash with hell, and with the everlastingness of misery.
Miseries as well as mercies sharpen and make quick the apprehensions
of the soul. Behold Spira in his book, Cain in his guilt, and Saul
with the witch of Endor, and you shall see men ripened, men enlarged
and greatened in their fancies, imaginations, and apprehensions,
though not about God and heaven and glory, yet about their loss,
their misery, their woe, and their hell.
A man may endure to touch the fire with a short touch, and away; but
to dwell with everlasting burnings, that is fearful. Oh then, what
is dwelling with them and in them for ever and ever? We use to say,
"Light burdens carried far are heavy:" what then will it be to bear
that burden, that guilt, that the law and the justice and the wrath
of God will lay upon the lost soul for ever? Now tell the stars, now
tell the drops of the sea, and now tell the blades of grass that are
spread upon the face of all the earth, if thou canst; and yet sooner
mayest thou do this than count the thousands of millions of
thousands of years that a damned soul shall lie in hell! Suppose
every star that is now in the firmament was to burn by himself one
by one, a thousand years apiece, would it not be a long while before
the last of them was burnt out? and yet sooner might that be done
than the damned soul be at the end of punishment.
He that has lost his soul has lost himself. He is, as I may say, now
out of his own hands; he has lost himself, his soul self, his own
self, his whole self, by sin and wrath; and hell hath found him. He
is now no more at his own dispose, but at the dispose of justice, of
wrath and hell. He is committed to prison, to hell prison, there to
abide, not at pleasure, not as long and as little time as he will,
but the term appointed by his Judge; nor may he there choose his own
affliction, neither for manner, measure, or continuance. It is God
that will spread the fire and brimstone under him, and it is God
himself that will blow the fire. Isa. 30:33.
There will be no such grace as patience in hell with him who has
lost himself: here will also be wanting a bottom for patience, to
wit, the providence of God; for a providence of God, though never so
dismal, is a bottom for patience to the afflicted; but men go not to
hell by providence, but by sin.
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels." This curse is the chief and highest of all
kinds of curses. It lieth in a deprivation of all good, and in a
being swallowed up of all the most fearful miseries, that a holy and
just and eternal God can righteously inflict, or lay upon the soul
of a sinful man.
Now let reason here come in and exercise itself in the most
exquisite manner, yea, let it now count up all and all manner of
curses and torments that a reasonable and immortal soul is or can be
made capable of, and able to suffer under; and when it has done, it
shall come infinitely short of this great anathema, this
master-curse, which God has reserved amongst his treasures, and
intends to bring out in that day of battle and war which he
purposeth to make upon damned souls in that day.
"The sting of death is sin." Sin in the general of it is the sting
of hell, for there would be no such thing as torment even there,
were it not that sin is there with sinners; for the fire of hell,
the indignation and wrath of God can fasten and kindle upon nothing
but for or because of sin. Sin then, as sin, is the sting and the
hell of hells, of the lowest and upmost hells--sin, I say, in the
nature of it, simply as it is concluded both by God and the damned
to be a breach of his holy law, so it is the sting of the second
death, which is the worm of hell.
But then, as sin is such a sting in itself, so it is heightened,
sharpened, made more keen and sharp, by those circumstances that
attend it in every act; for there is not a sin at any time committed
by man, but there is some circumstance or other attends it that
makes it, when charged home by God's law, bigger and sharper and
more venomous and poisonous to the soul, than if it could be
committed without them; and this is the sting of the hornet, the
great sting. I sinned without a cause, to please a base lust, to
gratify the devil: here is the sting. Again, I preferred sin before
holiness, death before life, hell before heaven, the devil before
God, and damnation before a Saviour: here is the sting. Again, I
preferred moments before everlastings, temporals before eternals, to
be racked and always slaying before the life that is blessed and
endless: here is the sting. Also, this I did against light, against
convictions, against conscience, against persuasions of friends and
ministers, and the godly lives which I beheld in others: here is the
sting. Also, this I did against warnings; yea, though I saw others
fall before my face by the mighty hand of God for committing the
same: here is the sting.
Sinners, would I could persuade you to hear me out: a man cannot
commit a sin, but by the commission of it he doth by some
circumstance or other sharpen the sting of hell, and that to pierce
himself through and through and through with many sorrows.
Also, the sting of hell to some will be, that the damnation of
others stands upon their score; for that by imitating them, by being
deluded by them, persuaded by them, drawn in by them, others perish
in hell for ever.
Ah, this will be the sting of those that are principal, chief, and
as I may call them, the captain and ringleading sinners. Vipers will
come out of other men's fire and flames, and settle upon, seize
upon, and for ever abide upon their consciences; and this will be
the sting of hell, the great sting of hell to them.
I will yet add to this, how will the fairness of some for heaven,
even the thoughts of that, sting them when they come to hell. It
will not be so much their fall into the pit, as from whence they
fell into it, that will be to them the buzzing noise and sharpened
sting of the great and terrible hornet. "How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer!"--there is the sting. Thou that art exalted up to
heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell; though thou hast made thy nest
among the stars, from thence will I fetch thee down: there is a
sting. To be pulled, for and through love to some vain lust, from
the everlasting gates of glory, and caused to be swallowed up for it
in the belly of hell, and made to lodge for ever in the darksome
chambers of death: there is the piercing sting.
But again, as there is the sting of hell, so there is the strength
of that sting; for a sting, though never so sharp or venomous, yet
if it wanteth strength to force it to the designed execution, it
doth but little hurt. But this sting hath strength to cause it to
pierce into the soul: "The sting of death is sin, and the strength
of sin is the law." I Cor. 15:56; Rom. 7:8; 4:15.
Here then is the strength of the sting of hell: it is the law in the
perfect penalty of it; for without the law, sin is dead; yea, where
no law is, there is no transgression. The law then followeth, in the
executive part of it, the soul into hell; and there strengthened
sin, that sting in hell, to pierce the soul for ever and ever by its
unutterable charging of sin on the conscience. Nor can the soul
justly murmur or repine at God or his law; for that then the sharply
apprehensive soul will well discern the justness, righteousness,
reasonableness, and goodness of the law, and that nothing is done by
the law unto it, but that which is just and equal.
This, therefore, will put great strength and force into sin to sting
the soul, and to strike it with the lashes of a scorpion.
And besides these, the abiding life of God, the Judge and God of
this law, will never die. When princes die, the law may be altered
by which at present transgressors are bound in chains; but Oh, here
is also that which will make this sting so sharp and keen: the God
that executes it will never die. "It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God." Heb. 10: 30, 31.
"This shall they have of my hand, they shall lie down in sorrow;"
they shall lie down in it, they shall make their bed there, there
they shall lie. And this is the bitter pill that they must swallow
down at last; for after all their tears, their sorrows, their
repentings, their wishings and wouldings, and all their inventings
and desires to change their state for a better, they must lie down
in sorrow.
The poor condemned man that is upon the ladder or scaffold, has, if
one knew them, many a long wish and long desire that he might come
down again alive, or that his condition was as one of the
spectators, that are not condemned and brought thither to be
executed as he. How carefully also does he look with his failing
eyes, to see if some one comes not from the king with a pardon for
him, all the while endeavoring to fumble away, as well as he can,
and to prolong the minute of his execution. But at last, when he has
looked, when he has wished, when he has desired and done whatever he
can, the blow with the axe, or the turn with the ladder, is his lot:
so he goes off the scaffold; so he goes from among men.
And thus will it be with those we have under consideration: when all
comes to all, and they have said and wished and done what they
could, the judgment must not be reversed; they must lie down in
sorrow.