DISC. XII.] THE NATURE OP T1 YUNISHñ7 NTS IN IIELL. 51i sessses their spirits with a more lively sense of their mise- ry, it fills them with a holy dread of divine punishment, ánd excites the powerful passion offear to make them fly from the wrath to come, 'and betake themselves to the grace of God revealed in thegospel. The blessed Saviour himself, who was the most per feet image of his Father's love, and the prime minister of his grace, publishes more of these terrors to the world, and preaches hell and damnation to sinners more than all the prophets or teachers that ever went before him; and several of the 'apostles imitate their Lord in this practice : They kindle the flames of hell in their epistles, they thunder through the very hearts and consciences of men with the voice of damnation and eternal misery, to make stupid sinners feel as much of these terrors in thé present prospect as is possible, in order to escape the actual sensation of them in time to come. Such awful discourses are many times also of excellent use to keep the children of God, and the disciples of Jesus, in a holy and watchful frame, and to affright them from returningto sin and folly, and from the indulgence of any temptation, by setting these terrors of the Lord be- fore their eyes. Omay these words Of his terror, from the lips ofone ofthe meanest of his ministers, beattendedwith divine power from the convincing and sanctifying Spirit, that they may answer these happy ends and purposes, that they may excite a solemn reverence of the dreadful ma- jesty of .God in all our souls, and awaken us to repen- tance for everysin, and a more watchful course of holi- ness. Let us then consider the expression in my text : When our Saviour mentions the word hell, he adds, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched ; in which description we may read the nature of this punishment, and the perpetuity of it. First, We shall consider the nature of this punishment, as it is represented by the metaphors which our Saviour Uses; and if I were togive the most natural and proper sense of this representation, I would say that our Saviour might borrow this figure of speech from these three con- siderations : 1. Worms and fire are the two most general ways , whereby the bodies of the dead are destroyed; for whe-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=