,DISU. XmI.) THE NATURE OF THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 587 or their vicious influences. And perhaps too, there are none among all the ranks of the damned, whose souls will be filled so high with the dread and horror of increasing woes, as lewd and profane writers, profane and immoral princes, or cruel persecutors of religion. Jeroboam, the king, not only sinned himself grievously, but who made Israel to sin, as the scripture frequently expresses it with an emphasis, by setting up the idolatry of calves in the land ; 1 Kings xiv. and xv. and xvi. His ghost stood fair for such an increase of torment from age to age, as his idolatry prevailed further in the land. And all the wanton poets and the vile persecutors, whether of heathen or of christian name, whose writings, whose ex- ample, or whose laws have conveyed and propagated their wickedness from age to age after their decease, will be some of these wretched expectants of new and increas= ing punishment. " Have a care, O ye witty and ye mighty sinners i Have a care of setting vile temptations and bad examples before the men of your age ! Have a care of spreading the contagion of your vices around you by the softness and the force of your allurements ! Have a care of esta- blishing iniquity by a law, And propagating loose and wicked opinions, or of encouraging persecution for con- science-sake ! Take heed lest the cursed influence of your crimes should descend from generation to genera- tion, among the living long after you are dead, and should call for new and sharper strokes from the punish- ing hand of the Almighty !" But suppose there were nothing else but the long dreadful view of the eternity of their present miseries, with an everlasting despair of ease or deliverance, this would add unspeakably to their torment : The constant sensation of what they feel now, and the dread of what they must feel, is sufficient to make their wretchedness intolerable. If all these springs of misery which I have already mentioned are, and will be found in the souls of damned sinners, there is no need of more to make them exqui- sitely miserable : And yet since their bodies shall be raised from the dust, in order to be joined with their souls in punishment, as they were united in sin, why
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