SEE THE NATURE OF THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. ['DISC. X"Ir. may we not suppose that the great God will create bo,. dies for them of such an unhappy mould and contexture, as shall be another perpetual source of pain and anguish ? What if their bodies shall be raised with all the seeds of disease in them, like the gout or the stone, or any other smarting malady ? And what if the smart of these bodily distempers should mingle with the raging passions of the mind, as far as it is consistent with immortality and ever- lasting duration ? Who can say, that when God exerts his power, and makes his wrath known," in punishing obstinate, rebellious and impenitent sinners, as Rom. ix. 2. he will not frame such bodies for them to dwell in, as shall be a hateful burden, and an incessant plague to them through all ages of their duration P. And perhaps these bodily pains may be also included in the metaphor of a gnawing worm bred within them, which will never die, which shall never cease to fill them with grievous anguish. Here perhaps it may be enquired, " areathere not muh titudes of men in this world, who are not sinners of grosser kind, but have lived, in the main, in the practice of common social duties, and have maintained the usual forms of religion, according to the outward rules of the gospel, and the custom of their nation, but they have been negligent indeedof any sincere repentance towards God, and have been strangers to inward vital religion throughout their whole course ? Shall these creatures, who seem to stand in a sort of indifferent character; who are outwardly blameless,. with ,regard to common morality, and have exercised the common virtues of justice and benevolence towards their fellow-creatures, perhaps under the influences of education or custom, or perhaps by the effect that reason or philosophy, or their inward fears have had toward the restraint of their pas- sions and appetites ; I say, shall such sort of creatures as these be filled with those furies of rage and resentment against God, envy and malice" toward their fellow-sin- ners, and all the vile and unsociable passions in these regions of misery which they have never found working in them here on earth, or but in a low degree ? Shall all the torments and inward anguish of soul that you have been describing, fall upon this rank ofsinners, ,whom the
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