DISC.l'II.] THE NATURE OF THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 583 overwhelm our souls with unsupportable agonies: "Who knows the power of thy anger ? For according to thy fear so is thy wrath," says Moses ; Ps. xc. 11. Our fears do not rise above those evils which the wrath of God will in- flict. Who knows what are those. arrows of the Al- mighty, of which Job speaks, "the.poison whereof drank. uphis spirits, and those terrors of God which set them- selves' in array against him ?" Job. vi. 4. Who knows what our Saviour telt in the hour ofhis agony and atone- ment for our sins, which made hire sweat drops of blood ? And what sort of terrible impressions God himselfmay make of his own wrath and vengeance, on the heart of such criminals as wilfully reject his salvation, is beyond our thoughts to conceive, or our language to express. Thus much shall suffice concerning the metaphor of fire, and the hand of God himself in kindling this fire for the execution of his sentence against impenitents. But since I have entered so far into this subject, I cannot think it proper entirely to finish it, without'giving notice of some different and dreadful additions to their torment whichwill arise from evil angels, and from their cpmpa- nions in sin and misery among the children ofmen : For in the agonies of our Saviour, men and devilsjoined to- gether to afflict him, when " it pleased the Father to bruise him, and to make his soul an offering for our sins ;" Is. liii. 9. I. " Evil angels, wicked and unclean spirits, with all their furious dispositions and active powers, will increase the misery of the damned." Theypaved the way to hell for man by the first temptation of our parents in para- dise, and they have ,been ever since busy in tempting the children of men to sin, and they will be hereafter as busy in giving them torment. When these wicked spirits, C? sinner, who have taken thee as a willing captive by their baits and devices in this world, when they ,have led thee down through the paths of vice to the regions of sorrow, they will begin then to insult thee withhateful reproaches, and to triumph over thee with insolence and scorn. When they have deceived thee on earth, to thy own perdi- tion theywill make thee the object of their bitter ridicule and mockery in hell. O could we turn aside the veil of the invisible world,. and behold the bottomless pit open before you, what bit- VOL. II, 2 Q'
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