>jlsc. XIiI.] THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 009 sons ; and even amidst the ruins which sin has brought into this world, yet still every eye may behold the traces of an almighty, an all-wise, and a bountiful God. When the same divine and sovereign Being designed to exalt and diffuse the wonders of his grace among the best ofhis creatures, he built a heaven for them, and furnish- ed it with unknown varieties of beauty and blessing : And we would hope in our appointed season to be raised to this upper world, and there to behold the riches of divine magnificence and mercy, and to be sharers thereof among the rest of the happy inhabitants. But since sin and wickedness has entered into bis creation of men and angels, he saw it necessary also to display the terrors of his justice, and to make his wrath and indignation known amongst rebellious creatures, that he might maintain a just awe and reverence for his own authority, and a constant hatred of sin through all his dominions. For this purpose he has built a bell, a dreadful building indeed, in some dismal region of his vast empire, where he has amassed together all that is grievous and formidable to sensible beings, and wicked spirits carry their own inward hell thither with them, a hell of sin and misery; and though he has sent his own Son to acquaint us with the distresses and agonies of that doleful world, and to warn us of the danger offalling into it; yet if any of us should be so unhappy as to continue in an obstinate state of impenitence and disobedience to God, we shall be made to confess, by dreadful experi- ence, that not one half hath been told us. Therefore hath God set before us these terrors in his word, that we might fly from the wrath to come, and avoid these sufferings : And therefore do his ministers, by his commission, proceed to publish this vengeance and indignation of the Lord, that sinners might be awakened to layhold on the hope that is set before them, and might be affrighted from plunging themselves into this pit of anguish, whence there is no redemption. We have taken a short survey of these miseries, in the kind and nature of them, in some former discourses ; and we are now come to the last thing contained in our Saviour's description of hell, and that is the perpetuity of it : The misery is everlasting in both theparts of it, for " the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched:' VOL, II. 9 R
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