i DISC. XIII.] THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. t4'7 teachers be approved of God or good men, whose evi- dent design is to lead the world todisbelieve.this solemn: and terrible warning of the great God ? Let tis proceed in these inquiries, and address our- selves to those wicked and miserable creatures, who are actually suffering this divine vengeance. Let us ask them, how they approve of this sort ofpreaching, which withholds from the eyes and ears, and consciences of men, the most dreadful circumstance of these horrors? Will any of the damned wretches, of hell thank us for hiding so- dreadful a _part of these miseries from them? Will they bless us for lessening the threatened curses and in- dignation -of a'God? "No," says the condemned wretch, " those preachers are worthy of my curses, and not my thanks,- who abated these terrors of the Lord, and short- ened his threatened punishment; for they persuaded me to hope there would be an end of my misery, and thereby tempted me to venture upan those sins which I should have renounced with abomination, had I believed the words of God, and these everlasting torments. 'O cursed and cruel preachers, who, by softening and curtailing the sentence of eternal misery, gave a sort of licence to my wickedness, and broke one of the strongest bars that restrained me from sinning! 'Tis by this sort of flattery they paved my way down to hell, and have brought me into this prison, this eternal anguish whence there is no release."* Say, ye who preach that the gates of hell shall one day be opened to let out the prisoners, ye who tell sinners there is 'a time of release for them, say, do ye expect to fright them out of their sins by lessening their fear of God, and his wrath to come? Do ye hope to bring obstinate and impenitent rebels to a more speedy' re- morse for sin, and to begin a life of holiness, by per- suading them that these terrors of God shall have an * Some of the ancients have called those preachers, who shorten the pains of hell, the merciful or compassionate doctors: and Doctor Thomas Burnet calls those merciless, or uncompassionate, who preach the eternity of it: but I think it will appear one ;day, that those are truly the compas- sionate writers and teachers, who most effectually affright and prevent men from sin and damnatioh ; and those who have given wicked men hope of their release from hell, will be in danger of being charged with smoothing their way to this misery, by softening the terrors of it.
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