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,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