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5
THE NATURE
OP
THE PUNISHMENTS
IN
HELL. [DISC.
XII.
It
is
certain,
that God
has
been pleased
in
his
word
frequently-
ttj.
make
use
of
fire,
brimstone, burning,
smoke,
darkness and
chains,:
and every thing
that
is
painful
and noisome
to nature
on
earth,
in
order
to.
represent
the
miseries
that
he
has
prepared
for sinners in
hell
:
And
we
must
suppose
-:that
all these
metaphors,
if
they are but mere metaphors, carry
with
them
a
sense
of
most
intense pain and
anguish
with which
God
will
afflict
the
bodies, as well as
the
spirits
of
those
guilty
creatures,
who have
rebelled against
his
majesty,
rejected
his
mercy,
and
exposed themselves
to
his
indignation.
But
what particular instruments and
methods,
of
punish-
ment, what
other
elements or means
of
torture
the
great
God
will
make
use
of
to
execute
his
sentence
in
this
tre-
mendous
work,
is
more
than
we
can now
declare, because
God
has
not
fully
declared it
:,
And
I
pray
God
none óf
us
may be
ever doomed
to
learn
it
by
terrible experience.
But
Heim
be
nothing
but
fire,
the anguish
will be
into-
lerable,
as
one of our
poets expresses
it,
zc
In liquid burnings, or
on
dry,
to
dwell,
is
all
the sad
variety
of
hell."
Or
what
if
the
Almighty, who has all
nature,
with
all
its
powers,
at
his
command,
should employ other
mate.
rial instruments for
the execution
of
his
deserved wrath
?
What
if
he should chuse the
alternate
extremes
of
fire
and frost,
as some
have imagined,
to
torment
those impe-
nitent
criminals
?
Or
what if the
creatures
which they
have
abused
to
their impious and
brutish purposes;
should
be
'made
instruments and mediums
of their
pu-
nishment
?
Wine
may be
rendered
a frequent
means
of
sickness, agony
and
pain to the
drunkard,
and meat
and
other
dainties
to
the glutton, and
gold to the covetous
wretches
who
made gold
their
god,
that
they
may all
re-
member their
crimes
in
their
sufferings.
The
wisdom
of
God
will
execute
the
sentence
of
his
justice
in
the most
honourable manner.
And
after
all,
if
we
call away'
our
thoughts from
fire,
and
every
material instrument
of
pain,
which
the
great
-God
may employ
in
punishing obstinate
rebels,
and sur-
vey only
those acute and
dreadful impressions of
horror
.and
anguish,
which
a.
just
and holy
God
may make
on
sinful spirits
in
an
immediate
manner
in
hell,
this would