258 THE WORLD TO COME: rich insolent neighbours, have sinned themselves intö hell t Add do you think those children of pride can ever bear this sight without envy? How many martyrs have ascended to gloryfrom racks, and tortures, and fires here upon earth, while their bloody and cruel persecutors have been working out their own damnation by these inhuman acts of murder and cruelty ? And will not, these wretches, under their righteous sufferings and punishments ih hell, envy the creatures whom they have scorned, and oppres- sed, and murdered here on earth, when they shall see them pla- ced on high seats in the kingdom of heaven, and themselves cast, into utter darkness ? And what does all this envy do but increase their own; wretchedness ? They are distracted with pride and rage to think of these high favours of the blessed God bestowed on creatures, whom they treated once with the utmost disdain : But their envy like a viper, preys upon their own entrails, and shall never be allayed or made easy : They send a thousand curses up to the heavenly world ; but the saints are for ever secured in happiness under the eye of God, their heavenly Father, and the care of Jesus, their almighty friend. " ° O what a painful plague must this envy be, when with all her envenomed whips and stings she does but scourge and torment the heart where she dwells ? What an unspeakable torture must it be to feel this envy so violent and so constant,: that it gives itself no ease through' everlasting ages? Who is there that dwells in flesh and blood can conceive or express the horror and the twinging agonies that arise from such a hateful passion, fermenting and raging through all the powers, of the soul ? VIII. The last thing I shall mention, as part of those puns ishtnents of hell which affect the spirit, is a " perpetual expecta- tion and dread of new and increasing punishments without end ;" and it is highly probable, that this shall be the portion of multi- tudes. When the souls of the saints are released by death, and arrive at the blessed regions, they are not vested with all their brightest glories in a moment, nor fixed in the highest point of knowledge and happiness at their first entrance ; but as their 'knowledge and their love increases, so their capacities are en larged to take in new scenes and new degrees of pleasures, and it is probable that their felicity small be ever increasing. And in the same manner, it is not 'unlikely, that the increasing sins, the growing wickedness, and mad rebellion of damned spirits may bring upon them new judgments and more weighty vengeance. $o it was with Pharoah the Egyptian tyrant, when he remained obstinate and rebellious against the messages of God by Moses, even while he and his nation lay under smarting scourges of the Almighty ; How did his planes increase with his iniquities ?,
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