238 THE WORLD TO COME. another perpetual source of pain and anguish? What if their bodies shall be raised with all the seeds c disease in them, like the gout or the stone, or any other smarti .g malady ? And what if the smart of these bodily distempers should mingle with the raging passions of the mind, as far as it is consistent with im- mortality and everlasting duration ? Who can say, that when God " exerts his power, and makes his wrath known," in pu- 'Wishing obstinate, rebellious and impenitent sinners, as Rom. ix. 22. he will not frame' such bodies for them to dwell in, as shall be a hateful burden, and an incessant plague to them through all ages of their duration ? And perhaps these bodily pains may be also included in the metaphor of a gnawing worm bred within them, which will never die, which shall never cease to fill them with grievous anguish. Here perhaps it maybe enquired, " are there not multitudes of men in this world, who are not sinners of grosser kind, but have lived in the main, in the practice of common social duties, and have maintained the usual forms of religion, according to the outward rules of the gospel, and the custom of their nation, but they have been negligent indeed of any sincere repentance towards God, and have been strangers to inward vital religion throughout their whole course ? Shall these creatures, who seem`to stand in a sort of indifferent character, who are outwardly blameless, with regard to common morality, and have exercised the common virtues of justice and benevolence towards their fel- low- creatures, perhaps under the influences of education or cus- tom, or perhaps by the effect that reason or philosophy, or their inward fears have had toward the restraint of their passions and appetites ; 1 say, shall such sort of creatures as these be filled with those furies of rage and resentment against God, envy and malice toward their fellow- sinners, and all the vile and unsociable passions in these regions of misery which they have never found working in them here on earth, or but in a low degree ? Shall all the torments and inward anguish of soul that you have been describing, fall upon this rank of sinners, whom the eye of the world could hardly distinguish from good men, and who were very far from the character of wicked ? I answer, I. That however there may seem to be three sorts of per- sons in our esteem, viz. the good, the bad, and the indifferent, yet the word of God seems to acknowledge but two sorts, viz. as Those who fear God and serve him, and those who fear him not ;" Mal. in: 18. Those who have acted from principles of inward religion, or the love of God, and those who had no such principle within them : And therefore the scripture reveals and declares but two sorts of states in the future world, viz. that of rewards and punishments, or that of happiness and misery : And as God, the righteous Judge is intimately acquainted with all
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