275 141E WORLD TO COME. before them, and might be affrighted from plunging themselves into this pit of anguish, whence there is no'redemption. We have taken a short survey of these miseries, in the kind and nature of them in some former discourses ; and we are now come to the last thing contained in our Saviour's description of bell, and that is the, perpetuity of it: The misery is everlasting. in both the parts of it, for the worm dietle not, and the fire is not quenched. The arguments which shall be employed to prove it are such as these : I. 'rhe express Words of Christ and his apostles.pronounce the punishments eternal ; and surely these words are given to usi to be the foundation of our faith and practice, and the rules of our hope and fear. My text seems - to carry plain and unan-: s'werable evidence in it. The worm dietic not, and the fire is, 4ot quenched. And it is many times repeated in this chapter, and-that with a special accent on the eternal duration of it, to Make that circumstance of it more observed, and to aggravate the terror. Such an awful repetition from the lips of the Son of God should make the sound of the vengeance dwell longer on the ear, and the threatening sink deeper into the soul. Let us next observe the final sentence which Christ, as judge pro- nounces against impenitent sinners among the sons of men, as well as against fallen spirits, in Mat. xxv. 41. It is this, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels : And as soon as the sentence is pronounced, it is immediately executed, as our Saviour foretels in verse 46: These shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal. What he pronounces as judge, he foretels also as a prophet, that it shall be, put in execution. The express word of God, in describing the punishment of sinners by the pen of his two apostles Paul and John, declares, the same thing; 2 Thess. i. 9. They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. And the book of the Revelation gives us assurance, that these mise- ries shall have no end ; Rev. xiv. 10, 11. The anti - christian idolaters, who worship the beast, shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out, without mixture, into the cup of his indignation, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. Jude the apostle, bears his testimony in the same manner, verse 6. the +damned spirits, who kept not their first station, are said to be cast down into hell, and bound in chains of everlasting dark- ness. Now suppose a. man plunged into a pit of thick starkness,. by the command of God, and bound there with everlasting chains ; what hope can he ever have of deliverance ? And if Christ and his apostles, tvho were taught by him and by his
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