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As the three children were not cast into an ordinary fire, but a fire prepared on a particular design, which therefore was exceeding hot, the furnace being heated seven times more than ordinary, Dan. ii. 19, 22. so the damned shall find in hell, a prepared fire, the like to which was never prepared by human art; it is a fire of God's own preparing, the product of infinite wisdom on a particular design, to demonstrate the most strict and severe divine justice against sin; which may sufficiently evidence to us, the inconceiv able exquisiteness thereof. God always acts in a peculiar way, becoming his own infinite greatness, whether for or against the creature; and, therefore, as the things he hath prepared for them that love him, are great and good be yond expression or conception; so one may conclude, that the things he hath prepared against those who hate him, are great and terrible, beyond what men can either say, or think of them. The pile of Tophet, is fire and much wood, (the coals of that fire are coals of juniper, a kind of wood, which set on fire burns most fiercely, Psalm cxx. 4.) and the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it, Isa. xxx. 33. Fire is more or less violent, according to the matter of it, and the breath by which it is blown: what heart, then, can fully conceive the horror of coals of juniper, blown up with the breath of the Lord? Nay, God himself will be a consuming fire (Deut. iv. 24.) to the damned; intimately present, as a devouring fire in their souls and bodies. It is a fearful thing to fall into a fre, or to be shut up in a fiery furnace on earth; but the terror of these evanisheth, when one considers, how fearful it is to fall into the hands of the living God, which is the lot of the damned; for, “Who shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Isa. xxxiii. 14.

As to the second point proposed, namely, the properties of the fiery torments in hell.

1. They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a burning fiery furnace, the fire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched : what part, then, can have ease, when the damned swim in a lake of fire burning with brimstone? There will their bodies be tormented and scorched for ever. And as they

sinned, so shall they be tormented, in all the parts thereof; that they shall have no sound side to turn them to: for what soundness or ease can be to any part of that body, which being separated from God, and all refreshment from him, is still in the pangs of the second death, ever dying, but never dead? But as the soul was chief in sinning, it will be chief in suffering too, being filled brimful of the wrath of a sin-revenging God. The damned shall ever be under deepestimpressionsofGod's vindictive justice against them; and this fire will melt their souls within them like wax. Who knows the power of that wrath, which had such an effect on the Mediator, standing in the room of sinners? Psalm xxii. 14. "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels." Their minds shall be filled with the terrible apprehensions of God's implacable wrath; and whatever they can think upon, past, present, or to come, will aggravate their torment and anguish. Their will shall be crossed in all things for ever more: as their will was ever contrary to the will of God's precepts, so God, in his dealings with them, in the other world, shall have war with their will for ever. What they would have, they shall not in the least obtain ; but what they would not, shall be bound upon them, without remedy. Hence no plensant affection shail ever spring up in their mind any more; their love of complacency, joy and delight, in any object whatsoever, shall be pluckt up by the root; and they will be filled with hatred, fury and rage, against God, themselves, and their fellow-creatures, whether happy in heaven or miserable in hell, as they themselves are. They will be sunk in sorrow, racked with anxiety, filled with horror, galled to the heart with fretting, and continually darted with despair; which will make them weep, gnash their teeth, and blaspheme for ever, Mat. xxii. 13. "Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into utter darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Rev. xvi. 21. " And there fell upon men, a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men blasphemed God, because of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great" Conscience will be a worm to gnaw and prey upon them; remorse for their sins, shall seize them and torment them for ever; they shall not be able to shake it off, as sometimes they did: For, in hell, their worm dieth not, Mark ix, 45, 461

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Their memory will but serve to aggravate their torment, and every new reflection will bring another pang of anguish, Luke xvi. 25. « But Abraham said, (viz. to the rich man in hell,) Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things."

2. The torments in hell are manifold. Put the case, that a man were, at one and the same time, under the violence of the gout, gravel, and whatsoever diseases and pains have ever met together in one body; the torment of such a one would be but light, in comparison with the torments of the damned. For, as in hell, there is an absence of all that is good and desirable, so there is the confluence of all evils there; since all the effects of sin and of the curse, take their place in it, after the last judgment, Rev. xx. 14. "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire." There they will find a prison, they can never escape out of; a lake of fire, wherein they will be ever swimming and burning; a pit, where they will never find a bottom. The worm that dieth not, shall feed on them, as on bodies which are interred: The fire that is not quenched, shall devour them, as dead bodies which are burned. Their eyes shall be kept in blackness of darkness, without the least comfortable gleam of light; their ears filled with the frightful yellings of the infernal crew. They shall taste nothing but the vinegar of God's wrath, the dregs of the cup of his fury. The stench of the burning lake of brimstone, will be the smell there ; and they shall feel extreme pains for evermore.

3. They will be most exquisite and vehement torments, causing weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, Mat. xiii. 42. and xxii. 13. They are represented to us, under the notion of pangs in travail, which are very sharp and exquisite. So says the rich man in hell, Luke xvi. 24. I am tormented (viz. as one in the pangs of child-bearing) in this flame. Ah! dreadful pangs! horrible travail ! in which both soul and body are in pangs together! helpless travail; hopeless and endless! The word used for hell, Mat. v. 22. and in divers other places of the New Testament, properly denotes the valley of Hinnom; the name being taken from the children of Hinnom, in which was Tophet, 2 Kings xxiii. 10. where idolaters offered their children to Molech. This is said to have been a great

brazen idol, with arms like a man's, the which being heated by fire within it, the child was set in the burning arms of the idol; and that the parents might not hear the shrieks of the child burning to death, they beat drums in the time of the horrible sacrifice; whence the place had the name of Tophet. Thus the exquisiteness of the torments in hell, are pointed out to us. Some have endured grievous tortures on earth, with a surprising obstinacy and undaunted courage; but mens courage will fail them there, when they find themselves fallen into the hands of the living God, and no outgate to be expected for ever. It is true, there will be degrees of torment in hell: "It shall be more tolerable, for Tyre and Sidon, than for Chorazin and Bethsaida," Mat. xi. 21, 22. But the least load of wrath there, will be insupportable; for how can the heart of the creature endure, or his hands be strong, when God himself is a consuming fire to him? When the tares are bound in bundles for the fire, there will be bundles of covetous persons, of drunkards, profane swearers, unclean persons, formal hypocrites, unbelievers, and despisers of the gospel, and the like; the several bundles being cast into hell-fire, some will burn more keenly than others, according as their sins have been more henious than these of others, a fiercer flame will seize the bundle of the profane, than the bundle of the unsanctified moralists; the furnace will be hotter to those who sinned against light, than to these who lived in darkness, Luke xii. 47, 48. “That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." But the sentence common to them all," Bind them in bundles to burn them," Math xiii. 30. speaks the greatest vehemency and exquisiteness of the lowest degree of torment in hell.

4. They will be uninterrupted; there is no intermission there; no ease, not for a moment. "They shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever," Rev. xx. 10. Few are so tossed in this world, but sometimes they get rest; but the damned shall get none; they took their rest, in the time appointed of God for labour. No storms are readily seen, but there is some space between showers;

but no intermission in the storm that falls on the wicked in hell. There deep will be calling unto deep, and the waves of wrath continually rolling over them. There the heavens will be always black to them, and they shall have a perpetual night, but no rest, Rev xiv. 11. They shall have no rest, dạy nor night."

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5. They will be unpitied. The punishments inflicted on the greatest malefactors on earth, do draw forth some compassion from them who behold them in their torments; but the damned shall have none to pity them. God will not pity them but laugh at their calamities, Prov. i. 26. The blessed company in heaven, shall rejoice in the execution of God's righteous judgment, and sing while the smoke riseth up for ever, Rev. xix. 3. "And again they said, Allelujah; and her smoke rose up for ever and ever." No compassion can be expected from the devil and his angels, who delight in the ruin of the children of men, and are, and will be, for ever void of pity. Neither will one pity another there, where every one is weeping and gnashing his teeth, under his own insupportable anguish and pain. There natural affections will be extinguished; the parents will not love their children, nor children their parents; the mother will not pity the daughter in these flames, nor will the daughter pity the mother; the son will shew no regard to his father there, nor the servant to his master, where every one will be roaring under his own

torment.

Lastly, To complete their misery, their torments shall be eternal, Rev. xiv. 11. "And the smoke of their torment, ascended up for ever and ever." Ah! what a frightful case is this, to be tormented in the whole body and soul, and that not with one kind of torment, but many; all of these most exquisite, and all this without any intermission, and without pity from any! What heart can conceive those things without horror? Nevertheless, if this most miserable case were at length to have an end, that would be some comfort; but the torments of the damned will have no end; of the which more afterwards.

USE. Learn from this, (1.) The evil of sin. It is a stream that will carry down the sinner, till he be swallowed up in an ocean of wrath. The pleasures of sin are bought too dear, at the rate of everlasting burnings. What availed the rich man's purple clothing and sumptuous fare, when

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