Firf, If I could, I fhould thew what eternity is, I mean, the creature's eternity. But who can measure the waters of the ocean, or who can tell you the days, years, and ages of eternity, which are infinited more than the drops of the ocean.? None can comprehend eternity, but the eternal God, Eternity is an ocean, whereof we will never fee the fhore: it is a deep, where we can have no bottom; a labyrinth, from whence we cannot extricate ourselves, and where we fhall ever lofe the door. There are two things one may fay of it, (1.) It has a beginning. God's eternity has no beginning, but the creature's eternity has, Sometimes there was no lake of fire; and those who have been there, for fome thousand of years were once, in time, as we now are. But (2.) It fhall never have an end. The first who enter. ed into the eternity of wo, is as far from the end of it, as the laft, who fhall go thither, will be at his entry. They who have launched out furtheft into that ocean, are as far from land, as they were the first moment they went into it: and thousands of ages after this, they will be as far from it as ever. Wherefore, eternity, which is before us, is a duration that hath a beginning, but no end. It is a beginning without a middle, a beginning without an end. After millions of years paft in it, ftill it is a beginning. God's wrath, in hell, will ever be the wrath to come. But there is no middle in eternity When millions of ages are paft in eternity, what is paft bears no proportion of what is to come; Do not fo much as one drop of water, falling from the tip of one's finger, bears to all the waters of the ocean. There is no end of it: while God is, it fhall be. It is an entry without an out-gate, a continual fucceffion of ages, a glafs always running, which shall never run out,

Obferve the continual fucceffion of hours, days, months, and years, how one ftill follows upon one another; and think of eternity, wherein there is a continual fucceffion without end. When you go out in the night, and behold the stars of heaven. how they cannot be numbred for multitude, think of the ages of eternity; confidering withal, there is a certain definite number of the flars, but no number of the ages of eternity. When you fee a water running, think how vain a thing it would be, to fit down by it, and wait

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till it should run out, that you may pafs over; look how new water ftill fucceeds to that which paffeth by you: and therein you will have an image of eternity, which is a river that never dries up. They who wear rings, have an image of eternity on their fingers; and they who handle the wheel have an emblem of eternity before them: for to which part foever of the ring or wheel one looks, one will fill fee another part beyond it; and on whatsoever moment of eternity you condefcend, there is fill another beyond it. When you are abroad in the fields, and behold the piles of the grafs on the earth, which no man can reckon; think with yourselves, that, were as many thousand of years to come, as there are piles of grafs on the ground, even thofe would have an end at length, but eternity will bave none. When you look to a mountain, imagine in your hearts, how long would it be, ere that mountain should be removed, by a little bird coming but once every thousand years, and carrying away but one grain of the duft thereof at once; the mountain would at length be removed that way, and brought to an end; but eternity will never end, Suppofe this with refpect to all the mountains of the earth; nay, with refpect to the whole globe of the earth; the grains of dutt, whereof the whole earth is made up, are not infinite, and therefore the latt grain would, at long run, come to be carried away, in the way fuppofed: but when that floweft work would be brought to as end, eternity would be, in effect but beginning.

These are some rude draughts of eternity: and now add mifery and woe to this eternity, what tongue can exprefs it? What heart can conceive it? In what balance can that mifery and that we be weighed?

Secondly, Let us take a view of what is eternal in the ftate of the damned in hell. Wharfoever is included in the fearful fentence,determiningtheir eternalftate,is everlasting: therefore all the doleful ingredients of their miferable state will be everlasting; they will never end. The text exprefslý declares the fire, into which they muft depart, to be ever. lafling fire. And our Lord elfe where tells us, that in hell the fire fhall never be quenched, (Mark ix. 43.) with an eye to the valley of Hinnom in which, befides the already mentioned fire, for burning of the children to Moloch, there

was

was also another fire burning continually, to confume the dead carcafes, and filth of Jerufalem: fo the fcripture reprefenting hell fire by the fire of that valley, fpeaks it not only to be most exquifite, but alfo everlasting. Seeing then the damned muft depart, as curfed ones, into everlasting fire, it is evident that,

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1ft, The damned themfelves fhall be eternal: they will have a being for ever, and will never be fubftantially destroyed, or annihilated. To what end is the fire eternal; if these who are caft into it, be not eternally in it! It is plain, the everlasting continuance of the fire, is an aggravation of the mifery of the damned: but furely, if they be annihilated, or fubftantially deftroyed, it is all a cafe to them, whether the fire be everlafting, or not. Nay, but, they depart into everlasting fire, to be everlastingly punished in it; Matth. xxv. 46. They shall go away into everlafting punishment. Thus, the execution of the fentence, is a certain difcovery of the meaning of it. The worm, that dieth not, must have a fubject to live in they, who fhall have no reff, day, nor night, (Rev. xiv. 11.), but fhall be tormented day and night for ever and ever, (chap. xx. 10.) will certainly have a being for ever and ever, and not be brought into a flate of eternal rest in annihilation. Deftroyed indeed they shall be: but their deftruction will be an everlasting deftruction, (2 Theff. i. 9.) a destruction of their well being, but not of their being. What is deftroyed, is not therefore annihilated; Art thou came to deftroy us? faid the devil unto Jefus Chrift, Luke iv, 34, Howbeit the devils are afraid of torment, not of annihilation, Matth. viii, 29. Art thou come hither to torment, us before the time? The ftate of the damned is indeed a ftate of death: but fuch a death it is, as is oppofite only to a happy life, as is clear from other notions of their ftate, which neceffarily include an eternal existence, of which before. As they, who are dead in fin, are dead to God and holiness yet live to fin: fo dying in hell, they live, but feparated from God, and his favour, in which life lies, Pfal. xxx. 5. They shall ever be under the pangs of life; ever dying, but never dead, or abso. lutely void of life. How defirable would fuch a death be

State IV. to them! but it will fly from them for ever. Could each one kill another thefe, or could they, with their own hands, rent themselves into lifeless pieces, their mifery would quickly be at an end: but there they muft live, who chufed death, and refused life; for there death lives, and the end ever begins.

2dly, The curfe fhall fly upon them eternally, as the everJafting chain, to hold them in the everlasting fire: a chaia that shall never be loosed, being fixed for ever about them, by the dreadful fentence of the eternal judgment. This chain, which purns the united force of devils held faft by it, is too ftrong to be broken by men, who being folemnly anathematized, and devoted to destruction, can never be recovered to any other ufe.

3dly, Their punishment fhall be eternal; Matth. xxv. 46. They hall go away into everlafting punishment They will be, for ever, feparate from God and Chrift, and from the fociety of the holy angels and faints; between whom and them an impaffible gulf will be fixed, Luke xvi. 26. Between us and you, (fays Abraham, in the parable, to the rich man in hell) there is a great gulf fixed, fo that they which would pals from thence to you, cannot; neither can they pafs to us, that would come from thence. They shall for ever, have the horrible fociety of the devil and his angels. There will be no change of company for evermore, in that region of darkness. Their torment in the fire will be everlasting: they must live for ever in it. Several authors both ancient and modern, tell us of earthen fax, or Salamander's hair; that cloth made of it, being caft into the fire, is fo far from being burnt or confumed, that it is only made clean thereby, as other things are by wathing. But, however that is, it is certain, the damned fhall be tormented for ever and ever in hell fire, and not fubftantially deftroyed, Rev. xx. 10. And indeed nothing is annihi lated by fire, but only diffolved. Of what nature foever hell-fire is, no question, the fame God, who kept the bo dies of the three children from burning in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, can also keep the bodies of the damned from any fuch diffolution by hell fire, as may infer prevation of

life.

Lafily,

Lafily Their knowledge and fenfe of their mifery fhall be eternal, and they fhall affuredly know that it will be eternal, How defirable would it be in them, to have their fenfes for ever locked up, and to lose the consciousness of their own mifery; as one may rationally fuppofe it to fare at length with fome, in the punishment of death inflicted on them on earth, and as it is with fome mad people in their miferable cafe! but that agrees not with the notion of torment for ever and ever, nor the worm that dieth not. Nay, they will ever have a lively feeling of their mifery, and ftrongest impreffions of the wrath of God against them. And that dreadful intimation of the eternity of their punishment,made to them, by the Judge, in their fentence, will fix fuch impreffions of the eternity of their miferable ftate upon their minds, as they will never be able to lay afide, but will continue with them ever more, to complete their mifery. This will fill them with everlasting defpair, a moft tormenting paffion, which will continually rent their hearts, as it were in a thousand pieces. To fee floods of wrath ever coming, and never to cease: to be ever in torment, and withal to know there shall never, never, be a release, will be the cape flone put on the mifery of the damned, If hope deferreth maketh the heart fick. (Prov. xiii. 12) how killing will be, hope rooted up, flain outright, and buried for ever out of the creature's fight! this will fill them with hatred and rage against God, their known irreconcileable enemy; and der it, they will roar for ever like wild bulls in a net, and all the nic with blafphemies evermore.

Lantly 1 ng here fhew the reasonableness of the eter air of the punishment of the damned; but having already poke of it in vindicating the juftice of God, in his fubje&

mee in their natural ftate to eternal wrath, I only remind yer of three things, (1.) The infinite dignity of the party Fuaded by fin, requires an infinite punishment to be inflictfor the vindication of his honour: fince the demerit of

reth acccding to the dignity and excellency of the percon gai ß whom it is committed. The party offended is the great rod, the chief good: the offender, a vile worm; in refpect of perfection infinitely diftant from God, to wh&m ke is indebted for all that ever he had, implying any good,

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