not enough to perish alone, but I must draw all others to the same destruction. Oh, what cause hath my wife, my children,

my servants, my neighbours, to curse the day that ever they saw me! As if I had been made to resist God, and to destroy my own and other men's souls, so have I madly behaved myself! Thus will it gnaw upon the hearts of these wretches, to remember that they were the cause of their own undoing; and that they wilfully and obstinately persisted in their rebellion, and were mere volunteers in the service of the devil. They would venture; they would go on; they would not hear him that spoke against it: God calleth to them to hear and stay, but they would not; men called, conscience called, and said to them, as Pilate's wife, (Matt. xvii. 19,) 'Have nothing to do with that hateful sin, for I have suffered many things because of it;' but they would not hear their will was their law, their rule, and their ruin.

Sect. XV. Tenthly, and lastly: It will yet make the wound in their consciences much deeper, when they shall remember that it was not only their own doing, but that they were at so much cost and pains for their own damnation. What great undertakings did they engage in to effect their ruin; to resist God, to conquer the Spirit, to overcome the power of mercies, judgments, and the word itself, to silence conscience; all this they did take upon them, and perform. What a number of sins did they manage at once! What difficulties did they set upon even the conquering the power of reason itself, What dangers did they adventure on! Though they walked in continual danger of the wrath of God, and knew he could lay them in the dust in a moment; though they knew they lived in danger of eternal perdition, yet would they run upon all this. What did they forsake for the service of Satan, and the pleasures of sin? They forsook their God, their conscience, their

d Cupiditas mundi initium habet ex arbitrio voluntatis, progressum ex jucunditate voluptatis, et firmamentum ex vinculo consuetudinis.— Aug. lib. i. de Patientia, c. 7. Est quippe anima condita libera potestque bona ut eligere, ita et adversari. Quum igitur quod bonum est refugiat, necessario contraria cogitat; quiescere enim à motu omnino non prævalet, cum sit, ut dixi naturaliter mobilis. Agnoscens verò arbitrii sui libertatem, conspicit se posse in utramque partem membris corporis uti, sive ad ea quæ sunt, sive ad ea quæ non sunt. Sunt quippe bona; non sunt autem mala.-Athanus, cont. Gent. lib. i. Neque enim malum in Deo est, neque per seipsum omnino subsistit. Alioqui bonus non esset, si vel permixtam haberet contrariam naturam, vel causa esset mali.—Athanas. ubi supra. Veritas sententiæ ecclesiasticæ per se elucet. Malum scilicet neque à Deo, neque in Deo, neque ab initio fuisse; ne illam quidem ipsius mali esse substantiam; sed homines per privationem boni sibi, quæ non sunt, et quæ volunt, cœpisse confingere. Vid. ultra in Athanasio ibid.

best friends, their eternal hopes of salvation, and all. They that could not tell how to forsake a lust, or a little honour or ease for Christ, yet can lose their souls; and all for sin! Oh, the labour that it costeth poor wretches to be damned! Sobriety they might have at a cheaper rate, and a great deal of health and ease to boot ; and yet they will rather have gluttony and drunkenness, with poverty, and shame, and sickness, and belchings, and vomitings; with the outcries and lamentations of wife and children, and conscience itself. Contentedness they might have with ease and delight, yet will they rather have covetousness and ambition, though it cost them study, and care, and fears, and labour of body and mind, and a continual unquietness and distraction of spirit, and usually a shameful overthrow at the last. Though their anger be nothing but a tormenting themselves, and revenge and envy do consume their spirits, and keep them upon a continual rack of disquiet; though uncleanness destroy their bodies, and estates, and names; and though they are foretold of the hazard of their eternal happiness, yet will they do and suffer all this, rather than suffer their souls to be saved. How fast runs Gehazi for his leprosy! What cost and pains is Nimrod at, to purchase a universal confusion! How doth an amorous Ammon pine himself away for a self-destroying lust! How studiously and painfully doth Absalom seek a hanging! Ahitophel's reputation and his life must go together. Even when they are struck blind by a judgment of God, yet how painfully do the Sodomites grope and weary themselves to find the door! What cost and pains are the idolatrous papists at, for their multifarious will-worship! How unweariedly and unreservedly have the enemies of the Gospel put out the light that should guide them to heaven, and how earnestly do they still prosecute it to the last! How do the nations generally rage, and the people imagine a vain thing! The kings of the earth setting themselves, and the rulers taking counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Christ; that they may break the bonds of his laws asunder, and cast away the cords of his government from them, though he that sitteth in heaven do laugh them to scorn, though the

e Gen. xix. 11. As Phocion, when being condemned to die, his fellows had drunk up all the poisou before him, so that he could not have any except he would pay for it a dear price, he desires his friend to pay for it, quoniam Athenis ne mori quidem gratis licet; so because God in mercy hath resolved that no man shall be damned except he buy it with his sinful labour, they will pay the price rather than escape.—Phil. ii. 12,

Lord have them in derision; though he speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure, and resolve that yet in despite of them all, 'He will set his King upon his holy hill of Sion,' yet will they spend and tire themselves out as long as they are able to stir against the Lord. O how the reviews of this will feed the flames in hell! With what rage will these damned wretches curse themselves, and say, 'Was damnation worth all my cost and pains; was it not enough that I perished through my negligence, and that I sit still while Satan played his game, but I must seek so diligently for my own perdition; might I not have been damned on free cost, but I must purchase it so dearly? I thought I could have been saved without so much ado; and could I not have been destroyed without so much ado? How well is all my care, and pains, and violence, now requited! Must I work out so laboriously my own damnation, when God commanded me to work out my salvation? Oh! If I had done as much for heaven as I did for hell, I had surely had it! I cried out of the tedious way of godliness, and of the painful course of duty and self-denial; and yet I could be at a great deal more pains for Satan, and for death. If I had loved Christ as strongly as I did my pleasures, and profits, and honours, and thought on him as often, and sought him as painfully, O how happy had I now been! But justly do I suffer the flames of hell, who would rather buy them so dear, than have heaven on free-cost, when it was purchased to my hands.'

* Though I am no Arminian, yet I detest their doctrine and way of preaching on the other extreme, who teach men to lay the chief cause of their sin and damnation from themselves on God; and would have wicked men believe, that none but the elect do sin against the price that was paid for them, and the Christ that died for them; and so would quiet their consciences in hell, as if they were not guilty of any such sin. And the doctrine of a physical, active predetermination of man's will to sin, or the act which is sinful by God's effectual influx, hath need of a wary consideration. And though Twisse and other learned men assert it, yet ordinary Christians need not put it into their creed. May not all common, Christians well take up with a contented ignorance here, when Cajetan could find rest nowhere? and Arriba, that reproveth him, saith in a manner as much.—Lib. i. c. 30. p. 188. And our learned Barlow takes up with this: De futuritione mali, presertim moralis, statuant alii; non ego: qui rem tot difficultatibus perplexam determinare nec volo uec valeo. Solum hoc firmum maneat et immotum; nempe mali moralis futuritionem ita statuendam, ut hypotheses nostræ peccati originem in Deum non rejiciant. Si quidem spuria illa et deformis soboles nostri progenies est, non Dei; qui peccatum placido vultu nec videt quidem, nedum faciat. Scilicet insaniam ethnicorum superlativam arguit, quod Jovem Deum agnoverunt et adulterum, ut Minutius: et miratur Athenagoras, qui fieri

Thus I have showed you some of those thoughts which will aggravate the misery of these wretches for ever. O that God would persuade thee, who readest these words, to take up these thoughts now seasonably and soberly, for the preventing of that inconceivable calamity, that so thou mayst not be forced, in despite of thee, to take them up in hell as thy own tormentor.

It may be some of these hardened wretches will jest at all this, and say, 'How know you what thoughts the damned in hell will have?'

Answ. First: Why read but the 16th of Luke, and you shall there find some of their thoughts mentioned.

Secondly I know their understanding will not be taken from them, nor their conscience, nor passions. As the joys of heaven. are chiefly enjoyed by the rational soul, in its rational actions, so also must the pains of hell be suffered. As they will be men still, so will they act as men,

Thirdly: Besides, Scripture hath plainly foretold us as much, that their own thoughts shall accuse them, (Rom. ii. 15,) and their hearts condemn them; (1 John iii. 19—21;) and we see it begun in despairing persons here.

CHAP. III.

They shall lose all things that are comfortable, as well as Heaven.

SECT. I. Having showed you those considerations which will then aggravate their misery, I am next to show you their addi

potuit, ut illum tanquam Deum colerent, quem et ἐπίκλοπον et ὑπέρθυμον, furem et superbum cognoverunt. Certe Deus non est, nisi omnino bonus, malitia nulla vitiatus. Recte Nazianzi episcopus, åvaμáptηтos d Oeds, Deus peccati nesciens. Cum impossibile est ut vitiis succumbat ipsa bonitas, &c.-Barlow Exercitat. 5. p. 127. Nullo modo cogimur, aut retenta præscientiâ Dei tollere voluntatis arbitrium; aut retento voluntatis arbitrio, Deum (quod nefas est) negare præscium futurorum. Sed utrumque amplectimur; utrumque fideliter et veraciter confitemur; illud, ut bene credamus; hoc, ut bene vivamus; male autem vivitur, si de Deo non bene credere.—Aug.de Civ. lib. v. c. 10. Quisquis audet dicere, Habeo ex meipso fidem, non ergo accepi,' profecto contradicit huic apertissimæ veritati, 'Quid habes quod non accepisti?' Non quia credere vel non credere non est in arbitrio voluntatis humanæ; sed in electis præparatur vuluntas à Domino. Ideo ad ipsam quoque fidem, quæ in voluntate est, pertinet "Quis te discernit ?". Aug.de Prædest. Sanct. c. 5.

tional losses which will aggravate it. For as godliness hath the promise both of this life and that which is to come, and as God hath said, "that if we first seek his kingdom and righteousness, all things else shall be added to us;" so also are the ungodly threatened with the loss both of spiritual and of corporal blessings; and because they sought not first Christ's kingdom and righteousness, therefore shall they lose both it and that which they did seek, and there shall be taken from them even that little which they have. If they could but have kept their present enjoyments, they would not have much cared for the loss of heaven, let them take it that have more mind of it: but catching at the shadow, and losing the substance, they now find that they have lost both; and that when they rejected Christ, they rejected all things. If they had lost and forsaken all for Christ, they would have found all again in him; for he would have been all in all to them; but now they have forsaken Christ for other things, they shall lose Christ, and that also for which they did forsake him.

But I will particularly open to you some of their other losses. Sect. II. First: They shall lose their present presumptuous conceit and belief of their interest in God, and of his favour towards them, and of their part in the merits and sufferings of Christ. This false belief doth now support their spirits, and defend them from the terrors that would else seize upon them, and fortify them against the fears of the wrath to come. Even as true faith doth afford the soul a true and grounded support and consolation, and enableth us to look to eternity with undaunted courage; so also a false ungrounded faith doth afford a false ungrounded comfort, and abates the trouble of the considerations of judgment and damnation. But, alas! this is but a palliate salve, a deceitful comfort; what will ease their trouble when this is gone? When they can believe no longer, they will be quieted in mind no longer, and rejoice no longer. If a man be near to the greatest mischief, and yet strongly conceit that he is in safety, his conceit may make him as cheerful as if all were well indeed, till his misery comes, and then both his con

It is a great question with many, whether there be no mercy in hell. Aquinas (1 q. 21 a. 4, 1 m.) saith there is; so Lorinus, Par. Cajetan. Fruardentius, Salmeron; also Ursin. Cat., with some of ours; but I say, as Jac. Laurentius, in 'Jac.' (2, 13), What need is there curiously to inquire, or boldly to determine in this? It is enough to know that the pains and torments of hell to the wicked, will be both eternal and incomprehensible. (p. 165.)