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their glory the evil angels seize upon the guilty soul, and drag it down to hell.

Woe is me, what a dreadful spectacle is this, which is now presented to my soul! The burning Tophet, the bottomless pit, the lake of fire and brimstone, the region of horror and death; wherein there is the perfection of inconceivable anguish, the full consummation of the divine vengeance to sinners, an exquisiteness and eternity of torment, despair and impossibility of release or intermission, perpetual dying, perpetual living in a death that can never end. How are my thoughts at a loss in this place of confusion! Whether shall I more tremble, oh God, at the consideration of thy terrible justice, or be swallowed up with astonishment of these infinite and intolerable sufferings? I should not know thee, if I did not, with holy Chrysostom, believe, that the utter loss of thy presence alone is as a thousand hells: to be for ever banished from thy sight, in which there is fulness of joy, what can it be less than fulness of torment? But alas, this is far from a mere absence.

The very sin of the damned is no small part of their hell for as all their powers and faculties are as so many subjects of insupportable pain and torture; so, out of that insufferable extremity, they conceive a desperate indignation and hatred against God: not as he is in himself, infinitely good, for goodness can be no object of hate; but as he is to them, a severe, though most just, avenger of sin. To this is ever added a will obstinately fixed in evil; while they were on their way to this place of torment, there was a possibility of their being reclaimed; now that their career is terminated, they can be no other than they are. As therefore the glorified souls are in a condition like to the angels of heaven, so the damned are in the state of devils; not more capable of avoiding torment than sin, and equally reserved in everlasting chains of darkness, to the judgment of the great day. Then that which seemed little less than infinite, shall yet receive a further aggravation of pain and misery; when the addition of the body shall give a further extent to this scene of woe, without a possibility of release for ever.

Alas, what anguish do I feel in myself, to see the body of a malefactor flaming at a stake! Yet this is but the act of a few minutes: the breath which should maintain life soon ceases, and the flesh is speedily reduced to dead cinders. But if I could conceive of a body lying a whole day in a continued flame, how should I be affected with a sad compassion of that intolerable torment, and burn inwardly with the sense of another's pain! But to think of a whole year's continuance in such a fire, how can it but turn our bowels within us! What then, oh what is it, to conceive of lying in a fire more intense than nature can kindle, for hundreds, thousands, millions, yea millions of millions of years; which after all are only a minute of time compared to eternity; and where, besides the endurance, every thing that makes towards the mitigation of other pains, adds to these!

Here is a society of tortures, but it is such as tortures more. Those perpetual howlings, and the wailings of so many millions of lost souls, were enough to make the place a hell, even to him that should be exempted from those sufferings. Here is some glimpse of knowledge of the blessed state of the glorified, enough to heighten their envy, and to perfect their torment, even as meat is set before the man who is doomed to famish. Here is exquisite disconsolateness, gloomy darkness, extreme horror, pain insufferable, hideous ejaculations, utter hopelessness, vexing indignation, furious blasphemies, infinite grief and anguish; without relaxation, without pity, without a possibility of remedy, of ease or end. How can it be otherwise? Oh God, if thy mercy have prepared such a h-aven for thy poor servants, whose very best works, for their great imperfection, deserve nothing but punishment; what a hell hath thy justice provided for those enemies of thine who wilfully despise thee, and maliciously offend. How infinitely art thou more just, than sinners can be miserable!

But it is enough, oh my soul, to have looked into the pit; enough to make thee to lament the woeful condition of those who are there shut up, enough to warn thee to avoid those sinful ways that lead down to these chambers of death, enough to make thee think no tears can be

sufficient to bewail the desperate carelessness of wretched sinners, who run on in a known course of wickedness, without any regard of an ensuing damnation. Alas, they are bewitched that they cannot even pity themselves, nor foresee the danger of their own utter perdition; which if they could but look into, they would be ready to run mad with horror. Poor souls, could they but recover their reason, they would then think, If a thousand days' pleasure cannot weigh with one hour's torment, why do I buy one hour's pleasure with the torment of more than ten thousand ages! How do I dare to dance for a few minutes upon the mouth of hell, with the peril of an everlasting burning?' Surely, if infidelity had not robbed men of their wits, they could not resolve to purchase the momentary pleasures of sin, with such a dreadful and eternal damnation.

SECTION 8.

Recapitulation of the whole.

AND now, what is to be done? Surely, as some trayeller, who with many weary steps has passed through divers kingdoms and countries, being now returned to his quiet home, is wont to solace himself by recalling to his thoughts a short mental landscape of those regions,. throguh which he hath journeyed; here conceiving a large plain, there a lake; here a track of mountains, there a wood; here a fen, there a city; here a sea, there a desert; so do thou, oh my soul, upon this voyage of thine through the great Invisible World, bethink thyself of what thou hast seen; and so abridge this large prospect. to thyself, as that it may never be out of thine eye.

Think, first, that whatsoever thou seest, thou canst not look beside the Invisible Majesty of thy God. All this material world is his; he is in all; rather, all is in him; who so comprehends this universe, that he is infinitely beyond it. Think of him as with thee, as in thee, as every where present. Do thou therefore, ever acknow

ledge him, ever adore him, ever enjoy him, ever be approved of him. See him, from whom thou canst not be hid; rely on him, without whom thou canst not subsist; glorify him, without whom thou canst not be happy.

Next, as those that have their celestial life and being, by, from, and in him, wonder at the glorious hierarchy of the heavenly angels, bless him in their pure and spiritual nature, in their innumerable numbers, in their mighty power, in their excellent knowledge; bless him in their comely orders, in their divine offices, in their beneficial employments, in their gracious care and love of mankind. And so far as weak flesh and blood may with pure and majestic spirits, converse with them daily: entertain them, for thou knowest they are present, with awful observances and spiritual suggestions. Ask thyself how pleasing thine actions are to them; receive from them their holy injections; return to them, under God, thy thankful acknowledgements; expect from them a gracious tuition here, and a happy transportation to thy glory.

After these, represent to thyself the blessed society of the late charge, and now partners of those heavenly angels, the glorified spirits of the just. See the certainty of their immortal being, in their state of separation. See them, in the very instant of their parting, blessed with the vision, with the fruition of their God. See how they now bathe themselves in that celestial bliss, as being so fully sated with joy and happiness that they cannot so much as desire more. See them enjoying and partaking of each others' blessedness. See the happy communion which they hold with their warfaring brotherhood upon. earth, whose victory and consummation they sue for to the throne of grace. See them, after a longing desire of meeting with their old and never-forgotten partner, joyfully re-united to their now-glorified bodies, and employing their eternity of life in continual hallelujahs to Him that sits upon the throne. Take up thy rest here, oh my soul, for ever.

But do not thus end thy prospect: it is good for thee to know worse things. If in paradise the tree of knowledge of good and evil were forbidden to our first parents, the act of knowing both is not forbidden to us; even to

know evil in speculation, may avoid the knowledge of it in woeful experience. See then, oh my soul, the best creature falleth from good into evil. In choosing it, see him apostatising from his infinite Creator, and hurled down headlong from the height of heavenly glory, to the bottom of the nethermost hell.

See the irrecoverable condition and dreadful numbers of those precipitated angels. See their formidable power, their implacable malice, their marvellous knowledge and skill to do mischief, their perpetual machinations for our destruction, especially in their last assaults. And when thou hast collected thyself to a resolution of defiance and unwearied resistance, cast thine eye upon the deplorable condition of those lost souls, whom they have either betrayed by their fraud, or by their violence overcome. And whilst thou dost bless and magnify the divine justice in their deserved torment, spend thy tears upon those who are in danger of spending an eternity of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Rouse up thyself in the moments of thy remaining life, to careful and fervent endeavours to save thyself, and to rescue others from this fearful damnation.

SECTION 9.

Both Worlds Compared.

HAVING taken a view of both worlds, of the material world, by the eyes of sense and reason, of the invisible, by the eyes of reason and faith; I cannot but admire God in both, and both of them in God. But the invisible so much the more, as it is infinitely beyond the other, for God himself is the world of this world; and while in the material world we admire him in his creatures, in this immaterial we admire him as he is in himself. In himself he must needs be infinitely more wonderful than many worlds, if such there were, that should proceed from him.

As for the parts of the created but invisible world, i

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