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the wicked and shall not the wicked then much more be afraid, that must themselves feel it? Our God, says the Apostle, is a consuming fire: but to whom is he such a consuming fire? not to those, certainly, whose God he is: He shall burn up all the wicked of the earth as stubble. That God doth not always style himself a gracious God and a reconciled Father, but sometimes puts on dreadful titles, his children owe it to the wicked: against them alone it is, that he arrays himself with all his terrors. As a father may affright his children, by putting on those arms, that he useth only against his enemies; so God daunts his own children, by appearing in his dread power, his severe justice and consuming wrath: but how much more may it appal his enemies, upon whom he intends to execute all this in the utmost rigour and extremity!

2. Another Consideration, that may make the most secure sinner to tremble, is this: That God himself will be the immediate inflicter of their punishments.

They shall be consumed by fire, and offered up as a burntsacrifice to the wrath and justice of God; and that fire, that shall for ever burn them, is God himself: God is a consuming fire. I do not deny, but that there is another material fire, prepared and blown up in hell for the punishment of the damned; but, certainly, their most subtle and exquisite torture shall be from God himself, who is this consuming fire. This wrath of God, which shall for ever burn and enflame the souls of the damned, is called fiery indignation, Heb. x. 27. That fire, that destroyed Nadab and Abihu, was but a type of this; and the antitype infinitely transcends the type: the dreadfulness of their temporal death by fire was but a faint resemblance of the death of the soul. What fire must that be, of which that extraordinary fire, that fell down from heaven itself, was but a mere shadow? As the fire, that came down upon Elijah's sacrifice, did lick up the water that was poured into the trenches; so this fiery indignation of God shall, in hell, melt down the damned, as it were, and then lick up their very spirits and souls. It is said, Ps. civ. 4. that God maketh his angels a flaming fire: it is the nearest representation that is given of the angelical nature, that abounds both in subtlety and force: He maketh his angels a flaming fire. Now when Christ saith, Go into those flames of fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels; why the devils themselves are flames of fire: and what fire can be more piercing than themselves, who have power over fire? Yet there

is a greater fire than they: God is a consuming fire; a fire, so infinitely scorching, as will burn and torment even fire itself. It would be unspeakable, terrible wrath in God, if he should make use of his creatures for the punishment of the damned: who could bear it, if God should only keep a man living for ever in the midst of a furnace, though but of a gross, earthly fire and flames? or, if God should bind a man hand and foot; and cast him into a deep pit full of toads, adders, and scorpions; and there let him lie for ever? God knows all the several stings, that are in his creatures; and he can take out of them the most sharp and piercing ingredients; the sharpness of the sword, the inflammations of poisons, the scorchings of fire, the anguish of pains, the faintness of diseases; and, of all these, can make a most tormenting composition: and, if he should make use of this composition, what intolerable anguish would this cause! If, then, creatures can cause such torture, oh! what a dreadful thing is it to fall into the hands of God himself! when God conveys his wrath by creatures, it must needs lose infinitely in the very conveyance of it: it is but as if a giant should strike one with a straw or a feather: so, when God takes up one creature to strike another with, that blow can be but weak; and, yet, how terrible are those weak blows to us! What will it be then, when God shall immediately crush us by the unrebated force of his own almighty arm? You, therefore, that persevere in sin, and in security too, consider who you have to deal with; not with creatures, but with God himself: and do you not fear that uncreated fire, that can wrap you up in the flames of his essential wrath, and burn you for ever? Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands be strong, says God, in the day that I shall deal with thee? The very weakness of God is stronger than men. God can look a man to death: the breath of a man's nostrils is a soft and quiet thing; and yet the very breath of God's nostrils can blast the soul, and burn it to a very cinder. Oh! then tremble to think, what wrath his heavy hand can inflict upon thee: that hand, that spreadeth out the heavens, and in the hollow of which he holds the great waters of the sea; that hand of God, in which his great strength lies; oh! what wrath will it inflict upon thee, when it falls upon thee in the full power of his might!

3. This Consuming Fire, after it hath once seized upon the soul, is for ever unquenchable.

Indeed thou mayest hinder it from kindling upon thy soul.

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As when a house is on fire, they use to spout water upon the walls of the neighbouring houses, to keep the flames from catching hold of them; so you may, by sprinkling the blood of Jesus Christ, and by moistening yourselves with the tears of true repentance, prevent this consuming fire from preying upon you: but, if once it kindles, it will there burn everlastingly. It is not like your sublunary fires: these spend the matter they feed on; and, be they of never so great force, they must at length themselves starve for want of fuel: yea, the sooner they consume, the sooner are they themselves consumed; as, in straw, and other light combustible matter. But God is such a fire, as consumes without diminishing; and his power is such a power, as destroys the soul, and yet perpetuates it. He is such a wise and intelligent fire, as consumes the damned, and yet repairs them; and, by tormenting, still nourishes them for future torments. As Minutius speaks: the same breath of God, that destroys the soul, still keeps it alive, that it may be eternal fuel for itself. Hence is it, that hell-fire is described to be such, as shall never be quenched: Mark ix. 44. And why? but because the breath of the Lord, like a fiery stream, is still kindling of it. How in the midst of this devouring fire must the damned dwell, without any period, either to their being or to their torment! and, when they have lain there millions and millions of years, still is it but a beginning of their sorrows, and they are as far from a release and discharge as they were at the first. Think with yourselves, how long and how tedious a little time seems to you when you are in pain: you complain then, that time hath leaden feet, and wish that the days and hours would roll away faster. Oh! what will it be then, when you shall lie in hell; when the intolerableness of pain shall make every hour seem an age, and every year seem a long eternity itself, and yet you must lie an eternity of those years there? This makes their torments doubly everlasting. Methinks, the dreadful thoughts of this eternally consuming fire, should make the stoutest heart to quake; or, at least, to cause a cold fit of fear, before this burning and scorching torment begins.

4. God is such a Consuming Fire, as will prey upon the soul, that tender and spiritual part of mán.

The more gross the subject is, the more dull are the pains that it suffers; but, where the subject is spiritual, there the anguish must needs be extreme. The sharpest torments, that the body is capable of, are but dull, in comparison of what the soul

can feel: when God himself shall lash the soul, that more refined part, all comparisons fall short of expressing the anguish of it: to shoot poisoned darts inflamed into a man's marrow, to rip up his bowels with a sword red hot, is as nothing to this. Think what it is to have a drop of boiling, scalding oil, or melting lead fall into your eye, and make it boil and burn till at last it falls out of your head; such torments, yea infinitely more than this, is it to have the wrath of God fall upon your souls. The body is a kind of fence to the soul: it damps and deadens the smart, as a blow upon a clothed man is not so painful as upon one that is stark naked: now if the soul sometimes feels such smart and pain through the body, what shall it feel when God shall pour his wrath upon it stark naked?

5. The longer thou livest in thy sins impenitently, the more dost thou prepare thy soul to be fit fuel for this Consuming Fire to devour.

This is but like the oiling of a barrel of pitch, which of itself was apt enough before to burn. Those, whom the wrath of God snatches away in the beginning of their days, are made fuel for that consuming fire: and, if it be done so to the green tree, what will be done to the dry and rotten tree? Thou, that hast stood many years rotting in the world, when God shall come and cut thee down and cast thee into unquenchable fire, how soon wilt thou kindle and how dreadfully wilt thou burn, having no sap left in thee to allay and mitigate those flames! Certainly, would but the most hardened sinner, here present, call his thoughts aside awhile, and seriously bethink himself what he hath been doing ever since he came into the world, this must needs make him fear and tremble; to consider, that, all this time, he hath, by his sinning, been treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, heaping up coals, yea burning coals, upon his own head. Every time you sin, what do you else but cast in another faggot to that pile of much wood, prepared to burn you for ever? Oh, that these dreadful and amazing considerations might, at length, rouze and awaken your hearts to fear this consuming fire; and to tremble at that wrath, that is now kindling in God's breast against you, and which will, if you repent not, ere long kindle upon you!

"But," you will say, "to fear God, only because he is a Consuming Fire, merely because of his wrath and fiery indig

nation, is but, at best, a Slavish Fear: it is but to fear him as the devils do, for they believe and tremble; and of what use and benefit will such a fear as this be?"

Answ. 1. It is true, to fear God merely upon the account of wrath is but a Slavish Fear; but, yet, it is far better to fear God slavishly, than to perish securely.

That will come with redoubled terror, which comes unexpectedly. How intolerable will hell be to those, especially, that never fear it till they feel it! When sinners shall see themselves surrounded with flames of fire, before ever they thought themselves in any danger; when they shall awake with the flames of hell flashing and flaming about them; what screechings and yellings will this cause! This is to perish, as a fool perisheth; to go on securely in sin, till unexpectedly a dart suddenly strikes through his liver. Whatever the event be, yet it becomes the reason of a man to be affected with fear, proportionable to the evil that he lies obnoxious to. Therefore, whether this slavish fear ends in torment or not, yet it is more rational to fear what we are exposed to it, than to be secure and go down into torments, and never to fear them till we feel them.

Answ. 2. This fear, though a Slavish Fear, is of great efficacy to deter men from the Outward Acts of more gross and scandalous sins.

He, that puts hell betwixt him and his sins, will scarce be so daring as to venture through a lake of fire and brimstone to . commit them. God thought he had set a sufficient guard upon the Tree of Life, when he placed cherubims and a flaming sword to keep men from it. But, to keep men from sin, he hath placed a guard far more dreadful than angels or a flaming sword: he hath placed himself, a consuming fire, to deter men from sin; and they, certainly, that have any fear or dread of God upon their hearts, will judge it too hot a work to break through this fire to their lusts. The thoughts of hell and those everlasting torments due to sin, have doubtless been often used with good success to repel Satan's temptations.

Answ. 3. Where the Fear of Wrath doth prevail to restrain men from sin, this is a good effect; for it doth lessen and mitigate that wrath, that they fear.

On those, that add iniquity to iniquity, without fear, God will heap plague upon plague, without measure. He proportions men's punishments to their sins; and those, that fear most, shall

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