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This is that loss, which wicked men must, in the Great and Last Day, sustain.

[2] As for the second part of their Punishment, which is that of Sense, our Saviour briefly sums it up in Two things: the worm, that never dieth; and the fire, that never goeth out: Mark ix. 44: within, the worm gnaws them; and, without, the fire burns them.

1st. Conscience is this never-dying worm, which shall eternally sting and torture them.

And this is their misery, that they themselves must be their own merciless tormenters. Those, who have but in this life lain under the horrors of despair, sadly know what an inexorable tyrant conscience is: how many doth it now force, in the extreme anguish and horror of their souls, to cry out, They are damned, they are damned! Oh! then, what anguish will it cause in hell, when they shall pronounce themselves damned, and not lie; and have nothing of hope or possibility left to mitigate it! Every sin, which they have committed, shall, like so many vipers, crawl about their hearts, and gnaw them through to all eternity, And the fretting review, that conscience will take of them, shall give them no rest night nor day: "Here I lie burning for ever, for gratifying a base lust, for pleasing my brutish part but for a moment. Ah! fool, where are those sins, those pleasures, which I prized above heaven, and ventured hell for? What remains of them all, but the anguish and horror? And have I thus sold my soul for nothing? and am I thus irrecoverably lost? O Conscience! thou stingest too late; too late, now, for any thing but my torment, These thoughts I should have had while I lived, while I was tempted to such and such a cursed sin then had they been seasonable; but now too late, Conscience, too late for ever!" Thus the never-dying worm shall sting them. But,

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2dly. The unquenchable Fire shall burn them.

This shall be their doom, Depart from me, ye cursed. Whither? into everlasting fire. It is a fire so elevated, as shall be able to work upon the soul itself; and so tempered, as it shall not be able to consume the body. It is a darksome, gloomy fire; that torments by its scorching, but yields no comfort by its light. The Scripture calls it a furnace of fire, to shew its rage and fierceness; and a lake of fire and brimstone, to shew its vastness. Imagine you saw a sea of molten brimstone set on fire,

and vomiting forth black and sooty flames, and thousands of wretched creatures plunging and wallowing in it, and you have some resemblance of what Hell is.

This is the complete and final reward of all impenitent sinners, which they shall receive, according to their works,

Thus I have, in a scanty manner, opened unto the reader the Doctrine of the Last Judgment. As we must, at the Last Day, so we have, in this discourse, seen the Judge sitting upon his throne, and all the world arraigned before him. We have heard what course of law God will proceed by: and what sentence shall be pronounced; of infinite joy to the good, Come, ye blessed; of inconceivable terror to the wicked, Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.

And now, this great assembly breaks up. Heaven throws open its gates to entertain Christ, marching in triumph before all his elect: and hell enlargeth itself to swallow up devils and damned wretches; who, loaden with a most heavy doom, shall sink down into that bottomless pit for ever and ever.

And now, what shall I say? Have I yet need to add any thing that may aggravate the terror of this Great Day? Methinks, fear and astonishment should shake every heart before the Lord. The very devils quake and tremble under a dreadful expectation of this day and shall devils tremble, and yet sinful man be fearless? ay, and confident? Be astonished, O Hell! at this; that hell itself hath not such daring and undaunted sinners, as are upon earth! Do you think you shall live for ever? death is insensibly stealing away your breath; and, after death, comes judgment: and, then, believe it, you shall hear the last sentence pronounced otherwise than in books and sermons. Now, you put far from you the evil day; but this day will come appareled all over with horror and affrightment on every side. That day is a day of wrath; a day of trouble and heaviness; a day of gloominess and darkness; a day of clouds, storms, and blackness; a day of the trumpet and alarm. The sun shall be darkened, the moon turned into blood, and the powers of heaven shaken the stars shall fall as withered leaves: the graves shall vomit up their dead: the heavens shall be shriveled, and the elements molten. And then, Sinner! bear up, and be as stout as thou canst. But, certainly, did men but believe these things, it could not be that they should harden themselves in sin, as they do could iniquity so abound in the world? would there

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be such rank and rotten discourse in every mouth, such oaths and curses, such riot and excess, such filthiness, villany, injustice, rapine, and oppression; did men believe, that the day is coming, wherein they must give a strict account for every idle word and vain thought? for whatsoever they have done in the body, whether it be good or bad?

For shame! therefore, let us either for ever strike it out of our creed, and profess that we do not believe, that Christ shall come to judge both the quick and the dead, or live better. Let that exhortation of the Apostle take place with us, (with which I shall conclude) 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God; wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS.

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