1. Their sin on earth, which is both specified and aggravated. (1.) Specified ; namely their disobedience. They were sometimes disobedient and unpersuadable ; neither precepts nor examples could bring them to repentance. (2.) This their disobedience is
Locus hie omnium pccne interpretumjudicio difficiUimus. Estius.
ISO A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
aggravated by the expence of God's patience upon them for the space of an hundred and twenty years, not only forbearing them so long, but striving with them, as Moses expresseth it ; or wait- ing on them, as the apostle here ; but all to no purpose ; they were obstinate, stubborn, and impersuadable to the very last.
2. Behold, therefore, in the next place, the dreadful, but most just and equal punishment of these sinners in hell ; they are called sjnr'its in prison, i. e. the souls now in hell *
At that time when Peter wrote of them, they were not entire men, but spirits, in the proper sense, i. e. separated souls, bodiless, and lonely souls : whilst in the body, it is properly a soul ; but when separated, a spirit, according to scripture-language, and the strict notion of such a being.
These spirits, or souls in the state of separation, are said to be in a prison, that is, in hell, as the word elsewhere notes. Rev. xx. 7. and Jude, ver. 6. Heaven and hell are the only receptacles of de- parted, or separated souls.
Thus you have, in a few words, the natural and genuine sense of the place, and it is but a wasting time to repeat and refel the many false and forced interpretations of this text, which corrupt minds, and mercenary pens have perplexed and darkened it withal : That which I level at, is comprised in this plain proposition.
Doct. That the souls or spirits of all men who die in a state of unbelief and disobedience, are immediately committed to the pri- son of hell, there to suffer the wrath of God due to their sins.
Hell is shadowed forth to us in scripture by divers metaphors ; " for we cannot conceive spiritual things, unless they are so cloth- " ed and shadowed out unto us *." Augustine gives this reason for the frequent use of metaphors and allegories in scripture, be- cause they are so much proportioned to our senses, with which our senses have contracted an intimacy and familiarity ; and therefore God, to accommodate his truth to our capacities, doth as it were, this way embody it in earthly expressions, according to that celebrated observation of the Cabbalists, — Lumen supremum nun^ quam descendit si7ie indumento ; — the pure and supreme light never descends to us without a garment or covering. In the Old Testa- ment, the place and state of damned souls are set forth by metaphors taken from the most remarkable places and exemplary acts of ven- geance upon sinners in this world ; as the overthrow of the giants by the flood, those prodigious sinners that fought against heaven, and
* Psal. xxxi. 6. Eccl. xii. 7. Acts vii. 50.
t Spirilualia capere non possuvius, nisi adumhraia.
A TREATISE Of THE SOL'L OF MAH» 131
were swept by the flood into the place of torment. To tliis Solo- mon is conceived to allude, in Prov. xxxi. 16. " The man that wan- " ders out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congre- " gation of the dead ;" in the Hebrew it is, he shall remain with the Rephaims, or giants. These giants were the men that more es- pecially provoked God to bring the flood upon the world ; they are also noted as the first inhabitants of hell, therefore from them the place of torment takes its name, and the damned are said to remain in the place of giants.
Sometimes hell is called Tophet, Isa. xxx. S3. This Tophet was in the valley of Hinnom, and was famous for divers things* There the children of Israel caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch, or sacrificed to the devil, drowning their horri- ble shrieks and ejaculations with the noise of drums.
In this valley also was the memorable slaughter of eighteen hun- dred thousand of the Assyrian camp, by an angel, in one night.
There, also, the Babylonians murdered the people of Jerusalem at the taking of the city, Jer. vii. 31, S2. So that Tophet was a mere shambles, the public chopping-block, on which the limbs oli both young and old were quartered out, by thousands. It was fil- led with dead bodies, till there was no place for burial. By all which it appears, that no spot of ground in the world was so fa- mous for the fires kindled in it to destroy men, for the doleful criea that echoed from it, or the innumerable multitudes that perished in it ; for which reason it is made the emblem of hell. Sometimes it is called a " lake of fire burning with brimstone,'' Rev. xix. 20. denoting the most exquisite torment, by an intense and durable flame.
And in the text, it is called a jsri.soT?, where the spirits of ungodly men are both detained and punished. This notion of a prison gives us a lively representation of the miserable state of damned souls, and that especially in the following particulars.
First, Prisoners are arrested and seized by authority of law ; it is the law which sends them thither, and keeps them there ; the mittimus of a justice is but the instrument of the law, whereby they are deprived of liberty, and taken into custody. The law of God which sinners have both violated and despised, at death takes hold of them, and arrests them. It is the law which claps up their spi- rits in prison, and in the name and authority of the great and ter- rible God, commits them to hell. All that' are out of Christ, are under the curse and damning sentence of the law, which now come? to be executed on them. Gal. iii. 10.
Secondly, Prisoners are cai*ried, or haled to prison by force and constraint ; natural force backs legal authority : the law is execu- ted by rough and resolute bailiffs, who compel them to go, though
132 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
never so nnich against their will ; this also is the case of the wicked at death : Satan is God's bailiiF, to hurry away the law-condemned souls to the infernal prison. The devil hath the power of death, Heb. ii. 14. as the executioner hath of the body of a condemned man.
Thirdly^ Prisoners are chained and bolted in prison, to prevent their escape ; so are damned spirits secured by the power of God, and chained by their own guilty and trembling consciences in hell, unto the time of judgment, and the fulness of misery ; not that they have no torment in the mean time : alas ! were there no more but that fearful expectation of wrath and fiery indignation, spoken of by the apostle, Heb. x. 27. it were an inexpressible torment ; but there is a farther degree of torment to be awarded them at the judgment of the great day, to which they are therefore kept as in chains and prisons.