O think what it is to pass from all the pleasures and delights of this world into the torments and miseries of that world ; from a pleasant habitation into an infernal prison; from the depth of security to the extremity of desperation ; from the arms and bosoms of dearest friends and relations, to the society of damned spirits ! Lord, what a change is here ; had a gracious change been made upon their hearts by grace, no such doleful change could have been made upon their state by death : little do their surviving friends think what •they feel, or what is their estate in the other world whilst they are honouring their bodies with splendid and pompous funerals. None on earth have so much reason to fear death, to make much of hfe, and use all means to continue it, as those who will, and must be so great losers by the exchange.
Inf. 13. See here the certainty^ and inevitahleness of the judgment of the great day.
This prison which is continually filling with the spirits of wick- ed men is an undeniable evidence of it : for why is hell called a prison, and why are the spirits of men confined and chained there but with respect to the judgment of the great day ? As there is a necessary connexion betwixt sin and punishment, so betwixt punishing and trying the offender ; there are milhons of souls in custody, a world of spirits in prison ; these must be brought forth to their trial, for God will lay upon no man more than is right ;
152 A TREAtlSE OF THE SOtJL OF ^\aV.
the legality of their mittimus to hell will be evidenced in their so- lemn day of trial. God hath therefore " appointed a day in ** which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man ♦* whom he hath ordained," Acts xvii. 31.
Here sinners run in arrears, and contract vast debts ; in hell they are seized and committed, at judgment tried and cast for the same. This will be a dreadful day, those that have spent so prodi- gally upon the patience of God, must now come to a severe account for all ; they have past their particular judgment immediately after death, Eccl. xii. 7. Heb. ix. 27. By this they know how they shall speed in the general judgment, and how it shall be with them for ever, but though this private judgment secures their damnation sufficiently, yet it clears not the justice of God before angels and men sufficiently, and therefore they must appear once more before his bar, 2 Cor. v. 10. In the fearful expectation of this day, those trembling spirits now lie in prison, and that fearful expecta- tion is a principal part of their present misery and torment. You that refuse to come to the throne of grace, see if you can refuse to make your appearance at the bar of justice; you that braved and brow-beat your ministers that warned you of it, see if you can out- brave your Judge too as you did them. Nothing more sure or awful than such a day as this.
Lif. 14. Hozv much are ministers^ parents, and all to whom the charge of souls is committed, hound to do all that in them lies to pre^ vent their everlasting misery in the world to come f
The great apostle of the Gentiles found the consideration of the terror of the Lord as a spur urging and enforcing him to a minis- terial faithfulness and diligence; 2 Cor. v. 11. "Knowing there- " fore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." And the same he presseth upon Timothy, 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2. " I charge thee " therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall " judge the quick and the dead at his appearing, and liis kingdom ; " preach the word ; be instant in season and out of season ; re- " prove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine.'' O that those to whom so great a trust as the souls of men is com- mitted, would labour to acquit themselves with all faithfulness therein, as Paul did, warning every one night and day with tears, that if we cannot prevent their ruin, which is most desirable ; yet at least we may be able to take God to witness, as he did, that we are pure from the blood of all men.
Oh ! consider, my brethren, if your faithful plainness and un- wearied diligence to save men's souls produce no other fruit but the hatred of you liow ; yet it is much easier for you to bear that, than that they and you too should bear the wrath of God for ever.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 153
We have all of us personal guilt enough upon us, let us not add other men's guilt to our account : to be guilty of the blood of the meanest man upon earth, is a sin which will cry in your consciences ; but to be guilty of the blood of souls, Lord, who can bear it ! Christ thought them worthy his heart-blood, and are they not worth the expence of our breath ? Did he sweat blood to save them, and will not we move our lips to save them ? It is certainly a sore judgment to the souls of men, when such ministers are set over them as never understood the value of their people's souls, or were never heartily concerned about the salvation of their own souls.
For what is a man pr'qfited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange Jbr his soul ?
JLrlFFICULT duties need to be enforced with powerful argu- ments. In the 24th verse of this chapter, our Lord presseth upon his disciples the deepest and hardest duties of self-denial, acquaints them upon what terms they must be admitted into his service : " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and " take up his cross and follow me."
This hard and difficult duty he enforceth upon them by a dou- ble argument, viz. From,
1. The vanity of all sinful shifts from it, ver. 25.
2. The value of their souls, which is imported in it, ver. 26. They may shift off their duty to the loss of their souls, or save
their souls by the loss of such trifles. If they esteem their souls above the world, and can be content to put all other things to the hazard for their salvation, making account to save nothing but them by Christianity ; then they come up to Christ's terms, and may warrantably and boldly call him their Lord and Master; and to sweeten this choice to them, he doth, in my text, balance the sold and all the world, weighing them one against the other, and shews them the infinite odds and disproportion betwixt them : " What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and " lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for " his soul r
What is a man profited ?] There is a plain meiosis in the phrase ; and the meaning is, how inestimably and irreparably is a man damnified ! what a soul-ruining bargain would a man make !
If he should gain the wlwlc world.'] There is a plain hyperbola
154 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN,