you be able to stand in the day of account without holiness in your hearts ? King Philip the Third of Spain, whose life was free from gross evils, professing that he would rather lose all his kingdoms than offend God willingly ; yet, being in the agony of death, and consider- ing more thoroughly of his account that he was to give to God, fear struck into him, and these words brake from him : ' Oh, would to God I had never reigned ! Oh that those years I have spent in my king- dom I had lived a private life in the wilderness ! Oh that I had lived a solitary life with God ! How much more securely should I have now died ! How much more confidently should I have gone to the throne of God ! What does all my glory profit me, but that I have so much the more torment in my death ! Well, gentlemen, there is a day a-coming wherein the Lord will call you to a strict account, both for the principal, and also for the interest of all those talents of honour, riches, and greatness, &c., that he has put into your hands, and how will you be ever able to hold up your heads in this day of account, without you experience principles of holiness in your hearts, and hold forth the power of godliness in your lives ? If Baul was astonished when he heard Jesus of Nazareth but calling upon him, Acts xxii. 7, 8 ; if Herod was affrighted when he thought that John Baptist was risen from the dead, Mark vi. 16 ; if the Philistines were afraid when they saw David's sword, 1 Sam. xxi. 9 ; if the Israelites were appaUed when they saw Aaron's rod. Num. vii. 10; if Judah was ashamed when he saw Thamar s signet and staff. Gen. xxxviii. 2 ; and if Belshazzar was amazed when he saw the handwriting on the wall, Dan. v. 9, oh, how astonished, how affrighted, how ashamed, and how amazed will the great ones of the world be, who live and die without holiness, when God shall bring them to the bar, and com- mand them to give an account of all the talents that he has put into their hands ! If the Carthaginians were troubled when they saw Scipio's sepulchre ; if the Saxons were terrified when they saw Cad- wallon's image; and if the Komans were dashed when they saw Caesar's bloody robe ; ah ! how will all the great unholy ones of the earth be troubled, terrified, and dashed in the great day of their accounts ! There are none that will have such large accounts to give up as the great ones of the world, and therefore there are none that stand so strongly engaged to look aiter holiness as they do. But, fifthly, the greater any men are on earth, if they live and die without holiness, the greater will be their torments in hell ; all their great- ness, glory, and gallantry will but sink them the lower in hell. The Scribes and Pharisees were the rich, the high, and the great ones of the times, and these Christ lays under the greater damnation. Mat. xxiii. 14. The Germans have this proverb, ' The pavement of hell,' say they, ' is made of the bare skulls of the priests, and the glorious crests of gallants.' Their meaning is, that the more eminent any are in church or state, and do not employ their eminency, power, and authority in ways of piety and sanctity, the lower they shall lie in hell, yea, these men, of all others, shall lie lowest in hell, Rev. xviii. 7. ' How much,' or inasmuch as, ' she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her ; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow,'
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 315
Isa. xlvii. 8. Babylon's torment and sorrow must be suitable to her sin. Babylon excelled all others in pride, haughtiness, luxury, and blasphemy, &c., and her punishments must be answerable ; so the great, the rich, the high, and the mighty men of the world, they usually exceed all others in pride, drunkenness, uncleanness, filthi- ness, oppression, vainglory, gluttony, and tyranny, &c,, and answer- able to their sins will be their torments and their punishments in hell : Isa xxx. 33, ' For Tophet is ordained of old,' ay, it may be for the poor, mean, and beggarly of the world ; ' yea, for the king it is prepared ; he hath made it deep and large : the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.' i Alas ! the brick-kilns of Egypt and the furnace of Babylon were but as a blaze of straw to this tormenting Tophet, that has been prepared of old for the great and mighty ones of the earth 1 Oh, how dreadful must that fire be that is prepared by God himself, and that is kindled by the breath of the Lord, and that shall never be quenched ! and yet such is the fire that is prepared for the great and mighty ones of the world 1 Oh, the easeless, the endless, the remediless, the unsufierable, and yet the inevitable torments that are prepared for those that are great and graceless ! In hell their wanton eyes shall be tormented with ugly and fearful sights of ghastly spirits ; and their ears, that used to be delighted with all delightful music, shall now be filled with the hideous cries, bowlings, and yellings of devils and damned spirits ; and their tongues of blasphemy shall now be tormented with drought and thirst ; and though with the glutton they cry out for a drop to cool their tongues, yet justice will deny them drops who have denied others crumbs ; and their hands of bribery, cruelty, and tyranny shall now be bound with everlasting chains, and so shall their feet, which were once swift to shed innocent blood. In a word, their torments shall be universal, they shall extend to every member of the body, and to every faculty of the soul. Ah, sirs ! fire, sword, famine, prisons, racks, and all other torments that men can invent, are but as flea-bitings to those scorpions, but as drops to those vials of wrath, and but as sparks to those eternal flames that all unsanctified persons shall lie under. Look, as the least joy in heaven infinitely surpasseth the greatest comforts on earth, so the least torments in hell do infinitely exceed the greatest that can be devised here on earth. For a close remember this, as there are degrees of glory in heaven, so there are degrees of torment in hell ; and as those that are most eminent in grace and holiness shall have the greatest degrees of glory in heaven, so those that are most vile and wicked on earth shall have the greatest degrees of torments and punishments in hell.2 Now common experience tells us that the rich, the great, the high, the honourable, and the mighty ones of the world are usually the most excelling in all wickedness and ungodliness ; and