114 ' THAT THERE IS MOST CERTAINLY A HELL.
there is a hell, a place of torment provided and prepared for all wicked and ungodly persons.^ Danseus reckons up no less than nineteen several sorts of heretics that denied it ; and are there not many erro- neous and deluded persons that stoutly and daily assert that there is no hell but what men feel in their own consciences ? Ah, how many are there that rejoice to do evil, and delight in their abominations, and take pleasure in imrighteousness ! 2 But could men do thus, durst men do thus, did they really believe that hell was prepared and fitted for them, and that the fiery lake was but a little before them ? Heaven is a place where all is joyful, and hell is a place where all is doleful. In heaven there is nothing but happiness, and in hell there is nothing but heaviness, nothing but endless, easeless, and remediless torments. Did men believe this, how could they go so merrily on in the way to hell? Cato once said to Ccesar, Credo qmx, de inferis dicuntur falsa esse exis- timas, I believe that thou thinkest all that is said of hell to be false and fabulous. So I may say to many in this day. Surely you think that all that is spoken and written of hell is but a story. Don't you look upon the people of God to be of all men the most miserable, and your- selves of all men the most happy ? Yes ! Oh, but how can this be, did you really believe that there was a heaven for the righteous and a heU for the wicked ? It is an Italian proverb. Qui Venetias non vidit, ncm credit, &c,, He who hath not seen Venice will not believe ; and he who hath not lived some time there doth not understand what a city it is. This in a sense is true of hell. But now for the Quod sit, that there is a hell, that there is such a place of misery prepared and ap- pointed for the wicked, I shall briefly demonstrate against the high atheists and Socinians of this day, and therefore thus,
[1.] First, God created angels and men after his ovm image. Man must be so much honoured as to be made like God ; and no creature must be so much honoured as to be made like man. The pattern after which man was made is sometimes called image alone. So ' God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him,' Gen. i. 27. Sometimes likeness alone: Gen. v. 1, 'In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.' Sometimes both : Gen. i. 26, ' Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ;' which makes a prudent interpreter think that when they are joined it is by hendiadys, and that the Holy Ghost meaneth an image most hke his own. 3 It is exceeding much for man's honour that he is an epit- ome of the world, an abridgment of other creatures, partaking with the stones in being, with the stars in motion, with the plants in grow- ing, with the beasts in sense, and with angels in science. But his being made after God's image is far more. You know, when great men erect a stately building, they cause their own picture to be hung upon it, that spectators may know who was the chief founder of it. So when God had created the fabric of this world, the last tiling
^ All the hell Socinians grant is annihilation, by reason it is said, they shall be destroyed, vide Socinus, Racov[ian] Cat[echism], Crellius, Biddle, liichardson, &c.
^ Jer. xi. 15 ; Prov. ii. 14 ; Isa. Ixv. 3 ; 2 Thes. ii. 11 ; Mat. xxv. 41 ; Isa. xxx. 33. Andr. Rivet, in Gen. Exercit. 4. Nihil est in mcecrocosmo magnum prater micro- cosmum, There is nothing in the vast world of creatures truly great, except the little world of ma.n.—Favorinus. [It takes another form— There is nothing great on earth but man, and there is nothing great in man but mind.— G.]
THAT THERE IS MOST CERTAINLY A HELL. 115
he did was the setting up his own picture in it, creating man after his own image. When the great Creator went about that noble work, that prime piece of maldng of man, he doth, as it were, call a solemn council of the sacred persons in the Trinity : ' And God said, Let us make man in our image,' &c.. Gen. i. 26. Man before his fall was the best of creatures, but since his fall he is become the worst of creatures, i He that was once the image of God, the glory of Paradise, the world's lord, and the Lord's darling, is now become an abomination to God, a burden to heaven, a plague to the world, and a slave to Satan. When man first came out of God's mint he did shine most gloriously, as being bespangled with holiness and clad with the royal robe of righteousness ; his understanding' was filled with knowledge ; his will with upright- ness ; his afiections with holiness, &c. But yet, being a mutable crea- ture, and subject to temptations, Satan quickly stripped him of his happiness, and cheated and cozened him of his imperial crown — as we use to do children — with an apple. If God had created angels and men immutable, he had created them gods and not creatures; but being made mutable we know they did fall from their primitive purity and glory ; and we know that out of the whole host of angels he kept some from falling ; and when all mankind was fallen he redeemed some by his Son. Now mark, as he shews mercy upon some in their salvation, so it is meet that he should glorify his justice upon others in their condemnation, Rom. vii. 21-23. And because there must be distinct places for the exercise of the one and for the execution of the other, which are in God equally infinite by an irrecoverable 2 decree from the foundation of the world, a glorious habitation was prepared for the one, and a most hideous dungeon for the other. ' These shall go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal,' Mat. XXV. 46 ; yea, so certain are both these places that they were of old prepared for that very purpose. ' Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; ' and so, ' Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,' ver. 41. Look, as God foresaw the different estates and conditions of men and angels, so he provided for them distinct and different places. Doubt- less, hell was constituted before angels or men fell. Hell was framed before sin was hatched, as heaven was formed and fitted before any of the inhabitants were produced. But,
[2.] Secondly, That there is a hell, both the Old and New Testament doth clearly and fully testify. Take some instances : Ps. ix. 17, ' The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.' In the Hebrew there are two 'intos,' 'into, into' hell; that is, 'The wicked shall certainly be turned into the nethermost hell;' yea, they shall forcibly be turned into the lowest and darkest place in hell.^ God will, as it were, with both hands thrust him into hell. If Sheol here signify the grave only, what punishment is here threatened to the wicked, which the righteous is not equally liable to? Doubtless, Sheol here is to be taken for that prison or place of torment where