sword, knows no difference betwixt robes and rags, betwixt prince and peasant. ' All flesh is grass,' Isa. xl. 6. The flesh of princes, nobles, counsellors, generals, &c., is grass, as well as the flesh of the meanest beggar that walks the streets. ' The mortal scythe,' saith one, ' is master of the royal sceptre, it mows down the lilies of the crown, as well as the grass of the field.i Never was there orator so eloquent, nor monarch so potent, that could either persuade or withstand the stroke of death when it came. Death's motto is, NuUi cedo. It is one of Solomon's sacred aphorisms, ' The rich and the poor meet to- gether,' Prov. xxii. 2, sometimes in the same bed, sometimes at the same board, and sometimes in the same grave. Death is the com- mon inn of all mankind. ' There is no defence against the stroke of death, nor no discharge in that war,' Heb. ix. 27; Eccles. viii. 8. Death is that only king against whom there is no rising up, Prov. XXX. 31. If your houses be fired, by good help they may be quenched ; if the sea break out, by art and industry it may be repaired ; if princes invade by power and policy, they may be repulsed ; if devils from hell shall tempt, by assistance from heaven they may be resisted. But death comes into royal palaces, and into the meanest cottages, and there is not a man to be found that can make resistance against this king of terrors and terror of kings. Death's motto is, Nemini parco, I spare none. Thus you see that by hell in Mat. v. 29, 30, you may not, you cannot, understand the grave ; and therefore by it you must understand the place of the damned. But if you please you may cast your eye upon another scripture, viz., Mat. x. 28, ' Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' The word ' rather' is not a comparative, but an adversative. We should not fear man at all when he stands in competition with God. So Victo- rian, the proconsul of Carthage, being solicited to Arianism by the ambassadors of King Hunnerick, answered thus, 2 ' Being assured of God and my Lord Christ, I tell you, what you may tell the king. Let him burn me, let him drive me to the beasts, let him torment me with all kinds of torments, I shall never consent to be an Arian;' and though the tyrant afterwards did torture him with very great tortures, yet he could never work him over to Arianism. The best remedy against the slavish fear of tyrants, is to set that great God up as the object of our fear, who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Mark, he doth not say to destroy soul and body simply or absolutely, so that they should be no more — for that many that love their lusts, and prize the world above a Saviour, would be contented withal, rather than to run the hazard of a fierce, hot persecution — but to punish them eternally in hell, where the worm never dieth, nor the fire never goeth out. Now by hell in this Mat. x. 28, the grave can- not be meant, because the soul is not destroyed with the body in the grave, as they both shall be, if the person be wicked, after the morn- ing of the resurrection, in hell, Eccles. xii. 7, and Phil, i, 3. From the immortality of the soul, we may infer the eternity of man's future condition. The soul being immortal, it must be immortally happy or
1 Horat. 1. 1, Ode 28. [Qu. rather 1. 1, Ode 4 ?-G.]
' Victor. Uticens. 1. 3. Wandal. Persecut. [Clarke, as before. — G.]
THAT THERE IS MOST CERTAINLY A HELL. 123
immortally miserable. It was Luther's complaint of old, ' We more fear the pope, with his purgatory, than God, with his hell ; and we trust more in the absolution of the pope from purgatory, than in the true absolution of God from hell.' And is it not so with many this day, who bear their heads high in the land, and who look and long for nothing more than to see Eome^ flourishing in the midst of us ?
Take one scripture more, viz., 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, ' By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison ; which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.' 2 That is, Christ by his Spirit, in the ministry of Noah, did preach to the men of the old world who are now in hell. In Noah's time they were on earth, but in Peter's time they were in hell. Mark, Christ did not preach by his Spirit, in his ministry, or any other way, to spirits who were in prison or in hell while he preached to them. There are no sermons in hell, nor any salvation there. The loving- kindness of God is abundantly declared on earth, but it shall never be declared in hell. Look, as there is nothing felt in hell but destruction, so there is nothing found in hell of the offers of salvation. One offer of Christ in hell would turn hell into a heaven. One of the ancients hath reported the opinion of some in his time who thought, that though there be destruction in hell, yet not eternal destruction, but that sinners should be punished, some a lesser, others a longer time, and that, at last, all shaU be freed. ' And yet,' saith he, ' Origen was more merciful in that point than these men, for he held that the devil himself should be saved at last.' Of this opinion I shall say no more in this place, than this one thing which he there said. These men will be found to err by so much the more foully, and against the right words of God so much the more perversely, by how much they seem to themselves to judge more mercifully ; for indeed the justice of God in punishing of sinners is as much above the reach of man's thoughts as his mercies in pardoning them are, Isa. Iv. 7-9. Oh, let « not such who have neglected the great salvation when they were on earth, Heb. ii. 3, ever expect to have an offer of salvation made to them when they are in hell ! Consult these scriptures. Mat. xxv. 30, xiii. 41, 42 ; Eev. ix. 2, xiv. 19, 20, xx. 1-3, 7. I must make haste, and therefore may not stand upon the opening of these scriptures, hav- ing said enough already to prove both out of the Old and New Testa- ment that there is a hell, a place of torment, provided and prepared for all wicked and ungodly men. But the third argument to prove that there is a hell, is this, —
[3.] The beams of natural light in some of the heathens have made such impressions on the heart of natural coTiscietice, that several of them have had confused notions of a hell, as ivell as of a judgment to come. Though the poor blind heathens were ignorant of Christ
^ Spelled ' Room,' and thereby showing the pronunciation of the day ; on which, as illustrated by this word, see various communications in 'Notes and Queries' for 1866. — G.