SO far incorporeal, as it tormenteth the soul. Socrates, speaking of hell, saith, I was never there myself, neither have I ever spoke with any that came from thence. Suppose, saith one, [Mr Bolton,] there be no fire in hell, yet I assure thee this, that thou shalt be scorched with fire ; the fire of God s wrath shall torment thee more than bodily fire can do, and therefore it will be your wisdom not so much to question this or that about hell-fire, as to make it your work, your business, not to come there. He gave good counsel who said, [Bernard,] Let us go down to hell while we are alive, that Ave may not go to hell when we are dead. And so did he who, speaking of hell, said, [Ohrysostom,] Ne quceramus ubi sit, sed quomodo illamfugiamus, Let us not seek where it is, but how we shall avoid it. The same author gives this furtlier counsel — viz., Tliat at all banquets, feasts, and public meetings, men should talk of hellish pains and torments, that so their hearts may be overawed, and they provoked to avoid them and secure themselves against them. Doubtless, the serious thoughts of hellish pain while men Hve, is one blessed way to keep them from those torments when they come to die. Another gives this pious counsel. Let us earnestly importune the Lord, that this knowledge, whether the fire of hell be material or not, be never mani- fested to us by experience.. It is infinitely better to endeavour the avoiding hell-iire, than curiously to dispute about it. Look, as there is nothing more grievous than hell, so there is nothing more profitable than the fear of it.
OhJ. But what difference is there between our common fire and hell-fire ?
I answer, a mighty difference, a vast difference. Take it in these six particulars : —
[1.] First, They differ in their heat. No heart can conceive, nor no tongue can express the exquisite heat of infernal fire. Were all the fires under heaven contracted into one fire ; yea, were all the coals, wood, oil, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, brimstone, and all other com- bustibles in the world contracted into one flame, into one fire, yet one spark of infernal fire would be more hot, violent, dreadful, amaz- ing, astonishing, raging, and tormenting, than all that fire that is supposedly made up of all the combustibles tlie earth affords. To man's sense, tliere is nothing more terrible and afflictive than fire ; and of all fires, there is none so scalding and tormenting as that of brimstone. Now in that lake which burns with fire and brimstone for ever and ever, shall the wicked of the earth be cast.i Infernal fire far exceeds ours — that are on our hearths and in our chimneys — in degree of heat and fierceness of burning. Our fire hath not that terrible power to scorch, burn, torment, as the fire of hell hath. Our fire, as Polycarpus and others say, compared to hell-fire, is but like painted fire upon the wall. Now you know a painted fire upon the wall will not hurt you, nor burn, nor affright you, nor torment you ; but the fire of heU will, beyond all your conception and expression, hurt, burn, affright, and torment you. The fire of hell, for degrees
^ Rev. liv. 10, and xxi. 8. The fire in a landscape is but ignis pictus, a painted fire, and the fire of purgatory is but ignis fictus, feigned fire. Now what are these to hell- fire?
204 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
of lieat, and fierceness of burning, must wonderfully surpass our most furions fires, because it is purposely created by God to torment the creature, whereas our ordinary fire was created by God only for the comfort of the creature. The greatest and the iiottest fires that ever were on earth, are but ice in comparison of the fire of hell, [Alsted.]
[2.] (Secondly, There are unexpressible torments in hell, as toell as nnspeahahh joys i7i heaven. Some who write of purgatory, tell us that the pains thereof are more exquisite, though of shorter continuance, than the united torments that the earth can invent, though of longer duration. If the i)0})e's kitchen be so warm, how hot is the devil's furnace ?l A poetical fiction is but a meiosis, when brought to shew the nature of these real torments: the lashes of furies are but petty scourgings, when compared to the stripes of a wounded conscience. Tytius his vulture,^ though feeding on his liver, is but a flea-biting to that worm which gnaweth their iiearts and dieth not. Ixion his wheel is a place of rest, if compared with those billows of wrath, and tliat wheel of justice, whicli is in hell brought over the ungodly. The task of Danaiis his daughter is but a sport, compared to the tortures of those whose souls are filled with bitterness, and within whom are the arrows of the Almighty, the poison whereof doth drink up their spirits. Hell is called a furnace of fire, whicli speaketh intolerable heat ; a place of torment, which speaketh a total privation of ease ; a prison, which speaketh restraint. Mat. xiii. 42 ; Luke xvi. 28 ; Mat. V. 22-25 : Gehenna, from the valley of Hinnom, where the unnatural parents did sacrifice the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their souls to their merciless idols, — the which word, by a neighbour nation, is retained to signify a rock,3 — than the torture of which what more ex- quisite ? It is called a lake of fire and brimstone ; than the torment of the former, what more acute? than the smell of, the latter, what more noisome? But,
[3.] Tiiirdly, Our jire is made by the hand of man, and must he maintained by continual supplies of fuel. Take away the coals, the wood, the combustible matter, and the fire goes out ; but the infernal fire is created, and temi)ered, and blown by the hand of an angry, sin- revenging God : Isa. xxx. 33, ' For Tophet is ordained of old ; yea, for the king it is prepai-ed ; he hath made it deep and large : the pile thereof is fire and much wood, and the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it;' and therefore the breath of all the reprobates in hell shall never be able to blow it out.'^ Our fire is blown by an airy breath, but the infernal fire is blown by the angry breath of the great (xod, which burns far hotter than ten thousand thousand rivers of brimstone. The breath of God's mouth shall be both bellows and fuel to the infernal fire ; and therefore, oh how terrible and torturing, how fierce and raging will that fire be ! If but three drops of brimstone should fall upon any part of the flesh of a man, it would fill him so full of torment, that he would not be able to forbear roaring out for pain and anguish. Oh how dreadful and
' Bellarm. de Purg., lib. ii. c. 14 ; Bellarm. de JEler. Faeli. Sanct., lib. i. c. 11.
* Prometheus, as before. — O. s Query, ' rack ?'— Ed.
* A river of briiustoue is never consumed bj- burning.
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 205