[5.] Fifthly, Our fire burns and consumes only the body, it reaches not, it torments not the precious and immortal soul; but infernal Jire burns and torments both body and soul. Now the soid of pain is the pain of the soul : Mat. x. 28, ' And fear not them wliich kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.' If the glutton in the historical parable, who had but one half of himself in hell, viz., his soul, Luke
' The words are figurative, importing cxlraonlinarj' black d.irknc83.
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIEEY DISPENSATION. 207
xvi. 24, cried out that he was horribly tormented in that flame ; what tongue can express or heart conceive how great the damned's torments shall be in hell, when their bodies and souls in the great day shall be reunited for torture? Beloved, it is a just and righteous thing with God, that such bodies and souls that have sinned impenitently together should be tormented everlastingly together. To this purpose, the Hebrew doctors have a very pretty parable, [Pet. Martyr,] — viz., That a man planted an orchard, and, going from home, was careful to leave such watchmen as might both keep it from strangers and not deceive him themselves ; therefore he appointed one blind, but strong of his limbs, and the other seeing, but a cripple. These two in their master's absence conspired together, and the blind took the lame on his shoulders, and so gathered the fruit ; their master returning and finding out this subtlety, punished them both together. Now so shall it be with those two sinful companions, the soul and the bod}'-, in the great day of our Lord, 2 Cor. v. 10; 2 Thes. i. 7-10. With Simeon and Levi they have been brethren in iniquity, and so shall be in eternal misery. As body and soul have been one in sinning, so they shall be one in suffering ; only remember this, that as the soul has been chief in sin, so it shall be cliief in suffering. But, 0 sirs ! if a con- sumable body be not able to endure burning flames for a day, how will an unconsumable soul and body be able to endure the scorching flames of hell for ever ? But,
[6.] Sixthly, Our fire luastetli and consumeth ivhatsoever is cast into it. It turns flesh into ashes, it turns all combustibles into ashes ; but the fire of hell is not of that nature. The fire of hell consumes no- thing that is cast into it ; it rages, but it does not waste either bodies or souls. Look, as the salamander liveth in the fire, so shall the wicked live in the fire of hell for ever. ' They shall seek for death, but they shall not find it,' Kev. ix. 6. They shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them. They shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them and to crush them to nothing. Rev. vi. 16, 17. They shall desire that the fire that burns them would consume them to nothing ; that the worm that feeds on them would gnaw them to nothing ; that the devils which torment them would tear them to nothing, Mark ix. 44, 46, 48. They shall cry to God, who first made them out of no- thing, Gen. i. 26, to reduce them to that first nothing from whence they came ; ' but he that made them will not have mercy on them, he that formed them will not shew them so much favour,' Isa. xxvii. 11. Semper comburentur, nunquam consumentur, They shall always be burned, but never consumed. i Ah, how well would it be with the damned if in the fire of hell they might be consumed to ashes ! But this is their misery, they shall be ever dying, and yet never die ; their bodies shall be always a-burning, but never a-consuming. It is dreadful to be perpetual fuel to the flames of hell ! What misery to this ? for infernal fire to be still a-preying upon damned sinners, and yet never making an end of them ! The two hundred and fifty men that usurped the priest's office were consumed by the fire that came out armed from the Lord against them, Num. xvi. 35. And the fire that Elijah, by an extraordinary s})irit of prayer, brought down from ^ Augustine. This fire \?, poena inconsuwpta. — Jerovie.
208 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
licavcn U]ion the two captains and their fifties, consumed them, 2 Kings i. 10, 12. The fierce and furious flames of liell shall burn, but never anniliihite, the bodies of the damned. In hell there is no cessation of fire burning, nor of matter burned.i Neither flames nor smoke shall consume or choke the impenitent ; both the infernal fire, and the burning of the bodies of reprobates in that fire, shall be pre- served by tlie miraculous power and providence of God. The soul through pain and corruption will lose its heate vivere, its hap})y being ; but it will not lose its essent kditer vivere, its essential life or being. But,