VeE. 30.] SERMONS UPON llATTHEW XXY. 5
For the first point, that hell is a place and state of inexpressible torment, the argument may seem harsh and ingrate, but this is part of the doctrine that we must unfold. See the commission of the ministers of the gospel : Mark xvi. 16, ' He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.' It is gospel preaching to warn men of damnation ; we must curse, as well as bless ; and this part of doctrine hath its profit, as well as the more comfortable.
1. To those that are carnal, to rouse them out of their security. If men did believe the torments of hell, they would not sin as they do. Sermons of hell may keep many out of hell. Ne fugiamus sermones de Gehenna, ut Geliennam fugiamus. John startled many by pressing them ' to flee from wrath to come.' And it is God's usual course to bring to heaven by the gates of hell.
2. To Grod's children ; partly that they may know what they have escaped, to be the more thankful to their Eedeemer. We were all involved in this condemnation ; and it is the Lord's mercy that we are *as brands plucked out of the burning,' Zech. iii. 2. A child of God is a fii'ebrand of hell quenched, Eph. ii. 3. It was the pity of our Lord Jesus to rescue us, 1 Thes. i. 10. It is a part of a christian's heaven to think of hell. The miseries of this life commend heaven to us ; much more the torments of hell. We know good the better by the opposite evil ; as the Israelites, when they looked back, and saw the Egyptians tumbling in the waters, it heightened the deliverance, and made them the more sensible of their own safety. And partly to warn them, and quicken them to their duty. This motive alone would beget slavish fear and compulsory obedience ; but mixed with others, it doth good. We need this discipline as long as we are in the world. We are flesh as well as spirit. Adam in innocency needed to be threatened and told of death. Paul saith, 1 Cor. ix. 27, * I keep under iny body, and bring it into subjection ; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.' If so sanc- tified a man as Paul, much more we ; and Kom. viii. 13, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.' It is one of the saints' motives. And partly because they that cannot endure to hear of such discourses discover much of the guilt and security of their own hearts. As Ahab said of Michaiah, 'He prophesieth nothing but evil,' so men say of many of the preachers of the gospel (that yet speak with tenderness and compassion), He preacheth nothing but hell and damnation. Presumption is a coward and a runaway ; but faith meeteth its enemy in open field : Ps. xxiii. 4, 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet I will fear no evil.' It supposeth the worst ; it can encounter the greatest terrors ; but a false unsound peace is a tender thing, loath to be touched, cannot endure a few sad and sober thoughts of the world to come, as sore eyes cannot endure the light. I shall only speak of this dreadful place and estate as it cometh under the view of this text, leaving a more full discussion of this point to the 41st verse of this chapter.
1. That there is a hell, or everlasting torments prepared for the wicked. It is good to prove a hated truth strongly. Now, it is so, that there is a hell, if God, or man, or devils be competent witnesses
6 SERMONS UPON MATTHEW XXV. [SeR. XVII.
in the case. God hath ever told the world of it, and his witness is true. In the Old Testament but sparingly, because the state of the world to come was reserved as a discovery fit for the times of the gospel, 2 Tim. i. 10 ; yet there God speaketh, Deut. xxxii. 22, of a ' fire kindled in his anger, that shall burn to the lowest hell.' God's wrath is repre- sented by fire, which is an active instrument of destruction ; and the seat and residence of it is in the lowest hell. So Ps. xi. 6, ' IJpon the wicked shall he rain snares, fire, and brimstone.' See more, ver. 41.
2. Let us see it described here.
First, As a dismal state, ' Cast them out into utter darkness ; ' that is — (1.) Shut them out of the feast ; and (2.) Cast them into the dun- geon of hell. There they shall be deprived of all consolation and joy and happiness. As —
1. Of the sight of God, the company of the good angels and blessed spirits ; to which loss there is added the most inexplicable torments of body and soul, which is exceeding great. And it is a dreadful thing to be deprived of the light of God's countenance, to be banished out of his presence. The disciples wept when Paul said, ' Ye shall see my face no more/ Acts xx. 38. What will the damned do when he shall say, ' Depart, ye cursed,' as it is in the 41st verse ? Here in the loss all are equal, but not in the pain ; all alike depart from God ; they all lose heaven's joys, the favourable presence of God, and the sight of Christ, the company of the blessed, and their abode in those happy mansions in Christ's Father's house. Hell is a deep dungeon, where the sunshine of God's presence never cometh. God is summuni bonum, the chief est good ; and in the other world, omne honum, all iu all. All things there are immediately from God, rewards and punish- ments. Better lose all things than God: Exod. xxxiii. 15, 'If thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence.'