Object. But is it any grief to the wicked to want God, from whom they have such an extreme averseness and hatred ?
Ans. They are sensible of the loss of happiness ; their judgment is changed, though not renewed. Fogs of error, atheism, and unbelief then vanish ; they are confuted by experience. There are no atheists in hell ; they know there is a God, and that all happiness consists in the full enjoyment of him ; which happiness they have lost by their own folly, as by their bitter experience they can find, being in a place most remote from him : therefore, as rational creatures, they cannot but be sensible of their loss ; and that sense must needs breed sadness and dejection of spirit ; being they look not upon God as lovely in himself, but as one that might be profitable to them : oculos qiios occlusit culpa, a2:)eriet i^oena. It would lessen their torments if their understandings might be taken away : they know what it is to want God, though their hatred of him still remaineth.
2. The sight of Christ. They had a glimpse before they went into hell, by the glory of his presence : 2 Thes. i. 9, ' They shall be pun- ished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.' That short experience of Christ's appearing will remain in their minds to all eternity ; it will stick by them. How are they thrust out ? Christ himself, who hath the keys of death and hell, shall bid them go; as if he had said, I cannot endure your presence.
VeR. 30.] SERMONS UPON MATTHEW XXV. 7
3. From the company of the blessed : Luke xiii. 28, ' There shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.' Envy is a great part of their punishment, as well as horror : Luke xvi. 27, ' And being in torments, he lift up his eyes, and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.' It is a torment to think that others of the same nature, interests, instruc- tion, do enjoy what they have forfeited.
4. From an abode in the palace of heaven : Eev. xxii. 15, * With- out shall be dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.' If the pavement of heaven is glorious, what will the place itself be ? And from this glori- ous place they are banished.
Secondly, This utter darkness implieth positively a state of woe and misery most remote from this blessedness ; for as they are shut out of the palace of heaven, so they are cast into the prison of hell, where all is dark, without hope of ever coming out more : 2 Peter ii. 17, ' To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.' Hell is a region upon which the sun shall never shine. They know they shall never be reconciled to God, nor their punishment ended or lessened : ' Their worm shall never die, their fire shall never be quenched,' Mark ix. 44. They can never hope to be admitted into God's presence more. There are many ups and downs in a christian's experience. God hideth his face sometimes, that he may show it afterwards the more gloriously. The church prayeth, Ps. Ixxx. 19, * Turn again, and cause the light of thy countenance to shine upon us, and we shall be saved.' But this is an everlasting darkness. God doth, as it were, by chains hold them under everlasting torments. It is a curse that shall never be reversed, a comfortless life that shall never have an end. Men might lose the face of God if they were annihilated ; but the souls of men and women do not go to nothing, or die as their bodies, but subsist in a dolesome miserable state of darkness, and in the place of everlasting imprisonment, where the devils and damned spirits torment one another. All here are kept safe, without any possibility of escaping ; here God holdeth them in everlasting chains.
Now this is just ; they that rejected the light are thrust into utter darkness. They reject the light of the gospel : John iii. 19, ' Men love darkness more than light.' They despise the light of glory, in com- parison of worldly things and present satisfactions : Ps. cvi. 24, * They despised the good land.' They forsake God and their own happiness ; that which is now their sin is then their misery. They first excom- municated God, Job xxii. 17, and that for a trifle. They think his pre- sence a torment : Mat. viii. 20, ' What have we to do with thee ? art thou come to torment us before the time ? ' Kom. i. 28, ' They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.' They could not endure to think of God, and abhorred their own thoughts of God, that they were their burden.
Secondly, It is a doleful place and state. Here are two notions, the one expressing their grief and sorrow, the other their vexation and indignation.
1. Their gfrief and sorrow. In hell there is nothing but sorrow and