2. There is the sense of their present pain. Here, when we are corrected, we are senseless, like stocks and stones ; but there must needs be feeling, because there is nothing to mitigate their torment, no carnal comforts wherein to steep conscience, no carnal companions that can be a comfort to us : the more we look upon them, the more we see our own sorrow by reflection. There is nothing left but indig- nation and impatience, and gnawing their tongues because of their anguish. Their discontent is part of their torment,
3. For the future, their condition is hopeless. If thei;e could bo hope in hell, the punishment would be the better borne ; but ' there remaineth nothing but a fearful looking for of the fiery indignation of God,' Heb. x. 27. And it is a living God, who liveth for ever and ever, that is their enemy. Oh ! who can think of it without astonish- ment ? When they have run through thousands of years they still expect more. It is tedious to think of a short fit of pain of the stone or gout ; but that is for ever. They endure all at once by thinking of what is to come.
Again, there is the fire, or an active sense of the wrath of God. Consider the greatness of it in these circumstances: —
1. God hath an immediate hand in the sufferings of the wicked : Heb. X. 33, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' The wicked fall immediately into his hands ; the quarrel is his own, therefore he will take revenge by his immediate power. No creature is strong enough to convey all his wrath, as a bucket cannot contain an ocean. Man's anger is like himself, weak and finite, but God's is infinite : Ps. xc. 11, ' Who knoweth the power of thine anger ?' Surely we do not consider what it is to fall into God's hands.
2, God sets himself a- work to see what, he can do, and what a creature can bear. The capacity of the creature is enlarged to the utmost: Eom. ix. 22, ' What if God, willing to show his wrath, and make his power known, endured with much long-suftering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?' His justice decreeth it, his wisdom designeth it, and his power executeth it. He falleth upon us as an
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98 SERMONS TJrON MATTHEW XXV. [SeI!. XXVI.
enemy to the utmost ; with one hand he iiplioldetli the creature, and with the other punisheth it. Plerc he showeth what a creature can do when armed by him, hereafter what he can do himself : Ps. Ixxviii. 39; ' For he remembered they were but flesh ; he did not stir up all his wrath.' It doth not break out in its full wei^^ht and force.
3. Consider some instances of God's wrath : ' When his anger is kindled but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him,' Ps. ii. 12. In corrective discipline, when Grod's children fall into any disease, the burnings of a fever, the gripes of the cholic, the torment of the stone, they cannot endure two or three days' pain ; how wilt thou dwell with devouring burnings ? These are nothing to the sharp punishments of hell on the body. Poor creatures are at their wits' end when but a spark or flash of this fire lighteth into the conscience. Judas hanged himself. Job cursed the day of his birth ; yet this is but a drop ; these come from hell, they have been in the suburbs of it. Dives wished that Lazarus might but dip the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue ; these are warnings, they can tell you what a dreadful thing it is. The Lord Christ, who was the Son of God, perfect in faith and patience, he wanted no courage, he was under no despair in the midst of his agonies, yet he cried out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' Oh ! what will become of them whose portion it is ? Thus for the nature.
Secondly, The duration, everlasting fire. The pains of hell are eternal.
1. The moral reasons of it are —
[1.] Partly because our obligations to God are infinite. In a way of love, God hath done as much as he could. We turn the back upon eternal happiness which was offered in the gospel. They can never restore the honour to God which they have deprived him of, therefore their punishment is for evermore: the justice of God can never be satisfied by a finite creature. Believers do it in Christ, but the wicked are in their final estate.
[2.] They still remain impenitent ; the damned are not changed in hell. Melted metal groweth hard again : the bad thief, that had one foot in hell, dietli blaspheming ; their judgments are changed, but not their hearts. If one should come from the dead, he might speak to you of eternity, and that in hell they suffer eternal punishments.
2. The natural reasons are —
[1.] The fire continueth for ever, Heb. x. 33 ; the breath of the Lord still keepeth the flame burning ; the fuel continueth for ever, and wicked men continue for ever ; they consume not, but are immortal in body and soul. Oh ! think of this ! there is no end, no intermission. No end ; the fire on Sodom lasted but a day ; but when the wicked have lain in hell a thousand years, it is but as the first day. When a man is sick, he tumbleth and tosseth, and telleth the hours of the night, and wishcth it were day. We are wont to think a sermon long, a prayer long; what will hell be? Conscience will ever be talking to thee, repeating over the story of thy life, and putting thee in remem- brance of the wrath of God that endureth for ever. And —