VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 39
may be brought with au evil mind : Prov. xxi. 27. The devil careth not what means we use, so he may have his ends ; that is, to keep men in a carnal condition.
[3.] That make it their scope, end, and happiness. That is our scoj)e and end that solaceth om- minds, and sweeteneth our labours ; that which they aim at is to be rich and great in the world, or enjoy their pleasure without remorse: Phil. iii. 19, ' Whose end is destruc- tion, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things.' That is our god wliich lietli next our hearts, to which we offer our actions, and JErom which we fetch our inward complacency, be it the pleasing of the flesh, or being accepted with God. All their delight and contentment is to have the flesh pleased in some worldly thing; this giveth them a joy and rest of mind, and quencheth all sentiments of religion and delight in God. They that aim at pardon, grace, and glory, no worldly thing will satisfy them ; God and heaven are preferred above all the pleasures, honours, and profits they can enjoy here : Psal. iv. 7, ' Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than at the time when their oorn and wine increased.' But it is otherwise with the carnal ; for their hearts run out more pleasingly after some worldly thing ; and when they obtain it, it keepeth them quiet under the guilt of wilful sin, and all their soul-dangers ; and they forget eternity, because they have their heart's desire already : Luke xii. 19, 20, ' And I will say to my soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry ; but God said unto him, thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee ; then whose shall these things be thou hast provided ? ' And the peace and pleasure which they daily live upon, is fetched more from the world than from God, and . Christ, and heaven ; the flesh is at ease, and hath nothing to disturb it ; and tliey design the conveniences of the flesh in their whole lives ; this is their principle, their chief scope and aim ; whatsoever he doth, he still designeth the contentment of the flesh, or some temporal good that shall accrue to him. Thus you see who live after the fle.sh : where no contrary principle is set up to check it ; where it is our daily work to please the flesh, and our great scope and solace to have it pleased.
3. What is this death that is here threatened : ' ye shall die.' Surely the natural death is not intended, for that is common to all, both to those that please the flesh, and those that crucify the flesh : Heb. ix. 27, ' It is appointed for all men once to die .' And besides to the godly it is matter of comfort, a thing which they should rather desire than fear, 1 Cor. iii. 22, death is theirs ; therefore death is but a softer word for eternal damnation, yet used with good reason. The apostle saith, ' Ye shall die,' rather than ' ye shall be damned.'
[1.] Because death to the wicked is an inlet to their final and eternal misery ; it is dreadful to them, not only as a natural evil, as it puts an end to their worldly comforts, but as a penal evil: Heb. ii. 14, 15, ' Who are all their life-time subject to bondage through fear of death,' because of the consequences of it ; then their torment beginneth.
[2.] Because it is more liable to sense. We know hell by faith, and death by sense ; now that notion that is more known, affects us more ; all abhor death as a fearful thing. Briefly, then, this death
40 SERKONS UPON ROMANS VIH. [SeR. XVI.
consists not in an extinction and abolition of the creature, but in a deprivation of the favour and presence of the blessed God, who is the fountain of all comfort; and in the everlasting pains and torments which the soul and body being cast out of God's presence feeleth in hell ; all that weeping and gnashing of teeth, that bitter remembrance of what is past, that acute sense of wliafc is present, that despair and fearful looking for of the fiery indigna- tion of the Lord ; what the scripture speaketh of, it is all included in this word, ' ye shall die.' It is, in short, to be separated from God and Christ, and the saints and angels, and to have eternal fellowship witli devils and damned spirits, together with those unknown pains inflicted on us by the wrath of God in the other world.
[3.] It would not be sufficient to restrain men from sin, if God should only threaten temporal death, and not eternal. Every murderer would venture to execute his malice, every adulterer follow his lusts,. and voluptuous man his swinish and brutish pleasure, if it were only to endure a short ])ain at death, and then be free from misery ever after. We see how offenders venture on man's punishment, and how manr shorten their days for their vain pleasure ; therefore unless the death were everlasting, the world would be little awed by it, unless the bitterness be greater than the present sinful pleasure ; therefore eternal torment is that which God threateneth, and will surely execute on the sensual and carnal ; so that the sinner hath no hope to escape, except by repentance, and breaking this course of living after the flesh.