Well, then, since they break the laws of the eternal God, and the very nature of the sin is a despising eternal blessedness for some tem- poral pleasure and profit, and this they would do everlastingly if they could subsist here so long, and during all the time of God's patience, and their trial, they would never pass from death to life, or change masters and covenants, they are justly punished with everlasting destruction.
Secondly, This particular is amplified by the parts of it, poena damni and poena sensus, the punishment of loss, and the punishment of sense.
1. The loss, intimated in that clause, ' From the presence of the Lord.' They shall be banished out of his sight, and presence, and company for evermore : ' Depart, ye cursed.' Concerning this part of the punishment observe —
[1.] That herein all are equal. There are degrees in the pain, for some have Treptacrorepov /cpifia, a heavier and more intolerable judgment ; some have few, some have many stripes ; but all are equally excluded from the fruition of God and Christ, all are under the sentence of ' Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,' Mat. vii. 23.
[2.] What is the saints' blessedness is the wicked's torment ; they are punished from the presence of the Lord, and thence our refreshings come : Acts iii. 19, ' That your sins may be blotted out, when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.' That which is our happiness is their misery.
[3.] How fitly this is inflicted on them. Forsaking God and departing from God is now their sin, and then their misery ; they cast God out of their thoughts : Eom. i. 28, ou/c ehoKifxaaav, ' They liked not to retain God in their knowledge.' They would raze out of their minds everything that doth put them in remembrance of God ; the very thoughts of him are a burden to them. They rejected God, and now God rejecteth them ; they bid him to depart, Job xxi. 14, so now Christ will bid them depart. They cannot endure his presence, and then he will not endure theirs. The impressions of God upon their hearts are a trouble and vexation to them, therefore is their presence loathsome to Christ. So that this is plainly a loss of their own procuring ; they first excommunicated God, as not enduring his presence and company, and they are paid home by a just recompense, excommunicated from the glorious church of the blessed.
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258 SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. [SER. VII.
[4.] This is the hell of hell, the greatest part of the punishment.
(1.) It is a great punishment in itself. To be expelled from the presence of the Lord is to be deprived of an infinite good ; they lose the favourable presence of God, the sight of Christ, the company of the blessed, and their abode in those happy mansions which are in Christ's Father's house. Hell is a deep dungeon, where the sunshine of God's presence never cometh : Ps. xvi. 11, 'In thy presence is fulness of joy.' This they are deprived of. How grievous was Paul's departure to the disciples ! When he told them, ' Ye shall see my face no more ; ' they wept : Acts xix. 38, ' Sorrowing most of all for the words he spake, that they should see his face no more.' Surely when Christ shall tell the wicked so, what a torment will it be to their minds ! Better lose all things than lose the presence of God : Exod. xxxiii. 15, ' If thy presence go not up with us, carry us not hence.' They would live in the wilder- ness with God rather than enter into Canaan without him ; they shall see what God's presence is by Christ's appearance in the brightness of his glory, a sight that will stick in their minds to all eternity ; and when they see with what grace and honour he receiveth his servants, and themselves shut out, Luke xiii. 38, it shall make them more ap- prehensive of their loss ; as Dives was the more affected when he saw Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, Luke xvi. 27. Others of the same nature and interests do enjoy what they have forfeited.
(2.) They shall have a full sense of the greatness of the loss. A wicked man now careth not for the light of God's countenance ; he is blinded by the delusions of the flesh, and looking altogether to visible things, he hath no sound belief of the things which are invisible ; but now he comes to understand the reality of what he hath lost, and what was mere matter of faith before becometh an object of sense. Punishment openeth their eyes, which sin hath shut. Besides they have no natural comforts to divert their minds, no plays, or sports and pleasures, no pleasant meats, nor drink, nor company, which now draw off the heart from better things, and solace them in the want of them ; but now there is nothing of this left. Supposing a rational creature to exist, and hath nothing to divert his mind, his understanding, reflect- ing upon his loss, would be torment enough to him. In short, sensible experience teach eth them how to value their loss, and they have nothing to bridle the affections, nor carnal mirth to allay the bitterness of their condition. And once more, all their hope, false peace and con- fidence is gone, they hope now to fare as well as the best, but then their hope leaveth them ashamed ; they see it is quite otherwise.