1. God knoweth the change is great, which you are near. You are leaving this world, where you have spent the days of your preparation for eternity, and leaving this flesh to corrupt and turn to common earth, and must here converse with man no more: you are going now to see that world, which the gospel told you of, and you have often heard of, but neither you nor we did ever see. Before your friends have laid your body in the grave, your soul must enter into its endless state, and at the resurrection your body be joined with it. Either heaven or hell must be your lot for ever. If it be heaven, you will there find a world of light, and love, and peace; a world of angels and glorified souls, who are all made perfect in knowledge and holiness; living in the perfect flames of love to their glorious Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator: and with them you will be thus perfected yourself: your soul will see the glory of God, and be rapt up in his love, and filled with his joys, and employed triumphantly in his praises, and this for ever. If hell should be your portion, you will there be thrust away as a hated thing from the face of God, and there you will find a world of devils, and unholy, damned, miserable souls; among whom you must dwell, in the flames of the wrath of God, and the horrors of your own conscience, remembering with anguish the mercy which you once rejected, and the warnings and time which once you lost:[135] and at the resurrection your soul and body must be reunited and live there in torment and despair for ever. I know these things are but half believed by the ungodly world, while they profess to believe them; and therefore they must feel that which they refused to believe: but God hath revealed it to us, and we will believe our Maker. You are now going to see the great difference between the end of holiness and of sin; between the godly and the ungodly; and to know by your own experience those joys or torments, which the wicked will not know by faith. And oh what a preparation doth such a change require!
II. You are next to know what persons they are, and how they differ, who must abide for ever in these different states. As we are the children of Adam, we are all corrupted; our minds are carnal, and set upon this world, and savour nothing but the things of the flesh; and the further we go in sin, the worse we are; being strangers to the life of faith, and to the love of God and the life to come, taking the prosperity and pleasure of the flesh for the felicity which we most desire and seek. The name of this state in Scripture is, carnal, and ungodly, and unholy; because such men live in a mere fleshly nature or disposition for fleshly ends, in a fleshly manner, and are not at all devoted to God, and carried up to heavenly desires and delights; but live chiefly for this life, and not for the life to come: and though they may take up some kind of religion, in a second place and upon the by, for fear of being damned when they can keep the world no longer; yet is it this world which they principally value, love, and seek, and their religion is subject to their worldly and fleshly interest and delights. And though God hath provided and offered them a Saviour, to teach them better, and reclaim and sanctify them by his word and Spirit, and forgive them if they will believe in him and return, yet do they sottishly neglect this mercy, or obstinately refuse it, and continue their worldly, fleshly lives, till time be past, and mercy hath done, and there is no remedy. These are the men that God will condemn, and this is the true description of them. And it will not stand with the governing justice, and holiness, and truth of God to save them.