and glorified saints. Instead of being companions of those happy spirits, and numbered with those who are made kings and priests unto God, they shall be members of the corporation of hell, where they shall have companions of a far different nature and quality. While they lived on earth, they loathed the saints, or at least they would not be their companions in labour, and in suffering; and therefore they shall not now be their companions in their glory. You will be shut out of that company from which you first shut out yourselves, and you will be separated from them, with whom you would not be joined on earth. They molested you with their faithful reproofs of your sin. Their holy conversation troubled your consciences; they condemned your looseness by their strictness, your profaneness by their holiness, your negligence by their diligence. The day is near when they will trouble you no more. "Between them and you there will be a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to them who would come from thence."

SECTION II.

The Aggravations of the Sinner's Loss. PERHAPS, however, some will be ready to think, if this be all, they do not much care; they can bear it well enough. What care they for losing the personal perfection of the saints? What care they for losing God's favour, or presence? They lived joyfully without him on earth, and why should it be so grievous to be without him hereafter? What care they for being deprived of spiritual affections and enjoyment? They never tasted sweetness in things of that nature. Or what care they for being deprived of the fellowship of angels and saints? They could spare their company in this world, and why may they not be without it in the world to come? To make sinners therefore understand the nature of their future

condition, I will show them why the loss of heaven wil then be intolerable, and most tormenting to them, though it seem as nothing to them now.

I. The understanding of the ungodly will then be cleared and enlarged, to know the worth of what they have lost. Now they lament not their loss of God, because they never knew his excellency; nor the loss of the holy employments and society of heaven, for they were never sensible of their worth. A man who has lost a jewel, and took it but for a common stone, is never troubled at his loss; but when he comes to know what he has lost, then he laments it. Though the understandings of the damned will not then be sanctified, yet will they be cleared from a multitude of errors which now possess them, and mislead them to their ruin. Now they think that their honour with men, their estates, their pleasures, their health and life, are better worth their study and labour, than the things of another world, which they never saw; but when these things which had their hearts, shall have deserted them in their greatest need; when they shall come to know by experience, the things which before they did but read and hear of, they will then be of quite another mind. They are now in a dead sleep, and they dream they are the happiest men in the world, and that the godly are but a company of fools, and that either heaven will be theirs, as surely as another's, or else that they may make shift without it, as they have done here; but when death shall smite these men, and bid them awake, and shall rouse them out of their pleasant dreams, how will they stand up amazed and confounded! How will their judgments be changed in a moment! They that would not see, shall then see, and be ashamed.

Besides, as the understanding of the ungodly will be cleared, so it will be more enlarged, and made more capacious to conceive of the worth of that glory which they have lost. The strength of their apprehensions, as well as the truth of them, will then be increased. What deep apprehensions of the madness of sinning, of the misery of sinners, of the wrath of God, have

those souls that now endure this misery, in comparison of those on earth who do but hear of it! What lively apprehensions of the worth of life has the con demned malefactor, who is going to be executed, in comparison of what he used to have in the time of his prosperity! Much more will the actual privation of eternal blessedness make the damned exceedingly sensible of the greatness of their loss.

II. The consciences of the ungodly will make a close and faithful application of this loss to themselves, a circumstance which will exceedingly aggravate their torment. It will then be no difficult matter for them to say, "This is my loss; this is my everlasting remediless misery." The want of this self-application is the main cause why they are now so little troubled at their condition; they are with difficulty brought to believe that there is such a state of misery, but more hardly still to believe that this state is likely to be their own. This makes so many sermons to be lost upon them, and all the threatenings and warnings of God to prove in vain. It is a most difficult work to make a proud man know that he is proud,—or a covetous man, that he is covetous, or an ignorant, erroneous, heretical man, that such is his character; but to make any of these confess their sins, and apply the threatening, and believe themselves the children of wrath, this is to human strength an impossibility. Though we should preach to them as long as we live, we cannot make them believe that their danger is so great; nay, though a man should rise from the dead, and appear to them, and warn them that they come not into the place of torment, and tell them that such and such of their beloved or honourable friends, who did as truly think to be saved as they, are now in hell, and ask in vain for a drop of water to cool their tongues; yet would they not be persuaded by all this; for Christ himself has said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one should rise from the dead."

But O! when they shall suddenly find themselves in the land of darkness, when they shall perceive, by

the execution of the sentence, that they are indeed condemned, and see that they are excluded from the presence of God for ever, and feel themselves in the scorching flames, it will then be no such difficult matter to convince them of their misery. This particular application of God's anger to themselves, will then be the easiest thing in the world; then they cannot but know and apply it, whether they will or not.

III. The affections of the ungodly will be more lively and enlarged than they are now. As their judgment will be no longer blinded, nor their consciences stifled and bribed; so their affections will be no longer so stupefied and dead. A hard heart now makes heaven and hell seem to them but trifles. When we have shown them everlasting glory and everlasting misery, they are as men half asleep; they scarcely notice what we say. But O! what passionate sensibility, what powerful affections, what pangs of horror, what depth of sorrow will then be seen! O the selfaccusing and self-tormenting fury of these lost beings! How will they be God's executioners upon themselves! And let them not think that, if they must torment themselves, they will do well enough, they will have sense enough to ease and favour themselves, and resolution enough to control this violence of their passions. Alas! they little know what passions these will be, and how much beyond the power of their resolutions to command or suppress them! Why have not despairing souls on earth power to refrain from tormenting themselves with continual terrors? It is as easy for them to stop the rivers in their course, or to bound the overflowing waves of the ocean, as to stop the stream of their violent passions, or to restrain those sorrows that overflow their souls. O how much less, then, can those condemned souls, who see the glory before them which they have lost, restrain their heartrending, self-tormenting passions! You are as stocks or stones under the threatenings of God's wrath, but you will be most tenderly sensible under the execution of it. O how happy would you think yourselves, if you were turned into rocks, or any thing that had

neither sense nor passion! O how happy would you be if you could then feel, as lightly as you were wont to hear; and if you could sleep out the time of execution, as you did the time of the sermons that warned you of it! But ah! your stupidity will then be gone for ever!

IV. The memories of the ungodly will be active and capacious, which will cause these violent passions to be ever working.

I will here briefly notice some of these considerations which will thus feed the anguish of the damned.

1. It will torment them to think of the greatness of the glory which they have lost. O! if it had been that which they could have spared, it had been a small matter; or if it had been a loss which might be repaired; if it had been health, or wealth, or friends, or life, it had been nothing; but to lose that "exceeding and eternal weight of glory,"—the thought of this will drink up their spirits.

2. It will torment them to think of the possibility there once was of their obtaining the glory they have now lost. Then they will remember, " If I had acted my part wisely and faithfully, I might now have been in possession of the heavenly inheritance; I might have been among yonder blessed saints, who am now tormented with these damned fiends! The Lord did set before me life and death, and having chosen death, I deserve to suffer it. The prize was once held out before me if I had run well, I might have obtained it; if I had striven, I might have got the mastery; if I had fought valiantly, I might have won the crown!"

3. It will torment them to remember not only the possibility, but the probability, there once was of their obtaining the glory they have now lost. It will wound them to the quick to think, "Why, I had once the influence of the Spirit ready to assist me. I was fully purposed to be another man, to cleave to Christ, and to forsake the world. I was almost resolved to be wholly for God; I was once even turning from my base seducing lusts; I had cast off my old companions, and was resolved to associate myself with the godly: and