DISCOURSE XII.

The Nature of the Punishments in Hell.

Mark ix. 46. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not

quenched.

INTRODUCTION.

THESE words are a short description of hell, by the lips of the Son of God, who came down from heaven; And he who lay in the bosom of his Father, and was intimate in all the counsels of his mercy and justice, must be supposed to know what the terrors and the wrath of God are, as well as his compassion and his goodness. It is confessed, that a discourse on this dreadful subject is not a direct ministration of grace, and the glad tidings of salvation, yet it has a great and happy tendency to the same end, even the salvation of sinful men; for it awakens them to a more piercing sight, and to a more keen sensation of their own guilt and danger; it possesses their spirits with a more lively sense of their misery, it fills them with a holy dread of divine punishment, and excites the powerful passion of fear to make them fly from the wrath to come, and betake themselves to the grace of God revealed in the gospel.

The blessed Saviour himself, who was the most perfect image of his Father's love, and the prime minister of his grace, publishes more of these terrors to the world, and preaches hell and damnation to sinners more than all the prophets or teachers that ever went before him; and several of the apostles imitate their Lord in this practice: They kindle the flames of hell in their epistles, they thunder through the very hearts and consciences of men with the voice of damnation and eternal misery, to make stupid sinners feel as much of these terrors in the present prospect as is possible, in order to escape the actual sensation of them in time to come. Such awful discourses are many times also of excellent use to keep the children of God, and the disciples of Jesus, in a holy and watchful frame, and to affright them from returning to sin and folly, and from the indulgence of any temptation, by setting these terrors of the Lord before their eyes. O may these words of his terror, from the lips of one of the meanest of his ministers, be attended with divine power from the convincing and sanctifying Spirit, that they may answer these happy ends and purposes, that they may excite a solemn reverence of the dreadful majesty of God in all our souls, and awaken us to repentance for every sin, and a more watchful course of holiness!

Let us then consider the expression in my text: When our Saviour mentions the word hell, he adds, where their worm dieth

not, and the fire is not quenched; in which description we may read the nature of this punishment, and the perpetuity of it.

First, We shall consider the nature of this punishment, as it is represented by the metaphors which our Saviour uses; and if I were to give the most natural and proper sense of this representation, I would say that our Saviour might borrow this figure of speech from these three considerations:

1. Worms and fire are the two most general ways whereby the bodies of the dead are destroyed; for whether they are buried or not buried, worms devour those who by the custom of their country are not burned with fire: And perhaps he might refer to the words of Isaiah lxvi. 24. where the prophet seems to foretel the punishment of those who will not receive the gospel, when it shall be preached to all nations: They, says he, that is, the true Israel, the saints of God, or christians, they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. It is highly probable that this is only a metaphor referring to the punishment of the souls of obstinate unbelievers in hell, for it would be but a very small punishment indeed, if only their dead bodies were devoured by worms or fire, or rather no punishment at all besides a memorial of their sin.

2. Consider the gnawing of worms and the burning of fire are some of the most smart and severe torments that a living man can feel in the flesh; therefore the vengeance of God, upon the souls of obstinate sinners, is set forth by it in our Saviour's discourse; and it was probably well known amongst the Jews, as appears by some of the apocryphal writings: Judith xvi. 17. "Woe to the nation that rises up against my kindred; the Lord almighty will take vengeance of them in the day of judgment, putting fire and worms in their flesh, and they shall feel them and weep for ever." And Eccles. vii. 16, 17. " Number not thyself among the multitude of sinners, but remember the wrath will not tarry long. Humble thy soul greatly, for the vengeance of the ungodly is fire and worms.'

3. Consider, whether worms feed upon a living man or devour his dead body, still they are such as are bred in his own flesh; but fire is brought by other hands, and applied to the flesh Even so this metaphor of a worm happily represents the inward torments, and the teazing and vexing passions which shall arise in the souls of those unhappy creatures, who are the just objects of this punishment; and it is called their worm, that worm that belongs to them, and is bred within them by the foul vices and diseases of their souls: But the fire which shall never be quenched refers rather to the pains and anguish which come from without, and that chiefly from the hand of God, the right

eous avenger of sin, and from his indignation, which is compared to fire.

SECT. I. The worm that dieth not. Let us begin with the first of these, viz. the " torments which are derived from the goawing worm, those agonies and uneasy passions which will arise and work in the souls of these wretched creatures," so far as we can collect them from the word of God, from the reason of things, and the working powers of human nature.

When an impenitent sinner is cast into hell, we have abundant reason to suppose, that the evil temper of his soul, and the vicious principles within him, are not abated, but his natural powers, and the vices which have tainted them and mingle with them, are awakened and enraged into intense activity and exercise, under the first sensations of his dreadful punishment. Let us endeavour to conceive then what would be the ferments, the raging passions, and the vexing inward torments of a wicked man, seized by the officers of an almighty Judge, borne away by the executioners of vengeance, and plunged into a pit of torture and smarting misery, while at the same time he had a most fresh and piercing conviction ever present, that he had brought all this mischief upon himself by his own guilt and folly.

1. The first particular piece of wretchedness therefore, contained in this metaphor, is the "remorse and terrible anguish of conscience which shall never be relieved." How terrible are the racks of a guilty conscience here on earth, which arise from a sense of past sins? How does David cry out and roar under the disquietude of his spirit? Ps. xxxii. 3. While I kept silence and confessed not my iniquity, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, and my moisture is turned into the drought of summer: And again? Ps. xxxviii. 4. My iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. God has wisely so framed the nature and spirit of man, that a reflection on his past behaviour should raise such keen anguish at his heart; and thousands have felt it in a dreadful degree, even while they have continued in this world, in the land of life and hope.

But when death has divided the soul from this body, and from all the means of grace, and cut off all the hopes of pardoning mercy for ever, what smart beyond all our thoughts and expressions must the sinner feel from such inward wounds of conscience? And it gives a twinging accent to every sorrow when the sinner is constrained to cry out, "It is I, it is I who have brought all this upon myself. Life and death were set before me in the world where I once dwelt, but I refused the blessings of eternal life, and the offers of saving grace. I turned my back upon the ways of holiness which led to life, and re

nounced the tenders of divine mercy: I chose the paths of sin, and folly, and madness, though I knew they led to everlasting misery and death. Wretch that I was, to chuse those sins and these sorrows, though I knew they were necessarily joined together! I am sent into those regions of misery which I chose for myself, against all the kind admonitions and warnings of God and Christ, of his gospel and his ministers of grace! O these cursed eyes of mine, that led me into the snares of guilt and folly! These cursed hands that practised iniquity with greediness! These cursed lips of mine which dishonoured my Maker! O these cursed appetites and passions, and this obstinate will, which have wrought my ruin! This cursed body and soul, that have procured their own everlasting wretchedness!" These thoughts will be like a gnawing worm within, which will prey upon the spirit for ever. The fretting smart arising from this vexatious worm must be painful in the highest extreme, when we know it is a worm which will never die, which will for ever hang at our heart, and sting our vitals in the most tender and sensible parts of them without intermission, as well as without end.

Here on earth the stings and scourges of conscience meet with some intervals of relief, from necessary business which employs the mind, from gay company which diverts the heart, from the refreshments of nature by day, or from the sweet repose of the returning night: But in the world to come every hour shall be filled up with these cutting sorrows, for there is no season of refreshment, no diversion of mind, no sleeping there: All things are for ever awake in that world; there are no shadows and darkness to hide us where this torment shall not find us, for it is bred and lives within. There is no couch there to lull the conscience into soft repose, and to permit the sufferer to forget his agonies. Ancient crimes shall rise up and stand for ever before the eyes of the sinner in all their glaring forms, and all their heinous aggravating circumstances: These will sit heavy upon the spirit with teazing and eternal vexation. O dreadful state of an immortal creature, which must for ever be its own tormentor, and shall know no relief through all the ages of its immortality! Think of this bitter anguish of soul, O sinner, to guard thee from sin in an hour of strong temptation.

II. Another spring of this torment will be the "overwhelming sense of an angry God, and utter despair of his love which is lost for ever." It was the thought of the displeasure of God, which pierced the soul of David with such acute pain, when he remembered his sins; Ps. li. 3, 4.-My sin is ever before me : Against thee, against thee only have 1 sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: And again he pleads with God; Ps. vi. 1. O Lord, chasten me not in thy anger, nor vex me in thy

sore displeasure. He could face a host of armed men without fear, but he could not face an angry God, whose loving-kindness is life, and the loss of whose love is wore than death; Ps. lxxvii. 3. I remembered God, said he, and was troubled, that is, lest he should be favourable no more, and shut up his tender mercies in everlasting anger. This was the terror of that good man, under a deep sense of his crimes, and of God hiding his face from him, and this even while he was in the land of the living, and was not cast out beyond all hope. But when the grave shuts its mouth on the sinner, and he is thrust out into utter darkness, where the light of God's countenance never shines, nor will shine, how unsupportable must such anguish be? Here in this life perhaps a profane wretch has imagined he could live well enough without God in the world, and was content to have nothing to do with him in a way of worship or dependence here: He determined with himself, that the less he could think of God the better, and so forgot his Maker days without number: But in those regions of hell whither the sinner shall be driven, he can never forget an angry God, nor fly out of the reach of his terrors.

"I am now convinced saith be, but too late, that happiness dwells in his presence, and "rivers of pleasures flow at his right-hand;" but this happiness I shall never see, these streams of pleasure I shall never taste; he is gone for ever with all his love and with all his blessings, God is gone with all his graces and pardons beyond my reach: He stands afar off from my groanings. He told me of it heretofore in the ministry of his word; but, wretch that I was! I would not hearken, I would not believe I was invited by the Son of his love to receive his gospel, and to partake of forgiving mercy; he stretched out his hands with divine compassion, and offered to receive my soul to his grace, and to wash away my defilements with his own blood; he beseeched me to repent and return to God, and assured me he would secure his Father's favour to me, and a place among the mansions of his glory: But cursed rebel that I was to despise this salvation, and resist the offers of such love, and to renounce such divine compassion! These offers of mercy are for ever finished, I shall never see him more as surrounded with the blessings of his grace, but as the minister of his Father's justice, and the avenger of his abused mercy. There is no other Saviour, no other intercessor to procure divine favour for me, and my hopes are overwhelmed and buried in the eternal despair

of his love."

III. There will be found also among the damned " a constant enmity, and malice, and hatred against the blessed God, which can never satisfy nor ease itself by revenge." It seems very strange indeed that a creature should design revenge against