Observe the continual succession of hours, days, months, and years, how one still follows upon another, and think of eternity, wherein there is a continual succession without end. When you go out at night and behold the stars of heaven, how they cannot be numbered for multitude, think of the ages of eternity,

Consider also there is a certain definite number of stars, but no number of the ages of eternity. When you see water running in a river, think how vain a thing it would be to sit down by it and wait until it should run out, that you may pass over. Observe how new water still succeeds to that which passes by you, and therein you have an image of eternity, which is a river that never dries up.

They who wear rings have an image of eternity on their fingers, and they who handle the wheel have an emblem of eternity before them. For to whichever part of the ring or wheel we look, one will still see another part beyond it, and on whatever moment of eternity you meditate, there is still another beyond it.

When you are aboard in the fields, and behold the blades of grass on the earth, which no man can reckon, think with yourselves that were as many thousands of years to come, as there are blades of grass on the ground, even those would have an end at length. But eternity will have none.

When you look to a mountain, imagine in your hearts how long would it be before that mountain should be removed by a little bird coming but once every thousand years and carrying away but one grain of the dust of it. The mountain would at length be removed that way and brought to an end. But eternity will never end.

Suppose this with respect to all the mountains of the earth. No, with respect to the whole globe itself. The grains of dust of which the whole of it is made up are not infinite. And, therefore, the last grain would, at length, come to be carried away, as seen above. Yet, eternity would be, in effect, but beginning.

These are some crude emblems of eternity. And now add misery and woe to this eternity. What tongue can express it? What heart can conceive it? In what balance can that misery and that woe be weighed?

B. Let us take a view of what is eternal in the state of the damned in hell. Whatever is included in the fearful torment of their state is everlasting. Therefore all the doleful ingredients of their miserable state will be everlasting. They will never end.

The text expressly declares the fire into which they must depart to be everlasting fire. And our Lord elsewhere tells us that in hell the fire never shall be quenched. Mark 9.43. He had an eye to the valley of Hinnom, in which, besides the before-mentioned fire for burning the children to Moloch, there was also another fire burning continually to consume the dead carcasses and filth of Jerusalem.

So the Scripture, representing hellfire by the fire of that valley, speaks of it not only to be most intense, but also everlasting. Seeing them, the damned must depart as cursed ones into everlasting fire. It is evident that, one, the damned themselves shall be eternal. They will have a being forever and will never be substantially destroyed or annihilated.

To what end is the fire eternal if those who are cast into it be not eternally in it? It is plain the everlasting continuance of the fire is an aggravation of the misery of the damned. But surely, if they be annihilated or substantially destroyed, it would be all the same to them whether the fire be everlasting or not? No. But they depart into everlasting fire, to be everlastingly punished in it. Matthew 25, 46. These shall go away into everlasting punishment. Thus the execution of the sentence is a certain discovery of the meaning of it.

The worm that dies not must have a subject to live in. They who shall have no rest day nor night, Revelation 14.11, but shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20.10. They will certainly have a being forever and ever, and not be brought into a state of eternal rest in annihilation.

Destroyed indeed they shall be, but their destruction will be an everlasting destruction. 2 Thessalonians 1 9 A destruction of their well-being, but not of their being. What is destroyed is not therefore annihilated. Are you come to destroy us, said the devil unto Jesus Christ? Luke 4, 34. The devils are afraid of torment, not of annihilation. Matthew 8, 29. Are you come here to torment us before the time?

The state of the damned is indeed a state of death, but such a death it is as is opposite only to a happy life, as is clear from other notions of their state, which necessarily include eternal existence. As they who are dead in sin are dead to God and holiness, yet alive to sin, so dying in hell they live. but separated from God and His favor, in which is life, Psalm 30, verse 5. They shall ever be under the pangs of death, ever dying, but never dead, or absolutely void of life. How desirable would such a death be to them, but it will flee from them forever. Could they kill one another there, or could they, with their own hands, tear themselves into lifeless pieces? Their misery would quickly be at an end. But there they must live, whom chose death and refused life, for there death lives, and the end ever begins.

2. The curse shall lie upon them eternally as the everlasting chain to hold them in the everlasting fire, a chain that shall never be loosed, being fixed forever about them by the dreadful sentence of the eternal judgment. This chain, which spurns the united force of devils held fast by it, is too strong to be broken by men. who being solemnly anathematized and devoted to destruction can never be recovered to any other use.

Three, the punishment shall be eternal. These shall go away into everlasting punishment. They will be forever separated from God and Christ and from the society of the holy angels and saints. Between them an impassable gulf will be fixed. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed. so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. They shall forever have the horrible society of the devil and his angels. There will be no change of company forever in that region of darkness. Their torment in the fire will be everlasting. They must live forever in it.

Several authors, both ancient and modern, tell us of earth flax, or salamander's hairs, that cloth made of it, being cast into the fire, is so far from being burnt or consumed, that it is only made clean thereby, as other things are by washing. But however that is, it is certain the damned shall be tormented forever and ever in hell fire, and not substantially destroyed. Revelation 20.10. And indeed nothing is annihilated by fire, but only dissolved. Of whatever nature hellfire is, no question, the same God who kept the bodies of the three children from burning in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace can also keep the bodies of the damned from any such dissolution by hellfire as may infer privation of life. 4. Their knowledge and sense of their misery shall be eternal, and they shall assuredly know that it will be eternal. How desirable would it be to them to have their sense forever locked up, and to lose the consciousness of their own misery, as one may rationally suppose it to fare at length with some, in the punishment of death inflicted on them on earth, and as it is with some insane people.

But that agrees not with the notion of torment forever and ever, nor the worm that dies not. No. they will never have a lively feeling of their misery and strongest impressions of the wrath of God against them and that dreadful intimation of the eternity of their punishment made to them by their judge in their sentence will fix such impressions of the eternity of their miserable state upon their minds as they will never be able to lay it aside but will continue with them This will fill them with everlasting despair, a most tormenting passion, which will continually rend their hearts as it were in a thousand pieces.

To see floods of wrath ever coming and never to cease, to be forever in torment, and to know that there shall never, never be a release, will be the top stone put on the misery of the damned. If hope deferred makes the heart sick, Proverbs 13, 12, How killing will it be for hope to be rooted up, Slain outright and buried forever out of the creature's sight. This will fill them with hatred and rage against God, their known irreconcilable enemy, and under it they will roar forever like wild bulls in a net, and fill the pit with blasphemies evermore.

I might here show the reasonableness of the eternity of the punishment of the damned, but having already spoken of it, in vindicating the justice of God, in his subjecting men in their natural state to eternal wrath, I only remind you of three things. One, The infinite dignity of the party offended by sin requires an infinite punishment to be inflicted for the vindication of his honor, since the demerit of sin rises according to the dignity and excellence of the person against whom it is committed.

The part he offended is the great God, the chief good, the offender a vile worm in respect to perfection, infinitely distant from God, to whom he is indebted for all the good that he ever had. This then requires an infinite punishment to be inflicted on the sinner, which, since it cannot in him be infinite in value, must needs be infinite in duration, that is to say, eternal. Sin is a kind of infinite evil, as it wrongs an infinite God, and the guilt and defilement of it is never taken away, but endures forever, unless the Lord himself, in mercy, remove it.

God who is offended is eternal. His being never comes to an end. The sinful soul is immortal, and the man shall live forever. The sinner, being without strength, Romans 5, 6, to expiate his guilt, can never put away the offense. Therefore it ever remains, unless the Lord put it away Himself, as in the elect, by His Son's blood. Therefore, the party offended, the offender and the offense forever remaining. The punishment cannot but be eternal.

Two, the sinner would have continued the course of his provocations against God forever without end if God had not put a check to it by death. As long as they were capable of acting against Him in this world, they did it, and therefore, justly will He act against them. While He is, that is forever. God, who judges of the will, intents, and inclinations of the heart, may justly do against sinners in punishing, as they would have done against Him in sinning.

3. Though I put not the stress of the matter here, yet it is just and reasonable that the damned suffer eternally, since they will sin eternally in hell. gnashing their teeth, Matthew 8, 12, under their pain, enrage, envy, and grudge. Compare Acts 7, 54, Psalm 1, 12, verse 10, Luke 13, 28, and blaspheming God there, Revelation 16, 21, while they are driven away in their wickedness. Proverbs 14, 32.

That the wicked be punished for their wickedness is just, and it is in no way inconsistent with justice that the being of the creature be continued forever. Wherefore, it is just that the damned, continuing wicked eternally, do suffer eternally for their wickedness.

The misery under which they sin can neither free them from the debt of obedience, nor excuse their sinning, and make it blameless. The creature, as a creature, is bound unto obedience to his Creator, and no punishment inflicted on him can free him from it, any more than the malefactor's prison. Irons, whipping and the like set him at liberty again to commit the crimes for which he is imprisoned or whipped.

Neither can the torments of the damned excuse or make blameless their horrible sinning under them, any more than exquisite pains inflicted upon men on earth can excuse their murmuring, fretting, and blaspheming against God under them. It is not the wrath of God, but their own wicked nature that is the true cause of their sinning under it. For the holy Jesus bore the wrath of God without so much as one unbecoming thought of God, and far less any one unbecoming word.

Application 1. Here is a measuring rod. Oh, but men would apply it. Apply it to your own time in this world, and you will find your time to be very short. A prospect of much time to come proves the ruin of many souls. Men will be reckoning their time by years, like that rich man, Luke 12, 19 and 20. When it may be, there are not many hours of it to run. But reckon as you will, laying your time to the measuring reed of eternity, you will see your age is as nothing. What a small and inconsiderable point is sixty, eighty, or a hundred years in respect of eternity. Compared with eternity, there is a greater disproportion than between a hair's breadth. and the circumference of the whole earth. Why do we then sleep in such a short day, while we are in danger of losing rest through the long night of eternity?

Apply it to your endeavors for salvation, and they will be found very scanty. When men are pressed into diligence in their salvation work, they are ready to say, To what purpose is this waste? Alas, if it were to be judged by our diligence, what end it is that we have in view? As to the most part of us, no man could thereby conjecture that we have eternity in view. If we dearly considered eternity, we could not but conclude that, to leave no appointed means of God untried, until we get our salvation secured, to refuse rest or comfort in anything, until we are sheltered under the wings of the mediator, to pursue our great interest with the utmost vigor, to cut off lusts dear as right hands, and right eyes to set our faces resolutely against all difficulties and fight our way through all opposition made by the devil, the world, and the flesh. These are, all of them together, little enough for eternity. Here is the balance of the sanctuary, by which we may understand the lightness of what is falsely thought weighty, and the weight of some things by many reckoned to be very light. Some things seem very weighty, which, weighed in this balance, will be found very light.

Weigh the world and all that is in it, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and the whole will be found light in the balance of eternity. Weigh herein all worldly profits, gains, and advantages, and you will quickly see that a thousand worlds will not compensate for an eternity of woe. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Matthew 16, 26.

Weigh the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, with the fire that is everlasting, and you show yourselves to be fools and madmen, to run the hazard of losing the one for the other.

Weigh your afflictions in this balance, and you will find the heaviest of them very light, in respect of the weight of eternal languish. Impatience under affliction, especially when worldly troubles so embitter men's spirits that they cannot relish the glad tidings of the gospel, speaks great regardlessness of eternity. as a small and inconsiderable loss will be very little at heart with him who sees himself in danger of losing his whole estate. So troubles in the world will appear but light to him who has a lively view of eternity. Such a one will stoop and take up his cross, whatever it be, thinking it enough to escape eternal wrath.

See, lay the most difficult and uneasy duties of religion here and you will no more reckon the yoke of Christ insupportable. Repentance and bitter mourning for sin on earth are very light in comparison of eternal weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in hell. with God in prayer, weeping and making supplication for the blessing in time is far easier than to lie under the curse through all eternity. Mortification of the most beloved lust is a light thing in comparison with the second death in hell.

D. Weigh your convictions in this balance. Oh, how heavy do those lie upon many until they get them shaken off. They are not disposed to continue with them, but strive to get clear of them as of a mighty burden. But the worm of a bad conscience will neither die nor sleep in hell, though we may now lull it to sleep for a time. and certainly it is easier to entertain the sharpest convictions in this life so that they lead us to Christ than to have them fixed forever in the conscience and to be in hell totally and finally separated from him.

But on the other hand, we sin in this balance, and though now it seems but a light thing to you, you will find it a weight sufficient to turn up an eternal weight of wrath upon you. Even idle words, vain thoughts, and unprofitable actions, weighed in this balance and considered as following the sinner into eternity, will each of them be heavier than the sand of the sea? Time idly spent will make a weary eternity.

Now is your seed time. Thoughts, words, and actions are the seed sown. Eternity is the harvest. Though the seed now lies under the clod, disregarded by most men, even the least grain shall spring up at length, and the fruit will be according to the seed. Galatians 6, 8. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, that is, destruction. But he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Weigh and misbalance your time and opportunities of grace and salvation, and you will find them very weighty. Precious time and seasons of grace, sabbaths, communions, prayers, sermons and the like are by many, nowadays, made light of. But the day is coming when one of these will be reckoned more valuable than a thousand worlds by those who now have the least value for them. When they are gone forever and the loss cannot be retrieved, those will see the worth of them who will not now see it.

Three. Be warned and stirred up to flee from the wrath to come. Mind eternity and closely ply the work of your salvation. What are you doing while you are not so doing? Is heaven a fable or hell a false alarm? Must we live eternally and shall we be at no more pains to escape everlasting misery? Will faint wishes take the kingdom of heaven by force? Will such drowsy endeavors as most men satisfy themselves with be accounted fleeing from the wrath to come?

You who have already fled to Christ, up and be doing. You who have begun the work, go on and later not, but work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Remember, you are not yet ascended into heaven. You are but in your middle state. The everlasting arms have drawn you out of the gulf of wrath you were plunged into in your natural state. They are still underneath you, but you can never fall down into it again. Nevertheless, you have not yet got up to the top of the rock. The deep below you is frightful. Look at it and hasten your ascent.

you who are yet in your sinful state. Lift up your eyes and take a view of the eternal state. Arise, you profane persons, you ignorant ones, you formal hypocrites, strangers to the power of godliness, and flee from the wrath to come. Let not the young venture to delay a moment longer, nor the old put off this work any more. Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, lest he swear in his wrath that you shall never enter into his rest. It is no time to linger in a state of sin, as in Sodom, when fire and brimstone are coming down on it from the Lord. take warning in time. They who are in hell are not troubled with such warnings, but are enraged against themselves because they slighted the warning when they had it.

Consider, I beg you, how uneasy it is to lie one whole night on a soft bed in perfect health, when we gladly would have sleep but cannot get it, sleep being departed from us. How often do we in that case wish for rest, how full of tossings to and fro. But ah, How dreadful must it be to lie in sorrow, wrapped up in scorching flames throughout eternity, in that place where they have no rest, day nor night. How terrible would it be to live under violent pains of the colic or stone for forty or sixty years together without any intermission. Yet, that is but a very small thing compared with eternal separation from God, the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched.

Eternity is an awful thought. Oh, long, long, endless eternity. But will not every moment in eternity of woe seem a month and every hour a year in that most wretched and desperate condition? Hence, ever and ever, as it were, a double eternity. The sick man in the night, tossing to and fro on his bed, says it will never be day, and complains that his pain ever continues. It never, never abates. Are these petty time eternities which men form to themselves in their own imaginations so very grievous? Alas, then, how grievous, how utterly insupportable must a real eternity of woe and all manner of miseries be? There will be space enough there to reflect on all the ills of our heart and life, which we cannot get time to think of now, and to see that all that was said of the impenitent sinner's hazard was true, and that the half was not told.

There will be space enough in eternity to carry on delayed repentance, to lament one's follies when it is too late, and in a state past remedy to speak forth these fruitless wishes. Oh, that I had never been born, that the womb had been my grave, and I had never seen the sun. Oh, that I had taken warning in time and fled from this wrath while the door of mercy was standing open to me. Oh, that I had never heard the gospel, that I had lived in some corner of the world where a savior and a great salvation were not once named.

But all in vain. What is done cannot be undone. The opportunity is lost and can never be retrieved. Time is gone and can never be recalled. Therefore improve time while you have it, and do not willfully ruin yourself by stopping your ear to the gospel call.

And now if you would be saved from the wrath to come and never go into this place of torment, take no rest in your natural state. Believe the sinfulness and misery of it and labor to get out of it quickly, fleeing unto Jesus Christ by faith. Sin in you is the seed of hell, and if the guilt and reigning power of it be not removed in time, they will bring you to the second death in eternity.

There is no way to get them removed. but by receiving Christ as he is offered in the gospel for justification and sanctification. And he is now offered to you with all his salvation.

Revelation 22, 12 and 17.
And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let us that hears say, Come. And let him that is thirsty, come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Jesus Christ is the Mediator of Peace and the Fountain of Holiness. He it is who delivers us from the wrath to come. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

Romans 8, 1.
The terrors of hell as well as the joys of heaven are set before you to stir you up to a cordial receiving of Him with all His salvation and to incline you to the way of faith and holiness in which alone you can escape the everlasting fire.

May the Lord Himself make them effectual to that end. This concludes the reading of chapter 4, Hell, and concludes the reading of this book.