curfe, fhall come upon them to the uttermoft: the which is the curfe fully executed.. This black cloud opens upon them, and the terrible thunder-bolt ftrikes them, by that dreadful voice from the throne, “ Depart from me, ye curfed," &c. Which will give the whole wicked world a difinal view of what is in the bofom of the curfe. It is, (1.) A voice of extreme indignation and wrath; a furious rebuke from the Lion of the tribe of Judah. His looks will be most terrible to them! his eyes will caft flames of fire on them! and his words will pierce their hearts like envenomed arrows! When he will thus fpeak them out of his prefence for ever, and by his word chafe them away from before the throne, they will fee how keenly wrath burns in his heart against them for their fins. (2.) It is a voice of extreme difdain and contempt from the Lord. Time was when they were pitied, befought to pity themselves, and to be the Lord's, but they defpifed him, they would none of him; but now thall they be buried out of his fight, under everlasting contempt. (3.) It is a voice of extreme hatred. Hereby the Lord fhuts them out of his bowels of love and mercy: " Depart ye curfed." q. d. I cannot endure to look at you; there is not. one purpose of good to you in mine heart; nor fhall ye ever hear one word more of hope from me. Laftly, It is a voice of eternal rejection from the Lord. He commands them to be gone, and fo cafts them off for ever. Thus the doors of heaven are fhut against them; the gulf is fixed between them and it, and they are driven to the pit. Now should they ery with all poffible earneftness, Lord, Lord, open to us!" they will hear nothing but "Depart, depart, ye curfed." Thus fhall the damned be shut up under the curfe,

USE First, Let all these who being yet in their natural ftate, are under the curfe, confider this and flee to Jefus Christ hetimes, that they may be delivered from it. How can ye fleep in that state, being wrapt up in the curfe? Jefus Chrift is now faying unto you, Come ye curfed, I will take the curfe from off you, and give you the blefling. The waters of the fanctuary are now running to heal the curfed ground; take heed to improve them for that end to your own fouls; and fear it as hell, to get no fpiritual advantage thereby., Remember that the miry places (which are neither fea nor dry land, a fit emblem of hypocrites) and the marines, (that neither breed fith-s nor ar trees, but the waters of the fanctuary leave them as they nd them, in their barrennefs) fhall not be healed; (feeing they arn the only remedy)" they fhall be given to falt,' (left under eternal

eternal barrennefs fet up for the monuments of the wrath of Gód, and concluded for ever under the qurfe) Ezek. xlvii. 11. 2dly, Let all curfers confider this, whofe mouths are filled with curfing, thenfeives and others. He who clothes himself with "fhall find the curfe *. “curling, come into his bowels like "water, and like oil into his bones," ( Pfal. cix. 18.) if repentance prevent it not. He fhall get all his imprecations againft bim fully answered, in that day wherein he ftands before the tribunal of God; and fhall find the killing weight of the curfe of God, which he makes light of now.

II. I proceed to speak of the mifery of the damned, under that curfe; a mifery which the tongues of men and angels cannot fufficiently exprefs. God always acts like himfelt, no favours can be equal to his, and his wrath and terrors are without a parallel. As the faints in heaven are advanced to the highest pitch of happinefs, fo the damned in hell arrive at the height of mifery. Two things here I fhall foberly inquire into, the punishment of Lofs, and the punishment of Senfe, in hell. But fince thefe alfo are fuch things as eye has not feen, nor ear heard, we muft (as Geographers do) leave a large void for the unknown land, which the day will difcover.

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FIRST, The punishment of Lofs, which the damned fhall undergo, is feparation from the Lord,' as we learn from the text, Depart from me, ye curfed." This will be a ftone epon their grave's mouth, as the talent of lead,' Zech. v. 7, 8. that will hold them down for ever. They fhall be eternally feparated from God and Chrift. Chrift is the way to the Father, but the way as to them thall be everlastingly blocked up; the bridge fhall be drawn, and the great gulf fixed: fo fhall they be shut up in a state of eternal feperation from God the Father, Son and the holy Ghoft. They will be locally feperated from. the Man Christ, and shall never come into the feat of the bleffed, where he appears in his glory, but be caft into utter darkness. Matth. xxi. 13. They cannot indeed be locally feparated from God, they cannot be in a place where he is not, fince he is and will be prefent every where: "If I make my bed in hell." fays the Pfalmift, "behold thou art there," Pfal. cxxxix. 8. But they fhall be miferable beyond expreffion, in a relative feparation from God. Tho' he will be prefent in the very centre of their fouts, (if I may fo exprefs it) while they are wrapt up in fiery flames, in utter darkness, it fhall not only be to feed them with the vinegar of his wrath, to entertain them with the emanations of his revenging jullice; but they shall

all that is comfortable in them, or about them, returns to its fountain, as the light goes away with the fun, and darkness fucceeds in the room thereof. Thus in their feparation from God, all peace is removed far away from them, and pain in body and anguifh of foul fucceed to it: all joy goes, and unmixed forrow fettles in them all quiet and reft feparates from them, and they are filled with horror and rage; hope flres away, and defpair feizeth them; common operations of the Spirit, which now reftrain them, are withdrawn for ever, and fin comes to its utmost heighth. And thus we have a difmal view of the horrible fpectacle of fin and mifery, which a creature proves, when totally feparated from God, and left to itfelf; and one may fee this feparation to be the very hell of hell.

Being feparated from God, they are deprived of all good. The good things which they fet their heart upon in this world, are beyond their reach there. The covetous man cannot enjoy his wealth there; nor the ambitious man his honours; nor the fenfual man his pleasures, no not a drop of water to cool his tongue, Luke xvi. 34. 35. No meat nor drink there to strengthen the faint; no fleep to refresh the weary; and no mufick, nor pleafant company to comfort and cheer up the forrowful. And as for thefe good things they defpifed in the world, they fhall never more hear of them, nor fee them. No offers of Chrift there, no pardons, no peace; no wells of falvation in the pit of deftruction. In one word, they fhall be deprived of whatfoever might comfort them, being totally and finally feparated from God, the fountain of all goodness.

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3dly, Man naturally defires to be happy, being withal confcious to himself that he is not felf-fufficient; and therefore has ever a defire of something without himself to make him happy: and the foul being by its natural make and conftitution capable of enjoying God, and nothing elfe being commenfurable to its defires, it can never have true and folid reft, till it reft in the enjoyment of God. This de fire of happiness the rati nal creature can never lay afide, no not in hell. Now white the wicked are on earth, they feek their fatisfaction in the creature: and when one fails, they go to another: thus they put off their time in the world, deceiving their own foul, and luring them on with vain hopes. But in the other world, all comfort in the creatures having failed together at once; and the fhadows they are now purfuing, having all of them evanished in a moment. bey fhall be totally and finally feparated from God, and see ey have thus loft him. So the doors of earth and heaven both

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are fhut against them at once. This will create them unfpeak-` able anguifh, while they fhall live under an eternal- gnawing hunger after happinefs, which they certainly know shall never be in the leaft meafure fatisfied, all doors being closed on them. Who then can imagine how this feparation from God shall cut the damned to the heart! How will they rore and rage under it! And how it will ting them and gnaw them through the

ages of eternity!

4thly, The damned fhall know that fome are perfectly happy in the enjoyment of that God from whom they themselves are feparate: And this will aggravate the fenfe of their lofs, that they can never have any share with thefe happy ones. Being feparated from God, they are separated from the fociety of the glorified faints and angels. They may fee "Abraham afar off,

and Lazarus in his bofom," (Luke xvi. 23.) but (* 1 never come into their company, being as unclean lepers thrust out without the camp, and excommunicated from the prefence of the Lord, and of all his holy ones. It is the opinion of fome, that every perfon in heaven or hell, fhall hear and fee all that. paffeth in either state. Whatever is to be faid, of this, we have ground from the word to conclude, that the damned fhall have a very exquifite knowledge of the happiness of the faints in heaven; for what effe can be meant by the rich man in hell his feeing Lazarus in Abraham's bofom? One thing is plain in this cafe, that their own torments will give them fuch notions of the happiness of the faints, as a fick man has of health, or a prifoner has of liberty. And as they cannot fail of reflecting on the happinefs of thefe in heaven, more than they can attain to contentment with their own lot; fo every thought of that happiness will aggravate their lofs. It would be a mighty torment to a hungry man, to fee others liberally feafting, while he is fo chained up as he cannot have one crumb to stay his gnawing appetite. To bring mufic and dancing before a man laboaring under extreme pains, would but increase his anguish: How-then will the longs of the blaffed, in their enjoyment of God, make the damned rore under their feparation from him!

5thly, They will remember that time was, when they might have been made partakers of the bleffed ftate of the faints, in their enjoyment of God: and this will aggravate their sense of the lofs. All may remember, there was once a poffibility of it; that fometime they were in the world, in fome corners of which the way of falvation was laid open to men's view; and may with they had gone round the world till they had found it out, Kk 2

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Defpifers of the gospel will remember with bitterness, that Jefus Christ with all his benefits was offered to them; that they were exhorted, intreated, and preffed to accept, but would not; and that they were warned of the mifery they feel, and obtefted to flee from the wrath to come, but they would not hearken. The gospel-offer flighted, will make a hot hell; and the lofs of an offered heaven, will be a finking weight on the fpirits of unbelievers in the pit. Some will remember that there was a probability of their being eternally happy; that fometime they feemed to ftand fair for it, and were not far from the kingdom of God that they had once almoft confented to the blessed bargain, the pen was in their hand (as it were) to fign the marriage-contract betwixt Chrift and their fouls; but unhappily they dropped it, and turned back from the Lord to their Jults again. And others will remember, that they thought themfelv fure of heaven, but being blinded with pride and felf-conceit, they were above ordinances, and beyond instruction, and would not examine their state, which was their ruin: But then they fhall in vain wish they had reputed themselves the work of the congregation in which they lived, and curfe the fond conceit they had of themfelves, and that others had of them too. Thus it will fting the damned, that they might have efcaped this lofs.

LASTLY, They will fee the lofs to be irrecoverable; that they muft eternally ly under it, never, never to be repaired. Might the damned after millions of ages in hell, regain what they have loft, it would be fome ground of hope: but the prize is gone, and can never be recovered. And there are two things here, which will pierce them to the heart. (1.) That they never knew the worth of it, till it was irrecoverably loft. Should a man give away an earthen pot full of gold for a trifle, never knowing what was in it, till it were quite gone from him, and past recovery; how would this foolish action gall him, upon the difcovery of the riches in it! Such a one's cafe may be a faint refemblance of the cafe of defpifers of the gospel, when in hell they ft up their eyes, and behold that to their torment, which they will not fee now to their falvation. (2.) That they have loft it for lofs and dung; fold their part of heaven, and not inriched themfelves with the price. The loft heaven for earthly profits and pleafures, and now both are gone teget ether from them. The drunkard's cups are gone, the covetous man's gain, the voluptuous man's carnal delights, and the fluggard's cafe : nothing is left them to comfort them now. The happiness they Joft remains indeed, but they can have to part in it forever.

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