continued for ever: 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, more than the malefactor's prisons, irons, whipping, and the like, do set him at liberty to commit anew the crimes for which he is imprisoned or whipt. Neither can the torments of the damned excuse or make blameless their horrible sinning under them, more than exquisite pains inflicted upon men on earth can excuse their murmuring, fretting, and blaspheming against God under them: for it is not the wrath of God, but their own wicked nature, that is the true cause of their sinning under it: and so the holy Jesus bore the wrath of God, without so much as one unbecoming thought of God and far less any one unbecoming word.

But

USE I. Here is a Measuring reed: O! that men would apply it. First, Apply it to your 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 xii. 19, 20,) when it may be there are not many hours of it to run. 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 an 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 sleep then in such a short day, while we are in hazard of losing rest through the long night of eternity? 2dly. Apply it to your endeavours for salvation, and they will be found very scanty. When men are pressed to 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 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 duly considered eternity we could not but conclude, that to leave no means appointed of God unessayed, till we get our salvation secured, to refuse rest or comfort in any thing, till we are sheltered under the wings of the Mediator, to pursue our great interest with the utmost vigour, 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 the opposition made by the devil, the world,

and the flesh, and all of them together little enough for eternity.

USE II. Here is a Balance of the Sanctuary, by which one may understand the lightness of what is falsely thought weighty; and the weight of some things by many reckoned to be very light.

FIRST, Some things seem very weighty, which weighed in this balance, will be found very light. (1.) 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 quit the cost of the eternity of wo. "For what is a man profitted, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" Matth. xvi. 26. Weigh the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, with the fire that is everlasting, and you must account yourselves fools and madmen, to run the hazard of the one for the other. (2.) Weigh your afflictions in this balance, and you will find the heaviest of them very light in respect of the weight of eternal anguish. Impatience under affliction, especially when worldly troubles do so imbitter 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 hazard 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. (3.) Weigh 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. To wrestle 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. Lastly, weigh your convictions in this balance. O! how heavy do these lie upon many till they get them shaken off! They are not disposed to fall in with them, but strive to get clear of them, as of a mighty burden. But the worm of an ill conscience will neither die nor sleep in hell, though one may now lull it asleep for a time. And certainly it is easier to entertain the sharpest convictions in this life, so as they may lead one to Christ, than to have

them fixed for ever in the conscience, while in hell one is totally and finally separated from him.

SECONDLY, But on the other hand, (1.) Weigh sin in this balance, and though now it seem but a light thing to you, ye 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 lie under the clod unregarded by most men, even the least grain shall spring up at length; and the fruit will be according to the seed, Gal. vi. 8, "For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, (i. e. destruction) but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (2.) Weigh in this balance 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 for ever, and the loss cannot be retrieved; these will see the worth of them who will not now see it.

of

USE III, and last. Be warned and stirred up to flee from the wrath to come. Mind eternity, and closely ply the work your salvation. What are you doing while you are not so doing? Is heaven a fable, or hell a mere scare-crow? Must we live eternally, and will we be at no more pains to escape everlasting misery? Will faint wishes "take the kingdom of heaven by force ?" And will such drowsy endeavours as most men satisfy themselves with, be accounted "flying from the wrath to come ?" Ye who have already fled to Christ, up and be doing: ye have begun the work, go on, loiter not, but "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," Philip. ii. 12. "Fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell," Matth. x. 28. Remember ye are not ascended into heaven; ye are but in your middle state: The everlasting arms have drawn you out of the gulf of wrath ye were plunged into, in your natural state; they are still underneath you, that ye can never fall down into it again: nevertheless ye have not yet got up to the top of the rock; the deep below you is frightful; look at it, and hasten your ascent. Ye who are yet in your natural state, lift up your eyes, and take a view of the eternal

"To

state. Arise ye profane persons, ye ignorant ones, ye formal hypocrites, strangers to the power of godliness, flee from the wrath to come. Let not the young adventure to delay a moment longer, nor the old put off this work any more. day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," lest he swear in his wrath that ye shall not 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 for that they slighted the warning, when they had it.

Consider, I pray you, (1.) How uneasy it is to lie one whole night on a soft bed in perfect health, when one very fain would have sleep, but cannot get it, sleep being departed from him. How often will one in that case wish for rest! How full of tossings to and fro! But ah! how dreadful must it then be to lie in sorrow, wrapt up in scorching flames through a long eternity, in that place where they have no rest day nor night! (2.) How terrible would it be to live under violent pains of the cholic or gravel, for forty or sixty years together, without any intermission! Yet that is but a very small thing in comparison of eternal separation from God, the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched. (3.) Eternity is an awful thought! O long, long, endless eternity! But will not every moment in eternity of wo, 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; complains that his pain ever continues, 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 real eternity of wo, and all manner of miseries be! Lastly, There will be space enough there to reflect on all the ills of one's heart and life, which one 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 think on delayed repentance, to rue one's follies, when it is too late, and in a state past remedy, to speak forth their fruitless wishes, "O that I had never been born! That the womb had been my grave, and I had never seen the sun! O that I had taken warning in time, and fled from his wrath while the door of mercy was standing open to me! O that I had never heard the gospel! that I had lived in some corner of the world where a Saviour

and the 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 cannot be recalled. Wherefore improve time while you have it, and do not wilfully ruin yourselves by stopping your ears 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 labour 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 of Christ, as he is offered in the gospel, for justification and sanctification: And he is now offered to you with all his salvation, Rev. xxii. 12, 17.

"And be

hold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is a-thirst, Come. And whosoever 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 "delivereth us from the wrath to come. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Rom. viii. 1. And 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 determine you unto 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.

Thus far of MAN'S ETERNAL STATE: the which, because it is eternal, admits no succeeding one for ever.

THE END.