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{2nap. X. OF THE FINAL STATE OF THE WICKED IN HELl],, 49t
grave beneath; and which yet it does not; but rathe r
that it delivers him from the punishment of hell, Prov.
xv. 24. in like manner, when it is said of hardened
and desperate sinners, that they with hell are at an
agreement; they seem to out-brave, deride, and bid
defiance to more than death and the grave; even to
mock at hell, and its torments they give no credit to.
It has its name, Sheol, from \^lav\^ because it asks and
has, and is never satisfied; and applied, whether to
the grave or hell, denotes the insatiablehess thereof,
Prov. xxvii. 20. and xxx. 16. Isa. v. 14. Hab. ii. 5.
--3. Another name for hell is Topher; which was
a place in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where the
Israelites burnt their sons and their daughters in the
fire, sacrificing them to Molech; and that the cries
of the infants might not be heard, to affect their pa-
rents, drums or tabrets were beat upon during the
time; and from hence the place had the name of To-
phet, Toph signifying a drum, or tabret; see Jet. vii.
31,32. and this seems to be used of the place and
state of the punishment of the wicked; Tophet is or-
dained of old, &c. Isa. xxx. 33. which the Targum
interprets of hell, prepared from ages past for the sins
of men; and which words, Calvin on the text, under-
stands of the miserable condition, and extreme tor-
ments and punishments of the wicked; and, indeed,
they seem fitly to describe them: Topher was ordained
of old, as hell is from eternity; and is that condemna-
tion wicked men were of old ordained unto: it was
prepared for the king; so everlasting fire is prepared
tbr the devil and his angels, for the prince of devils,
and all his subjects: it is made deep and large; so hell
is the bottomless pit large enough to hold the whole
posse of devils, and all the wicked, from the begin-
ning to the end of the world. The pile, the fuel, for
the fire, is much wood, wicked men, comparable to
thorns and briers, straw and stubble, withered branches
of vines, and dry trees; a fire kindled, and blown up
by the breath of the Lord, at whose blast, and the
breath of his nostrils, men perish and are consumed;
a fire, not blown by men, but by the breath of the
Almighty; like a stream of brimstone, such as de-
stroyed the cities of the plain. -4. From Gehinnon,
the valley of Hinnom, where Topher was, is the word
used in the New Testament, \~geena\~ {}, Matt. v. 22, 29,
30. Mark ix. 43, 45, 47. for the fire of hell; there,
as just observed, children were burnt with fire, and
sacrificed to Molech; which horrid custom the Is-
raelites borrowed from their neighbours the Canaanites,
or Phcenicians; and who carried it into their several
colonies, and particularly to Carthage; where, as
l)iodorus Siculus relates {}, the inhabitants had a statue
of Saturn, the same with Molech, whose hands were
put in such a position, that when children were put
into them, they rolled down, and fell into a chasm, or
ditch, full of fire; a fit crab!era of the fire of hell,
_
~ Of some absurd derivations of this wnrd, vid. Ruscam de inferno,
I. 1. c. 7. p. '29.
~4 Bibliolh. I. °~0. p. 756.
~' Vid. Sandford. de de~censu Christi, 1. t. s. 6. p. 8. et s. ~5. p. 44.
t~ Apollodorus fie Dent. Orig. 1. 1. p. 'l. 4. Ph~trnutus de Nat.
l)eor. p. II. 39. \~riqo ev tartaron heroenta\~, Homer. 11iat~ 8. v. 13. Tar-
taro tenebricoso 11ygin. lab. 146. rid. fall 150.
often called in scripture a lake of fire.. 5. Some-
times this place is called the deep abyss, or bottomless
pit: the devils, when they came out of the man, in
whom was a legion, besought Christ that he would not
order them to go into the deep, which seems to be their
place of full torment, since they deprecated going
into it, Luke viii. 31. and is the same with the bot-
tomless pit Abaddon is king of, and into which Satan,
when bound, will be east, Rev. ix. 1, 11, and xx. 3.
· - --6. Another name it has in the New Testament,
is Hades, which signifies an invisible state, a state of
darkness. Some derive it from the word Adamah,
earth ,s, from w. hence the first Adam; so that to go
down to Hades, is no other than to return to the earth,
from whence man was; and the word may signify the
grave, in Rev. i. 18. and xx. 13, 14. but it cannot be
so understood in Luke xvi. 23. when the rich man
died, was buried, and his body laid in the earth, it is
said, in Hades, in hell he lift up his eyes ; which can
never be meant of the grave; it is spoken of as distinct
from that; and as elsewhere, it is said to be a place of
torment; whereas the grave is a place of ease and
rest; between this, and where Abraham and Lazarus
were, was a gulf, that divided them fi'om one another;
whereas in the grave all lie promiscuously: so the
gates of hell, in.Matt. xvi. 18. must mean something
else, and not the gates of the grave.. -7. Another
word by which it is expressed, is Tartarus; and this
also but in one place, and co,nprehended in a verb
there used, 2 Pet. ii. 4. God spared not the angels that
sinned; but, \~tartarwsav\~, cast them down to tartarus, or
hell; which word, though only used in this place, yet
that, with others, belonging to it, is to be met'with
frequently in heathen-writers, who speak of the Titans,
and others, that rebelled against the gods, much in
the same language as the apostle does of the angels,
as bound anti east down to Tartarus; which they de-
scribe as a dark place, and as distant from the earth,
as the earth is from heaven {}: and, indeed, the story
of the Titans seems to be hammered ont of the scrip-
tural account of the fallen angels; and so Plato {}
speaks of wicked men, guilty of capital crimes, as cast
into Tartarus, or hell; and also of a place where three
ways met, two of which leads. the one to the Islands
of the blessed, the others to Tartarus ,s. Some derive
this word from a Greek word, which signifies to trou-
ble, it being a place of tribulation and anguish: and
others from a Chaidean word, which signifies to fall,
to subside, to go to the bottom {}, as being a low, in-
ferior place; hence called hell from beneath.
2dly, There are words and phrases by which the
future punishment of the wicked is expressed; and
which may serve to give a further account of the na-
ture of it. And,. 1. It is represented as a .prison;
so the fallen angels are said to be east into hell, as
into a prison, and where they lie in chains, and are
~ In Phmdone, p. 84.
~s In Gorgia, p. 357. vid. Virgil. )Eneid. 6. v. 540, &c. Socrates
apud Plutarch. de Consol. ad Apoli. p. 1~1.
~ Tar{ari vox Etymologo a \~tarassw\~ deducitur--mihi origo Chal~
daica, nmlto magis arridet, a themate, nempe \^ddrd\^ decid~, quo sensu
Tartarus pro eo quod subsidit et fundurn petit, accipitur. Wit~det. de
vita functorum statu, p. 87.