Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_400.lzh/D_493.TXT

Text File | 1994-08-18 | 7KB | 134 lines

CaAP. X.                     OF THE FINAL STATE OF THE WICKED IN HELL.                                                              493

they sinned, and so Adatn, when he sinned, were
driven from the presence of God. And though wicked
men desire not the presence of God, but say, depart
from us, that is, this is the language of their lives and
actions; yet when they come to be punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord;
a great.part of that destruction will lie in an eternal
separation from it; it will be dreadful to them, as it
was an aggravation of the punishment of Cain, and
made it intolerable to him, though a wicked man;
From thy face shall I be hid / so to be everlastingiy
banished from God, without any hope of his fayour,
will be dreadful: the words of an ancient writer {}
are, " Many men only fear hell-fire; but I say, the
loss of that glory (the glory of God and of heaven) is
much greater than hell, or the punishment of sense:
if it cannot be proved by word, it is not to be won-
dered at; for we do not know the happiness of good
things, till we clearly know the misery of evil things,
from the privation of those good things?'                   2. Of
 Christ, the light and life of men, the light of grace,
 and the light of glory, in whom all salvation is; as
 death is the privation of life in a natural sense, eternal
 death is a privation of eternal life in Christ; as blind-
 ness is a privation of sight, and darkness of light; so
 the judicial blindness and darkness of the infernal state
 is a privation of the sight of Christ, and of light, life,
 and salvation by him; as the happiness of glorified
 saints, will lie in beholding Christ, and seeing Iris
 glory; the miserable state of the wicked will lie in
 being eternally deprived of such a sight; and there-
 fore this is always in the awful sentence pronounced
 on them by Christ; Depart from me, ye cursed; or
 depart from me, .ye workers of iniquity, Matt. vii.
 and xxv. 41. Luke xiii. 27.           3. Of the grace, peace,
 and joy of the Holy Ghost, of which they are desti-
 tute now, 'and will for ever be deprived of it; which
 will be in perfection in the kingdom of heaven; and
 instead of that, nothing but distress, anguish, and
 horror of mind; having no rest, no case, nor peace,
 day and night, Rev. xiv. l1.--           4. Of the company
of angels and saints: they will be tormented in the
presence of the angels, without receiving any benefit
by them, or relief fi'om them: they will be sensible of
the happiness of the saints, which will aggravate their
misery; they will not be able to come at them, and
share with them in their bliss; nor have the least de-
gree of consolation from them; the rich man saw
Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, but could not ob
tain one dip of the tip of his finger in water to cool
his tongue. This seems to be the Tantalus of the
heathens, or what they mean by Tantalus; a man
athirst and hungry, standing in water up to his chin,
and pleasant fruits just at his lips, and yet he not able
to quench his thirst with the one, nor to satisfy his
hunger with the other {}: yea, they will not have the
least pity shewn them by God, angels or men; God
will mock at their destruction; angels will applaud his
righteous judgment; and the holy apostles and pro-

~ Chrvsostom. Homi}. 47. ad pop. Antioch,
24 Qui[,rit aqtqis in aquis et poma fugacia captat Tantalus: hoc illi.
garrula lingua dedit, Ovid. Amor. eleg. 1. v. 43. }|ygin. fab. ~2.     i~
2y, Plin. l~at. Hist. !. 19. c. 1. et 1. 37. c. 10, Strabo, I. 10. p. 307.

phets, and all the saints, will rejoice over them, as
they will over Babylon, and at her destruction, be-
cause of the justice of God being glorified by it..
5. Of the kingdom of heaven, from whence they will
be excluded, and of the glories and joys of it, of
which they will be for ever deprived; they will see
the patriarchs and prophets, and all the saints, in the
kingdom of God, and they themselves thrust out;
the door will be shut upon them, and no entrance al-
lowed them; they will be obliged to stand without,
where dogs are; and will be cast into outer darkness,
for ever dep,'ived of the light of joy and comfort.
2dly, There is the punishment of sense, and which
will lie both in body and soul; for both will be de-
stroyed in hell, and 'be sensible of the fire of it.              .
|. The body: hence we often read of the whole body,
and of the several members of it with it, being cast
into hell, Matt. v. 29, 30. Mark ix. 43, 45, 4"t. now
though these are proverbial, or parabolical phrases,
yet they have a meaning in them, and have respect to
corporal punishment, which will be endured in the
body, some way or another. The body is subser-
vient to the soul in the commission of sin; its mem-
bers are yielded as instruments of unrighteousness;
that little member the tongue, is a world of iniquity,
defiles the whole body, and is productive of many
evils; and it is but just therefore, that the body should
have its share in the punishment of sin; and for this
purpose is the resurrection of the bbdy, that sinful
men may receive the jnst demerit of their sinful ac-
tions done in their bodies. It is a question moved,
Whether the fire of hell is a material fire? No doubt
that it is not the only thing meant by it, nor the chief,
which is the fire of divine wrath, in which figurative
sense it is often taken; though it seems to be some-
times taken in a pA'oper sense, since it has those things
ascribed to it which belong to fire properly so called,
as smoke, flame, heat, &c. and, indeed, how the body
can be affected with any other, is not easy to say, un-
less by sympathy with the soul, sustaining the fire of
divine wrath; nor is it any objection, that the bodies
of the wicked will be raised immortal, as never more
to die; whereas they would be liable to be consumed,
if cast into material fire. To which it may be an-
swered, they may be preserved, by the power of God,
from being consumed by it; as the three men in
buchadnezzar's furnace were preserved in the midst
of it for their safety, so may wicked men be pre-
served in the furnace of fire for their punishment.
And there are such things in nature which are not
consumed by fire; as a sort of flax, and cloth made
of it, cleansed by burning it; and a precious stone,
set on fire, which is not to be quenched; for which
reason both have the name of asbestos {}, unquencb-
able: and there is a sort of fly, called pyrausta {}, or
the fire-fly, which lives in the fire. Besides, this fire
may not be, as doubtless it is not, the same with our
culinary fire; it may be, like that, excruciating, but
not consuming; as we see with respect to lightning,

Pancirol. rer. memorab. et Salmuth. in ibid. p. 16. rid. Philosoph.
Transact. abridged~ vol. e. p, 55e, &c. and vol. 4. par. '2. p. e82.
~6 Plin. 1. l l. c. 36. rid. Philosoph. Transact. vol. 7. par.
p.