Chapter 51

But, further, when the soul has thus far, by its wickedness, pursued the motion of sin to bring it into action, then to the last thing; to wit, to endeavours, to take the opportunity, which, by the invention, is judged most convenient; so to endeavours it goes, till it has finished sin, and finished, in finishing of that, its own fearful damnation. ‘Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death’ (James 1:15).

And who knows, but God and the soul, how many lets, hindrances, convictions, fears, frights, misgivings, and thoughts of the judgment of God, all this while are passing and repassing, turning and returning, over the face of the soul? how many times the soul is made to start, look back, and tremble, while it is pursuing the pleasure, profit, applause, or preferment that sin, when finished, promiseth to yield unto the soul? for God is such a lover of the soul, that He seldom lets it go on in sin, but He cries to it, by His Word and providences, ‘Oh! do not this abominable thing that I hate!’ (Jer 44: 4); especially at first, until it shall have hardened itself, and so provoked Him to give it up in sin-revenging judgment to its own ways and doings, which is the terriblest judgment under heaven; and this brings me to the third thing, the which I now will speak to.

3. As the soul receives, detains, entertains, and wilily worketh to bring sin from the motion into act, so it abhorreth to be controlled and taken off of this work—‘My soul loathed them,’ says God, ‘and their soul also abhorred Me’ (Zech 6:8). My soul loathed them, because they were so bad; and their souls abhorred Me, because I am so good. Sin, then, is the cause of the loss of the soul; because it hath set the soul, or, rather, because the soul of love to sin hath set itself against God. ‘Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves’(Isa 3:9).

[Through sin the soul sets itself against God.]

Third, That you may the better perceive that the soul, through sin, has set itself against God, I will propose, and speak briefly to, these two things:—

I. The law. II. The gospel.

I. For the law. God has given it for a rule of life, either as written in their natures, or as inserted in the Holy Scriptures; I say, for a rule of life to all the children of men. But what have men done, or how have they carried it to this law of their Creator; let us see, and that from the mouth of God himself.

1. ‘They have not hearkened unto My words’ (Jer 6:19).

2. ‘They have forsaken My law’ (Jer 9:13).

3. They ‘have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law’ (Jer 16:11).

4. They have not ‘walked in My law, nor in My statutes’ (Jer 44: 4).

5. ‘Her priests have violated My law’ (Eze 22:26).

6. And, saith God, ‘I have written to him the great things of My law, but they were counted as a strange thing.’ (Hos 8:12).

Now, whence should all this disobedience arise? Not from the unreasonableness of the commandment, but from the opposition that is lodged in us against God, and the enmity that it entertains against goodness. Hence the apostle speaks of the emnity, and says, that men are enemies in their minds, their souls, as is manifest by wicked works (Col 1:21). This, if men went no further, must needs be highly provoking to a just and holy God: yea, so highly offensive is it, that, to show the heat of His anger, He saith, ‘Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil,’ and this evil with a witness, ‘of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile,’ that doth evil (Rom 2:8,9). That breaketh the law; for that evil He is crying out against now. But,

II. To speak of the gospel, and of the carriage of sinful souls towards God under that dispensation.

The gospel is a revelation of a sovereign remedy, provided by God, through Christ, for the health and salvation of those that have made themselves objects of wrath by the breach of the law of works; this is manifest by all the Scripture. But how doth the soul carry it towards God, when He offereth to deal with it under and by this dispensation of grace? Why, just as it carried it under the law of works: they oppose, they contradict, they blaspheme, and forbid that this gospel be mentioned (Acts 13:45; 27:6). What higher affront or contempt can be offered to God, and what greater disdain can be shown against the gospel? (2 Tim 2:25; 1 Thess 2:14-16). Yet all this the poor soul, to its own wrong, offereth against the way of its own salvation; as it is said in the Word of truth, ‘He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate Me love death’ (Prov 8:36).

But, further, the soul despiseth not the gospel in that revelation of it only, but the great and chief bringer thereof, with the manner, also, of His bringing of it. The Bringer, the great Bringer of the gospel, is the good Lord Jesus Christ himself; He ‘came and preached peace to them that the law proclaimed war against; became and preached peace to them that were afar off, and to them that were nigh’ (Eph 2:17). And it is worth your observation to take notice how He came, and that was, and still is, as He is set forth in the word of the gospel; to wit, first, as making peace Himself to God for us in and by the blood of His cross; and then, as bearing (as set out by the gospel) the very characters of His sufferings before our faces in every tender of the gospel of His grace unto us. And to touch a little upon the dress in which, by the gospel, Christ presenteth unto us while He offereth unto sinful souls His peace, by the tenders thereof.

1. He is set forth as born for us, to save our souls (Isa 9:6; Luke 2:9-12).

2. He is set forth before us as bearing of our sins for us, and suffering God’s wrath for us (1 Cor 15:3; Gal 3:13).

3. He is set forth before us as fulfilling the law for us, and as bringing of everlasting righteousness to us for our covering (Rom 5:4; Dan 9:24).

Again, as to the manner of His working out the salvation of sinners for them, that they might have peace and joy, and heaven and glory, for ever.

(1.) He is set forth as sweating of blood while He was in His agony, wrestling with the thoughts of death, which He was to suffer for our sins, that He might save the soul (Luke 22:44).

(2.) He is set forth as crying, weeping, and mourning under the lashes of justice that He put Himself under, and was willing to bear for our sins (Heb 5:7).

(3.) He is set forth as betrayed, apprehended, condemned, spit on, scourged, buffeted, mocked, crowned with thorns, crucified, pierced with nails and a spear, to save the soul from being betrayed by the devil and sin; to save it from being apprehended by justice, and condemned by the law; to save it from being spit on, in a way of contempt, by holiness; to save it from being scourged with guilt of sins, as with scorpions; to save it from being continually buffeted by its own conscience; to save it from being mocked at by God; to save it from being crowned with ignominy and shame for ever; to save it from dying the second death; to save it from wounds and grief for ever.

Dost thou understand me, sinful soul? He wrestled with justice, that thou mightest have rest; He wept and mourned, that thou mightest laugh and rejoice; He was betrayed, that thou mightest go free; was apprehended, that thou mightest escape; He was condemned, that thou mightest be justified; and was killed, that thou mightest live; He wore a crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear a crown of glory; and was nailed to the cross, with His arms wide open, to show with what freeness all His merits shall be bestowed on the coming soul; and how heartily He will receive it into His bosom?

Further, all this He did of mere good will, and offereth the benefit thereof unto thee freely; yea, He cometh unto thee, in the word of the gospel, with the blood running down from His head upon His face, with His tears abiding upon His cheeks, with the holes as fresh in His hands and His feet, and as with the blood still bubbling out of His side, to pray thee to accept of the benefit, and to be reconciled to God thereby (2 Cor 5). But what saith the sinful soul to this? I do not ask what he saith with his lips, for he will assuredly flatter God with his mouth; but what doth his actions and carriages declare as to his acceptance of this incomparable benefit? For ‘a wicked man speaketh with his feet, and teacheth with his fingers’ (Prov 6:12,13). With his feet—that is, by the way he goeth: and with his fingers—that is, by his acts and doings. So, then, what saith he by his goings, by his sets and doings, unto this incomparable benefit, thus brought unto him from the Father, by His only Son, Jesus Christ? What saith he? Why, he saith that he doth not at all regard this Christ, nor value the grace thus tendered unto him in the gospel.

1. He saith, that he regardeth not this Christ, that he seeth nothing in Him why he should admit Him to be entertained in his affections. Therefore the prophet, speaking in the person of sinners, says, ‘He (Christ) hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Himl’ and then adds, to show what he meaneth by his thus speaking, saying, ‘he is despised and rejected of men’ (Isa 53:2,3). All this is spoken with reference to His person, and it was eminently fulfilled upon Him in the days of His flesh, when He was hated, maligned, and persecuted to death by sinners; and is still fulfilled in the souls of sinners, in that they cannot abide to think of Him with thoughts that have a tendency in them to separate them and their lusts asunder, and to the making of them to embrace Him for their darling, and the taking up of their cross to follow Him. All this sinners speak out with loud voices, in that they stop their ears and shut their eyes as to Him, but open them wide and hearken diligently to anything that pleaseth the flesh, and that is a nursery to sin. But,

2. As they despise, and reject, and do not regard His person, so they do not value the grace that He tendereth unto them by the gospel; this is plain by that indifferency of spirit that always attends them when, at any time, they hear thereof, or when it is presented unto them.

I may safely say, that the most of men who are concerned in a trade, will be more vigilant in dealing with a twelvepenny customer than they will be with Christ when He comes to make unto them, by the gospel, a tender of the incomparable grace of God. Hence they are called fools, because a price is put into their hands to get wisdom, and they have no heart unto it (Prov 18:16). And hence, again, it is that that bitter complaint is made, ‘But My people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of Me’ (Psa 81:11). Now, these things being found, as practised by the souls of sinners, must needs, after a wonderful manner, provoke; wherefore, no marvel that the heavens are bid to be astonished at this, and that damnation shall seize upon the soul for this (Jer 2).

And indeed, the soul that doth thus by practice, though with his mouth—as who doth not? he shall show much love, he doth, interpretatively, say these things:—

(1.) That he loveth sin better than grace, and darkness better than light, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed, ‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light (as is manifest), because their deeds were evil’ (John 3:19).

(2.) They do, also, by their thus rejecting of Christ and grace, say, that for what the law can do to them, they value it not; they regard not its thundering threatenings, nor will they shrink when they come to endure the execution thereof; wherefore God, to deter them from such bold and desperate ways, that do, interpretatively, fully declare that they make such desperate conclusions, insinuates that the burden of the curse thereof is intolerable, saying, ‘Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it’ (Eze 22:14).

(3.) Yea, by their thus doing, they do as good as say that they will run the hazard of a sentence of death at the day of judgment, and that they will, in the meantime, join issue, and stand a trial at that day with the great and terrible God. What else means their not hearkening to Him, their despising of His Son, and the rejecting of His grace; yea I say again, what else means their slighting of the curse of the law, and their choosing to abide in their sins till the day of death and judgment? And thus I have showed you the causes of the loss of the soul; and, assuredly, these things are no fables.

Objection. But some may object, and say, But you denounce all against the soul; the soul, as if the body were in no fault at all; or, as if there were no punishment assigned for the body.

Answer 1. The soul must be the part punished, because the soul is that which sins. ‘Every sin that a man doeth is without the body,’ fornication or adultery excepted (1 Cor 6:18). ‘Is without the body; that is, as to the wilily inventing, contriving, and finding out ways to bring the motions of sin into action. For, alas! What can the body do as to these? It is in a manner wholly passive; yea, altogether as to the lusting and purposing to do the wickedness, excepting the sin before excepted; ay, and not excepting that, as to the rise of that sin; for even that, with all the rest, ariseth and proceedeth out of the heart—the soul; ‘For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man’ (Mark 7:21-23). That is, the outward man. But a difference must always be put betwixt defiling and being defiled, that which defileth being the worst; not but that the body shall have its share of judgment, for body and soul must be destroyed in hell (Luke 12:4,5; Matt 10:28). The body as the instrument, the soul as the actor; but oh! the soul, the soul, the soul is the sinner; and, therefore, the soul, as the principal, must be punished.

And that God’s indignation burneth most against the soul appears in that death hath seized upon every soul already; for the Scripture saith, that every natural or unconverted man is dead (Eph 2:1-3). Dead! How? Is his body dead? No, verily; his body liveth, but his soul is dead (1 Tim 5:6). Dead! But with what death? Dead to God, and to all things gospelly good, by reason of that benumbing, stupifying, and senselessness, that, by God’s just judgment for and by sin, hath swallowed up the soul. Yea, if you observe, you shall see that the soul goeth first, or before, in punishment, not only by what has been said already, in that the soul is first made a partaker of death, but in that God first deals with the soul by convictions, yea, and terrors, perhaps, while the body is well; or, in that He giveth up the soul to judicial hardness and further blindness, while He leaveth the body to do His office in the world; yea, and also when the day of death and dissolution is come, the body is spared, while the soul is tormented in unutterable torment in hell. And so, I say, it shall be spared, and the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto it, while the soul mourneth in hell for sin. It is true, at the day of judgment, because that is the last and final judgment of God on men, then the body and soul shall be re-united, or joined together again, and shall then, together, partake of that recompence for their wickedness which is meet. When I say, the body is spared and the soul tormented, I mean not that the body is not then, at death, made to partake of the wages of sin, ‘for the wages of sin is death’ (Rom 3:23). But I mean, the body partakes then but of temporal death, which, as to sense and feeling, is sometimes over presently, and then resteth in the grave, while the soul is tormenting in hell. Yea, and why is death suffered to slay the body? I dare say, not chiefly for that the indignation of God most burneth against the body; but the body being the house for the soul in this world, God even pulls down this body, that the soul may be stript naked, and being stript, may be carried to prison, to the place where damned souls are, there to suffer in the beginning of suffering, that punishment that will be endless.

Answer 2. Therefore, the soul must be the part most sorely punished, because justice must be distributed with equity. God is a God of knowledge and judgment; by Him actions are weighed; actions in order to judgment (1 Sam 2). Now, by weighing of actions, since He finds the soul to have the deepest hand in sin; and He says that He hath so, of equity the soul is to bear the burden of punishment. ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right’ in His famous distributing of judgment? (Gen 18:25). ‘He will not lay upon man more than right, that he should enter into judgment with God’ (Job 34:23). The soul, since deepest in sin, shall also be deepest in punishment. ‘Shall one man sin,’ said Moses, ‘and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?’ (Num 1:22). He pleads here for equity in God’s distributing of judgment; yea, and so exact is God in the distribution thereof, that He will not punish heathens so as He will punish Jews; wherefore He saith, ‘Of the Jew first,’ or chiefly, ‘and also of the Gentile’ (Rom 2:9). Yea, in hell He has prepared several degrees of punishment for the several sorts or degrees of offenders; And some ‘shall receive greater damnation’ (Luke 22:47). And will it not be unmeet for us to think, since God is so elect in all His doings, that He will, without His weights and measures, give to soul and body, as I may say, carelessly, not severally, their punishments, according to the desert and merit of each?

Answer 3. The punishment of the soul in hell must needs, to be sure, as to degree, differ from the punishment of the body there. When I say, differ, I mean, must needs be greater, whether the body be punished with the same fire with the soul, or fire of another nature. If it be punished with the same fire, yet not in the same way; for the fire of guilt, with the apprehensions of indignation and wrath, are most properly felt and apprehended by the soul, and by the body by virtue of its union with the soul; and so felt by the body, if not only, yet, I think, mostly, by way of sympathy with the soul; and the cause, we say, is worse than the disease; and if the wrath of God, and the apprehensions of it, as discharging itself for sin, and the breach of the law, be that with which the soul is punished, as sure it is: then the body is punished by the effects, or by those influences that the soul, in its torments, has upon the body, by virtue of that great oneness and union that is between them.

But if there be a punishment prepared for the body distinct in kind from that which is prepared for the soul, yet it must be a punishment inferior to that which is prepared for the soul; not that the soul and body shall be severed, but being made of things distinct, their punishments will be by that which is most suitable to each. I say, it must be inferior, because nothing can be so hot, so tormenting, so intolerably insupportable, as the quickest apprehensions of, and the immediate sinking under, that guilt and indignation that is proportional to the offence. Should all the wood, and brimstone, and combustible matter on earth be gathered together for the tormenting of one body, yet that cannot yield that torment to that which the sense of guilt and burning-hot application of the indignation of God will do to the soul; yea, suppose the fire wherewith the body is tormented in hell should be seven times hotter than any of our fire; yea, suppose it, again, to be seven times hotter than that which is seven times hotter than ours, yet it must, suppose it to be but created fire, be infinitely short, as to tormenting operations, of the unspeakable wrath of God, when in the heat thereof He applieth it to, and doth punish the soul for sin in hell therewith. So, then, whether the body be tormented with the same fire wherewith the soul is tormented, or whether the fire be of another kind, yet it is not possible that it should bear the same punishment as to degree, because, or for the causes I have showed. Nor, indeed, is it meet it should, because the body has not sinned so, so grievously as the soul has done; and God proportioneth the punishment suitable to the offence.

Answer 4. With the soul by itself are the most quick and suitable apprehensions of God and His wrath; wherefore, that must needs be made partaker of the sorest punishment in hell; it is the soul that now is the most subtle at discerning, and it is the soul that will be so; then conscience, memory, and understanding, and mind; these will be the seat of torment, since the understanding will let wrath immediately upon these, from what it apprehends of that wrath; conscience will let the wrath of God immediately upon these, from what it fearfully feels of that wrath; the memory will then, as a vessel, receive and retain up to the brim of this wrath, even as it receiveth by the understanding and conscience, the cause of this wrath, and considers the durableness of it; so, then, the soul is the seat and the receiver of wrath, even as it was the receiver and seat of sin; here, then, is sin and wrath upon the soul, the soul in the body, and so soul and body tormented in hell fire.

Answer 5. The soul will be most tormented, because strongest; the biggest burden must lie upon the strongest part, especially since, also, it is made capable of it by its sin. The soul must bear its own punishment, and a great part of the body’s too, forasmuch as, so far as apprehension goes, the soul will be quicker at the work than the body. True, the body, by the help of the soul, will see too, but the soul will see yet abundantly further. And good reason that the soul should bear part of the punishment of the body, because it was through its allurements that the body yielded to help the soul to sin. The devil presented sin, the soul took it by the body, and now devil, and soul, and body, and all must be lost, cast away; that is, damned in hell for sin; but the soul must be the burden bearer.

Objection. But you say, Doth not this give encouragement to sinners to give way to the body to be in all its members loose, and vain, and wicked, as instruments to sin?

Answer. No; forasmuch as the body shall also have his share in punishment. For though I have said the soul shall have more punishment than the body, yet I have not said, that the body shall at all be eased by that; no, the body will have its due. And for the better making out of my answer further, consider of these following particulars:—