A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

Thus death shall execute his office to kill their bodies, and hell his office to receive their souls, and the Devil his office to inflict torments; when God hath pronounced on them the particular sentence of his Justice. This damnation then is that fearful punishment of sin imposed on reprobates: made up of an extremity, universality, and eternity of torments. So extreme that they refuse addition, so universal that no part hath exemption, so everlasting that they never admit conclusion. Their extremity is undefined, their universality unconfined, their eternity without hope of end.

Thus death shall execute his office to kill their bodies, and hell his office to receive their soules, and the Devill his office to infflict torments; when God hath pronounced on them the particular sentence of his Iustice. This damnation then is that fearfull punishment of sin imposed on reprobates: made up of an extremity, universality, and eternity of torments. So extreme that they refuse addition, so universall that no part hath exemption, so everlasting that they never admit conclusion. Their extremitiy is undefin'd, their universality unconfined, their eternity without hope of end.

But how doth this stand with the Justice of God, for finite transgression to give infinite destruction? Sins are the actions of time, done in a temporality, limited in a certain space. Now if the punishment be proportionate to the sin, how can the one be temporal, the other eternal: sin transient, plague permanent? I answer, this equity and equality is observable in our civill punitions: the thief dispatcheth a robbery in half an hour; he lies many days in irons for this, and at last answers it with his neck. Adultery is soon perpetrated, a long and infamous shame depends upon it. Treason may be a villainy of no length; yet the delinquent finds mercy if he but lie in prison for it all his life, and lose his possessions for ever. Hic non quaer••da temporis aequalitas, sed expendenda sceleris gravitas. A man quickly gives himself a wound, but the Surgeon cannot so quickly heal him. David was not long in killing Uriah with the sword, yet did the sword never depart from his house. A man commits murder but once, and it was soon done; yet he is condemned to the perpetual galleys. There was one sick 38 years,