Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

Yet all these anxieties and terrors are but the beginning of sorrows: for the full and terrible recompenses of sin shall follow the Eternal Judgment, pronounced against the wicked at the last day. 'Tis true the sentence of the Law is past against the sinner in this present state, and temporal evils are the effects of it, but that sentence is revocable: at death the sentence is ratified by the Judge upon every impenitent sinner; 'tis decisive of his state, and involves him under punishment for ever: But the full execution of judgment shall not be till the public general sentence pronounced by the everlasting Judge, before the whole World. It exceeds the compass of created thoughts to understand fully the direful effects of sin in the Eternal State: For who knows the power of Gods wrath? The Scripture represents the punishment in expressions, that may instruct the mind, and terrify the imagination: that may work upon the Principles of Reason and Sense by which Men are naturally and strongly moved.

Yet all these anxieties and terrors are but the beginning of sorrows: for the full and terrible recompenses of sin shall follow the Eternal Judgment, pronounc'd against the wicked at the last day. 'Tis true the sentence of the Law is past against the sinner in this present state, and temporal evils are the effects of it, but that sentence is revocable: at death the sentence is ratified by the Judge upon every impenitent sinner; 'tis decicive of his state, and involves him under punishment for ever: But the full execution of judgment shall not be till the publick general sentence pronounc'd by the everlasting Judge, before the whole World. It exceeds the compass of created thoughts to understand fully the direful effects of sin in the Eternal State: For who knows the power of Gods wrath? The Scripture represents the punishment in expressions, that may instruct the mind, and terrifie the imagination: that may work upon the Principles of Reason and Sense by which Men are naturally and strongly moved.

1. Sinners shall be excluded from Communion with the blessed God in Heaven, in whose presence is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore. In the clear and transforming vision of his glory, and the intimate and indissoluble union with him by love consists the perfection and satisfaction of the immortal Soul. The felicity resulting from it, is so entire and eternal, as God is great and true, who has so often promised it to his Saints. Now sin separates lost Souls forever from the reviving presence of God. Who can declare the extent and degrees of that evil? For an evil rises in proportion to the good of which it deprives us: it must therefore follow, that Celestial blessedness being transcendent, the exclusion from it is proportionably evil: and as the felicity of the Saints results both from the direct possession of Heaven, and from comparison with the contrary state: so the misery of the damned arises, both from the thoughts of lost happiness, and from the lasting pain that torments them.