Considerations of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, with…

As he made all things by the mere ⟨p. 120⟩act of his Will, so without the least strain of his Power he can destroy them? What does not a mortal man arrogate to appear terrible, and make his Will to be obeyed, when he has but power to take away this short natural life? The proud King of Babylon commanded the numerous Nations under his Empire, to prostrate themselves like Brutes in the lowest adoration of the Image he set up; and when the three Hebrew young Men refused to give Divine Honour to it, he threatened, If ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery Furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? This is the language of a Man (poor Dust) that can heat a Furnace with Fire, and has a Squadron ⟨p. 121⟩of Soldiers ready upon the least intimation of his pleasure to throw into it any that disobeyed, as if no Power either in Heaven or Earth could rescue them from him. 'Twas impious folly in him thus to speak. But God can give order to Death to seize on the stoutest Rebel, and cast him into an eternal Furnace, and say in truth, Who shall deliver out of my hands? His Power reaches beyond the Grave.¹ Tiberius intending to put to death by slow and exquisite torments one who killed himself, cried out in a rage, Carnulius has made an escape from me. But no Sinner can by dying escape God's Justice, for Death it self takes the Condemned, and delivers them to endless Torments. There are no degrees of fear can be equal to this cause, the Wrath ⟨p. 122⟩of the great Creator. Is there any pleasure of sin so sweet, but this, if considered, would make it to be as Poison or Gall to the taste? Is any Joy so predominant but this would instantly make it die in the carnal heart? The due apprehension of Almighty Anger is sufficient to subdue the most vicious insuperable passions that so violently transport to sin. But O Astonishing stupidity! The most of Men without fear provoke the living God, as if he were like the Idols of the Heathens, a dead stock or stone, insensible and powerless, so that the Spiders made their Webs on the Beard of Jupiter, and the Birds their Nests in his Thunder. Where is their Reason, where is their self-love, to challenge so dreadful an Adversary, who is able in the very act of Sin