The sovereign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain itThe soveraign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain it

More particularly,¹ the state of Misery is set forth in Scripture by such representations as may powerfully instruct and terrify even the most carnal Men. Nothing is more intolerably painful, then suffering the violence of Fire enraged with Brimstone: and Hell is described by a Lake of Fire and Brimstone, wherein the Wicked are tormented. Whether the Fire be Material or Metaphorical, the reality and intenseness of the Torment is signified by it. ⟨p. 243⟩But the ordinary Fire, though mingled with the most torturing Ingredients, is not an adequate representation of it. For that is prepared by Men, but the Fire of Hell is prepared by the Wrath of God for the Devil and his Angels. The Divine Power is illustriously manifested in that terrible preparation: So that, as some of the Fathers express it, if one of the Damned might pass from those Flames into the fiercest Fires here, it were to exchange a Torment for a Refreshment. The Scripture speaks of the vehement heat and fiery Thirst, and outer Darkness in which the Damned suffer, to satisfy the rights of Justice in the torment of those Senses, for the Pleasure of which Men wilfully broke the Laws of God.

More particularly,¹ the state of Misery is set forth in Scripture by such representations as may powerfully instruct and terrifie even the most carnal Men. Nothing is more intolerably painful, then suffering the violence of Fire inraged with Brimstone: and Hell is described by a Lake of Fire and Brimstone, wherein the Wicked are tormented. Whether the Fire be Material or Metaphorical, the reality and intenseness of the Torment is signified by it. ⟨p. 243⟩But the ordinary Fire, though mingled with the most torturing Ingredients, is not an adequate representation of it. For that is prepared by Men, but the Fire of Hell is prepared by the Wrath of God for the Devil and his Angels. The Divine Power is illustriously manifested in that terrible preparation: So that, as some of the Fathers express it, if one of the Damned might pass from those Flames into the fiercest Fires here, it were to exchange a Torment for a Refreshment. The Scripture speaks of the vehement heat and fiery Thirst, and outer Darkness in which the Damned suffer, to satisfy the rights of Justice in the torment of those Senses, for the Pleasure of which Men wilfully broke the Laws of God.