A27107:200
The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk, that he may please…
The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk, that he may please God / amplified by the author
A27107:200
The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk, that he may please God / amplified by the author
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The fullness of cursedness (when it falls upon a Creature, not able to bear the brunt thereof) presseth him down to that bottomlessa deep of the endless bwrath of Almighty God; which is called thec damnation of Hell. This fullness of cursedness is either particular or general.
THe fulness of cursedness (when it falls upon a Creature, not able to bear the brunt thereof) presseth him down to that bottomlessa deep of the endless bwrath of Almighty God; which is called thec damnation of Hell. This fulness of cursedness is either particular or general.
Particular, is that which in a less measure of fullness lighteth upon thed Soul immediately as soon as she is separated from the Body. For, in the very instant of dissolution, she is in the sight and presence of God. For when she ceaseth to see with the organ of fleshly eyes, she seeth after a spiritual manner, like Stephen, whoe saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at his right hand: Or as a Man, who being born blind, and miraculously restored to his sight should see the Sun, which he never saw before. And thereby the testimony of her own ⟨p. 56⟩Conscience, Christ the righteous Judge, who knoweth all things, makes her by his omnipresent Power, to understand the doom and judgment that is due unto her sins, and what must be her eternala state. And in this manner standing in the sight of Heaven, not fit for her uncleanness to come into Heaven, she is said to stand before the Throne of God. And so forthwith she is bcarried by the evil angels, how came to fetch her with violence into Hell, where she is kept as in a Prison, in everlasting pains and chains, under darkness, unto the Judgment of the great Day: But not in that extremity of torments which she shall finally receive at the last Day.
Particular, is that which in a less measure of fulness lighteth upon thed Soul immediately as soon as she is separated from the Body. For, in the very instant of dissolution, she is in the sight and presence of God. For when she ceaseth to see with the organ of fleshly eyes, she seeth after a spiritual manner, like Stephen, whoe saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at his right hand: Or as a Man, who being born blind, and miraculously restored to his sight should see the Sun, which he never saw before. And thereby the testimony of her own ⟨p. 56⟩
The general fullness of cursedness is in ac greater measure of fullness, which shall be inflicted upon both thyd soul and body, when (by the mighty power of Christ the supreme Judge of heaven and earth) the one shall be brought out of Hell, and the other out of the Grave, as Prisoners to receive their dreadful doom, according to their evil deeds. How shall the reprobate by the roaring of the Sea, the quaking of the earth, the trembling of thee Powers of heaven, and terrors of heavenly signs, be driven at the worlds end, to their wits end! Oh, what a woeful salutation will there be, betwixt the damned Soul and Body, at their re-uniting at that terrible Day!
The general fulness of cursedness is in ac greater measure of fulness, which shall be inflicted upon both thyd soul and body, when (by the mighty power of Christ the supreme Judge of heaven and earth) the one shall be brought out of Hell, and the other out of the Grave, as Prisoners to receive their dreadful doom, according to their evil deeds. How shall the reprobate by the roaring of the Sea, the quaking of the earth, the trembling of thee Powers of heaven, and terrours of heavenly signs, be driven at the worlds end, to their wits end! Oh, what a woful salutation will there be, betwixt the damned Soul and Body, at their re-uniting at that terrible Day!
O sink of Sin, O lump of Filthiness, (will the Soul say unto her Body) how am I compelled to re-enter into thee, not as ⟨p. 57⟩into an habitation to rest, but as a Prison to be tormented together!1 how dost thou appear in my sight like Jephthah's Daughter to my greater torment! Would GOD thou hadst perpetually rotted in the grave, that I might never have seen thee again! How shall we be confounded together, to hear before God, Angels, and Men, laid open all those secret sins, which we committed together! Have I lost Heaven for the love of such a stinking Carrion? Art thou the flesh, for whose pleasures I have yielded to commit so many fornications? O filthy Belly, how became I such a Fool as to make thee my God! How mad was I for momentany joys, to incur these torments of eternal pains! Ye rocks and mountains, why skip ye so like rams, Psalm 144. 4. and will not fall upon me, to hide me from the face of him that comes to sit on yonder throne; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? Rev. 6. 16, 17. Why tremblest thou thus, Earth, at the presence of the Lord, and wilt not open thy Mouth and swallow me up, as thou didst Korah, that I be seen no more?
O damned furies! I would ye might without delay tear me in pieces, on condition that you would tear me into nothing! But whilst thou art thus in vain bewailing thy misery, the Angels hale thee violently away from the brink of the Grave, to some place near the Tribunal Seat of Christ, 1where being as a cursed Goat separated ⟨p. 58⟩to stand beneath on Earth, as on *the left-hand of the Judge; Christ shall rip up all the benefits he bestowed on thee, and the torments he suffered for thee, and all the good deeds which thou hast omitted, and all the ungrateful villainies which thou didst commit against him and his holy Laws.
Within thee, thine own Conscience (more than a Thousand Witnesses) shall accuse thee; the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness, shall on the one side testify with thy Conscience against thee; and on the other side, shall stand the holy Saints and Angels, approving Christ's Justice, and detesting so filthy a Creature; behind thee an hideous noise of innumerable fellow-damned Reprobates tarrying for thy company. Before thee †all the World burning in flaming fire; above thee an ireful Judge of deserved Vengeance, ready to pronounce his Sentence upon thee; beneath thee, the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit, gaping to receive thee. In this woeful estate, to hide thy self will be impossible; (for on that condition, thou wouldst wish that the greatest Rock might fall upon thee) to appear will be intolerable, and yet thou must stand forth, to receive, with other Reprobates, this thy Sentence, *Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
Within thee, thine own Conscience (more than a Thousand Witnesses) shall accuse thee; the Devils who tempted thee to all thy lewdness, shall on the one side testifie with thy Conscience against thee; and on the other side, shall stand the holy Saints and Angels, approving Christ's Justice, and detesting so filthy a Creature; behind thee an hideous noise of innumerable fellow-damned Reprobates tarrying for thy company. Before thee †all the World burning in flaming fire; above thee an ireful Judge of deserved Vengeance, ready to pronounce his Sentence upon thee; beneath thee, the fiery and sulphureous mouth of the bottomless pit, gaping to receive thee. In this woful estate, to hide thy self will be impossible; (for on that condition, thou wouldst wish that the greatest Rock might fall upon thee) to appear will be intolerable, and yet thou must stand forth, to receive, with other Reprobates, this thy Sentence, *Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
Depart from me] There is a separation from all joy and happiness.
Ye cursed] There is a black and direful Excommunication.
Into fire] There is the cruelty of Fain.
Everlasting] There is the perpetuity of punishment.
Prepared for the Devil and his Angels.] Here are thy infernal tormenting and tormented Companions.
O terrible Sentence! from which the condemned cannot escape; which being pronounced, cannot possibly be withstood: against which a Man cannot except, and from which a Man can no where appeal: so that to the damned nothing remains but hellish torments, which know neither ease of pain, nor end of time. From this Judgment-seat thou must be thrust by Angels (together with all the damned Devils and1 Reprobates) into the bottomless lake of utter darkness, that perpetually burneth with fire and brimstone. Whereunto as thou shalt be thrust, there shall be such weeping woes and wailing, that the cry of the company of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, when the earth swallowed them up, was nothing comparable to this howling; nay, it will seem unto thee an Hell before thou goest into Hell, but to hear it. Into which bottomless lake after that thou art once plunged, thou shalt ever be falling down, and never meet a bottom; and in it thou shalt ever lament, and none shall pity thee; thou shalt always weep for pain of the Fire, and yet gnash thy Teeth, for the extremity of Cold; thou shalt weep to think that thy miseries are past ⟨p. 60⟩remedy: thou shalt weep to think, that to repent is to no purpose: thou shalt weep to think, how for the shadows of short pleasures thou hast incurred these sorrows of eternal pains: thou shalt weep to see how that weeping it self can nothing prevail; yea,2 in weeping, thou shalt weep more tears than there is water in the Sea, for the water of the Sea is finite, but the weeping of a Reprobate shall be infinite.
There thy lascivious Eyes shall be afflicted with sights of ghastly Spirits, thy curious Ears shall be affrighted with hideous noise of howling Devils, and the gnashing Teeth of damned Reprobates; thy dainty Nose shall be cloyed with noisome stench of Sulphur; thy delicate Taste shall be pined with intolerable hunger; thy drunken Throat shall be parched with unquenchable thirst; thy Mind shall be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures, which perished ere they budded, thou so foolishly lost Heaven's Joys, and incurredst Hellish Pains, which last beyond Eternity. Thy Conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder, when thou thinkest how often Christ by his Preachers offered the Remission of Sins, and the Kingdom of Heaven freely unto thee, if thou wouldest but Believe and Repent; and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those days; how near thou wast many times to have repented, and yet didst suffer the Devil and the World to keep thee still in impenitency, and how the day of mercy ⟨p. 61⟩is now past, and will never dawn again.
There thy lascivious Eyes shall be afflicted with sights of ghastly Spirits, thy curious Ears shall be affrighted with hideous noise of howling Devils, and the gnashing Teeth of damned Reprobates; thy dainty Nose shall be cloyed with noisom stench of Sulphur; thy delicate Taste shall be pined with intolerable hunger; thy drunken Throat shall be parched with unquenchable thirst; thy Mind shall be tormented to think how for the love of abortive pleasures, which perished ere they budded, thou so foolishly lost Heaven's Joys, and incurredst Hellish Pains, which last beyond Eternity. Thy Conscience shall ever sting thee like an Adder, when thou thinkest how often Christ by his Preachers offered the Remission of Sins, and the Kingdom of Heaven freely unto thee, if thou wouldest but Believe and Repent; and how easily thou mightest have obtained mercy in those days; how near thou wast many times to have repented, and yet didst suffer the Devil and the World to keep thee still in impenitency, and how the day of mercy ⟨p. 61⟩is now past, and will never dawn again.