The greatness of the soul and unspeakableness of the loss thereof with the causes…

Now the Loss of the Soul doth not only stand in the Sin of Man, but in the Justice of God; hence he says, What is a Man advantaged, if he gains the whole World, and lose himself, ^por be cast away. Now this last clause [or be cast away] is not spoken to show what he that has lost his Soul has done (though a Man may also be said to cast away himself) but to show what God will do to those that have lost themselves: what God will add to that Loss. God will not cast away a righteous Man, but God will cast away the ^qwicked, such a wicked one as by the Text is under our consideration. This then is that which God will add, and so make the sad state of them that lose themselves double. The Man for Sin has lost himself, and God by Justice will cast him away: according to that ^rof Abigail to David, The Soul of my Lord, said she, shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God, and the Souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the midst of a Sling. So that here is God's hand as well as Man's; Man's by Sin, and God's by Justice. God shall cast them away; wherefore in the Text above-mentioned, he doth not say, or cast away himself, as meaning the act of the Man whose Soul is lost, but, or be cast away, supposing a second Person joining with the Man himself in the making ⟨p. 53⟩up of the greatness of the Loss of Soul: to wit, God himself, who will verily cast away that Man who has lost himself. God shall cast them away; that is, exclude them his favour or protection, and deliver them up to the due reward of their deed! he shall shut them out of his Heaven, and deliver them up to their Hell; he shall deny them a share in his Glory, and shall leave them to their own shame; he shall deny them a Portion in his Peace, and shall deliver them up to the Torments of the Devil and of their own guilty Consciences; he shall cast them out of his affection, pity and compassion, and shall leave them to the Flames that they by Sin have kindled, and to the Worm or biting Cockatrice that they themselves have hatched, nursed and nourished in their bosoms. And this will make their loss double, and so a Loss that is loss to the uttermost: a Loss above every Loss. A Man may cast away himself, and not be cast away of God; a Man may be cast away by others, and not be cast away of God;