The Scripture directory for church-officers and people, or, A practical commentary upon the whole…

First, It's an Eternal Destruction; A destruction that is always destroying, and yet the party is not extinguished. If the Socinian annihilation were this destruction; or Origen's opinion for the salvation of men and ⟨p. 225⟩Devils at last, after thousands of years torments could prove true, here was some hope; but it's a living death, and a dying life, it's everlasting fire, it's the worm that never dieth. In all earthly calamities, on this side Hell, this is a mitigation, that they are not everlasting, they are but evil for a moment, there will be an end. But here thou art kept alive to be tormented for ever. Oh what a thunder bolt is that word for ever! Torment for ever! Horror for ever! Fire for ever! yet so it is.

First, It's an Eternal Destruction; A destruction that is alwayes destroying, and yet the party is not extinguished. If the Socinian annihilation were this destruction; or Origen's opinion for the salvation of men and ⟨p. 225⟩Devils at last, after thousands of yeares torments could prove true, here was some hope; but it's a living death, and a dying life, it's everlasting fire, it's the worme that never dieth. In all earthly calamities, on this side Hell, this is a mitigation, that they are not everlasting, they are but evil for a moment, there will be an end. But here thou art kept alive to be tormented for ever. Oh what a thunder bolt is that word for ever! Torment for ever! Horrour for ever! Fire for ever! yet so it is.

Secondly, It's an Universal Destruction in a moral sense. ¹There is not the least mixture of any joy, of any hope. For as Heaven is a state of unmixed happiness, there cannot a drop of gall fall into that ocean of happiness: So here, there cannot a drop of honey fall into that ocean of gall; we told you not a drop of water for the top of the tongue only could be obtained, much less for the whole body.