An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

Hence Note; First, They who are like the unclean in this life, shall be wrapped up with them in the next life after death, or in the second death.

They who live like the wicked shall die like the wicked, and live with them, if theirs may be called a life, for evermore. The hypocrite, with all his varnish and fair colours, shall not die like a godly man, nor live with him after death; though he hath lived the life of a godly man, as to appearance, yet he shall not die so, nor live so when the dead rise: he shall die and live like and among his own company, the unclean. He was secretly unclean in his life, and he shall openly live among the unclean, when he dyes. Balaam a Sorcerer, a Witch, a false Prophet, how did he beg, that he might die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his! (Num. 23.14.) The hypocrite would fain die like those whom he hath imitated and made a show of all the days of his life; But did Balaam die like the righteous? no, he dyed, as he lived, like one that had loved the wages of unrighteousness. Though hypocrites have lived in reputation with godly and good men, yea, have been reputed godly and good men, yet when they die they shall go down among the unclean, even among the debauched and filthy Sodomites, they shall go to their own place and to their own company. It is said of Judas when he hanged himself (Acts. 1.25) He went to his own place, ¹his proper place. All things naturally tend to that which is congenial or like to them; heavy things downward, light things upward. What place is congenial to, what place is the centre of wicked men? Surely Hell, the bottomless pit is their own place, and that's the meaning of the text there. Judas was a great while among the Apostles in an high place, in a very excellent ⟨p. 273⟩place, he went like an Apostle, or for an Apostle; but that was not his own place; he was an hypocrite, and when he dyed then he went to his own place, to that place which was proper to him. In this life good and bad are mingled together in the same place; the hypocrites and the sincere may be in one House, in one Cong egation, in one Church, in the purest Church on earth there may be hypocrites in heart as well as sincere; but when hypocrites die they shall be divided from all those with whom they were never truly, or in heart, united. If it were possible, all the godly or sincere should be in one place as to spirituals here (that's most comely and desirable, though not attainable) yet we cannot make the separation perfect in this life;