Two discourses I. of the punishment of sin in hell, demonstrating the wrath of…

Heman complains at the third verse of that Psal. 88. My Soul is full of Trouble, &c. And what was the matter of that trouble, and the inflicting cause hereof? ver. 7. Thy Wrath lies hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves. Selah: those Words [Thy Wrath lies hard, &c.] others read, sustains it self, or bears up it self upon me; which is, as if a Giant should with his whole weight stay himself upon a Child. And thou hast afflicted me with all thy Waves. The Waves of that immense Ocean of Wrath (for unto such Waves he again compares these Terrors in ver. 16, 17.) he says they came over him continually; and overwhelmed his Soul, as billows of the Sea wallowing and tumbling upon a Jonah cast into them. And ver. 14, 15, 16. he sets out his condition such, as wherein there was not only a privation of God's Favour, and that God seemed to reject his Soul, as if he never meant more to look upon it, or regard it; so ver. 14. Why castest thou off my Soul? But further, positively, ver. 15. I suffer thy Terrors. And ver. 16. Thy fierce Wrath goes over me, Thy Terrors have cut me off. The blows which God gave ⟨p. 61⟩his Soul were so hard and sharp, that to his feeling they not only wounded or cut into, but cut off his Soul at every stroke. The like follows ver. 17. And this put him into the condition of Men in Hell. I am free among the dead, ver. 5. that is, of that Society, Number and Company; and as one of them, that are cut off from thy Hand, or (as the Margin renders it) [by thy Hand.] All which are, as if he had said, they are not the strokes of Creatures I feel; or of thine Anger, as conveyed by Creature distresses, but of thine own immediate hand; and such, as those that are in Hell it self, do feel from thee. These are Notes and Degrees beyond, and higher than the Ela of Dolours from or by the hands of Creatures, though set on by God: They are Strains of another Key, the doleful Air of which doth sound another hand and stroke, (purely Divine) that did immediately strike upon their Heart-strings that spake these things. These are the resoundings of blows and strokes which God's own immediate Hand gave upon the bare Spirit, of one wounded by him; he that attentively listens to them, will soon perceive and esteem (as they said,) this Man stricken and smitten of God himself. Creature-distresses give a far less report.

Heman complains at the third verse of that