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

Now to prosecute this: The evil of Sin is not sufficiently or perfectly felt, no, not in the effects of it, by the Conscience of a Sinner, (so as it may be) until it be felt in that which is the highest, and most transcendent, and proper, most immediate and first-born effect thereof, of all other. And that is no other than the Wrath and Indignation of the All-powerful God: For that his Wrath shall break in upon the Sinner, and so considered, it is the most proper effect of all other of the demerit of Sin, God being stirred up and provoked thereunto by Sin. Do you provoke the Lord to Jealousy? 1 Cor. 10. 22. The like, Jer. 7. 19. Sins are as a heap of Charcoal, wicked Mens Consciences the Oven, and God's Wrath the Fire: Let this Fire be put into this Coal, and let both meet in a guilty Conscience, and it instantly becomes a fiery Oven within it self. And as concerning all other Punishments, I may say it, That all other, of what kind or from whomsoever, although they are all the effects and deserts of Sin, according to that in Jeremiah: [Thy way, and thy doings have procured these things to thee,] and this is thy Wickedness; as it follows there in Jer. 4. 18. Yet still these are all of them deficient, and fall ⟨p. 93⟩short in representing unto the Heart and Conscience the demerit of Sin, even so far as by the effects it may be known, and the Soul yet further is capable to feel: But if once the Wrath and Indignation of the Great God come into the Soul and Conscience, this when felt doth bear some answerable proportion, as an effect, unto so great an Evil as Sin is, which it hath deserved; and when revealed unto and impressed upon the Sinner's Conscience, it hath also the fullest dimensions of such an Evil (even to the Sinner also) as Sin justly deserveth, as far as any way the Creature is capable. Then it is that the Sinner feels, and takes in the evil of Sin, not as in secondary outward effects only, (and such all other Punishments whatsoever are in comparison to the Wrath of God, and therefore fall short) but in this case it feels immediately the demerit of Sin, in that which is the Cause, the only Cause, the highest Cause of all other secondary Punishments which Sin hath also deserved, whereof it also is the cause.