I. If it were but a giving us up into the Hands of mere Creatures to afflict, and they assisted by God, but with the common and ordinary concurrence of his Power, which joins with, and upholds the Agency of all things in their workings; whether in comforting us or in distressing of us: this is the lowest degree ⟨p. 118⟩of supposition. And yet consider how dreadful this Supposition would render to our Thoughts, such a punishment to be: if God should be but as the looker on, and withal the setter of them on: or (as in the Scripture phrase, Mat. 18. 34.) but only deliver us up to these Tormentors. As when it is termed a being cast into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone, suppose it were a Lake of material corporeal Fire only, wherein thy Body is cast; and thy Soul, no otherwise to suffer than by what the Spirits of that Body it is united to, and dwells in, is by that Fire made sensible of. And suppose withal, the Spirits thereof were kept up, in their utmost sensibleness, of what torment that Fire could inflict; and thy Body continually flaming, (as the Bush in Exodus) and yet never burnt up, how terrible is it for Flesh and Blood to think but this of it! Or, to use another comparison, If a Man were bound Hand and Foot with his Mouth set open, and were cast into a Pit, wherein, as in the Apostles Sheet, let down from Heaven, were all manner of Creeping things, Toads, Serpents of all sorts, fiery Scorpions, Cockatrices, Vipers, Adders, Snakes, &c. Flies, Hornets, Lice, Pismires and Frogs, &c And that these should bite and sting thee, with exquisite Pain and Torment; ⟨p. 119⟩also creep in at thy Mouth, down into thy Inwards, gnaw and swell thee there. How did but one sort of these Creatures, when sent by God, afflict Pharaoh and all the Egyptians? A Man in this case, should endure not only the Pains mentioned, but beyond them the torture which Antipathy, contrariety and natural abhorrency Works, which is of all other most exquisite, and turns nature backward (as of Jordan it is said) into a recoil, and wresteth it against it self, and throws it off its hinges. I need not instance, how by this way of Antipathy, a Cock makes a Lion roar, a Mouse the Elephant to tremble, a Serpent or a Toad, a Spider, sets the whole of nature in Man into an inconsistency; a Man knows not how to bear up, sustain himself, or be himself.
I. If it were but a giving us up into the Hands of meer Creatures to afflict, and they assisted by God, but with the common and ordinary concurrence of his Power, which joins with, and upholds the Agency of all things in their workings; whether in comforting us or in distressing of us: this is the lowest degree ⟨p. 118⟩of supposition. And yet consider how dreadful this Supposition would render to our Thoughts, such a punishment to be: if God should be but as the looker on, and withal the setter of them on: or (as in the Scripture phrase, Mat. 18. 34.) but only deliver us up to these Tormentors. As when it is termed a being cast into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone, suppose it were a Lake of material corporeal Fire only, wherein thy Body is cast; and thy Soul, no otherwise to suffer than by what the Spirits of that Body it is united to, and dwells in, is by that Fire made sensible of. And suppose withal, the Spirits thereof were kept up, in their utmost sensibleness, of what torment that Fire could inflict; and thy Body continually flaming, (as the Bush in Exodus) and yet never burnt up, how terrible is it for Flesh and Blood to think but this of it! Or, to use another comparison, If a Man were bound Hand and Foot with his Mouth set open, and were cast into a Pit, wherein, as in the Apostles Sheet, let down from Heaven, were all manner of Creeping things, Toads, Serpents of all sorts, fiery Scorpions, Cockatrices, Vipers, Adders, Snakes, &c. Flies, Hornets, Lice, Pismires and Frogs, &c And that these should bite and sting thee, with exquisite Pain and Torment; ⟨p. 119⟩also creep in at thy Mouth, down into thy Inwards, gnaw and swell thee there. How did but one sort of these Creatures, when sent by God, afflict Pharaoh and all the Aegyptians? A Man in this case, should endure not only the Pains mentioned, but beyond them the torture which Antipathy, cotrariety and natural abhorrency Works, which is of all other most exquisite, and turns nature backward (as of Jordan it is said) into a recoyl, and wresteth it against it self, and throws it off its hinges. I need not instance, how by this way of Antipathy, a Cock makes a Lion roar, a Mouse the Elephant to tremble, a Serpent or a Toad, a Spider, sets the whole of nature in Man into an inconsistency; a Man knows not how to bear up, sustain himself, or be himself.
