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

Now if this be thy case as to this and that other World, think with thy self what thine eternal Soul must then betake it self unto, and also unto whom in that other World. My Doctrinal part hath informed you that it is God himself, God immediately,—Eccl. 12. 7. The Spirit returns unto him that gave it. To explain which, There was that evident difference put in the making man's Soul at first from that of his Body, That God made the Body out of the Earth, but the Soul was breathed in by God; and therefore not out of any preexistent matter, as the Souls and Forms of all other living things are. And upon this dissolution or separation of each from other, it is that Solomon says, Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was: ⟨p. 220⟩and the Soul to God that gave it; that is to say, the same common Law befalls either in their kind, that to other things in their kind; they are reduced unto their first Principles. And so look as the Body is materially resolved into the Earth, which was the first matter of it; so according to some kind of Analogy thereunto, (and so far as the Soul is capable of a like return unto God,) the Soul returns to God that gave it; as having been the immediate Original of it, not materially, as a Spark is out of the Fire, but as the immediate Efficient. It came from God by way of Gift, God gave it; that is, freely and voluntarily produced it by a sole, single, free Act of his Will and Power, whereby he created it out of nothing; and so in the whole of it, it was an entire and mere Gift of his. And therefore in the beginning of his Exhortation, verse 1 of this Chap. he had aforehand laid this as a Foundation for it, Remember thy Creator, or Creators, and is so styled, because he is in a more special manner thy Creator, than of our Bodies, or of other Creatures; and that because himself immediately gave thy Soul, in such a manner as he produced not our Bodies, nor material Substances.—And hence it is it returns to him, as ⟨p. 221⟩the immediate Judg or Arbiter of its eternal Condition. It returns to Elohim; which, as A Lapide and Ferdinandus ¹have observed in their Comments, signifies also a Judg as well as a Creator, and so was chosen out here, as a word more fitly serving that his scope, than any other Name of God's. Now then think what it is to die; it is to return to God, so as eternally and immediately to have to do with him.