A41649:326
A word to sinners, and a word to saints The former tending to the…
A word to sinners, and a word to saints The former tending to the awakening the consciences of secure sinners, unto a lively sense and apprehension of the dreadful condition they are in, so long as they live in their natural and unregenerate estate. The latter tending to the directing and persuading of the godly and regenerate unto several singular duties. As also a word to householders stirring them up to the good old way of serving God in and with their families, from Joshua's resolution, Josh. 24. 15. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Set forth especially for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of St. Sepulchres Parish, London by Tho. Gouge, late pastor thereof.A word to sinners, and a word to saints The former tending to the awakening the consciences of secure sinners, unto a lively sense and apprehension of the dreadfull condition they are in, so long as they live in their natural and unregenerate estate. The latter tending to the directing and perswading of the godly and regenerate unto several singular duties. As also a word to housholders stirring them up to the good old way of serving God in and with their families, from Joshuah's resolution, Josh. 24. 15. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Set forth especially for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of St. Sepulchres Parish, London by Tho. Gouge, late pastor thereof.
London: printed for George Sawbridge, 1668
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
If there might be any end of their torments, though it should be after so many millions of years, as there are Sands on the Sea-shore, or Stars in the Firmament, it would be some comfort to those who endure them. But Eternity is the very hell of hells, and that which most of all breaks the very hearts of the damned. The present sense of pain being not so grievous to the damned, as it is to think that after thousands, yea thousand thousands of years, they shall be as far either from end or from ease, as they were the first hour of their falling into it. Surely if to a man tormented with the gout, stone, or colic, one night seemeth exceeding long; Oh how long do you think eternity (that night which shall never know morning) will seem to those who shall lye tormented and roaring in a bed of flame, with wicked fiends, and Devils about them, daily and hourly adding to their torment? If one short nights pain be so tedious and grievous, what will that eternal night be?
If there might be any end of their torments, though it should be after so many millions of years, as there are Sands on the Sea-shore, or Stars in the Firmament, it would be some comfort to those who endure them. But Eternity is the very hell of hells, and that which most of all breaks the very hearts of the damned. The present sense of pain being not so grievous to the damned, as it is to think that after thousands, yea thousand thousands of years, they shall be as far either from end or from ease, as they were the first hour of their falling into it. Surely if to a man tormented with the gout, stone, or collick, one night seemeth exceeding long; Oh how long do you think eternity (that night which shall never know morning) will seem to those who shall lye tormented and roaring in a bed of flame, with wicked fiends, and Devils about them, daily and hourly adding to their torment? If one short nights pain be so tedious and grievous, what will that eternal night be?
Ah sinner, thou art not now able to endure the sudden scorch of a fire, nor to hold one of thy fingers over the flame of a Candle for a quarter of an hour. How wilt thou then endure to lye in a fiery flaming Furnace, not only an hour, or a day, but years, yea millions of years? Some have thus represented the eternity of hell-torments. Suppose, say they, that all the vast space, which is between Heaven and Earth, were filled with Sands: and God should command an Angel once in every thousand years to fetch away one small grain; what an innumerable number of years would be spent before all those sands would be fetched away? yet shalt thou abide thus long in hellfire: and when they are expired, continue as long again and again, and a thousand times told, for Eternity knows no beginning, no middle, no end: but after a