Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

First, To the Godly all these Afflictions are mixed with Love and Mercy. They are brought upon them not as Plagues, but as Medicaments to do them good. But in Hell all is Wrath, all is Fury, pure Wrath and Judgment without Mercy. And certainly if those Sufferings which are inflicted in Love, and allayed with Mercy, are yet so very dreadful to the People of God, how dreadful will the Wrath of God be in Hell, where it shall be pure and unmixed, and nothing put into that Cup which the Damned are there to drink of, but the rankest Venom that can be squeezed out of all the Curses that ever God hath denounced? And then,

First, To the Godly all these Afflictions are mixed with Love and Mercy. They are brought upon them not as Plagues, but as Medicaments to do them good. But in Hell all is Wrath, all is Fury, pure Wrath and Judgment without Mercy. And certainly if those Sufferings which are inflicted in Love, and allay'd with Mercy, are yet so very dreadful to the People of God, how dreadful will the Wrath of God be in Hell, where it shall be pure and unmixed, and nothing put into that Cup which the Damned are there to drink of, but the rankest Venome that can be squeezed out of all the Curses that ever God hath donounced? And then,

Secondly, To the Wicked all the Troubles and Terrors which they here endure are nothing in comparison with what they must eternally suffer in Hell. They are now only sprinkled with a few drops of God's Wrath, but in Hell all his Waves shall go over them for ever. Here they do but sip a little of that Cup, and taste a little of the Froth of it, and should they drink deeper, Earth could not hold them, but they would grow drunk, and reel and stagger into Hell; but there they must for ever drink the very Dregs of that Cup of Trembling and Astonishment. And thou who now roarest and strugglest like a wild Bull in a Net, when God's Hand is only upon thee, what wilt thou do when thou shalt eternally fall into his Mighty ⟨p. 100⟩Hands? Thou now criest out of the Intolerableness of thy present Pain: but, alas, hadst thou but felt one gripe of the Torments of the Damned in Hell; had God and the Devil had but one blow apiece at thee, thou wouldst choose to live for ever here on Earth in the most exquisite Torture that could be devised, choose to bear the sharpest Paroxysms of the Stone or Gout, to be stretched upon the Rack, to lye broke upon the Wheel, to have thy Flesh plucked off by fiery Pincers; thou wouldst choose to suffer all these to all Eternity; yea and choose them too as Recreations and Divertissements rather than return again to that place of Torment; where not only the Eternity, but the Smart and Anguish of them, is infinite and unconceivable.