Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

Secondly, Another Demonstration of the dreadfulness of this Vengeance is this, That it is a Wrath that shall come up unto, and equal all our Fears. You know what an inventive and ingenious thing Fear is, what horrid Shapes it can fancy to it self out of every thing: Put but an active Fancy into an Affright, and presently the whole World will be filled ⟨p. 133⟩with strange Monsters and hideous Apparitions. The very shaking of a leaf will sometimes rout all the Forces and Resolutions of Men: And usually it is this wild Passion that doth enhance all other Dangers, and make them seem greater and more dreadful than indeed they are. But now here it is impossible for a wicked Man to fear more than he shall certainly suffer. Let his Imaginations be hung round with all the dismal Shapes that ever frighted Men out of their Wits; let his Fancy dip its Pencil in the deepest Melancholy that ever any Soul was besmeared with, and then strive to portray and express the most terrible things that it can judge to be the Objects of Fear, or the Instruments of Torment, yet the ⟨p. 134⟩Wrath of the great God vastly exceeds all that Fear it self can possibly represent. See that strange Expression, Psalm 90.11. Who knows the Power of thine Anger? according to thy Fear, so is thy Wrath. That is, according to the fear Men have of thee, as dreadful and as terrible as they can possibly apprehend thy Wrath to be, so it is, and much more. Let the Heart of Man stretch it self to the utmost bounds of Imagination, and call into its Aid all the things that ever it hath heard or seen to be dreadful; let it (as that Painter, who to make a beautiful Piece, borrowed several of the best Features from several beautiful Persons) borrow all the dreadful, all the direful Representations that ever it met with, to make up one most terrible ⟨p. 135⟩Idea; yet the Wrath of God shall still exceed it: He can execute more Wrath upon us than we can fear. Some wicked Men in this Life have had a Spark of this Wrath of God fall upon their Consciences, when they lye roaring out under Despair and fearful Expectations of the fiery Indignation of God to consume and devour them. But alas this is nothing to what they shall hereafter feel. God now doth but open to them a small chink and crevice into Hell, he now doth but suffer a few small drops of his Wrath to fall upon them.