5. The obligation to Eternal punishment ceases: Pardon is dissolving and loosing that obligation. Now the punishment is exceeding great; Hell and damnation are no vain Scare-crows. Eternity makes every ⟨p. 24⟩thing truly great! the poena damni, an everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of the Lord, Matth. 25.41. Go ye cursed. Luk. 13.27. Depart ye workers of iniquity. When God turned Adam out of Paradise his case was very sad, but God took care of him in his Exile, made him Coats of skin, gave him a day of Patience, afterwards promised the seed of the woman, who should recover the lapsed estate of mankind, intimated hopes of a better Paradise. That estate therefore is nothing comparable to this, for now man is stripped of all his comforts, sent into an endless state of Misery, whence there is no hopes of ever changing his condition. So for the poena sensus, the pain, Mark 9.44. Where their worm never dieth and their fire is never quenched. The worm, is the worm of Conscience, reflecting on past folly and disobedience. See here a man may run away from the rebukes of Conscience by many shifts; sleeping, sporting, distracting his Mind with a clutter of business; but there, not a thought free, but is always thinking of slighted means, abused mercies, wasted time, the offences done to a merciful God, and the curse wherein they have involved themselves: the fire is the wrath of God, or these unknown pains that shall be inflicted ⟨p. 25⟩on body and soul, which must needs be great when we fall into the hands of the living God! If a little mitigation, a drop to cool your Tongue, be thought a great matter, oh what a blessedness is it, to be freed from so great an evil! Perhaps you coldly entertain the offer of a pardon now, but then to be freed from wrath to come, oh blessed Jesus! 1 Thes. 1.10.
5. The obligation to Eternal punishment ceases: Pardon is dissolving and loosing that obligation. Now the punishment is exceeding great; Hell and damnation are no vain Scare-crows. Eternity makes every ⟨p. 24⟩thing truly great! the poena damni, an everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of the Lord, Matth. 25.41. Go ye cursed. Luk. 13.27. Depart ye workers of iniquity. When God turned Adam out of Paradise his case was very sad, but God took care of him in his Exile, made him Coats of skin, gave him a day of Patience, afterwards promised the seed of the woman, who should recover the lapsed estate of mankind, intimated hopes of a better Paradise. That estate therefore is nothing comparable to this, for now man is stripped of all his comforts, sent into an endless state of Misery, whence there is no hopes of ever changing his condition. So for the poena sensus, the pain, Mark 9.44. Where their worm never dieth and their fire is never quenched. The worm, is the worm of Conscience, reflecting on past folly and disobedience. See here a man may run away from the rebukes of Conscience by many shifts; sleeping, sporting, distracting his Mind with a clutter of business; but there, not a thought free, but is always thinking of slighted means, abused mercies, wasted time, the offenses done to a merciful God, and the curse wherein they have involved themselves: the fire is the wrath of God, or these unknown pains that shall be inflicted ⟨p. 25⟩on body and soul, which must needs be great when we fall into the hands of the living God! If a little mitigation, a drop to cool your Tongue, be thought a great matter, oh what a blessedness is it, to be freed from so great an evil! Perhaps you coldly entertain the offer of a pardon now, but then to be freed from wrath to come, oh blessed Jesus! 1 Thes. 1.10.
