Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…

1. Of loss. And that consists in the deprivation of every thing that might administer the least comfort to him; and for this cause hell is termed utter darkness. Now darkness is a privation of all light, so is Hell of all comfort, to show that there is not the least thing that may give thee content, nor is the poorest thing thou canst desire to be had there. Darkness was one of the plagues of Egypt, though there were no kind of sense in it, yet we may think what a plague and vexation it was to them to sit so long in darkness. The darkness of Hell is darker then darkness it self. They shall not see light, saith the Scripture, they shall not have so much as a glimpse of it: To be cast into this utter darkness, where shall be nothing to administer the least comfort, what an infinite misery will that be? Were it only the loss of the things we now possess and enjoy, of all which death robs us, as pomp, honour, riches, and preferment, this were grievous to a wicked man: These are things death dispossesses a man of, these cannot follow him, nought but thy works accompany thee: thy friends may follow thee to the grave, but there they shall leave thee. To have been happy, and to be miserable, is the greatest woe: to have lived in good fashion, and to be wretched, is the greatest grief. How will this add to the sinners misery, when he shall say to himself, I had once all good things about me, but have now for my portion nothing but woe: I had a bed of down, but it is now exchanged for ⟨p. 146⟩a bed of fire: I was once honourable, but now I am full of shame and contempt; this will greatly add to his misery. But all this is nothing, these are but the beginnings of his sorrow in regard of loss: for a man to be rich and wealthy to day, and to morrow to be stripped of all, and left not worth a groat, to have all swept away, this is a woeful case.

1. Of loss. And that consists in the deprivation of every thing that might administer the least comfort to him; and for this cause hell is termed utter darknesse. Now darknesse is a privation of all light, so is Hell of all comfort, to shew that there is not the least thing that may give thee content, nor is the poorest thing thou canst desire to be had there. Darknesse was one of the plagues of Egypt, though there were no kind of sense in it, yet we may think what a plague and vexation it was to them to sit so long in darkness. The darknesse of Hell is darker then darknesse it self. They shall not see light, saith the Scripture, they shall not have so much as a glimpse of it: To be cast into this utter darkness, where shall be nothing to administer the least comfort, what an infinite misery will that be? Were it only the losse of the things we now possesse and enjoy, of all which death robs us, as pomp, honour, riches, and preferment, this were grievous to a wicked man: These are things death dispossesses a man of, these cannot follow him, nought but thy works accompany thee: thy friends may follow thee to the grave, but there they shall leave thee. To have been happy, and to be miserable, is the greatest woe: to have lived in good fashion, and to be wretched, is the greatest grief. How will this adde to the sinners misery, when he shall say to himself, I had once all good things about me, but have now for my portion nothing but woe: I had a bed of down, but it is now exchanged for