A64642:314
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crab. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanley Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crabb. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanly Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.
London: printed by S. Griffin for Will, 1660
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.
2. But it's a place of torment too, a prison where there is a rack, to which thou must be put, and on which thou must be tormented: I am tormented in this flame, saith Dives. To speak of the torments there, will be matter enough for another ⟨p. 151⟩hour, but I delight not to dwell on so sad a subject: only this is that which prepares the way to the glad tidings of salvation, therefore I shall a little longer insist upon it. The body and soul, the whole man, shall be there tormented; not the soul only, but even the body too after judgment. Do you think the members of the body, which have been the instruments, shall escape? be raised, and cast into hell to no purpose? Why should God quicken it at the last day, but to break it on the anvil of his wrath, and to make it accompany the soul, as well in torments as in sinning. 'Tis true, the soul is the fountain of all sense, and the body without it hath no sense at all: take away the soul, and you may burn the body, and it will not feel it. Now the soul being the fountain of sense, and the body being united to it, when God shall lay his axe at this root, at this fountain, how dreadful shall it be? how shall the body choose but suffer too? Should any of us be cast into a fire, what a terrible torment would we account it? Fire and water, we say, have no mercy; but alas, this fire is nothing to the fire of hell, 'tis but as painted fire to that which burns for ever and ever. The furnace wherein Nebuchadnezzar commanded those to be thrown that fell not down to the graven Image which he had set up, was doubtless at every time a terrible place. Hell is compared to such a furnace; but what shall we think of it, when the King in his wrath shall command the furnace to be heated seven times hotter then usual? Nay, what shall ⟨p. 152⟩we think of hell, when the King of Heaven shall command it to be heated seventy times seven times hotter then before? when there shall be a fire, and a fire prepared: for so is this fire of Tophet, it's a pile of much wood. When the King of Heaven shall as it were set to work his wisdom, to fit it in the sharpest manner, in procuring such ingredients as may make it rage most, and be most violent: It is a fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels, the strongest of creatures, for the punishment of principalities and powers: and if it can master Angels, think not but that God hath a fire to roast thy soul.