Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

This curse hath its first fruits on earth, which are a pledge of the whole lump that is to follow. And hence it is, that as temporal and external benefits are bound up together, under the same expressions ⟨p. 322⟩in the promise to the Lord's people, as Isa xxxv. 10. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion, &c. relating both to the return from Babylon, and to the saints going to their eternal rest in heaven: even so temporal and eternal miseries, on the enemies of God, are sometimes wrapped up under one and the same expression in the threatening, as Isa. xxx. 33. For Tophet is ordained of old: yea, for the King it is prepared, he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood, the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. Which relates both to the temporal and eternal destruction of the Assyrians, who fell by the hand of the angel before Jerusalem. See also Isa lxvi. 24. What is that judicial blindness to which many are given up in whom the God of this world hath blinded their eyes, (2 Cor iv. 4.) but the first fruits of hell and of the curse? Their sun is going down at noon day; their darkness increasing as if it would not stop, till it issue in utter darkness. Many a lash, in the dark, doth conscience give the wicked, which the world doth not hear of: and what is that, but that the never-dying worm is already begun to gnaw them? And there is not one of these, but they may call it Joseph, for the Lord shall add another; or rather God, for a troop cometh. These drops of wrath are terrible forebodings of the full shower which is to follow. Sometimes they are given up to their vile affections, that they have no more command over them, Rom. i. 26. So their lusts grow up more and more towards perfection, if I may so speak. As in heaven grace comes to its perfection, so in hell sin arrives at its highest pitch; and as sin is thus advancing upon the man, he is the nearer and the liker to hell. There are three things that have a fearful aspect here. First, When every thing that might do good to mens souls, is blasted to them; so that their blessings are cursed, (Mal. ii. 2) sermons, prayers, admonitions, and reproofs, which are powerful towards others, are quite inefficacious to them. 2dly, When men go on sinning still, in the face of plain rebukes from the Lord, in ordinances and providences: