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soul, if it might be buried together with the body. But that cannot be; it must go and receive its sentence; and shall be shut up in the prison of hell, while the cursed body lies imprisoned in the grave, till the day of the general judgment.

When the end of the world, appointed of God, is come, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead arise. Then shall the weary earth, at the command of the Judge, cast forth the bodies, the cursed bodies, of those that lived and died in their natural state; "the sea, death, and hell, shall deliver up their dead," Rev. xx. 13. Their miserable bodies and souls shall be reunited, and forced before the tribunal of Christ. Then shall they receive that fearful sentence," Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," Matt. xxv. 41. "Whereupon they shall go away into everlasting punishment," ver. 46. They shall be eternally shut up in hell, never to get the least drop of comfort, nor the least ease of their torment. There they will be punished with the punishment of loss, being excommunicated for ever from the presence of God, his angels and saints. All means of grace, all hopes of a delivery, shall be for ever cut off from their eyes. They shall not have "a drop of water to cool their tongues," Luke xiv. 24, 25. They shall be punished with the punishment of sense. They must not only depart from God, but depart into fire, into everlasting fire. There the worm, that shall gnaw them, shall never die; the fire that shall scorch them shall never be quenched. God shall, through all eternity, hold them up with the one hand, and pour the full vials of wrath into them with the other.

This is that state of wrath natural men live in; being under much of the wrath of God, and liable to more. But, for a farther view of it, let us consider the qualities of that wrath. (1.) It is irresistible; there is no standing before it; "Who may stand in thy "sight, when once thou art angry ?" Psal. lxxxvi. 7. Can the worm or the moth defend itself against him that designs to crush it? As little can worm man stand before an angry God. Foolish man, indeed, practically

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bids a defiance to heaven. But the Lord often, even in this world, opens such sluices of wrath upon them, as all their might cannot stop; but they are carried away thereby, as with a flood. How much more will it be so in hell? (2.) It is unsupportable. What one cannot resist, he will set himself to bear; but, "who shall dwell in devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" God's wrath is a weight that will sink men into the lowest hell. It is a burden no man is able to stand under. "A wounded spirit who can bear it?" Prov. xviii. 14. (3.) It is unavoidable to such as will go on impenitently in their sinful course. "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy," Prov. xxix. 1. We may now fly from it indeed, by flying to Jesus Christ: but such as fly from Christ shall never be able to avoid it. Whither can men fly from an avenging God? Where will they find a shelter? The hills will not hear them. The mountains will be deaf to their loudest cries; when they cry to them, to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. (4.) It is powerful and fierce wrath, Psal. xc. 11. "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath." We are apt to fear the wrath of man more than we ought: but no man can apprehend the wrath of God to be more dreadful than it really is the power of it can never be known to the utmost; seeing it is infinite, and (properly speaking) has no utmost. How fierce soever it be, either on earth, or in hell, God can still carry it further. Every thing in God is most perfect in its kind; and therefore no wrath is so fierce as his. O sinner! how wilt thou be able to endure that wrath, which will tear thee in pieces, Psal. 1. 22. and grind thee to powder, Luke xx. 18. The history of the two she-bears, that tare the children of Beth-el, is an awful one, 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. But the united force of the rage of lions, leopards, and shebears, bereaved of their whelps, is not sufficient to give us even a scanty view of the power of the wrath of God, Hos. xiii. 7, 8. "Therefore I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them. }

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will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of their whelps, and will rent the caul of their heart," &c. (5.) It is penetrating and piercing wrath. It is burning wrath, and fiery indignation. There is no pain more exquisite than that which is caused by fire; and no fire so piercing as the fire of God's indignation, that burns into the lowest hell, Deut. xxxii. 22. The arrows of men's wrath can pierce flesh, blood, and bones; but cannot reach the soul: but the wrath of God will sink into the soul, and so pierce a man in the most tender part. Like as, when a person is thunder-struck, ofta times there is not a wound to be seen in the skin; yet life is gone, and the bones are, as it were, melted; so God's wrath can penetrate into and melt one's soul within him, when his earthly comforts stand about him entire, and untouched; as in Belshazzar's case, Dan. v. 6. (6.) It is constant wrath, running parallel with the man's continuance in an unregenerate state, constantly attending him from the womb to the grave. There are few so dark days, but the sun sometimes looketh out from under the clouds: but the wrath of God is an abiding cloud on the objects of it, John iii. 36. The wrath of God abideth on him that believes not. (7.) It is eternal. O miserable soul! If thou fly not from this wrath, unto Jesus Christ, thy misery had a beginning, but it shall never have an end. Should devouring death wholly swallow thee up, and for ever hold thee fast, in a grave, it would be kind; but thou must live again, and never die; that thou mayest be ever dying, in the hands of the living God. Cold death will quench the flame of men's wrath against us, if no thing else do it: but God's wrath, when it has come on the sinner, millions of ages will still be the wrath to come, Matt. iii. 7. 1 Thess. i. 10. as the water of a river is still coming, how much soever of it has passed. While God is, he will pursue the quarrel. Lastly, However dreadful it is, and though it be eternal, yet It is most just wrath. It is a clear fire, without the least smoke of unjustice. The sea of wrath raging with greatest fury against the sinner, is clear as crystal. The Judge of all the earth can do no wrong; he

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