The Dreadfulness of God's Wrath, Explained

Hebrews 10:30-31. For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, says the Lord; and again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

There are two principal attributes of God, which the Scripture propounds to us as the most powerful and efficacious motives to restrain us from sin: and they are his mercy, and his justice; mercy though it be a soft, yet is it a strong argument to encourage us to purity and holiness. And therefore says the Apostle, the goodness of God leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). And certainly that mercy that expresses itself so ready to pardon sin, cannot but lay a mighty obligation upon the ingenuity of a Christian spirit to abstain from the commission of it. He that can encourage himself in wickedness, upon the consideration of the infinite free grace of God, does but spurn those very bowels that yearn towards him, and strike at God with his own golden scepter, indeed he tears abroad those wounds which were at first opened for him, and casts the blood of his Savior back again in his face. But because ingenuity is perished from off the earth, and men are generally more apt to be wrought upon by arguments drawn from fear than love, therefore the Scripture propounds to us the consideration of the dreadful justice of God arrayed in all the terrible circumstances of it, that if mercy cannot allure us, justice at least might affright us from our sins. And as those who are to travel through wildernesses and deserts, carry fire with them to terrify wild and ravenous beasts, and to secure themselves from their assaults: so does the great God, who has to deal with brutish men, men more savage than wild beasts, he kindles a fire about him, and appears to them all in flames and fury; that so he might fright them from their bold attempts, who otherwise would be ready, to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of his buckler (Job 15:26).

And therefore in the four preceding verses, we find the Apostle threatening most tremendous judgments against all that should willfully transgress, after they had received the knowledge of the truth. He tells us, there remains no more sacrifice for their sins: nothing to expiate their guilt, but that they themselves must fall a burnt-sacrifice to the offended justice of God, consumed with that fiery indignation that shall certainly seize and prey upon them for ever. And in Hebrews 10:28-29, he sets forth the exceeding dreadfulness of their judgment, by a comparison between those that violated the law of Moses, and those that renounce and annul the law of Christ. He that despised Moses's law, who himself was but a servant, and his laws consisted of inferior and less spiritual ordinances, yet a despiser and transgressor of these was to die without mercy; certainly much sorer judgments await those, who reject the laws of Christ, and trample him who is the Son and Lord of the house, under foot; accounting his blood unholy and profane, renouncing his merits, and blaspheming the Holy Spirit by which our Savior acted: such as these, shall eternally perish with less mercy, than those that died without mercy. Where observe the strange emphasis that the Apostle lays upon this dreadful commination; he tells us they shall be more sorely punished, than those that are punished without mercy; to let us know, that as there are transcendent glories, such as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive, reserved in the heavens for those that love God; so are there woes and torments, such as eye has not seen, ear heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive, how great and insupportable they are, prepared in hell for those that hate him. They shall die with less mercy, than those that die without mercy.

Now that we might not wonder at such a paradox as this, the Apostle gives the reason of it in my text, For we know him that has said, Vengeance belongs to me, it is the vengeance of God, and a falling into the hands of God, and therefore it is no wonder if their punishments be beyond all extremity. They fall under the power and wrath of an infinite God, which when we have heaped superlatives upon superlatives, yet still we must express defectively, and all that we can conceive of it falls vastly short of reaching but a faint and languishing resemblance thereof. It is a state so full of perfect misery, that misery itself is too easy a name to give it; indeed, whatever we can speak most appositely of it, is but diminishing it; for because it is the wrath and vengeance of an infinite God, it can no more be known by us, than God himself. Plunge your thoughts as deep into it as you can, yet still there remains an infinite abyss which you can never fathom. And O that the consideration of this wrath might cause us to tremble before this great and terrible God, that we might so fear it, as never to feel it; and be persuaded to fall down at his feet, that we may never fall into his hands. And that we may be thus affected, I have chosen this text to set forth the greatness and dreadfulness of that wrath and vengeance which the righteous God will execute upon all stubborn and disobedient wretches.

A text that speaks to us, as God did to the Israelites from Mount Sinai, out of the midst of the fire and blackness, darkness and tempest, in the voice of a trumpet. And truly we have all need to have such rousing truths frequently inculcated upon us, for the best of us are lethargical, and though sometimes when our consciences are pinched hard by a severe and searching truth, we start and look abroad, yet as soon as the present impression is over, we close our eyes, and fall asleep again in sin and security. There is a strange dullness and stupor has seized us, that we can no longer keep waking than we are shook.

And therefore as we use to apply fire and burning coals to lethargic persons to awaken them; so we have need to heap coals of fire upon men's heads, to speak with fiery tongues, and thunder woe and wrath and judgments against them, that we may rouse the secure stupid world, and scorch them into life and sense.

In the words we have these two parts observable.

First, an appropriation of vengeance to God, Vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, says the Lord.

Secondly, the dreadfulness of that vengeance inferred, from the consideration of the author and inflicter of it, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

I begin with the first of these, God's appropriating and challenging vengeance to himself. Vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, says the Lord. Which passage the Apostle cites out of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 32:35), To me belongs vengeance and recompense, and the Lord shall judge his people. It is his great and royal prerogative that he does sometimes make use of in inflicting judgments upon the wicked in this world, but most especially in the world to come. And to this future vengeance, the words ought particularly to be applied. Now from this consideration, that vengeance in a peculiar manner belongs to the great God, we may observe,

That God himself will be the immediate inflicter of the punishments of the damned.

It is therefore here called a falling into the hands of the living God, which denotes his immediate efficiency in their torments.

It is true, God does use several instruments of torture in Hell. There is the worm that never dies, and the fire that never goes out, which I suppose to be not only a metaphorical, but possibly a material fire, elevated to such a degree of subtlety, as that it shall at once torture the soul, and not consume the body. And this fire the devils, who are their executioners, will be officiously raking about them, using all their malicious art to increase their eternal misery. But these things are but small appendages, and the slighter circumstances of their torments; the most exact and intolerable part of their torture shall be inflicted on them from another fire, an intelligent, everlasting, and therefore an unquenchable fire, even God himself, for so he is said to be (Hebrews 12:19), Our God is a consuming fire.

And though we ordinarily speak only of Hell fire, yet not only Hell, but Heaven is full of this fire; consult that place (Isaiah 33:14), Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Would not one think at the first sound of the words, that the Prophet speaks only of such as should be damned in Hell, remaining there in everlasting burnings? And demands of them, who among them could endure this? No, but it appears plainly, that this fire and burning is in Heaven itself, and the Prophet by putting this question, Who shall dwell with the devouring fire and everlasting burnings? asks who shall be saved, and not who shall be destroyed? And therefore in the 15th verse, he tells us, that he shall do it, who walks uprightly, and speaks uprightly, that despises the gain of oppression, that shakes his hands from holding of bribes, that stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from seeing of evil. Such a one shall dwell with the devouring fire; that is, he shall for ever dwell with God in Heaven. So that we see God is a fire both to the wicked, and to the godly; to the wicked he is a penetrating torturing fire, and they are combustible matter for his wrath and vengeance to prey upon; but to the godly he is a purifying and cherishing fire only. And as lightning does not only cleanse and refine the air, but rends trees and rocks in pieces; dissolves metals, and breaks through whatever opposes it: so this great and Almighty fire only refreshes and comforts the godly, whereas it breaks and tears the wicked in pieces, and melts them like wax before the scorching heat of it. And though I deny not but there may be somewhat like that which we commonly apprehend when we speak of Hell, some unquenchable flames prepared by the wisdom and power of God for the eternal torment of those that shall be cast thereinto; yet withal I think that their most exquisite torments shall be from that fire that is God himself.

For if we observe, it is said to be everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Now the devils are spiritual substances, and flames of fire themselves. He makes his angels spirits, and his ministers, that is his ministering spirits, whether good or evil, whether ministers of his wrath, or ministers of his mercy, he makes them flames of fire (Psalm 104:4). They are such piercing and subtle flames, that lightning itself is but gross and dull, compared to them: yet here is a fire that shall even torture fire itself, a fire that shall burn those flames of fire; and that is God, who being a Spirit, and the God of spirits, can easily pierce into the very center of their being. So that the damned in Hell shall for ever find themselves burnt with a double fire, a material fire, suited and adapted to impress pain and torment upon the body, yet without wasting and consuming it; and an invisible intellectual fire, that shall prey upon the soul, and fill it with unspeakable anguish and horror, and this is no other than God himself.

And in this there is a true parallel between Heaven and Hell; for as in Heaven, though there are many created excellencies and glories, which contribute to the happiness of the saints; yet their most substantial happiness is from their immediate fruition of God: so likewise in Hell, though there be many created and invented tortures, yet the most intolerable misery of the damned, is from the immediate infliction and infusion of the divine wrath into them, which no creature can convey to them in such a manner and measure as they there feel it; but God himself pours the full vials of it into their souls. And therefore as the saints are called vessels of mercy, so the wicked are called vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction (Romans 9:22). Such vessels into which God will pour in of his vengeance, and fill brim full with his wrath and fury for ever.

The Apostle speaking of wicked men, tells us, They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Where we must not think that this phrase [From the presence of the Lord] denotes only that part of their punishment which we call poena Damni, or the punishment of loss; but rather that it denotes the efficient cause of their poena Sensus, or the punishment of sense; not that their punishment shall only be, to be for ever banished from his presence, but that this presence shall be active in inflicting punishments upon them, and we may read it thus, They shall be punished with everlasting destruction, by the presence of the Lord, and by the glory of his power: for as God's glorious power is effective of their destruction, so also is his dread presence of that consuming and tormenting fire.

And thus much briefly for the first thing observable in the text, namely God's appropriating vengeance to himself, vengeance belongs to me, and it is a falling into the hands of the living God.

I come now to the second thing observable in the words, the dreadfulness of this vengeance inferred, from the consideration of the author and inflicter of it; for because it is divine vengeance, and a falling into the hands of the living God, therefore it must needs be very terrible. And here I shall first take notice of those expressions that my text affords, to set forth the terror of this wrath. And then consider other demonstrations of it. And here,

First, Consider that all other vengeance is as nothing in comparison of that which God takes on a damned soul. You may possibly have heard of strange and horrid revenges that some cruel men have carved out to themselves, putting those that have offended them to such tortures as were unfit for men either to inflict or suffer. Histories abound with such barbarities, I am loth to offend your ears so much as to recount them, let us only take an estimate by the dreadful revenge that David took on the Ammonites: He put them under saws, and harrows of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kilns. And all this severity, (if not to say cruelty) was to revenge the insolent affront done to his ambassadors. It is doubtless no small torture to be burnt alive, for fire is a searching thing, and eats deep into the senses; but yet this kind of death was a merciful dispatch in comparison of the others: Think what it is to be stretched along, to have the sharp spikes of a harrow tear up your flesh, and draw out your bowels and bones after them: Or what it is to be sawn asunder, and to have those small teeth eat their way slowly through you, while they jar against your bones, and pull out your nerves and sinews thread by thread. How many deaths, think you, were these miserable creatures compelled to suffer before they were permitted to die. Yet these, and all the witty tortures that ever were invented by the greatest masters of cruelty, are nothing in comparison of the vengeance that God will take upon sinners in hell: And therefore he says, Vengeance is mine, I will recompense. As if he should say, Alas, all that you can do one to another signifies nothing, it is not to be accounted vengeance, that is too great a name for such poor effects. It is a prerogative that God challenges to himself to be the avenger: And whatever creatures meddle with, if they have not a commission from him, it is their sin; and therefore private persons, whom he has not invested with such authority, ought not to take upon them to avenge their own cause. Or if they have a commission, yet all their execution of vengeance is but feeble and weak. We find in ecclesiastical history that the holy martyrs have often mocked at all the cruel tortures of their enraged persecutors, and God has either taken from them all sense of pain, or else given them in such strong consolations, that they have triumphed in all the extremity of them; O how have they hugged the stake at which they were to be burnt, courted the beasts that were to devour them, and been stretched upon the rack with as much content, as they have stretched themselves upon their beds; and not so much suffered, as enjoyed their deaths! God has so mercifully taken off the edge and keenness of their torments, to show that vengeance is his right, and that they are but contemptible things that one man can inflict upon another, scarce worthy to be called vengeance. And besides, let it be never so sharp and cutting, yet it cannot be long durable; the more intolerable any torments are, the sooner they work our escape from them. And though malice may wish the perpetuity of our pain, yet it is not possible for mortal men to prosecute an immortal revenge, the death, either of them, or ourselves, will put a period to our sufferings. And what a small matter is it to undergo pain for a few days only, this is not worthy to be called vengeance, nor is it like that which the great God will inflict, which is both insupportable and eternal. And therefore,

Second, The Apostle calls it a falling into the hands of the living God. And this denotes to us the perpetuity and eternity of this vengeance. God ever lives to inflict it, and sinners shall ever live to suffer it; for they fall into his hands. God has leased out a life to every wicked man, he has his term of years set him, wherein he lives to himself, enjoying his lusts, and the pleasures and profits of this present world; and all this while vengeance intermeddies little with him: but when his life is expired, and his years run out, he then falls into the hands of the great Lord of all, and becomes the possession of his vengeance and justice for ever. And then, he is the living God, and such wicked wretches must for ever live to endure the most dreadful execution of his power and wrath. Were there any term or period set to their torments, should they when they have endured them thousands of thousands of years, afterwards be annihilated, the expectation of this release would give them some support; indeed, it would be some solace to them in their sufferings to think that at last they should be freed from them: but this is the accent of their misery, and that which makes them altogether desperate, that it is for ever; for ever they must lie and wallow in those flames that shall never be quenched, and shall always be bit and stung with that worm that shall never die. They are fallen into the hands of the living God, who will never let them go as long as he lives, that is, never to all eternity. He is a consuming fire, but yet spends not any part of his fuel, he consumes without diminishing them, and destroys, but still perpetuates their being. A wise and intelligent fire, (as Minutius calls him) that devours the damned, but still repairs them, and by tormenting still nourishes them for future torments. Sapiens ille ignis, urit & reficit, carpit & nutrit. And when they have lain burning in this fire all ages that arithmetic can sum up, millions of thousands, and thousands of millions, yet still it is but the beginning of their sorrows. O think with yourselves how long and tedious a little time seems, when you are in pain, you complain then that time has leaden feet, and wish the days and hours would roll away faster, and you never find them so slow-paced, as when they pass over a sick bed. Oh then what will it be when you shall lie sweltering under the wrath and vengeance of the living God, the intolerableness of your pain and torment will make every day seem an age; and every year as long as eternity, and yet you must lie there an eternity of those long years. Methinks this consideration of eternal torments should astonish the heart, and sink the spirits of wicked wretches; for though they were not to be so excessively sharp as they are, yet the eternity of them should make them altogether intolerable. There is no pain so small but it would make us desperate, were we assured it would never wear off, that we should never obtain any ease or freedom from it. Whatever pain we suffer, our encouragement to patience is, that shortly it will be over: but now in hell there is no period fixed to their torments, they are all eternal, and therefore whatever they are for the measure of them, yet are they utterly intolerable for their duration and continuance. Could you shove away millions of years with a wish, yet all this would avail nothing; for there are as many years in eternity as there are moments, and as many millions of years as there are years; that is, it is an infinite boundless duration, and when you have struck your thoughts as deep into it as you can, yet you are but at the top of the heap, and it is still a whole eternity to the bottom.

Third, Consider also that the wrath and vengeance of God is most dreadful, not only from the eternal duration thereof; but also from the excessive anguish and smart of those torments that he inflicts; nothing that we have felt, or can feel in this present life, can come into any comparison with them; and therefore the text calls it, a falling into the hands of God. Here on earth God's hand does sometimes fall upon us, and it falls very heavy too; and lays upon us sore and weighty burdens; but these are nothing to our falling into the hands of God. There is as much difference between his wrath and displeasure falling upon us, and our falling upon it, as there is between our having a few drops of a shower falling upon us, and our falling into a river, or into the sea, and being overwhelmed with the great waters thereof; and yet how dreadful is it when God's hand only falls upon us! It was a sad complaint of the Psalmist, that God's hand lay heavy upon him (Psalm 32:4), and that God's hand pressed him sore (Psalm 38:2). Grievous burdens and sore pressures may be laid upon us by this hand of God, and that both as to outward afflictions, and inward troubles.

First, As to outward afflictions. How dreadfully does God stretch out his hand against some, making wide and terrible breaches upon them; some in their estates, some in their relations, and some in their bodily health and strength. Have you never been about the sick beds of those that have roared through extremity of pain, every limb being upon the rack, and God filling them with a complication of loathsome, tormenting and incurable diseases? And yet all this is but only a falling of God's hand upon them.

Secondly, as to inward troubles: We see how God cramps some men's consciences, breathes fire and flames into their very souls, and makes deep wounds in their spirits, forcing them through the extremity of anguish to cry out, they are damned, they are damned; indeed some have even wished that they were in Hell, supposing those everlasting torments would not be more insufferable than what they here felt. And indeed these inward troubles are far more grievous than any outward can be. We hear Heman crying out, that because of these terrors of the Lord, he was ready to die from his youth up (Psalm 88:15). And while [illegible] suffered this wrath of God, he was [illegible] distracted with it. And Job, whose patience is celebrated for bearing all his outward afflictions, loss of estate, of children, of health, with a heroic constancy — (you have heard, says Saint James, of the patience of Job) — yet when God comes to touch his spirit with his wrath, then we hear of his impatience: he curses the day of his birth, and wishes that God would destroy him, that he would let loose his hand and cut him off. And for why are these passionate requests? He tells us, The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison of which drinks up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me (Job 6:9). And therefore though he could patiently bear all that the rage of the Devil could do against him, when he touched his wealth, his children; yes, when he touched his body: yet his patience could no longer hold out, when God came to touch his soul and conscience.

And yet the greatest terrors of conscience, whether in the children of God to their reformation, or in the wicked to their desperation, are but light and small touches of his hand in comparison with what shall be expressed hereafter on the damned in Hell. For,

First, to the godly these afflictions are mixed with love and mercy. They come not as plagues, but as medicines to do them good. But in Hell all is wrath, pure wrath and judgment without mercy. And certainly if those sufferings which are inflicted in love, and alleviated with mercy, are yet so very dreadful to the people of God; how dreadful will the wrath of God be in Hell, where it shall be pure and unmixed, and nothing put into that cup which the damned are there to drink of, but the rankest venom that can be squeezed out of all the curses that ever God has denounced? And then,

Secondly, to the wicked all the sufferings they here endure are nothing in comparison with what they must eternally suffer in Hell. They are now only sprinkled with a few drops of God's wrath, but in Hell all his waves shall go over them forever. Here they do but sip a little of that cup, and taste a little of the froth of it, and should they drink deeper, earth could not hold them, but they would grow drunk, and reel and stagger into Hell; but there they must forever drink the very dregs of that cup of trembling and astonishment. And you who now roar like a wild bull in a net, when God's hand is only upon you, what will you do when you shall eternally fall under his mighty hands? You now cry out of the intolerableness of your present pain: but, alas, had you but felt one gripe of the torments of the damned in Hell; had God and the Devil had but one blow apiece at you, you would choose to live forever here on earth in the most exquisite torture that could be devised, the sharpest paroxysms of the stone or gout, to be stretched upon the rack, to lie broken upon the wheel, to have your flesh plucked by fiery pincers; you would choose to suffer all these to eternity; yes, and choose them as recreations and diversions, rather than return to that place of torment; where not only the eternity, but the anguish of them, is infinite and inconceivable. And as one day in the joys of Heaven is better than a thousand years in all the impure and low delights of earth: so one day in the torments of Hell, is far worse than a thousand in the sharpest miseries we can endure in this life.

Here our pains usually are but partial; God aims and shoots with his arrow but at some one part of us: if he wounds our spirits, yet this invisible shaft (like lightning) passes through without making a breach in our bodies, or estates; we have still our health and plenty left us. Or if he strikes the body, usually it is but in one, or at most but in some few places, and we enjoy ease in the rest: but in Hell, God does as it were wrap the whole man up in burial cloth, and set it on fire round about them, so that they are tormented in every part, neither soul nor body escaping, nor any power or faculty of the one, nor any part or member of the other.

When we fall into the hands of God, we are plunged into an ocean of wrath, and are covered all over with his indignation; the understanding, will, conscience, affections, are all as full of torments as they can hold: for what can be greater anguish to the mind than to know our misery, and to know it to be without remedy? And what can be greater anguish to the will and affections, than most ardently and vehemently to desire freedom from those torments, but yet to despair of ever obtaining it? And what can fill the conscience with greater anguish, than to reflect with infinite horror and regret, that it was the sinner's own folly and madness that brought them to this miserable condition? How will they be ready to rend and tear themselves in pieces, their consciences curse their wills, and their wills curse their affections, and their affections the objects that enticed them to the commission of those sins, the revenges of which they must now eternally suffer? And as for the bodies of these damned souls, they shall after the resurrection and dreadful day of judgment, become all fire, like a live coal; fire shall be imbibed into the very substance of them, and they not have so much as a drop of water afforded them to cool the tip of their tongues (Luke 16). Every limb shall drop whole flakes of fire and brimstone, and they shall be so scourged with knotted and twisted serpents, as to be made all over one great fiery wound and ulcer. And this is a third consideration of the dreadfulness of everlasting vengeance; it is a falling into God's hands.

Fourthly, consider, it is a falling into the hands of the living God himself, and not of any creature. Indeed we read, David chose rather to fall into the hands of the Lord, than into the hands of men (2 Samuel 24:14). It is true, when there is repentance, and hopes of obtaining mercy, this is far more eligible: for the chastisements of the Lord are full of mercy; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. But where all hopes of mercy are excluded, as they are in Hell, certainly there it is infinitely more dreadful to fall into the hands of a Sin-revenging-God, than into the hands of all the creatures in Heaven, Earth, or Hell itself. One would have thought it had been terrible enough, if the Apostle had said, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of devils; and so indeed it were, if we consider either their power, or their malice: they can easily find out such tormenting ingredients, and apply them to such tender parts, that it would transcend the patience of any man, quietly to bear but what one devil can inflict. Do we not often see in the illusions of black and sooty melancholy, what strange fears and terrors they can imprint upon the fancy, what horror and despair they can work in the conscience, so as to make men weary of their lives, and many times persuade them to destroy themselves, only to know the worst of what they must suffer? And all this he can do out of his own kingdom; what then can he do when he has got sinners into his own dominions? What exact tortures can he inflict upon them there? Such indeed as we cannot tell what they are, and may it please God we never may.

And yet the devil is but a fellow-creature; but wicked men are to fall into the hands, not of a creature, but of the great Creator, into the hands of God himself, whose power is infinitely beyond the devil's, so that he is the tormentor even of them.

Think then with yourself, O Sinner, that if God scourges, and torments the very devils, who yet do so insufferably torment the damned; how infinitely intolerable then is that wrath which God himself shall inflict upon them? Consider with yourself, if you cannot bear those pains and torments which the devils inflict, and if the devils cannot bear those pains and torments which God inflicts upon them; how will you then, O Sinner, be able to bear the immediate wrath and vengeance of the great God himself?

In fact, let me go yet much lower; and suppose that God should make use of common and ordinary creatures for the punishment of wicked men, who is there that could bear this? If God should only keep a man living for ever in the midst of a furnace of gross and earthly fire, how dreadful would this be! If but a spark of fire fall upon any part of the body, what an acute [reconstructed: pain] will it cause? Much more [reconstructed: if] your whole man should be all over on a light flame, and you for ever kept alive to feel the piercing torment of it. And yet what is our dull unactive fire in comparison of that pure intelligent fire, which shall melt down the damned like wax, and lick up the very spirits of their souls? Or suppose God who knows the several stings that are in all his creatures, should take out of them the most sharp ingredients, and from them all make up a tormenting composition; if he should take poison and venom out of one, and fire and scorching out of another, and smart and stinging out of a third, and the quintessence of bitterness out of a fourth; and by his infinite skill, heighten all these to a preternatural acrimony; and should apply this composition thus fatally mixed and blended together, to any of us, what an intolerable anguish would it cause? And if creatures can cause such tortures, what a dreadful thing then is it to fall into the hands of God himself? For when God conveys his wrath to us by creatures, it must needs lose infinitely in the conveyance. When God takes up one creature to strike another, it is as if a giant should take up a straw to strike a man; for though he be never so strong, yet the blow can be but weak, because of the weakness of the instrument; and yet alas how terrible are such weak blows to us? What will it then be when God shall immediately crush us by the unrebated strokes of his own almighty arm, and express the power of his wrath, and the glory of his justice and severity in our eternal destruction? And this is the fourth demonstration of the dreadfulness of divine vengeance.

Fifthly, consider that the Apostle calls this wrath, which the living God will inflict upon sinners, by the name of vengeance. Vengeance is mine, I will recompense it. Now vengeance when it is [reconstructed: whet] and sharpened by wrath, will enter deep, and cut the soul to the quick. God acts a twofold part in the punishment of sinners.

First, of a judge. In relation to which their eternal torments are sometimes called condemnation; so we read of the condemnation of the Devil (1 Timothy 3:6); that is, that state of woe and wrath, to which the Devil is for ever sentenced. And damnation, How can you escape the damnation of Hell? And sometimes it is termed judgment, A certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation (Hebrews 10:27). And in Jude 15, to execute judgment upon all the ungodly. Which denotes that their punishment shall be inflicted upon them from God, as he is a just and righteous judge.

And secondly, God is an Avenger as well as a Judge. He is a Party concerned, as having been wronged and injured by their sins. And in relation to this, the punishments that God will inflict upon them are called Wrath and Fury, smoking Anger and Jealousy: The Anger of the Lord and his Jealousy shall smoke against that Man. Also, Fiery Indignation — all which we find amassed and heaped together: My Determination (says God) is to gather the nations, to pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce Anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the Fire of my Jealousy. Now, all these expressions signify the terribleness of that vengeance which God will take. For when the wrath of man only stirs him up to revenge an injury, he will be sure to do it to the utmost extremity of all his power. And if the revenge of a poor weak man be so dreadful a thing, how insupportable will be the vengeance of the great God, who assumes it to himself as part of his royalty? Vengeance is mine. See that terrible place: God is jealous, and the Lord revenges; the Lord revenges, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies. God reserves wrath for sinners, and keeps it in store, even that wrath which themselves have treasured up against the day of wrath.

Now this revenging wrath of God has two things in it that justly make it dreadful.

First, in that revenge always aims at satisfaction, and seeks to repair injuries received by inflicting punishment on the offender. This gives ease to the party grieved; and if this revenge be commensurate to the greatness of the offence, he rests satisfied in it. And therefore, God speaking of himself according to the passions and affections of men, solaces himself in the thoughts of that vengeance he would take upon sinners: Ah, I will ease me of my adversaries, I will avenge me of my enemies. And, O how dreadful that revenge must be, that shall ease the heart of God, and give him satisfaction for the heinous provocations that sinners have committed against him. For consider:

First, how great and manifold our offences have been — and every act of sin, indeed the least that ever we committed, is an infinite debt, and carries in it an infinite guilt, because committed against an infinite Majesty. For all offences take their measures, not only from the matter of the act, but from the person against whom they are committed: as a reviling, injurious word against our equals will but bear an action at law; but against the prince, it is high treason, and punishable with death. So here, the least offence against the infinite Majesty of God becomes itself infinite: the guilt of it is far beyond whatever we can possibly conceive. And yet what infinite numbers of these infinite sins have we committed? The Psalmist tells us they are more than the hairs of our head. Indeed, we may well take in all the sands of the seashore to cast them up by. Our thoughts are incessantly in motion; they keep pace with the moments, and are continually twinkling, and yet, every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts is evil. What multitudes of them have been grossly wicked and impious — atheistical, blasphemous, unclean, worldly, and malicious! And the best of them have been very defective, and far short of that spirituality and heavenliness that ought to give a tincture to them. And besides the sins of our thoughts, how deep have our tongues set us on the score? We have talked ourselves into debt to the justice of God, and with our own breath have been blowing up everlasting and unquenchable fire. And add to these the numberless crowd and sum of our sinful actions, wherein we have busily employed ourselves to provoke the holy and jealous God to wrath, and we shall find our sins to be doubly infinite in their own particular guilt and demerit. And now, O sinner, when an angry and furious God shall come to exact from you a full satisfaction for all these injuries, a satisfaction in which he may eternally rest and acquiesce, such as may repair and recompense his wronged honor — think sadly with yourself how infinitely dreadful this must needs be. Assure yourself God will not lose by you, but will fetch his glory out of you, and take such a revenge upon you as shall as much please and content him, as his infinite mercy does in those whom he saves. And how great then must this vengeance be?

Secondly, consider how dreadful a revenge God took on his own dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he came to satisfy his justice upon him for our sins. His wrath fell infinitely heavy upon him, and the pressure of it was so intolerable that it squeezed out drops of clotted blood from him in the garden, and that sad cry on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And yet,

First, our Lord Christ was supported under all his sufferings by the ineffable union of the Deity. He had infinite power for him, as well as against him; infinite power to bear him up, as well as to crush him. In Christ's sufferings, the power of God seemed as it were to encounter with, and run contrary to, itself in the same channel. And as he had the support of infinite power in his sufferings, so likewise had he in the greatest of his agonies the ministry of angels to comfort him, and to refresh the droopings and faintings of his human nature. And,

Secondly, The infinite dignity of Christ's person, being God as well as Man, might well compensate for the rigor of his punishments, and stamp such a value upon his humiliation, that lesser degrees of suffering from him, might be fully satisfactory. For indeed it cannot be but an infinite punishment, for an infinite person to be punished. But you that are but a vile contemptible creature, made up of mud and slime, have nothing in your nature with which to satisfy the justice of God, but only the eternal destruction and perdition of it. You have no worth nor dignity, the consideration of which might persuade the Almighty to mitigate the least of his wrath toward you: and when it falls in all its weight and force upon you, you have nothing to support you. It is true, the Almighty power of God shall continue you in your being, but you will forever curse and blaspheme that support, that shall be given you only to perpetuate your torments, and ten thousand times wish that God would destroy you once for all, and that you might forever shrink away into nothing: but that will not be granted you; no, you shall not have so much as the comfort of dying, nor escape the vengeance of God by annihilation: but his power will forever so support you, as forever to torment you, which is only such a support as a man on the rack or on the wheel, supported so as they cannot come off, the engine of their torture upholds them. And as for any help or relief the ministry of angels will afford you, think what solace it will bring you, when God shall set on whole legions of infernal ghosts, black and hideous spirits, as the executioners of his wrath, who shall forever triumph in your woes and add to them, hurl firebrands at you, heap fuel about you, and fully satiate their malice upon you, as God satisfies his justice. And this is one consideration of the dreadfulness of this vengeance, in that it aims at and exacts satisfaction for sin, which will be infinitely intolerable, because our sins are infinite both in number and heinousness. And because Jesus Christ, who was to satisfy not for his own, but for the sins of others, though he were upheld by the Divine Nature, and possibly underwent not such acrimony of wrath as the damned do; yet his sufferings were unspeakable and unknown sorrows: and how much more sorely then shall wicked men bear for their own sins, when justice shall come to reckon with them, and to exact from them to the very utmost farthing, of all that they owe?

Secondly, Consider that revenging wrath stirs up all that is in God against a sinner. Wrath when it is whet and set on by revenge, redoubles a man's force, and makes him perform things that he could not do in his cold blood, it fires all a man's spirits, and calls them forth to express their utmost efforts. So this revenging wrath of God draws forth all the force and activity of his attributes, and sets them against a sinner, and how dreadful then must that execution needs be? We see what great works God can perform when he is not stirred up thereunto by his wrath and indignation. He speaks a whole world into being, and speaks it with a cold and calm breath. Certainly it was no small piece of work, to spread out the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and to work all those wonders of creation and providence which we daily behold; but yet all these things God did, (if I may so speak) without any emotion. But when he comes to take vengeance upon sinners, he is then inflamed, all that is in God, is as it were on fire. Jealousy, says Solomon, is the rage of a man. Now when God's jealousy shall be stirred in him, think how impetuously it will break forth in the fearful effects of it. The Lord shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; he shall cry, indeed, roar, he shall prevail against his enemies. If the calm and sedate works of God are so great and wonderful, how great then will his vengeance be, when anger, fury, and indignation shall excite and whet his power to show the very utmost of what it can do? And therefore we find that though God had inflicted dreadful plagues upon the Israelites in the wilderness, and had shown mighty effects of his power and vengeance, yet we find the church blesses him, that he turned away his anger, and did not stir up all his wrath. But in Hell God stirs up all his wrath, everything is set and bent against the damned: and as to the saints in Heaven, every attribute of God concurs to make him merciful and gracious to them. So to the wicked in Hell, all the perfections of God conspire either to stir up and kindle his wrath, or else to assist him in the execution of it upon them. The infinite wisdom of God contrives their punishments, and which way to lay them on, so that they shall be most sharp and poignant. The power of God rouses itself against them, and proffers all its succors and assistance to vengeance. The eternity and unchangeableness of God come in as a dreadful addition, and makes that wrath which of itself is insupportable, to be also everlasting. Indeed that sweet and mild attribute of God, his mercy, the only refuge and the only comfort of miserable mankind, yet even this turns against them too, and because they despised it when it shone forth in patience and forbearance, will not now regard them when they stand in need of its rescue and deliverance: so that all that is in God, arms itself to take vengeance on sinners: and O think how sore and fearful that vengeance will be, when God shall put forth all that is in himself for the executing of his wrath upon impenitent sinners! And thus I have done with the demonstrations of the dreadfulness of God's wrath taken from the words in the text, Vengeance is mine, I will recompense it. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Let us now consider some other demonstrations of the greatness of this wrath. And,

First, it appears to be exceeding dreadful in that it is set forth to us in Scripture by all those things which are most terrible to human nature. God makes use of many metaphorical expressions of things most grievous to our senses, that from them we may take a hint to conceive how intolerable his wrath is in itself. It is called a prison — the spirits in prison, that is, the souls of those men to whom the Spirit of Christ in Noah went, and preached in the days of their mortal life, but for their disobedience are shut up under the wrath of God in Hell. And certainly Hell is a prison large enough to hold all the world. The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God. A prison it is where the Devil and wicked spirits are shackled with chains of massive and substantial darkness. They are, says the Apostle, reserved in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day. And they are there kept in everlasting chains under darkness, not one cranny in this great prison to let in the least ray or glimpse of light. It is called a place of torment. It is a region of woe and misery, wherein horror, despair, and torture forever dwell, and are in their most proper seat and habitation. It is called a drowning of men in destruction and perdition. One would think that to be drowned might signify death enough of itself; but to be drowned in perdition and destruction signifies moreover the fatality and the depth of that death into which they are plunged. It is called a being cast bound hand and foot into utter darkness — a being thrown into a furnace of fire, to be burned alive. It is called a lake of fire, into which wicked men shall be plunged all over, where they shall lie wallowing and rolling among millions of damned spirits, in those infernal flames. And this lake is continually fed with a sulphurous stream of brimstone: and this fire and brimstone is that which never shall be quenched. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And lastly, to name no more, it is called everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. And now we are arrived at the highest pitch of what sense can feel, or imagination conceive. Or if it be possible that in your deepest thoughts you can conceive anything more dreadful than this, you may call it a sea of molten brimstone, set all on fire, and continually spewing out sooty dark flames, wherein endless multitudes of sinful wretches must lie tumbling to all eternity, burned up with the fierceness of a tormenting and devouring fire, scourged with scorpions, stung with fiery serpents, howling and roaring incessantly, and none to pity, much less to relieve and help them, grinding and gnashing their teeth through the extremity of their anguish and torture. If now you can fancy anything more terrible and dreadful than this, Hell is that, yea and much more: for these things are metaphorical; and though I cannot deny but some of these may be properly and literally true, yet the literal sense of these metaphors do but faintly and weakly show us what the least part of those everlasting torments are.

Secondly, another demonstration of the dreadfulness of this vengeance is this, that it is a wrath that shall come up to, and equal all our fears. You know what an inventive and ingenious thing fear is, what horrid shapes it can fancy to itself out of everything: put but an active fancy into a fright, and presently the whole world will be filled with strange monsters and hideous apparitions. The very shaking of a leaf will sometimes rout all the forces and resolutions of men: and usually it is this wild passion that does enhance all other dangers, and make them seem greater and more dreadful than indeed they are. But now here it is impossible for a wicked man to fear more than he shall certainly suffer. Let his imaginations be hung round with all the dismal shapes that ever frightened men out of their wits: let his fancy dip its pencil in the deepest melancholy that ever any soul was besmeared with, and then strive to portray and express the most terrible things that it can judge to be the objects of fear, or the instruments of torment; yet the wrath of the great God vastly exceeds all that fear itself can possibly represent. See that strange expression: Who knows the power of your anger? According to your fear, so is your wrath. That is, according to the fear men have of you, as dreadful and as terrible as they can possibly apprehend your wrath to be, so it is, and much more. Let the heart of man stretch itself to the utmost bounds of imagination, and call in to its aid all the things that ever it has heard or seen to be dreadful; let it (as that painter, who to make a beautiful piece, borrowed several of the best features from several beautiful persons) borrow all the dreadful, all the direful representations that ever it met with, to make up one most terrible idea; yet the wrath of God shall still exceed it: he can execute more wrath upon us than we can fear. Some wicked men in this life have had a spark of this wrath of God fall upon their consciences, when they lie roaring out under despair and fearful expectations of the fiery indignation of God to consume and devour them. But alas this is nothing to what they shall hereafter feel. God now does but open to them a small chink and crevice into Hell, he now does but suffer a few small drops of his wrath to fall upon them. And if this be so sore and smart that their fears could never think of anything more dreadful than what they now suffer: O what will it be then when he shall overwhelm them with a whole deluge of his wrath, and cause all his waves to go over them? Fear him, says our Savior, who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell; indeed, I say to you, fear him. And yet when we have feared according to the utmost extent of our narrow hearts, yet still his infinite power and wrath is infinitely more fearful than we can fear it.

Thirdly, consider the principal and immediate subject of this wrath of God, and that is the soul, and this adds much to the dreadfulness of it. The acutest torments that the body is capable of are but dull and flat things in comparison of what the soul can feel. Now when God shall immediately with his own hand lash the soul, that refined and spiritual part of man, the principle of all life and sensation, and shall draw blood from it every stripe, how intolerable may we conceive those pains and tortures to be? To shoot poisoned darts into a man's marrow, to rip up his bowels with a sword red hot — all this is as nothing to it. Think what it is to have a drop of scalding oil, or melted lead, fall upon the apple of your eyes, that should make them boil and burn till they fall out of your heads — such torment, indeed infinitely more than such, is it to have the burning wrath of God to fall upon the soul. We find that spirits which are infinitely inferior to God can make strange impressions upon the souls of men — and shall not the great God much more, who is the Father of Spirits? Yes, he can torture them by his essential wrath. And that God, who, as the prophet Nahum speaks, can melt mountains, and make hills and rocks flow down at his presence (Nahum 1:6), can melt the souls of the damned like lumps of wax; for in his displeasure he does sometimes do it to the best of men even in this life — "My heart is melted like wax in the midst of my bowels" (Psalm 22:14), says David.

Fourthly, the dreadfulness of this wrath of God may be demonstrated by this, that the punishment of the damned is reserved by God as his last work. It is a work which he will set himself about when all the rest of his works are done, when he has folded up the world and laid it aside as a thing of no further use; then will God set himself to this great work, and pour out all the treasures of his wrath upon damned wretches, as if God would so wholly mind this business that he would lay all other affairs aside, that he might be intent only upon this, having no other thing to interrupt him. Think then how full of dread and terror this must needs be, when God will as it were employ all his eternity about this, and have no other thing to take him off from doing it with all his might. God has reserved two works, and but two for the other world — one is the salvation of the elect, and the other is the damnation of reprobates.

Now it is remarkable that God's last works do always exceed his former. And therefore we find in the creation of the world, God still proceeded on from more imperfect kinds of creatures to those that were more perfect, until he had fully built and finished, indeed carved, and as it were painted this great house of the universe; and then he brings man into it as his last work, as the crown and perfection of the rest. So God likewise acted in the manner of revealing his will to mankind — first he spoke to them by dreams and visions, but in the last days (as the Apostle expresses it) he has spoken to us by his Son. So also in the dispensation of the covenant of grace, and the exhibition of the Messiah — first he was made known only by promise to the fathers, then in types and obscure resemblances to the Jews, but in the latter days, himself came and took upon him the form of a servant, and worked out a complete redemption for us. So usually the last works of God are more complete, perfect, and excellent than the former. Now God's punishing-work is his last work, and therefore it shall exceed in greatness all that ever went before it. In his first work, the creation of the world, he demonstrated his infinite power, wisdom, and godhead; but in the destruction of sinners, which is his last work, he will manifest more of power and wisdom than he did in his creating them — and how fearful a destruction then must this needs be? God has variety of works that he is carrying on in this world, and if his glory does not perfectly appear in one, he may manifest it in another. But when he shall confine himself only to two, as he will in the world to come — the saving of the godly and the damning of the wicked — and this without any variety or change, certainly then these shall be performed to the very utmost of what God can do; for as he will save the saints to the very utmost, so likewise will he damn and destroy sinners to the very utmost.

Fifthly, another demonstration of the dreadfulness of this wrath shall be drawn from this consideration, that God will forever inflict it for the glorifying of his power on the damned. "What if God, willing to show his wrath and make his power known" (Romans 9:22) — "And they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Now certainly, if God will inflict eternal punishments upon them to show forth his power, their punishments must needs be infinitely great.

First, all those works wherein God shows forth his power are great and stupendous. Consider what power it was for God to lay the beams of the world, and to erect so stately a structure as heaven and earth. The Apostle therefore tells us that by the creation of the world is understood the eternal power of God (Romans 1:20). When God showed his power in creating, what a great and stupendous work did he produce! And therefore certainly when God shall likewise show his power in destroying, the punishments he will inflict will be wonderful and stupendous.

Secondly, consider that God can easily destroy a creature without showing any great power, or putting forth his almighty arm and strength to do it. If he only withdraws his power by which he upholds all things in their beings, we should quickly fall all abroad into nothing — so easy is it for God to destroy the well-being of all his creatures. But now if God will express the greatness and infiniteness of his power in destroying sinners, whom yet he can destroy without putting forth his power — indeed only by withdrawing and withholding it — how fearful must this destruction needs be! Alas, we are crushed before the moth, and must needs perish if God does but suspend the influence of his power from us. How dreadfully then will he destroy, when he shall lay forth his infinite power to do it, who can easily do it without power?

And thus I have laid down some demonstrations of the dreadfulness of the wrath and vengeance of God, five of them drawn from the words of the text, and five drawn from other considerations. I shall now shut up with two or three words of application.

First, Use 1: Then be persuaded to believe that there is such a dreadful wrath to come. I know well, you all profess that you do believe, that as there are inconceivable rewards of glory reserved in Heaven for the saints; so, that there are inexhaustible treasures of wrath reserved and laid up in Hell for all ungodly and impenitent sinners. But how few are there that do really and cordially believe these things: men's own lives may be evident convictions to themselves of their atheism and infidelity: For the true reason of all that dissoluteness which we see abroad in the world proceeds much from here, because men are not persuaded that these dreadful terrors of the Lord which have now been set before us, are anything but an honest artifice. They look upon them as things only invented to scare the world into good order, and to awe men into some compass of civility and honesty: They think all those tremendous threats that God has denounced in his law to be things intended rather to frighten men, than to do execution upon them. And whereas one of the most effectual motives to piety and a holy life, is to be persuaded of the terrors of the Lord, these are not yet persuaded that there are any such terrors: But assure yourselves these are not the extravagant dreams of melancholy fancies, nor the political impostures of men that design to amuse the world with frightful stories; but they are sad and serious truths, such as however you may now slight and contemn, yet shall you be woefully convinced of by your own experience, when after a few years, or possibly a few days, you shall be sunk down into that place of torment, that gulf and abyss of misery, where the great God shall for ever express the art, and the power of his vengeance in your everlasting destruction.

Secondly, Use 2: This speaks abundance of comfort to all those whose sins are pardoned, and they delivered from the wrath to come. Look what spring tides of joy would rise in the heart of a poor condemned malefactor, who every moment expects the stroke of justice to cut him off, to have a pardon interpose and rescue him from death. Such, yea far greater should be your joy who are freed merely by a gracious pardon, from a condemnation infinitely greater and worse than death itself. When we look into Hell, and consider the wrath that the damned there lie under, O to behold them there restlessly rolling to and fro in chains and flames, to hear them exclaim against their own folly and madness, and to curse themselves and their associates as the causes of their heavy and doleful torments; how should we rejoice that though we have been guilty of many great and heinous sins, and have ten thousand times deserved Hell and everlasting burnings, yet our good and gracious God has freely pardoned us our debts, and freed us from the same merited punishments.

Thirdly, Use 3: This also should excite us to magnify the love of our Lord Jesus Christ towards us, who though he knew what the dreadful wrath of God was, how sore and heavy it would lie upon his soul, yet such was his infinite compassion towards us, that he willingly submitted himself to be in our stead, took upon him our nature, that he might take upon him our guilt; and first made himself wretched, that he might be made accursed. He drank off the whole bitter cup of his Father's wrath at one bitter draught, received the whole sting of death into his body at once; falls and dies under the revenges of divine justice, only that we might be delivered from the wrath that we had deserved, but could not bear. O Christian, let your heart be enlarged with great love and thankfulness to your blessed Redeemer; and as he thought nothing too much to suffer for you, return him this expression of your thankfulness, to think nothing too much, nor too hard to do, or to suffer for him.

Fourthly, Use 4: You that go on in sin, consider what a God you have to deal with; You have not to do with creatures, but with God himself. And do you not fear that uncreated fire that will wrap you up in flames of his essential wrath, and burn you for ever? Consider that dreadful expostulation that God makes: Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with you, says the Lord? The very weakness of God is stronger than man: God can breathe, he can look a man to death; By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed: They perish at the rebuke of your countenance. O then tremble to think what a load of wrath his heavy hand can lay upon you, that hand which spans the heavens, and in the hollow of which he holds the sea. What punishment will this great hand of God in which his great strength lies, inflict when it shall fall upon you in the full power of its might? And tell me now, O sinner, would you willingly fall into the hands of this God, who is thus able to crush you to pieces, yea to nothing? O how shall any of us then dare, who are but poor weak potsherds of the earth, dash ourselves against this Rock of Ages? Indeed we can neither resist his power, nor escape his hand: and therefore since we must necessarily sooner or later fall into the hands of God, let us by true repentance and a humble acknowledgment of our sins and vileness, throw ourselves into his merciful hands; and then to our unspeakable comfort we shall find that he will extend his arm of mercy to support us, and not his hand of justice to crush and break us.

FINIS.