18. Punishing men for their guilt in one thing , by another thing , wherein they are innocent ; or involving those in the same punishments , who are innocent , as to that common guilt , for which he punisheth the rest .

19. Punishing also the Instruments of his Justice , and of his punishments , ( they executing them most what unjustly ; ) and punishing also the Rejoycers at his punishments .

20. In equal guilt , punishing some , not others . Lu. 13.2.4 .

21. In unequal guilt , punishing all alike ; yet not this by punishing any beyond , but only some less than , their desert .

22. Punishing , at certain times only the sins of many times ; and sometimes the less wicked age , for the sins of the more wicked .

23. Not excusing sin the more , when grown to general custome , as man doth ; but ordinarily then his wrath breaking forth upon it , when the commonness makes it seem no fault ; and so when the Sinners least fear , or think of wrath . Our sins appearing greatest to him , when least to our selves .

24. Punishing in such set places , universally , the less faulty there , as the more ; whilst at the same time elsewhere people more faulty enjoy impunity ; and yet the Lord , in all these punishments , most righteous ; since , of these , the more guilty are always punished much under , the less guilty never beyond , their demerits ; their Demerits I say , in some other , if not in the same , kind .

25. Inflicted , not according to the estimation , which man , the Offender , maketh of his sin ; but which God the Judge , who reckons many very hainous , which the other accounts very small ; and all sins in general far more sinful , than man doth ; He looking on the heart , and discovering its malice , and hypocrisy , more perfectly , than the sinner himself doth ; beholding all sins past , as present , and always before him , whilst to the sinner himself many are never known , many , once known , quite forgotten . Again ; He , as being the person wronged by sin , who is always a higher valuer of the offence , than is the party offending , justly aggravating it , from the supreme dignity of his person ; his infinite love , and numberless benefactions to the Sinner : his former long patience toward Him ; his exceeding holiness , and purity so opposite to its filthiness , &c. See Gen. 6.6 . Where 't is said : That man's sin grieved him at his heart , and it repented our Lord , that ever he had made him on the earth . — And again : Mar. 3.5 . That our most meek Lord Jesus was so provoked by it , That he looked round about on them with anger , being grieved for the hardness of their hearts . But especially the hainousness of sins may be learnt from the many experienced stupendious Judgments upon them , at which man is much troubled , how to make them bear any just proportion to his Faults .

Which dreadful revenges upon Sin you may consider ; 1. In the faln Angels for one sin exiled from heaven , and held in chains of darkness near upon ever since the Creation of the world , besides what is to come ; made also for ever uncapable of any means of Reconciliation . 2. In Adam ; for one sin , ejected out of his most pleasant Habitation ; apparrel'd with the covering of Beasts ; condemned to eat his Bread in labour , and sorrow , and penance , for near a 1000 years , and then to return to Putrefaction , and a curse laid on all his Posterity , and on the ground they lived on , for his sake . 3. In the drowning at one time , for their lusts , and oppressions , of all the men in the world ( except Eight persons ) their children , and infants , and all other living creatures , for their sake . 4. In the storm of Fire and Brimstone , rained upon the five Cities for their Lusts ; and those pleasant Plains turned to a dead Lake , till this day ; and yet these Cities to undergo a new Damnation at the day of Judgment , as if they had as yet suffered nothing . See Mat. 11.22 . Where our Lord , aggravating the punishment of Bethsaida , saith , it shall be then more intolerable than that of Sodome . 5. In the severe punishments of David , though otherwise a most holy person ; the sad story of which you may read in the 13.15 . and 24. Chapters of 2. Sam. Concerning all which forenamed punishments , this is a sufficient evidence , that the sins deserved them , because he , who is Justice it self , and from whom man learns the true notions of it , inflicted them . 6. Lastly . In the precious Sacrifice of the only Son of God , required by his Father for the Expiation of Sin . This of the present temporal punishments . But then consider also ,

2ly , The future punishment , for all sin , here unrepented of and unforsaken before death , in the world to come .

27. 1 Immediately after death ; Of the Soul . Exemplified , in the deceased rich man , tormented in fire , whilst his brethren yet living , in their jollity here on earth , Luk. 16.24 . And , in the Beast , and false Prophet their being cast into the Lake of fire before the Invasion of Gog , and Magog , and before Satan's being shut up there . See Rev. 19 , 20. Comp. 20.8.10 . Which also appears from our Lord 's declaring , that a temporal death kills the Body but not the Soul : Matt. 10.28 . And St. Pet. 1. Ep. 3 , 4. adviseth the adorning of the hidden man of the heart , because this not corruptible : And Ibid. ver. 19. makes mention of Spirits in Prison ; viz. the spirits of such persons as were preached-to in the days of Noah . And if the Souls of the Righteous be then presently in Paradise , Luk. 23.43 . and with Christ their Lord , and partake of God's mercy , and glory ; the Souls of the Wicked must be then presently imprisoned , and remain with the Devil their Master , feel the lashes of God's Justice , and begin their never ending misery , and ignominy ; Whilst the Body descends into the Grave , the poor Soul , by the strength of Angels , being forced downward into a far lower Dungeon , an infernum inferius , in the most innermost bowels of the earth ; from whence it shall never return again , nor see light ; save , at the last day , that , which flasheth from the face of the angry Judge , when it is brought to his Bar to receive its last doom , doubled torments ; and , to make it much more sensible of them , forc'd to take along with it its loathed Mate the Body , into the same profound pit . Who then can tell the agony of such person now come to the end of his days ; when scorched with Feavers , he desires to dye ; and , by death can remove only into a bed of fire ; when he cannot endure his present pains , and hath no change , save to far greater ; these he cannot suffer , and the other , if ceasing to suffer these , he can no way avoid ; nor knows he what way to turn himself , in this Labyrinth of Despairs ? These sufferings of the Soul having been by some endured already above 5000 years : and those of the rich glutton in flames ( if this not made wholly a Parable ) suffered now above sixteen Centuries , though he lived here not one .

28. 2 After Dooms-day ; Of Soul and Body . Where also weigh well the terrible description of these punishments mentioned in his Word who cannot lye . The Body raised in dishonour ; — A Carcass , deformed , stinking ; Chains ; binding hand and foot ; Prison ; depth of the Earth ; Dungeon ; Bottomless Pit ; A Fire — and Brimstone-Lake ; Immobility ; Suffocation ; Worm , or Serpent gnawing ; Fire devouring ; Thirst never refreshed ; Body never consumed ; Sense never stupified ; Weeping , wailing , gnashing the teeth ; Society of wicked men and Devils ; ugly , stinking ; All hating , cursing , one another ; hating , cursing , God ; cast into a land of Oblivion , Psal. 88.12 . None to comfort , none to bemoan ; The ancient Compassion of Saints , and Angels , and God , now turned into Hate , and Derision ; No Mediator , no Redeemer ; The Soul always in an Agony and sick to death ; restless , hopeless , despairing ; wounded to the heart with the sense of lost happiness , as well as present misery : And all her sufferings eternal , eternal . Eternal these pains ; God , in his upright Justice , not being so indulgent as to grant to that his wretched Creature the relief of an Annihilation . And these pains unremitting ; the rich man sparingly begging of the beggar , that before wanted his relief , but only one drop of water , falling from the dipped tip of his finger ( Luk. 16.24 . ) and it would not be granted him . The greatness of God's vengeance then answering the greatness of his person , and of his patience ( when yet , for the present , so much hating sin ) : which Patience , abused , at last turns to Fury ; and no wrath comparable to the wrath of the Lamb. ( See Rev. 6.6 . — Rom. 2.5 . ) And , from the magnitude of this wrath and punishment is chiefly learnt the magnitude of sin ; and what a Monster that must be , that deserves such Torments for ever and ever , from him that cannot do the least Injustice .

Digr . Of the Degrees of future Torments , * according to the several measures of sin here ( Matt. 10.15 . ) * According to the measures of sinful pleasures enjoyed here ( Rev. 18.7 . — Luk. 16.25 . ) * According to the greater knowledge of God's will here ( Luk. 12.4.47 , 48. )

29. After all that is said ; seriously imagine , What one of those poor Souls , released from Hell-torments , would do , not to return again to those intolerable pains : what rigid long Penances he would undergo : what great works of Piety and Devotions he would attempt ; what a strict watch he would keep over his words , and thoughts ; and , after all think this nothing in comparison of such a deliverance . And then do you endeavour to do the like mortification , ( who perhaps are a greater Sinner , ) to prevent those pains , and secure your future Condition . The unreasonableness , and hurt of Sin , thus , seriously pondered ;