If he should take from us that peace, quietness, comfort, which we have formnrly enjoyed, filling us with confusion and trouble; (Peace) giving us over to the rage and malice of our enemies: Causing the Sun to go down at noon, (Amos 8.9) and darkning the earth in the clear day; Surprizing us with sad confusions when we think our selves most secure and happy. Turning our feasts into mourning, and our songs into lamentation;⁸ bringing sack-cloath upon all loines, and baldnesse upon every head; making us to eat our bread with carefulnesse, (Ez. 12.19) and to drink our water with astonishment.

If he should deny us his creatures, when we want them; (Plenty) take them from us when we have them; withhold his blessing from attending them; debarre us from the comfortable enjoyment of them; sending upon us cleannesse of teeth:⁹ The evil arrows of famine; breaking the staffe of our bread; taking away our corne in the time thereof; making the heaven over us to be brasse, and the earth under us to be iron;¹⁰ If he should raine fire and brimstone down upon us; if he should afflict us with hunger, and thirst, and nakednesse, and the want of all things; if he should send a rust,¹¹ and canker upon our estates, making an hole in the bottome of our bags; by which our gaines should insensibly drop away, and slip from us; if he should curse us in the city, and in the field, (Deut. 28.16, 17, 18) in our basket and in our store; in the fruit of our land, and the increase of our cattel, in all our endeavours· and the works of our hands: Feeding us with the bread of affliction, and with the water of affliction: (1 King. 22.27) Giving us to drink the cup of trembling and the dregs of the cup of his fury: Stretching out upon us the line of confusion, and the stones of emptinesse;¹² if he should make the portion of our cup to be snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest.

2. Internal punishments are those that concern¹³ the soul, and inward man; either in respect of blessings Natural. Spiritual.

It were but justice if God should take from us our wits, (Deut. 28.28) reasons, memories: If he should smite us with madnesse, (Dan. 4.16) and astonishment of heart: Giving us the hearts of beasts, making us become raving and desperate, or stupid and brutish; if he should deprive us of our inward peace and quietnesse, giving us a trembling heart, and sorrow of minde:¹⁴ Scaring us with dreams, and terrifying us with visions: Making our guilty consciences to fly into our faces; to gnaw upon the soul with fierce and restlesse accusations, to fill the thoughts with terrours and amazement.

It were but justice if he should deprive us of all his holy Ordinances; sending upon us a famine of the Word:¹⁵ Removing our Teachers into corners· so that our eyes cannot see them; making the night to come upon us, wherein we should not have a vision, that it should be dark unto us, that we cannot divine; that the Sun should go down over our Prophets, and the day be dark over them, that the Seers should be ashamed, and the Diviners confounded, all of them covering their lips, because there is no answer of God.

If he should reject all our holy services, hide himself from us when we seek his face; stopping his ears when we cry unto him; laughing at our calamities, (Pro. 1.26·) and mocking when our fear cometh; if he should fling our Prayers back into our faces; with a curse in stead of a blessing; if he should take our confessions as an evidence against our selves, and condemne us out of our own mouths.

If he should subtract the means of grace, and not any longer, continue the proffers of mercy to those who have so much undervalued and abused them· If he should cause his grieved Spirit to retire from us, and finally give us over to our own desperane hardnesse, and impenitency, to vile affections, to a seared conscience, and a reprobate sense, whereby we might be continued in our evil courses till the day of his vengeance.

3. Eternal punishments are such as concerne our immortal conditions after this life;¹⁶ They are either of Losse. Paine.

4. The punishment of losse does consist in being for ever banished from the blessed presence of God, and the joyes of heaven. In being punished with everlasting destruction, (2 Thes. 1.9) from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

5. The pain of sense does consist in those most exquisite and unexpressible torments, which shall be inflicted on the damned, set forth in Scripture by everlasting fire; utter darknesse; the worme that dyes not, ond the fire that is not quenched;¹⁷ Chaines of darknesse: The blacknesse of darknesse for ever: The lake of fire, burning with brimstone.

It were but justice if God should cut us off with swift destruction; snatching us out of the land of the living, with our sinnes, and feares upon us; and cast us into those regions of darknesse, those black and cruel habitations where there is nothing but weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(2 Thes. 1.8)If he should take vengeance upon us in flaming fire; making us to drink the wine of his wrath, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation: (Rev. 14.10) Tormenting us with fire and brimstone in the presence of his holy Angels.

Should God deal with us according to our deserts, it would have been much better for us that we had never been borne. He might justly inflict upon us all the plagues of this life, and eternal torments in the life to come. There is nothing could remaine for us to expect, but a certain fearful looking for of judgement, and fiery indignation to devour us.

It were easie to amplifie each of these heads, from those many curses, and judgements denounced in Scripture, which are all of them appliable to this purpose, as being the desert of sinne.

The serious consideration, and application of these things, will very much conduce to the exciting of such affections in us, as do become the duty of confession.

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← Chapter 13. Concerning the aggravation of sins · Contents · Chapter 15. Of the proper materials for a Transition, whereby Confession and →

Footnotes

1. 1. External.
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2. Deut. 28.22. Vers. 27. ↩

3. Vers. 59. ↩

4. Job, 7.5. Vers, 15. ↩

5. Deut. 28.37[…]. Psal. 44.13, 14. Deut. 29.20. Isa. 28.7. ↩

6. Deut. 28.25. Heb. 11.37 ↩

7. Vers. 38. ↩

8. Vers. 10. ↩

9. Amos 4.6 Ezek. 5.16 ↩

10. Hos. 2.9. Deut. 28.23. ↩

11. Vers. 48. Jam. 5.3. Hag. 1.[…]. ↩

12. Isa. 51.22. Isa. 34.11. Psal. 11.6. ↩

13. 2. Internal
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14. Deut. 28.65. Job 7.14. ↩

15. Am. 8.11. Isa 30.20. Mic. 3.6, 7 ↩

16. 3. Eternal.
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17. Matth. 15.41.22.13. Mar. 9.40.2 et. 2.4. Jude 13. Rev. 19.20 2 Pet. 2.1. ↩