The depths of sin which the man has loved, the good nature of God whom the man has hated, the blessings of eternity which the soul has despised, shall now be understood by him more than ever. Still, yet so only, as to increase grief and sorrow, by improving the good and of the evil of the things understood, to the greater wounding of the spirit; wherefore now, every touch that the understanding shall give to the memory will be as a touch of red-hot iron, or like a draught of scalding lead poured down the throat. The memory also letteth those things down upon the conscience with no less terror and perplexity. And now the fancy or imagination doth start and stare like a man by fears bereft of wits, and doth exercise itself, or rather is exercised by the hand of revenging justice, so about the breadth and depth of present and future punishments, as to lay the soul as on a burning rack.
Now also the judgment, as with a
mighty maul, driveth down the soul in the sense and pangs of everlasting misery
into that pit that has no bottom; yea, it turneth again, and, as with a hammer,
it riveted every fearful thought and apprehension of the soul so fast that it
can never be loosed again forever and ever. Alas! now the conscience can
sleep, be dull, be misled, or batter, no longer; no, it must now cry out;
understanding will make it, memory will make it, fancy or imagination will make
it. Now, I say, it will cry out of sin, of justice, and of the terribleness of
the punishment that hath swallowed him up that has lost himself. There will be
no forgetfulness; yet nothing shall be thought on but that which will wound and
kill; there will be no time, cause, or means for diversion; all will stick and
gnaw like a viper.
Now the memory will go out to where sin was heretofore committed, it will also go out to the word that did forbid it. The understanding also, and the judgment too, will now consider of the pretended necessity that the man had to break the commandments of God, and of the seasonableness of the cautions and of the convictions which were given him to forbear, by all which more load will be laid upon him that has lost himself; for here all the powers, senses, and passions of the soul must be made self-burners, self-tormentors, self-executioners, by the just judgment of God; also all that the will shall do in this place shall be but to wish for ease, but the wish shall only be such as shall only seem to lift up, for the cable rope of despair shall with violence pull him down again. The will indeed will wish for ease, and so will the mind, etc., but all these wishers will by wishing to arrive to no more advantage but to make despair which is the most twinging stripe of hell, to cut yet deeper into the whole soul of him that has lost himself; wherefore, after all, that can be wished for, they return again to their burning chair, where they sit and bewail their misery.
Thus will all the
powers, senses, and passions of the soul of him that have lost himself be out of
his own power to dispose for his advantage, and will be only in the hand and
under the management of the revenging justice of God. And herein will that
state of the damned be worse than it is now with the fallen angels; for though
the fallen angels are now cast down to hell, in chains, and sure in themselves, at last, to partake of eternal judgment, yet at present, they are not so bound up
as the damned sinner shall be; for notwithstanding their chains, and they are being the prisoners of the horrible hells, yet they have a kind of liberty
granted them, and that liberty will last till the time appointed, to tempt, to
plot, to contrive, and invent their mischiefs, against the Son of God and His
(Job 1:7; 2:2).
And though Satan knows that this, at last, will work for his future condemnation, yet at present he finds it some
diversion to his trembling mind, and obtains, through his so busily employing
of himself against the gospel and its professors, something to sport and
refreshes himself withal; yea, and doth procure to himself some small crumbs of
minutes of forgetfulness of his own present misery and of the judgment that is
yet to pass upon him, but this privilege will then be denied to him that has
lost himself; there will be no cause nor matter for diversion; there it will;
as in the old world, rain day and night fire and brimstone from the Lord out of
heaven upon them (Rev 14:10,11). Misery is fixed; the worm will be constantly
sucking at and gnawing of, their soul; also, as I have said afore, all the
powers, senses, and passions of the soul will throw their darts inwards, yea,
of God will be made to do it, to the utter, unspeakable, and endless torment of
him that has lost himself. Again,
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