They cannot sit down by the loss.
(3.) All therefore that he that
has lost himself can do is, to sit down by the loss. Do I say, he can do
this?—oh! if that could be, it would be to such, a mercy; I must therefore here
correct myself—That they cannot do; for to sit down by the loss implies a
patient enduring; but there will be no such grace as patience in hell with him
that has lost himself; here, will also want a bottom for patience—to wit, the
providence of God; for the providence of God, though never so dismal, is a bottom
for patience to the afflicted; but men go not to hell by providence but by
sin. Now sin being the cause, other effects are wrought; for they that go to
hell, and that there miserably perish, shall never say it was God by His
providence that brought them hither, and so shall not have that on which to
lean and stay themselves.
They shall justify God, and lay
the fault upon themselves concluding that it was sin with which their souls did
voluntarily work—yea, which their souls did suck in as sweet milk—that is the
cause of this their torment. Now this will work after another manner, and will
produce quite another thing than patience, or a patient enduring of their
torment; for their seeing that they are not only lost, but have lost
themselves, and that against the ordinary means that of God was provided to
prevent that loss; yea, when they shall see what a base thing sin is, how that
it is the very worst of things, and that which also makes all things bad, and
that for the sake of that, they have lost themselves, this will make them fret,
and, gnash, and gnaw with anger themselves; this will set all the passions of
the soul, save love, for that I think will be stark dead, all in a rage, all in
a self-tormenting fire. You know there is nothing that will sooner put a man
into and manage his rage against himself than will a full conviction in his
conscience that by his own only folly, and that against caution, and counsel,
and reason to the contrary, he hath brought himself into extreme distress and
misery. But how much more will it make this fire burn when he shall see all
this is come upon him for a toy, for a bauble, for a thing that is worse than
nothing!
Why, this is the case with him
that has lost himself; and therefore he cannot sit down by the loss, cannot be quiet under the sense of his loss. For sharply and wonderful piercingly,
considering the loss of himself, and the cause thereof, which is sin, he falls
to tearing of himself in pieces with thoughts as hot as the coals of juniper,
and to gnashing upon himself for this; also the Divine wisdom and justice of
God helpeth on this self-tormentor in his self-tormenting work, by holding the
justice of the law against which he has offended, and the unreasonableness of
such offense, continually before his face. For if, to an enlightened man who is
in the door of hope, the sight of all past evil practices will work in him
'vexation of spirit,' to see what fools we were, (Eccl 1:14); how can it but be
to them that go to hell a vexation only to understand the report, the report
that God did give them of sin, of His grace, of hell, and of everlasting
damnation, and yet that they should be such fools to go thither? (Isa 28:19).
But to pursue this head no further, I will come now to the next thing.
