The soul capable of diving into the depths and mysteries of hell.
9. But again, as the soul is thus capable of enjoying God in glory, and of prying into these mysteries that are in him, so it is capable, with great profundity, of diving into the mysterious depths of hell. Hell is a place and state utterly unknown to any in this visible world, excepting the souls of men; nor shall any forever be capable of understanding the miseries thereof, save souls and fallen angels. Now, I think, as the joys of heaven stand not only in speculation, or in the beholding of glory, but in a sensible enjoyment and unspeakable pleasure which those glories will yield to the soul (Psa 16:11), so the torments of hell will not stand in the present lashes and strokes that by the flames of eternal fire God will scourge the ungodly with; but the torments of hell stand much, if not in the greatest part of them, in those deep thoughts and apprehensions, which souls in the next world will have of the nature and occasions of sin; of God, and of separation from Him; of the eternity of those miseries, and of their help, ease, or deliverance forever.
O! damned souls will have thoughts that will clash with glory, clash with justice, clash with law, clash with itself, clash with hell, and with the everlastingness of misery; but the point, the edge, and the poison of all these thoughts will still be galling, dropping, and spewing out their stings into the sore, grieved, wounded, and fretted place, which is the conscience, though not the conscience alone; for I may say of the souls in hell, that they all over are but one wound, one sore! Miseries as well as mercies sharpen and make quick the apprehensions of the soul. Behold Spira in his book, Cain in his guilt, and Saul with the witch of Endor, and you shall see men ripened, men, enlarged and greatened in their fancies, imaginations, and apprehensions, though not about God, heaven, and glory, but about their loss, their misery, their woe, and their hells (Isa 33:14; Psa 1:4; Rev 14:10; Mark 9:44, 46).
The ability of the soul to bear.
10. Nor does their ability to bear, if it is proper to say they bear those dolors which there forever they shall endure, a little demonstrate their greatness. Everlasting burning, devouring fire, perpetual pains, gnawing worms, utter darkness, and the ireful souls, faces, and strokes of Divine and infinite justice will not, cannot, make this soul extinct, as I said before. I think it is not so proper to say the soul that is damned for sin doth bear these things, as to say it doth ever sink under them: and, therefore, their place of torment is called the bottomless pit, because they are ever sinking, and shall never come there where they will find any stay. Yet they live under wrath, but yet only so as to be sensible of it, as to smart and be in perpetual anguish, by reason of the intolerableness of their burden. But doth not their thus living, abiding, and retaining a being(or what you will call it), demonstrate the greatness and might of the soul? Alas! heaven and earth are short of this greatness, for these, though under less judgment by far, do fade and wax old like a moth-eaten garment, and, in their time, will vanish away to nothing (Heb 1). Also, we see how quickly the body, when the soul is under fear of the rebukes of justice, how soon, I say, it wastes, molders away, and crumbles into the grave; but the soul is yet strong, and abides sensible to be dealt withal for sin by everlasting burnings.
