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Now, in this Conglobation of Flames on all fides enclofing them, fhall thofe ungodly Mifcreants, who would not repent and be reclaimed in their prefent Day of Grace and Salvation, be condemned to live for ever, a Life infinitely worse than Death, or a putting an End to their Beings.

But oh what wild Disorders, what confounding Fears, what difinaying intolerable Tortures well feize and afflict at the Day of Judgment the miferable Damned! Fire and Smoak, Storm and Tempeft of unappeafable Divine Indignation, fhall be ftirred up round about 'em: Then fhall be heard thofe hideous Qutcries, Come, ye Rocks, and bide us; Come, ye Mountains and Hills, fall on us, and conceal us from the angry Prefence of our Fudge; but the Rocks themselves want a Covering, the Mountains and Hills quake and tremble, fhrink their Heads and fall down into their inmolt Caverns, at the dreadful Appearance of him who comes in flaming Fire, to take Vengeance on all the Ungodly of the Earth. Ah! in that Day of ftrict Enquiry, if the Righteous fhall fcarcely be faved, where fhall the Ungodly and Sinner appear? The high and lofty Looks of proud prefumptuous Offenders will then be brought low; religious Wisdom will then be juftified of her Children; and the Mouth of all Wickednefs fhall be ftopt: Then fhall a Man return at the Refurrection of the Dead, and difcern between the way of the Righteous and of the Wicked; all Faces of the Ungodly fhall gather Blacknefs of Defpair; all the finful Tribes and Generations of the Earth fhall mourn; the fhining Path of the Juft fhal break forth into the Luftre of a perfect Day; Ho linefs will rejoyce with Joy unfpeakable, and full

of approaching Glory; and all Impiety fhall be covered with Shame and Confufion, with eternal Wo and Mifery!

In Hell, fays the Text of wicked Dives, he lift up his Eyes, being in Torment, &c. v. 23.

Hell and its Torments will open the Eyes of the before moft obftinately ftupid and inconfiderate Sinner; there are no unconvinced unawakened Perfons in Hell; no fecure, prefumptuous, unarouzed Sleepers on that Bed of Flames; no Infidels or Unbelievers among the Damned; but the fenfible Pains there convince, and the very Blacknefs of Darkness for ever, illuminates: In that difinal place of Torments (much more really than in a late Book bearing that Title) the Atheift is turned Deift, and the wicked Deift turned Chritian. Convinced they are, tho' not converted; for in Hell the very Devils believe and tremble at thofe additional Torments which they fore-know are coming upon them. And how can they do otherwife? For the Sight of Wracks and torturing Inftruments fet before us, nay, the actual Pain and Anguifh of them experienced, muft needs caft into an Affrightment, open the Eyes, and draw forth Sighs and Confeffions from the tortured Perfons, tho' before never fo obftinate and unmoved; no lefs, nay, infinitely more Force and Efficacy, muft Heli-Torments needs have upon incorrigible unawakened Sinners in this Life, but arouzed and awakened in the other: Oh! then they fhall have the Eyes of their Understandings opened, to fee the Happiness they have wilfully loft and negleted, and to discover the full Malignity and heiBous Evil of thofe Sins which have expofed them eternal Mifery and Sufferings!

And

And feeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his Bofom, v. 23.

It is the Opinion of fome, That tho' between Heaven and Hell there is a great Gulph fixed, fo that thofe who would go from Hell to Heaven, cannot yet for the more ample Joy of the Blessed, and Mifery of the Damned, all the intermediate Space between Heaven and Hell will be fo open, clear, and irradiated, as that the Bleffed, for their greater magnifying of God's free Grace and undeferved Mercy to themselves, may behold the intollerable Sufferings of the Damned; and the miferable Damned, for the Augmentation of their Hellish Torments, may behold the Enjoyments of the Bleffed in Heaven; to be made thereby the more fenfible of their own Lofs, which will add an Aggravation of Mifery to their very Sufferings: And this Conjecture they infer who hold it, from its being faid in the Text, That the rich Man being Torments, lift up his Eyes, and faw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus lying in his Bofom; As if his feeing the once defpifed, neglected Lazarus in Happiness, was an occafion to the rich Man now in Hell of additional Torments, out of meer Envy and Indignation to fee Lazarus fo unmeasurably bleffed. Hence we are taught, that it will be a great Torment, and part of the Mifery of the Damned, to understand thofe to be in a State of Happiness, whom they in this Life fcorned, neglected, and inhumanly abufed: And accordingly the Wicked are reprefented in the Book of Wifdom, fighing and groaning for Anguish of Spirit, as being envioufly troubled at the afflicting Sight of the righteous Perfon's Happiness in the other World, fo far beyond all they lookt for or imagined

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gined in this! And as little as Ungodly Men now value Heaven, and the Righteoufnefs which leads thereunto, yet to behold the bright and dazling Crowns and Scepters of thofe Bleffed Saints, whom they had here in Derifion, and for a Pro: verb of Reproach, must needs pierce deep their Souls with Envy and Anguish, and wound their Spirits to all Eternity.

And it came to pass that the Beggar died, and was carried by Angels into Abraham's Bofom, verf. 22:

From thefe Words I fhall take occafion in the fifth place to enquire, what kind of place is Abraham's Bofom, to which the good Beggar was conveyed? whether by it be to be understood Heaven, or fome middle-State of Reft, Quiet, and Happinefs to the Juft, till the Refurrection and day of Judgment?

I must confefs indeed that what fort of place, or whereabouts is fcituated the prefent Refidence of good and vertuous Souls, from the time of their departure out of their Bodies by Death, until their reunion unto them at the Refurrection, (which intermediate State of Bleffed nefs is here in the Parable called Abraham's Bofom, and elfewhere by our Saviour termed Paradife) is not eafily determinable; the Holy Scripture, (from whence only we can receive any certain knowledge concerning the World to come) not being very exprefs and particular as to the prefent Aboad of the deceafed Bleffed: fo that it remains a Doubt and matter of Controverfie among Chriftians, whether the immediate Seat of Happiness to departed vertuous Souls, be the Heaven of Heavens, the place of God's and good Angels more especial

Refidence

Refidence and Glory; or whether it be a middle Habitation, fcituated between the upper Empyrean Heaven and the Region of Air, wherein are fuppofed,from the Authority of Eph. 2. 2. to be the Manfions of evil Angels, and of irreclaimably wicked Human Spirits departed this Life: I fhall fairly propofe to your Confideration, the Arguments inducive to either Opinion, and leave my Reader to decide which are the moft convincing and perfwafive Reafons; tho' not without giving fufficient Intimations which fide of the Queftion, I am moft inclined unto. But wherever the pre-▾ fent Refidence of good Souls which have left. their Bodies, is feated; 'tis certainly a place of Eafe and Reft, of very great Joy and Happiness unto them: they reft from their Labours, fays the Holy Scripture, and their good Works, or the. Recompence of their good Works follows them, Rev. 14. 13. Yet is not the intermediate Happi-, I nefs of the deceafed Righteous, between their Death and the day of Judgment, fo perfect and confummate a Felicity, as they fhall be put into the poffeffion of at the Refurrection of their dead, Bodies.

Indeed the Scriptures of the New Teftament fpeaking of a more full and compleat Reward at the day of Judgment, Matth. 13.43. And they reprefenting the Refurrection of our dead Bodies, as that Scene of Divine Power and Operation which gives the finishing and perfective poffeffion of future Bleffednefs, and the Holy Scriptures alfo fpeaking of different Degrees in Glory; and defcribing the Souls of thofe who were Slain for the Word of God, and for bearing Teftimony to the Truths of Jefus, as not perfectly at Reft, but impatiens

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