Thirdly, I am to consider the execution of these sentences, of which our Saviour Christ says, " Et ibunt hi in supplicium seternum, justi autem in vitam aeternam;" " And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting." [1]
1. I will consider the execution of the sentence given against the wicked; for in the instant that it is given, without any delay, in the sight of the righteous, the earth will open under their feet, and the devils laying hold on them, they will all together descend to hell; and the earth immediately closing up again, they will remain for ever buried in that abyss of fire. Then shall be fulfilled that malediction written in the Psalm, " Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell [2] and that which St. John speaks of in his Apocalypse, that " hell and death," and whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the "pool of fire" [3] and brimstone, where, with Antichrist and the false prophets, they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. " This is the second death, bitter and eternal, which encompasses the souls and bodies that died the first death of sin and the corporal death that followed. Oh, what a furious raving will possess the damned, seeing themselves not able to resist nor to impeach the execution of this sentence! Oh, what a bitter envy will penetrate their bowels, to behold the glory of the righteous from whom they are divided! Oh, what a desperate sadness will they receive by this " second death," and in their first entrance into that stinking infernal pool! Oh, what raging agonies, beholding themselves covered with mountains of earth, bolted up with eternal bolts, and bound hand and foot with chains of perpetual damnation! Then shall they see by experience " that it is an evil and a bitter
