n to a kingdom,
and yet to be banished it and lose it? But what an incomparable loss is it
to fall from an heavenly kingdom, which heart cannot conceive, and that
for ever? In God's favour is life, and in his presence are rivers of
pleasures for evermore. When your petty penny losses do so much afflict
your spirits, what would the due apprehension of so great a loss do? Would
it not be death unto you, and worse than death, to be separated from this
life, to be eternally banished from the presence of his glory? If there
should be no more punishment but this only; if the wicked were to endure
for ever on earth, and the godly, whom they despised and mocked, were
translated to heaven, what torment would it be to your souls to think upon
that blessedness which they enjoy above, and how foolishly ye have been
put by it for a thing of no value? What would a rich man's advantages and
gains be to him, when he considereth what an infinite loser he is? How he
hath sold a kingdom for a dunghill? Now if there were any hope, that after
some years his banishment from heaven might end, this might refresh him,
but there is not one drop of such consolation. He is banished, and
eternally banished, from that glorious life in the presence of God, which
those do enjoy whom he despised. If a man were shut up all his life-time
in a pit, never to see the light once more, would not this be torment
enough to him? But when withal there is such pain joined with this loss;
when all this time he is tormented within with a gnawing worm, and without
with fire; those senses that did so greedily hunt after satisfaction to
themselves, are now as sensible in the feeling of pain and torment. And
when this shall not make an end, but be eternal, O whose heart can
consider it! It is the comfort and ease of bodily torments here, that they
will end in death. Destruction destroys itself, in destroying the body;
but here is an immortal soul to feed upon, and at length the body shall be
immortal. That destruction cannot quite destroy it, but shall be an
everlasting destruction and living death.

This is the sentence that is once passed against us all in the word of
God, and not one jot of this word shall fall to the ground: heaven and
earth may fail sooner. Ye would think it were an irrepealable decree, if
all the nations in the earth, and angels above, convened to adjudge a man
to death, did pass sentence upon him. Nay, but this word that is daily
spoken to you, wh