prophet; they must either take their own dreams, for the prophecy they mean to be governed by, and the tumor of their own hearts for the Spirit of God; or they must suffer themselves to be led by some strange prince; or by some of their fellow-subjects, that can bewitch them, by slander of the government, into rebellion, without other miracle to confirm their calling, than sometimes an extraordinary success and impunity; and by this means destroying all laws, both divine and human, reduce all order, government, and society, to the first chaos of violence and civil war.
------- CHAPTER XXXVII.
OF MIRACLES, AND THEIR USE.
[Sidenote: A miracle is a work that causeth admiration.]
By _miracles_ are signified the admirable works of God: and therefore they are also called _wonders_. And because they are for the most part, done, for a signification of his commandment, in such occasions, as without them, men are apt to doubt, (following their private natural reasoning,) what he hath commanded, and what not, they are commonly, in holy Scripture, called _signs_, in the same sense, as they are called by the Latins, _ostenta_, and _portenta_, from showing and fore-signifying that, which the Almighty is about to bring to pass.
[Sidenote: And must therefore be rare, and whereof there is no natural cause known.]
To understand therefore what is a miracle, we must first understand what works they are, which men wonder at, and call admirable. And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: the one is, if it be strange, that is to say, such as the like of it hath never, or very rarely been produced: the other is, if when it is produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by natural means, but only by the immediate hand of God. But when we see some possible, natural cause of it, how rarely soever the like has been done, or if the like have been often done, how impossible soever it be to imagine a natural means thereof, we no more wonder, nor esteem it for a miracle.
Therefore, if a horse or cow should speak, it were a miracle; because both the thing is strange, and the natural cause difficult to imagine.
So also were it to see a strange deviation of nature, in the production of some new shape of a living creature. But when a man, or other animal, engenders his like, though we know no more how this is done, than the other; yet because it is usual, it is no miracle. In like manner, if a man be metamorphosed into a stone, or into a pillar, it is a miracle; because strange: but if a piece of wood be so changed; because we see it often, it is no miracle: and yet we know no more by what operation of God, the one is brought to pass, than the other.
The first rainbow that was seen in the world, was a miracle, because the first; and consequently strange; and served for a sign from God, placed in heaven, to assure his people, there should be no more any universal destruction of the world by water. But at this day, because they are frequent, they are not miracles, neither to them that know their natural causes, nor to them who know them not. Again, there be many rare works thereby we know also the means how they are done, we count them not for miracles, because not wrought by the immediate hand of God, but of human industry.
[Sidenote: That which seemeth a miracle to one man, may seem otherwise to another.]
Furthermore, seeing admiration and wonder are consequent to the knowledge and experience, wherewith men are endued, some more, some less; it followeth, that the same thing may be a miracle to one, and not to another. And thence it is, that ignorant and superstitious men make great wonders of those works, which other men, knowing to proceed from nature, (which is not the immediate, but the ordinary work of God), admire not at all: as when eclipses of the sun and moon have been taken for supernatural works, by the common people; when nevertheless, there were others, who could from their natural causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive: or, as when a man, by confederacy and secret intelligence, getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant, unwary man, thereby tells him what he has done in former time; it seems to him a miraculous thing; but amongst wise, and cautelous men, such miracles as those, cannot easily be done.
[Sidenote: The end of miracles.]
Again, it belongeth to the nature of a miracle, that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to God’s messengers, ministers, and prophets, that thereby men may know, they are called, sent, and employed by God, and thereby be the better inclined to obey them. And therefore, though the creation of the world, and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universal deluge, were admirable works; yet because they were not done to procure credit to any prophet, or other minister of God, they use not to be called miracles. For how admirable soever any work be, the admiration consisteth not in that it could be done; because men naturally believe the Almighty can do all things; but because he does it at the prayer or word of a man. But the works of God in Egypt, by the hand of Moses, were properly miracles; because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel believe, that Moses came unto them, not out of any design of his own interest, but as sent from God. Therefore, after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage, when he said (_Exod._ iv. 1) _They will not believe me, but will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto me_, God gave him power, to turn the rod he had in his hand into a serpent, and again to return it into a rod; and by putting his hand into his bosom, to make it leprous; and again by putting it out, to make it whole; to make the children of Israel believe (as it is in verse 5) that the God of their fathers had appeared unto him: and if that were not enough, he gave him power to turn their waters into blood. And when he had done these miracles before the people, it is said (verse 31) that _they believed him_. Nevertheless, for fear of Pharaoh, they durst not yet obey him.
Therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians, tended all to make the Israelites believe in Moses, and were properly miracles. In like manner if we consider all the miracles done by the hand of Moses, and all the rest of the prophets, till the captivity; and those of our Saviour, and his apostles afterwards; we shall find, their end was always to beget or confirm belief, that they came not of their own motion, but were sent by God. We may farther observe in Scripture, that the end of miracles, was to beget belief, not universally in all men, elect and reprobate; but in the elect only; that is to say, in such as God had determined should become his subjects. For those miraculous plagues of Egypt, had not for their end, the conversion of Pharaoh; for God had told Moses before, that he would harden the heart of Pharoah, that he should not let the people go: and when he let them go at last, not the miracles persuaded him, but the plagues forced him to it. So also of our Saviour, it is written (_Matth._ xiii. 58), that he wrought not many miracles in his own country, because of their unbelief; and (in _Mark_ vi. 5) instead of, _He wrought not many_, it is, _He could work none_. It was not because he wanted power; which to say, were blasphemy against God; nor that the end of miracles was not to convert incredulous men to Christ; for the end of all the miracles of Moses, of the prophets, of our Saviour, and of his apostles was to add men to the church: but it was, because the end of their miracles, was to add to the church, not all men, but such as should be saved; that is to say, such as God had elected. Seeing therefore our Saviour was sent from his Father, he could not use his power in the conversion of those, whom his Father had rejected. They that expounding this place of _St. Mark_, say, that this word, _He could not_, is put for, _He would not_, do it without example in the Greek tongue: where _would not_, is put sometimes for _could not_, in things inanimate, that have no will; but _could not_, for _would not_ never: and thereby lay a stumbling block before weak Christians; as if Christ could do no miracles, but amongst the credulous.
[Sidenote: The definition of a miracle.]
From that which I have here set down, of the nature and use of a miracle, we may define it thus: A MIRACLE _is a work of God, (besides his operation by the way of nature, ordained in the creation) done, for the making manifest to his elect, the mission of an extraordinary minister for their salvation_.
And from this definition, we may infer; first, that in all miracles, the work done, is not the effect of any virtue in the prophet; because it is the effect of the immediate hand of God; that is to say God hath done it, without using the prophet therein, as a subordinate cause.
Secondly, that no devil, angel, or other created spirit, can do a miracle. For it must either be by virtue of some natural science, or by incantation, that is, by virtue of words. For if the enchanters do it by their own power independent, there is some power that proceedeth not from God; which all men deny: and if they do it by power given them, then is the work not from the immediate hand of God, but natural, and consequently no miracle.
There be some texts of Scripture, that seem to attribute the power of working wonders, equal to some of those immediate miracles wrought by God himself, to certain arts of magic and incantation. As for example, when we read that after the rod of Moses being cast on the ground became a serpent, (_Exod._ vii. 11) _the magicians of Egypt did the like by their enchantments_; and that after Moses had turned the waters of the Egyptian streams, rivers, ponds, and pools of water into blood, (_Exod._ vii. 22) _the magicians did so likewise with their enchantments_; and that after Moses had by the power of God brought frogs upon the land, (_Exod._ viii. 7) _the magicians also did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt_; will not a man be apt to attribute miracles to enchantments; that is to say, to the efficacy of the sound of words; and think the same very well proved out of this, and other such places? And yet there is no place of Scripture, that telleth us what an enchantment is. If therefore enchantment be not, as many think it, a working of strange effects by spells and words; but imposture and delusion, wrought by ordinary means; and so far from supernatural, as the impostors need not the study so much as of natural causes, but the ordinary ignorance, stupidity, and superstition of mankind, to do them; those texts that seem to countenance the power of magic, witchcraft, and enchantment, must needs have another sense, than at first sight they seem to bear.
For it is evident enough, that words have no effect, but on those that understand them; and then they have no other, but to signify the intentions or passions of them that speak; and thereby produce hope, fear, or other passions or conceptions in the hearer. Therefore when a rod seemeth a serpent, or the waters blood, or any other miracle seemeth done by enchantment; if it be not to the edification of God’s people, not the rod, nor the water, nor any other thing is enchanted; that is to say, wrought upon by the words, but the spectator. So that all the miracle consisteth in this, that the enchanter has deceived a man; which is no miracle, but a very easy matter to do.
[Sidenote: That men are apt to be deceived by false miracles.]
For such is the ignorance and aptitude to error generally of all men, but especially of them that have not much knowledge of natural causes, and of the nature and interests of men; as by innumerable and easy tricks to be abused. What opinion of miraculous power, before it was known there was a science of the course of the stars, might a man have gained, that should have told the people, this hour or day the sun should be darkened? A juggler by the handling of his goblets and other trinkets, if it were not now ordinarily practised, would be thought to do his wonders by the power at least of the devil. A man that hath practised to speak by drawing in of his breath, (which kind of men in ancient time were called _ventriloqui_), and so make the weakness of his voice seem to proceed, not from the weak impulsion of the organs of speech, but from distance of place, is able to make very many men believe it is a voice from Heaven, whatsoever he please to tell them.
And for a crafty man, that hath enquired into the secrets, and familiar confessions that one man ordinarily maketh to another of his actions and adventures past, to tell them him again is no hard matter; and yet there be many, that by such means as that obtain the reputation of being conjurers. But it is too long a business, to reckon up the several sorts of those men, which the Greeks called θαυματουργοι, that is to say, workers of things wonderful: and yet these do all they do, by their own single dexterity. But if we look upon the impostures wrought by confederacy, there is nothing how impossible soever to be done, that is impossible to be believed. For two men conspiring, one to seem lame, the other to cure him with a charm, will deceive many: but many conspiring, one to seem lame, another so to cure him, and all the rest to bear witness, will deceive many more.
[Sidenote: Cautions against the imposture of miracles.]
In this aptitude of mankind, to give too hasty belief to pretended miracles, there can be no better, nor I think any other caution, than that which God hath prescribed, first by Moses, as I have said before in the precedent chapter, in the beginning of the xiiith and end of the xviiith of _Deuteronomy_; that we take not any for prophets, that teach any other religion, than that which God’s lieutenant, which at that time was Moses, hath established; nor any, though he teach the same religion, whose prediction we do not see come to pass. Moses therefore in his time, and Aaron and his successors in their times, and the sovereign governor of God’s people, next under God himself, that is to say, the head of the Church, in all times, are to be consulted, what doctrine he hath established, before we give credit to a pretended miracle or prophet. And when that is done, the thing they pretend to be a miracle, we must both see it done, and use all means possible to consider, whether it be really done; and not only so, but whether it be such, as no man can do the like by his natural power, but that it requires the immediate hand of God. And in this also we must have recourse to God’s lieutenant, to whom in all doubtful cases, we have submitted our private judgments. For example; if a man pretend, after certain words spoken over a piece of bread, that presently God hath made it not bread, but a god, or a man, or both, and nevertheless it looketh still as like bread as ever it did; there is no reason for any man to think it really done, nor consequently to fear him, till he enquire of God, by his vicar or lieutenant, whether it be done, or not. If he say, not, then followeth that which Moses saith (_Deut._ xviii. 22) _he hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not fear him_. If he say, it is done, then he is not to contradict it. So also if we see not, but only hear tell of a miracle, we are to consult the lawful Church; that is to say, the lawful head thereof, how far we are to give credit to the relators of it. And this is chiefly the case of men, that in these days live under Christian sovereigns. For in these times, I do not know one man, that ever saw any such wonderous work, done by the charm, or at the word, or prayer of a man, that a man endued but with a mediocrity of reason would think supernatural: and the question is no more, whether what we see done, be a miracle; whether the miracle we hear, or read of, were a real work, and not the act of a tongue, or pen; but in plain terms, whether the report be true, or a lie. In which question we are not every one, to make our own private reason, or conscience, but the public reason, that is, the reason of God’s supreme lieutenant, judge; and indeed we have made him judge already, if we have given him a sovereign power, to do all that is necessary for our peace and defence. A private man has always the liberty, because thought is free, to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefit can accrue by men’s belief, to those that pretend or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. But when it comes to confession of that faith, the private reason must submit to the public; that is to say, to God’s lieutenant. But who is this lieutenant of God, and head of the Church, shall be considered in its proper place hereafter.
------- CHAPTER XXXVIII.
OF THE SIGNIFICATION IN SCRIPTURE OF ETERNAL LIFE, HELL, SALVATION, THE WORLD TO COME, AND REDEMPTION.
The maintenance of civil society depending on justice, and justice on the power of life and death, and other less rewards and punishments, residing in them that have the sovereignty of the commonwealth; it is impossible a commonwealth should stand, where any other than the sovereign hath a power of giving greater rewards than life, and of inflicting greater punishments than death. Now seeing _eternal life_ is greater punishment than the _death of nature_; it is a thing worthy to be well considered of all men that desire, by obeying authority, to avoid the calamities of confusion and civil war, what is meant in Holy Scripture, by _life eternal_, and _torment eternal_; and for what offences, and against whom committed, men are to be _eternally tormented_; and for what actions they are to obtain _eternal life_.
[Sidenote: The place of Adam’s eternity, if he had not sinned, had been the terrestrial Paradise.]
And first we find that Adam was created in such a condition of life, as had he not broken the commandment of God, he had enjoyed it in the paradise of Eden everlastingly. For there was the _tree of life_, whereof he was so long allowed to eat, as he should forbear to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; which was not allowed him. And therefore as soon as he had eaten of it, God thrust him out of Paradise, (_Gen._ iii. 22) _lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and live for ever_. By which it seemeth to me, (with submission nevertheless both in this, and in all questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures, to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the commonwealth, whose subject I am), that Adam, if he had not sinned, had had an eternal life on earth, and that mortality entered upon himself and his posterity by his first sin. Not that actual death then entered; for Adam then could never have had children; whereas he lived long after, and saw a numerous posterity ere he died. But where it is said, (_Gen._ ii. 17) _In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die_, it must needs be meant of his mortality, and certitude of death. Seeing then eternal life was lost by Adam’s forfeiture in committing sin, he that should cancel that forfeiture, was to recover thereby that life again. Now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that believe in him; and therefore recovered to all believers, that eternal life which was lost by the sin of Adam. And in this sense it is that the comparison of St. Paul holdeth, (_Rom._ v. 18, 19) _As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life_; which is again (_1 Cor._ xv. 21, 22) more perspicuously delivered in these words, _For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive._ [Sidenote: Texts concerning the place of life eternal, for believers.]
Concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that eternal life which Christ hath obtained for them, the texts next before alleged seem to make it on earth. For if as in Adam all die, that is, have forfeited paradise and eternal life on earth, even so in Christ all shall be made alive; then all men shall be made to live on earth; for else the comparison were not proper. Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the psalmist (_Psalm_. cxxxiii. 3) _upon Zion God commanded the blessing, even life for evermore_: for Zion is in Jerusalem upon earth: as also that of St. John (_Rev._ ii. 7) _To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God_.
This was the tree of Adam’s eternal life; but his life was to have been on earth. The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. John (_Rev._ xxi. 2), where he saith, _I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband_: and again (verse 10) to the same effect: as if he should say, the new _Jerusalem_, the paradise of God, at the coming again of Christ, should come down to God’s people from heaven, and not they go up to it from earth. And this differs nothing from that, which the two men in white clothing, that is the two angels, said to the apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending (_Acts_ i. 11) _This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him go up into heaven_. Which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his Father eternally here, and not take them up to govern them in heaven; and is conformable to the restoration of the kingdom of God instituted under Moses, which was a political government of the Jews on earth. Again, that saying of our Saviour (_Matth._ xxii.
30), _that in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven_, is a description of an eternal life, resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of marriage. For seeing Adam and Eve, if they had not sinned, had lived on earth eternally in their individual persons; it is manifest, they should not continually have procreated their kind; for if immortals should have generated as mankind doth now, the earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on. The Jews that asked our Saviour the question, whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection, knew not what were the consequences of life eternal: and therefore our Saviour puts them in mind of this consequence of immortality; that there shall be no generation, and consequently no marriage, no more than there is marriage or generation among the angels. The comparison between that eternal life which Adam lost, and our Saviour by his victory over death hath recovered, holdeth also in this; that as Adam lost eternal life by his sin, and yet lived after it for a time, so the faithful Christian hath recovered eternal life by Christ’s passion, though he die a natural death, and remain dead for a time, namely, till the resurrection. For as death is reckoned from the condemnation of Adam, not from the execution; so life is reckoned from the absolution, not from the resurrection of them that are elected in Christ.
[Sidenote: Ascension into heaven.]
That the place wherein men are to live eternally, after the resurrection, is the heavens, (meaning by heaven, those parts of the world, which are the most remote from earth, as where the stars are, or above the stars, in another higher heaven, called _cœlum empyreum_, whereof there is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason), is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find. By the Kingdom of Heaven, is meant the kingdom of the King that dwelleth in heaven; and his kingdom was the people of Israel, whom he ruled by the prophets, his lieutenants; first Moses, and after him Eleazar, and the sovereign priests, till in the days of Samuel they rebelled, and would have a mortal man for their king, after the manner of other nations. And when our Saviour Christ, by the preaching of his ministers, shall have persuaded the Jews to return, and called the Gentiles to his obedience, then shall there be a new kingdom of heaven; because our king shall then be God, whose _throne_ is heaven: without any necessity evident in the Scripture, that man shall ascend to his happiness any higher than God’s _footstool_ the earth. On the contrary, we find written (_John_ iii. 13) that _no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, that is in heaven_. Where I observe by the way, that these words are not, as those which go immediately before, the words of our Saviour, but of St. John himself; for Christ was then not in heaven, but upon the earth. The like is said of David (_Acts_ ii. 34) where St. Peter, to prove the ascension of Christ, using the words of the Psalmist (_Psalm_ xvi. 10), _Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption_, saith, they were spoken, not of David, but of Christ; and to prove it, addeth this reason, _For David is not ascended into heaven_. But to this a man may easily answer, and say, that though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of judgment, yet their souls were in heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies; which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour (_Luke_ xx. 37, 38), who proving the resurrection out of the words of Moses, saith thus, _That the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for they all live to him._ But if these words be to be understood only of the immortality of the soul, they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove, which was the resurrection of the body, that is to say, the immortality of the man.
Therefore our Saviour meaneth, that those patriarchs were immortal; not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind; but by the will of God, that was pleased of his mere grace, to bestow _eternal life_ upon the faithful. And though at that time the patriarchs and many other faithful men were _dead_, yet as it is in the text, they _lived to God_; that is, they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sins, and ordained to life eternal at the resurrection. That the soul of man is in its own nature eternal, and a living creature independent on the body, or that any mere man is immortal, otherwise than by the resurrection in the last day, except Enoch and Elias, is a doctrine not apparent in Scripture. The whole of the xivth chapter of _Job_, which is the speech not of his friends, but of himself, is a complaint of this mortality of nature; and yet no contradiction of the immortality at the resurrection. _There is hope of a tree_, saith he, (verse 7) _if it be cast down. Though the root thereof wax old, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet when it scenteth the water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth and wasteth away, yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?_ And (verse 12) _Man lieth down, and riseth not, till the heavens be no more_. But when is it, that the heavens shall be no more? St. Peter tells us, that it is at the general resurrection. For in his 2nd _Epistle_, chap. iii. verse 7, he saith, _that the heavens and the earth that are now, are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men_, and (v. 12) _looking for, and hasting to the coming of God, wherein the heavens shall be on fire and shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we according to the promise look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness._ Therefore where Job saith, _man riseth not till the heavens be no more_; it is all one, as if he had said, the immortal life, (and soul and life in the Scripture do usually signify the same thing,) beginneth not in man, till the resurrection and day of judgment; and hath for cause, not his specifical nature and generation, but the promise. For St. Peter says, not _We look for new heavens and a new earth, from nature_, but _from promise_.
Lastly, seeing it hath been already proved out of divers evident places of Scripture, in chap. xxxv. of this book, that the kingdom of God is a civil commonwealth, where God himself is sovereign, by virtue first of the _old_, and since of the _new_ covenant, wherein he reigneth by his vicar or lieutenant; the same places do therefore also prove, that after the coming again of our Saviour in his majesty and glory, to reign actually and eternally, the kingdom of God is to be on earth. But because this doctrine, though proved out of places of Scripture not few nor obscure, will appear to most men a novelty, I do but propound it; maintaining nothing in this, or any other paradox of religion; but attending the end of that dispute of the sword, concerning the authority, not yet amongst my countrymen decided, by which all sorts of doctrine are to be approved or rejected; and whose commands, both in speech and writing, whatsoever be the opinions of private men, must by all men, that mean to be protected by their laws, be obeyed. For the points of doctrine concerning the kingdom of God, have so great influence on the kingdom of man, as not to be determined, but by them, that under God have the sovereign power.
[Sidenote: The place after judgment of those who were never in the kingdom of God, or having been in, are cast out.]
As the kingdom of God, and eternal life, so also God’s enemies, and their torments after judgment, appear by the Scripture to have their place on earth. The name of the place, where all men remain till the resurrection, that were either buried, or swallowed up of the earth, is usually called in Scripture, by words that signify _under ground_; which the Latins read generally _infernus_, and _inferi_, and the Greek ἃδης, that is to say, a place where men cannot see; and containeth as well the grave, as any any other deeper place. But for the place of the damned after the resurrection, it is not determined, neither in the Old nor New Testament, by any note of situation; but only by the company: as that it shall be, where such wicked men were, as God in former times, in extraordinary and miraculous manner, had destroyed from off the face of the earth: [Sidenote: Tartarus.] as for example, that they are _in Inferno_, in _Tartarus_, or in the bottomless pit; because Corah, Dathan, and Abiron, were swallowed up alive into the earth. Not that the writers of the Scripture would have us believe, there could be in the globe of the earth, which is not only finite, but also, compared to the height of the stars, of no considerable magnitude, a pit without a bottom, that is, a hole of infinite depth, such as the Greeks in their _demonology_, (that is to say, in their doctrine concerning _demons_), and after them the Romans, called _Tartarus_; of which Virgil (_Æn._ vi.
578, 579) says, Bis patet in præceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, Quantus ad ætherium cœli suspectus Olympum: for that is a thing the proportion of earth to heaven cannot bear: but that we should believe them there, indefinitely, where those men are, on whom God inflicted that exemplary punishment.
[Sidenote: The congregation of giants.]
Again, because those mighty men of the earth, that lived in the time of Noah, before the flood, (which the Greeks call _heroes_, and the Scripture _giants_, and both say were begotten by copulation of the children of God with the children of men,) were for their wicked life destroyed by the general deluge; the place of the damned, is therefore also sometimes marked out, by the company of those deceased giants; as _Proverbs_ xxi. 16, _The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the giants_; and _Job_ xxvi. 5, _Behold the giants groan under water, and they that dwell with them_. Here the place of the damned is under the water. And _Isaiah_ xiv. 9, _Hell is troubled how to meet thee_ (that is, the King of Babylon) _and will displace the giants for thee_: and here again the place of the damned, if the sense be literal, is to be under water.
[Sidenote: Lake of fire.] Thirdly, because the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, by the extraordinary wrath of God, were consumed for their wickedness with fire and brimstone, and together with them the country about made a stinking bituminous lake: the place of the damned is sometimes expressed by fire, and a fiery lake, as in the _Apocalypse_, xxi. 8, _But the timorous, incredulous, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death_. So that it is manifest, that hell fire, which is here expressed by metaphor from the real fire of Sodom, signifieth not any certain kind or place of torment; but is to be taken indefinitely, for destruction, as it is in _Rev._ xx. 14, where it is said, that _death and hell were cast into the lake of fire_; that is to say, were abolished and destroyed; as if after the day of judgment, there shall be no more dying, nor no more going into hell; that is, no more going to _Hades_, (from which word perhaps our word Hell is derived,) which is the same with no more dying.
[Sidenote: Utter darkness.]
Fourthly, from the plague of darkness inflicted on the Egyptians, of which it is written (_Exod._ x. 23) _They saw not one another, neither rose any man from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings_; the place of the wicked after judgment, is called _utter darkness_, or, as it is in the original, _darkness without_. And so it is expressed (_Matth._ xxii. 13) where the king commanded his servants, _to bind hand and foot the man that had not on his wedding garment, and to cast him out_, εἰς τὸ σκοτος τὸ ἐξώτερον, _into external darkness_, or _darkness without_: which though translated _utter darkness_, does not signify _how great_, but _where_ that darkness is to be; namely, _without the habitation_ of God’s elect.
[Sidenote: Gehenna, and Tophet.]