§ 11. (3.) The torments of the damned must be extreme, because they are the effect of Divine vengeance. Wrath is terrible, but revenge is implacable. When the great God shall say, "My rebellious creatures shall now pay for all the abuse of my patience. Remember how I waited your leisure in vain, how I stooped to persuade and entreat you. Did you think I would always be so slighted?" Then will he be revenged for every abused mercy, and for all their neglects of Christ and grace. O that men would foresee this, and please God better in preventing their woe!
§ 12. (4.) Consider also, that though God had rather men would accept of Christ and mercy, yet when they persist in rebellion, he will take pleasure in their execution. He tells us, _fury is not in me_; yet he adds, _who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle: I would go through them, I would burn them together_. Wretched creatures! when _he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favor_.[257] _As the Lord rejoiced over them to do them good; so the Lord will rejoice over them to destroy them, and to bring them to nought._[258] Woe to the soul whom God rejoiceth to punish! _He will laugh at their calamity, he will mock when their fear cometh; when their fear cometh as desolation, and their destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon them._[259] Terrible thing, when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice in their calamity! Though Scripture speaks of _God's laughing and mocking_, not literally, but after the manner of men; yet it is such an act of God in tormenting the sinner, which cannot otherwise be more fitly expressed.
§ 13. (5.) Consider that Satan and themselves shall be God's executioners. He that was here so successful in drawing them from Christ, will then be the instrument of their punishment, for yielding to his temptations. That is the reward he will give them for all their services; for their rejecting the commands of God, and forsaking Christ, and neglecting their souls at his persuasion. If they had served Christ as faithfully as they did Satan, he would have given them a better reward. It is also most just, that they should be their own tormentors, that they may see their whole destruction is of themselves; and then who can they complain of but themselves?