Tormenting Tophet: or A terrible description of Hel able to breake the hardest heart, and cause it quake and tremble. Preached at Paules Crosse the 14. of Iune 1614. By Henry Greenvvood, Master of Arts, and preacher of the word of God.

¶ TORMENTING TOPHET, OR A terrible description of Hell, able to breake the hardest heart, and cause it quake and tremble.

Esay 30.33.

Tophet is prepared of old; it is euen prepared for the King: he hath made it deepe and large: the burning thereof is fire & much wood: the breath of the Lord like a Ri∣uer of Brimstone doth kindle it.

ALbeit the Lord in the be∣ginning created man in glorious manner, omni∣nō ad imaginem sui, ratione sapientem, vita innocen∣tem, dominio potentem, altogether after his own most glorious image, in purity, and in perfection of holinesse both in soule and body: yet withall, he gaue him naturam flexibilem, a mutable and changeable nature, creating him inpotestate standi, seuposse cadendi: in po∣wer

of standing, and in possibilitie of falling: power of standing, that he had from God his creatour, possibility of falling, that he had from himselfe, be∣ing a creature.

* 1.1A reason whereof S. Augustine gi∣ueth in his booke of Confessions: Be∣cause the Lord created man ex nihilo: of nothing: therefore hee left in man possibility to returne in nihilum: into nothing, if he obey'd not the will of his Maker.

* 1.2And as Basil sayth, Si Deus dedisset Adae naturam immutabilem, deos potius quàm homines condidisset: id est: If God had giuen Adam an immutable and vnchangeable nature hee had created a God, not a man: for this is a mayne trueth in Diuinity, immutabiliter esse bonum, proprium soliusest Dei: id est, to be immutably, and vnchangeablie good, onely proper to God.

Adam therefore being thus created, that hee might eyther stand or fall, by the Diuels subtill suggestion, and by the abuse of his owne free will, recey∣ued a double downefall, the fall of

sinne by disobedience, and the fall of death by sinne, the last fall being the wages of the first fall, as ye may reade in the last verse of the sixt to the Ro∣manes, The wages of sinne is death.* 1.3

The Lord therefore hauing pitty vpon this his miserable estate, vouch∣safed in his Sonne to shew mercy vp∣on some by election to saluation: as to shew iustice vpon other some by repro∣bation to damnation.

According to which irreuocable de∣cree, the Lord hath prepared euen from the foundations of the earth, answera∣ble places: a glorious habitation for the one, and a terrible dungeon for the other.

Which generall truth is confirmed in the words of my Text, hauing par∣ticular reference to the reprobat Assy∣rians. For as the Lord in his mercy doth promise in this Chapter to his people repenting them of their sinnes, manifold blessings, spirituall and cor∣porall, temporall and eternall: so doth he threaten in his iustice terrible ven∣geance to their enemies, the idolatrous

Babylonians and Assyrians, not onely temporall, but also eternall, not to the meane subiect alone, but to the King himselfe, saying: Tophet is prepared of old, it is euen prepared for the King, &c.

Not to insist therefore too long vp∣on introductions, lest it should be sayde to mee, as once a flowting Cynicke sayde to the Citizens of Myndus, a lit∣tle City with great Gates: Shut your Gates lest your City runne out: I come to the Text it selfe, which containeth in it a terrible and lamentable descrip∣tion of Hell, prepared of olde for the tormenting of all vngodly people of the world, of what estate or condition soe∣uer they be, euen for the King. For Tophet is prepared of olde, it is euen prepared for the King, &c.

Notes

• * 1.1

  August.
• * 1.2

  Basil,
• * 1.3

  Rom. 6.