Hell in the Puritans writings

Sin was seen to be the height of offence before God and the worse possible of things this was argued because of the measure of the punishment against it.

George Swinnock wrote on the infinite punishment of sin in heaven and hell epitomised:

“Thou sinnest against an infinite God and therefore thy punishment must be infinite: which because it cannot be in regard of intension thy back not being strong enough to bear an infinite stroke, stroke therefore it must be in duration…Thy debt thou owest to the righteousness of God will be ever paying and never paid and therefore thou shalt not escape out of that prison till thou has paid the uttermost farthing”

Swinnock presents a very profound theology of eternal punishment in only a few lines the main theological points that Swinnock is making is that:
God is an infinite God so sin against him must deserve an infinite punishment as it is an infinite offence.
The punishment of sin is infinite but the sinner would not be able to cope with a moment of infinite punishment so sin must be punished over and infinite period of time.
That will never be able to make up for the sin we have committed and so we will always be suffering the results.

Swinnock then proposed the practical application of this truth when he writes further on:

“Reader for thy soul’s sake let me beseech thee to ponder this but one half quarter of an hour every morning that the pain that sin bringeth will be eternal. Oh how may I take off the edge of thy love to thy most pleasing lusts!”

What he is saying here is that sins eternal punishment must be considered and thought about to act as a means of putting us of sin. This is because the horrors of sin are so great that when we consider them sin loses its attraction

Swinnock further goes on to write why he believed hell to be such a torment:

“Endless misery must needs be easeless; no condition so intolerable as a miserable condition that is unalterable. It is a comfort to a woman in travail in the midst of her sharp throes and bitter pangs to think these will have an end; the hope of that doth much help her to hold out but, woes and alas! They whose end is damnation shall have damnation which hath no end.”

The point he is making here is that people can endure pain because they see an end to it but because hell has no end it will be the most terrible of all experiences completely unable to be endured.

Oh what consequences sin has no wonder Thomas Boston wrote:
“It is a misery which the tongues of men and angels cannot sufficiently express. God always acts like Himself– as no favors can be compared to His, so also His wrath and terrors are without a parallel. As the saints in heaven are advanced to the highest pitch of happiness, so the damned in hell arrive at the height of misery.”
What Boston is saying here is that God is consistent in his activities (God always acts like himself) he is infinitely loving but this infinite love and blessing should make us consider the terrors of his wrath. So he also concludes as good as heaven is for the redeemed so the measures of miseries of hell are as strong and vehement.

No wonder he cries out:

“Let all those who being yet in their natural state, are under the curse, consider this, and flee to Jesus Christ in time, that they may be delivered from it. How can you sleep in that state, being under the curse!”

The consideration of the full weight of sins depravity and consequences should cause us to flee to Christ our only hope.

Boston saw the urgency of this call to flee to Christ because as he wrote about hell:

“No offer of Christ there, no pardon, no peace; no wells of salvation in the pit of destruction. In one word, they shall be deprived of whatever might comfort them, being totally and finally separated from God, the fountain of all goodness and comfort.”

What he is saying here is that once in hell there is no way out such is the enormity and gravity of the problem of sin.

Ralph Venning in his book The Sinfulness of Sin described “the quantity and torments of hell” in three parts that

They will be exceedingly great and terrible

“They are such that will make the stoutest hearts to quake and tremble”. His point here is that no is able to cope with the punishments of hell such is there strong affects upon the heart not even those who are most strong in courage. His biggest case for why hell is so terrible is his argument that God is so powerful and strong that Hell must be the worst of all possible punishments and the most terrible of things. As the power of a person determines the effects produced by that person. He writes:

“As the man is so his strength is. It is only a game to be whipped by a child. But to be whipped and lashed by a giant whose little finger is heavier than another’s loins how painful it must be! The rod is for the back of fools but when it shall be turned into scorpions and God himself should lay on strokes without mercy or pity how tormenting will it be!”

The torments of hell will be universal

Venning saw this universal torment as taking two forms “the torments themselves will be universal. It will not merely be one or two torments but all torments united together”. His point here is that every possible conceivable torment will be executed in hell. Secondly the “persons on whom these torments will be inflicted will be universally tormented. Not merely one or two parts of the person but all over. The whole man has sinned and the whole man will be tormented”. The entire human being will suffer the punishing terrible wrath of God.

These torments will be without intermission

Venning saw the punishment of hell to be happening continuously without break so he writes these sober words, “They shall be tormented day and night. They shall have no rest. In this life our sleep is only a parenthesis to care and sorrow and pain, but there, there will be no sleeping. The God who executes wrath and those upon whom wrath is executed neither slumber nor sleep. Here they may have some intermission and some sane moments in their madness, but there, there will be night continually for vexations of heart.”

It was Spurgeon though not a puritan per se but one who stood in their tradition who taught in a sermon on heaven and hell that hell would last forever and with his words I conclude this section; writing on those who are in Hell:

“They are forever--forever--forever--lost! On every link of the chains in hell are written the word "forever." In the fires, the flames spell out the word "forever." Up above their heads, they read the words "forever." Their eyes are irritated, and their hearts are in anguish with the thought that it is "forever." Oh! if I could tell you tonight that hell would one day be burned out, and that those who were lost might be saved, there would be a jubilee in hell at the very thought of it. But it cannot be--it is "forever." They are "thrown outside, into the darkness."

Conclusion

So we see that Sin has an eternal punishment placed against it there is no escape from it for the sinner as he faces uttermost torment in hell. So we see the very dreadfulness of sin as Richard Baxter said “Look but to the state and torment of the damned and think well of the difference betwixt angels and devils, and you may know what sin is.”