perdition, and is said to go to his own place, from which he will never remove, being most worthy of it for his dreadful transgression, and pre-ordained to it for his sins, in which the bounds of his habitation are eternally fixed. Antichrist is likewise called the son of perdition, being his fellow heir of the same place; because he drives the same wicked trade with Christ and his blood as Judas did; and who will at last go into perdition as well as he, and be drowned in it; for, as for grace or the Holy Spirit, neither he nor Simon Magus have either part or lot in that matter.

Various are the names by which this awful place of torment is called in scripture. It is called Tophet: which place was in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where the children of Israel sacrificed their children to Moloch. 66 They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch," Jer. xxxii. 35. "Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and polluted the land with blood." This image had arms, as some say, to hold the infants in, and to which arms they were bound. The image was made hollow within, and a kiln hole was made at the bottom of the image, where the fire was kindled, and kept burning till the child was consumed. Some children they drove through the fire to this idol, and some were fixed, as above, in the arms of it. The priests who officiated at this infernal altar were called

chemarims, as it is written; "I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place; and the names of the chemarims with the priests," Zeph. i. 4. At the times of sacrificing these poor children they used to beat drums, &c. in order to drown the cries of them when in the fire: on which account, as some think, this valley is called Tophet; which, according to the learned, signifies a drum: and God himself gives it this name to represent hell.

Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

Their children's cries unheard that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol,

... and made his

grove

MILTON.

The pleasant valley of Hinnom; Tophet thence And black Gehenna call'd the type of hell. And God compares the wicked to the fuel with which they burnt their children. And God will kindle a worse fire than they did; and be as deaf to the cries of them as they were to those of their poor infants. "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it."

Sometimes this place of punishment is called a lake; in allusion to the plain where anciently stood the four cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, and Zeboim, which the Lord destroyed by fire.

This fine plain, well watered by the river Jordan running through it, was the cause of Lot's choosing it when he separated from Abraham. It was anciently a very rich, fertile valley, of seventy miles long, and twenty over; under its turf was a kind of a rich bitumen, and beneath that a pitchy slime, Gen. xiv. 10, which they used in building. Compare with Gen. xi. 3. But, when God rained fire and brimstone from heaven upon those cities, the bitumen and slime took fire also. The land of the plain, and the whole country, were all on a flame and smoke, Gen. xix. 28. And God overthrew those cities, Gen. xix. 25;

that is, with an

earthquake, by which a prodigious mountain was cast up at the west end of the plain; and the whole plain is now a dead sea, called the lake Asphaltites. The rivers Jordan, Jabbok, and Arnon, all run into it at the east end; but there is no way out of it, unless by a subterraneous passage. But what is the most surprising of all is that, though this lake is fed by fresh water rivers, yet the sea is remarkably salt; and, according to Maundrell, prodigious nauseous. The storm of vengeance which fell upon those cities is the pledge and earnest of the general conflagration. As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. The destruction of the inhabitants of these cities is an emblem of the destruction of all the wicked in the great day; who, as well as the Sodomites, will suffer the vengeance of eternal fire; of which place this sulphureous

lake, when all on a flame, was an awful figure or representation. The beast, and the false prophet, and the devil that deceived them, Rev. xx. 10; yea, all, whosoever were not found written in the book of life, Rev. xx. 15: "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the se cond death," Rev. xxi. 8.

Sometimes this place of torment is called a prison; in which all the King of heaven's prisoners are or shall be bound, shut up, and confined. It is prepared for devils, rebels, traitors, reprobates, infidels, hypocrites, heretics, false prophets, and persecutors: and all who descend into it will lie in it until the end of the saints' thousand years reign with Christ in the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, 2 Pet. iii. 13; at the end of which time they shall be visited. The Lord Jesus, who has the keys of hell and of death, will bring them forth to the great and grand assize, to take their trial, receive their decisive sentence and their awful doom.

On the very day of this world's dreadful conflagration all the wicked, both devils and men, will be imprisoned; and on the same day the saints will take the kingdom, and begin their thousand years reign: as it is written; "And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit; and they shall be shut up in

the prison; and after many days shall they be visited." At that time begins the saints' reign. "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem; and before his ancients gloriously," Isa. xxiv. 22, 23. The many days in the above passage are the promised thousand years in Rev. xx. 4. And this reign of Christ is said to be before his ancients, because all the ancient saints; Adam and Eve the first; with Abel, Seth, and Enoch; Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; down to the last soul that ever shall be called by grace; will reign with him: and it will not be, as it is now, a reign of grace; but a glorious reign; or the Lord will reign before his ancients in a very glorious manner.

Again, this place of punishment is called a gulph fixed; which a learned man of God tells me may be properly rendered, as it is in the Dutch annotations, an abyss, or a bottomless pit, Rev. ix. 1. This abyss, or bottomless pit, is said to be fixed; that is, by God's decree of reprobation, which can never be revoked. A bottomless pit affords no anchorage for hope; therefore they that go down into it cannot hope for the truth.

This gulph, fixed by an eternal decree, for ever fixes the state of the damned, and for ever debars all passage from thence. The elect shall never descend into it, nor the reprobate ascend out of it; as it is written; "And, besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulph fixed; [xaca,