Religion & morality > Human nature in its four-fold state ... in several practical discourses

Head VI. in Hell. 571
is a dependent one. Wherefore a total Separation
from God, wherein all comfortable Communication
betwixt God and a rational Creature is abfolutely
block’d up, muft of Neceflity bring along with it,
a total Eclipfe of all Light of Comfort and Eafe
whatfoever. If there is but one Window, or open
Place, in a Houfe, and that be quite fhut up ; ’tis
evident there can be nothing but Darknefs in that
Houfe. Our Lord tells us {Mattb. xix. 17.) 'There
is none Good but one, that is God. Nothing good
or comfortable is originally from the Creature:
Whatever good or comfortable Thing one finds in
one’s felf, as Health of Body, Peace of Mind;
whatever Sweetnefs, Reft, Pleafure, or Delight, one
finds in other Creatures, as in Meat, Drink, Arts,
and Sciences; all thefe are but fome faint Rays of
the Divine Perfections, communicate from God un¬
to the Creature, and depending on a conftant In¬
fluence from him, for their Confervation, which fail¬
ing they would immediately be gone; for ’tis im-
poffiblc that any created Thing can be to us more
or better, than what God makes it to be. All the
Rivulets of Comfort we drink of, within or w'ithout
our felves, come from God as their Spring-head ;
the Courfe of which toward us being ftopt, of Ne-
ceffity they muft all dry up. So that when God
goes, all that’s good and comfortable goes with him;
all Eafe and Quiet of Body or Mind, Hof. ix. 12.
Wo alfo to themy when I depart from them. When
the Wicked are totally and finally feparated from
him, ail that’s comfortable in them, or about them,
returns to its Fountain, as the Light goes away
with the Sun, and Darknefs fucceeds in the Room
thereof. Thus, in their Separation from God, all
Peace is removed far away from them, and Pain in