Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Ver. 41. Then shall he say also, &c.] Then: judgment as it begins here at God's house, so shall it at the last day. The elect shall be crowned, and then the reprobates doomed and damned.
Depart from me, ye cursed, &c.] A sentence that breathes out nothing but fire and brimstone, stings and horrors, woe, and, alas, torments without end and past imagination. Mercy, Lord, saith the merciless miser. No, saith Christ, Depart, be packing.
Yet bless me before I go.
"Depart, ye cursed."
To some good place then.
To hell fire, not material fire, but worse in many respects.
But let me then come out again.
It is everlasting fire, eternity of extremity. This is the hell of hell; this puts the damned to their ουαι ουαι, as much as if they should say, ουκ αει, ουκ αει, Not ever, Lord, torment us thus. But they have a will to sin ever; and being worthless they cannot satisfy God's justice in any time; therefore is their fire everlasting.
But let me have some good company in my misery.
"The devil and his angels."
But who appointed me this hard condition?
It was prepared of old. The all-powerful wisdom did, as it were, sit down and devise most tormenting temper for that most formidable fire. And here it is hard to say, whether be more woeful, "Depart from me, ye cursed," or that which followeth, "into everlasting fire;" pain of loss, or pain of sense. Sure it is, that the tears of hell are not sufficient to bewail the loss of heaven; the worm of grief gnaws as painful as the fire burns. If those good souls, Acts 20:37,38, wept because they should see Paul's face no more, how deplorable is the eternal deprivation of the beatiful vision!