A Damned Conscience, by John Flavel.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
~ Job 6:4

Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.
~ Psalm 55:5

For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
~ Psalm 109:22

Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
~ Psalm 21:9

Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
~ Proverbs 1:12

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
~ Romans 9:19-20

But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
~ Isaiah 28:7

Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.
~ Luke 23:30

But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.
~ Revelation 2:24

And as the spirit of man hath the most delicate and exquisite sense of misery, so it hath a vast capacity to receive and let in the fulness of anguish and misery into it. It is a large vessel, called a vessel of wrath “fitted to destruction” (Rom 9:22). The large capacity of the soul is seen in this: it is not in the power of all the creatures in the world to satisfy and fill it! It can drink up, as we say, all the rivers of created good, and its thirst is not quenched by such a draught; but after all, it cries, “Give, give” (Pro 30:15). Nothing but an infinite God can quiet and satisfy its appetite and raging thirst.

And as it is capable and receptive of more good than is found in all creatures, so it is capable of more misery and anguish than all the creatures can inflict upon it. Let all the elements, all men on earth, yea, all the devils and damned in hell, conspire and unite in a design to torment man, yet when they have done all, his spirit is capable of a farther degree of torment—a torment as much beyond it as a rack is beyond a hard bed or the sword in his bowels is beyond the scratch of a pin. The devils indeed are the executioners and tormentors of the damned; but if that were all they were capable to suffer, the torment of the damned would be comparatively mild and gentle to what they are. Oh, the largeness of the understanding of man—what will it not take into its vast capacity!

But add to this that the damned souls have all those affections laid in a deep and everlasting sleep, the exercises whereof would be relieving by emptying their souls of any part of their misery; and all those passions thoroughly and everlastingly awakened, which increase their torments. The affections of joy, delight, and hope are benumbed in them and laid fast asleep, never to be awakened into act anymore. In Scripture, their hope is said to perish, i.e., it so perisheth that after death it shall never exert another act to all eternity. The activity of any of those affections would be like a cooling gale or refreshing spring amidst their torments...And as these affections are laid asleep, so their passions are roused and thoroughly awakened to torment them—so awakened as never to sleep any more. The souls of men are sometimes jogged and startled in this world by the works or rods of God, but presently they sleep again and forget all; but hereafter, the eyes of their souls will be continually held waking to behold and consider their misery; their understandings will be clear and most apprehensive; their thoughts fixed and determined;their consciences active and efficacious; and by all this, their capacity to take in the fullest of their misery will be enlarged to the uttermost.

The wrath, indignation, and revenge of God poured out as the just reward of sin upon the capacious souls of the damned are the principal part of their misery in hell…The souls of the damned can hold more misery than all the creatures can inflict upon them. When the soul suffers from the hand of man, its sufferings are either by way of sympathy with the body, or if immediately, yet it is but a light stroke the hand of a creature can give. But when it hath to do with a sin-revenging God, and that immediately, this stroke cuts off the spirit of man, as it is expressed (Psa 88:16).

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