Psalm 21:9 You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath… How, then, shall it fare with sinners when, after all, shall come that general fire so often foretold, which shall either fall from heaven or ascend out of hell, or (according to Albertus Magnus) proceed from both, and shall devour and consume all it meets with? Whither shall the miserable fly when that river of flames or (to say better) that inundation and deluge of fire shall so encompass them, as no place of surety shall be left; where nothing can avail but a holy life; when all besides shall perish in that universal ruin of the whole world? What lamentations were in Rome when it burnt for seven days together! What shrieks were heard in Troy when it was wholly consumed with flames! What howling and astonishment in Pentapolis when those cities were destroyed with fire from heaven! What weeping was there in Jerusalem when they beheld the house of God, the glory of their kingdom, the wonder of the world, involved in fire and smoke! Imagine what these people felt; they saw their houses and goods on fire, and no possibility of saving them: when the husband heard the shrieks and cries of his dying wife; the father, of his little children, and, unawares, perceived himself so encompassed with flames that he could neither relieve them nor free himself. (Jeremy Taylor.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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