for that is a thing the proportion of earth to heaven cannot bear: but that we should believe them there, indefinitely, where those men are, on whom God inflicted that exemplary punishment. [Sidenote: The congregation of giants.] Again, because those mighty men of the earth, that lived in the time of Noah, before the flood, (which the Greeks call _heroes_, and the Scripture _giants_, and both say were begotten by copulation of the children of God with the children of men,) were for their wicked life destroyed by the general deluge; the place of the damned, is therefore also sometimes marked out, by the company of those deceased giants; as _Proverbs_ xxi. 16, _The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the giants_; and _Job_ xxvi. 5, _Behold the giants groan under water, and they that dwell with them_. Here the place of the damned is under the water. And _Isaiah_ xiv. 9, _Hell is troubled how to meet thee_ (that is, the King of Babylon) _and will displace the giants for thee_: and here again the place of the damned, if the sense be literal, is to be under water. [Sidenote: Lake of fire.] Thirdly, because the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, by the extraordinary wrath of God, were consumed for their wickedness with fire and brimstone, and together with them the country about made a stinking bituminous lake: the place of the damned is sometimes expressed by fire, and a fiery lake, as in the _Apocalypse_, xxi. 8, _But the timorous, incredulous, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death_. So that it is manifest, that hell fire, which is here expressed by metaphor from the real fire of Sodom, signifieth not any certain kind or place of torment; but is to be taken indefinitely, for destruction, as it is in _Rev._ xx. 14, where it is said, that _death and hell were cast into the lake of fire_; that is to say, were abolished and destroyed; as if after the day of judgment, there shall be no more dying, nor no more going into hell; that is, no more going to _Hades_, (from which word perhaps our word Hell is derived,) which is the same with no more dying. [Sidenote: Utter darkness.]