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A36557 A pleasant and profitable treatise of Hell. Written by Hieremy Drexelius. S.J.; Infernus damnatorum carcer et rogus æternitatis. English. Drexel, Jeremias, 1581-1638. 1668 (1668) Wing D2184A; ESTC R212863 150,577 394

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A PLEASANT AND PROFITABLE Treatise of HELL WRITTEN By Hieremy Drexelius S. J. Fear him that can destroy both Soul and Body into Hell Matth. ch 10. v. 28. Printed 1668. The Translator to the Reader I Presume your intent is I wish the event may correspond to march on towards Heaven Now that you may not miss your way which is dangerous I have provided you of a Guide which is the Fear of God You must not begin your journey but by his Conduct nor hope to finish it without erring unless he go on with you hand in hand Be not dismaid if he lead you through the desert to the Land of Promise through Hell to Heaven for that is his Native Countrey whose passages he is well acquainted with and from whose desolate shades he is able to usher you to the comfortable splendour of Paradise He requires no other Salary for all his labour in the enterprise then your serious perusal of this slender Treatise of Hell Startle not at this frightful word least you discover humane fear to be more prevalent with you then that of God If it chance to be I fear at the first sight you will shrink back and either not undertake to read or quickly cast away the book with an I look for Novelties to chear me up not for sad discourses of Hell to drive me into Melancholly or I have other business and cannot attend to reading But with your good leave no business concerns you more then your right progress towards a blessed Eternity And it is undoubtedly a principal point of Wisdome to go down into Hel alive by reading and a lively consideration aswel to escape going thither after Death whence there is no return as also to vanquish humane fear which is prejudicial and beget in your soul a wholesome fear of God Without which you can neither begin nor hold on with success your intended journey towards eternal bliss Lay hold then on this Manual Book which if leisurely read will not a little conduce to attain the chiefest Good and avoid the worst of Evils Farwel A Treatise of Hell CHAP. I. The Authors design in this Book with Advice to the Reader LEarnedly spoke Philo the Jew Lib. de som The House of God is the thought of a Wiseman This House the Eternal Wisdome enters into this it Inhabits in this it sweetly reposes To see to speak to hear to write are humane actions yet such as are not wholly denyed to Brutes for Wild-Beasts do likewise hear and see and herein some of them go far beyond man himself Amongst Animals some are reported to have spoken unto the Elephant is ascribed something not unlike to writing but to think and discourse with reason is proper to Man alone God associates himself to men whose thoughts are Holy and without spot and here he abides as in his own Mansion-house hence flowed that learned saying of Philo The House of God is the thought of a wiseman Here now arises the dispute what is fittest for man to busie his thoughts in setting a part his Creatour In this quarrel King David enters the Combate and avers I thought upon old dayes and the eternal years I had in mind Ps 76.6 This thought is most profitable this becomes man and is not unworthy of God Here is discovered a plain of such vast extent to think on that none was ever able yet to run it over with thinking One may seek an end in this matter which he shall never find Eternity knows no end it s not acquainted with any bounds and for limits it admits of none Eternity best deserves to be thought on Ten years ago I exposed a draught of Eternity to the pulick view it remains now for us to set before your eyes something as to the eternity of the Damned this requires our more serious reflexion it being not sufficient for us to scrape somewhat from the outsides of it which may serve us to hear write or talk of we must proceed further and lodge Eternity in the very bosome of our souls wherefore the task of this Chapter shall be to declare what we mean when we write on the eternity of the Damned SECT 1. THe wiseman of Rome friendly expostulates with Lucilius in this sort Sen. ep 102 As he is troublesome who awakes a man from a pleasant Dream because he bereaves him of that counterfeit which yet resembles real pleasure So thy Epistle did me wrong for it took me off once and oftner from considerations that suted with me I was well pleased to enquire after yea and beleive too the eternity of Souls For well might I beleive the Opinions of great men Besides I had so much hope that I now began to be irksome to my self now I despised the remnant of my feeble age as being about to enter into that immense time and the possession of all ages But the receit of thy Epistle awakned me and so I lost my goodly Dream which notwithstanding I 'le to again when I have done with thee and hereby redeem what formerly I lost I am almost now of that Opinion which Flavius Lucius Dexter of Bar●inona an ancient Historian one who had Command in the Eastern Empire and an intimate friend to St. Hierom delivers in a Chronicle of his at the year of Christ our Saviour sixty four in these express words Lucius Annaeus Seneca native of Cordova in Spain by intercourse of Letters betwixt him and St. Paul had a good Opinion of Christian Religion became a Christian privately and is beleived to have been his Disciple to whom he writ with much feeling during his abode in Spain For my part I affirm nothing in this particular but reverence the testimony of the Ancient Chronicler Yet certain it is Annaeus Seneca did not only begin to think of but likewise to beleive an Eternity We may observe this mans deep-searching Wit he attempted and went on most attentively to weigh Eternity in its proper Ballance The contemplation whereof he compares to a Dream which lulls asleep the toylsome watches of the outward senses and commands the inward to keep strict Centinel This this is to meditate and to be withdrawn from this Annaeus was much unwilling in regard this kind of meditation proved so beneficial to him as himself declares saying I contemned the small residue of my life and stretched my self forward into that Volume of Ages never to be unfoulded Seneca by this time had a loathing of all things if compared to the sole possession of that never ending Circle of times When Heathens meditate in this manner upon Eternity what does it behove us Christians to do Our beleif of Eternity is bootless if we seldome or tepedly think on it Many are the reasons which may move us dayly to meditate upon eternity take this one in lieu of many Eternity mollifies our hearts when they are as hard as flint and Steel it quite vanquisheth all the stubbornness of our Soul That man