The sacred volumes of Scripture are wonderful exact in observing every word In the pool which contains stinking and immoveable waters which do not grow less do not flow out nor are dryed up after a thousand years this pool will be like it self after thirty yea threescore thousand years it will lose nothing it once had after a hundred thousand after a thousand Millions of years that pool will not have one drop of it dryed up As it was in the beginning so it will be then and for all ensuing ages Moreover such as had plunged their soul in wantonness and lust in this life shall be drowned in that pool in these baths of brimstone they shall swimme and sweat and be throughly drenched for their cleansing The greatness of this may be best learned from experience if the water of a fish-pond were all drawn out and the fish for some dayes space were not removed they would fill the air with such incredible stench that no one though in the open air would be able to abide long there What a torment will it be in hell to be seated in the midst of unsufferable stink without power to stir one foot thence for all eternity long custome makes tollerable sorded and ill sented trades but those torments in hell can by no means become more gentle SECT 2. THe third cause of that stink is the bodies of the damned more noysome then any dead carkase Esay foretold Out of their carcasses shall rise a stink All of them shall be tortured with the stink of one and one with that of all What a strange kind of Incense is flesh rotten and crawling with Maggats In Lucifers kingdome numberless carkasses of the damned like stinking carrion shall lye for ever upon hot coales Lust is possest with a certain kind of rageing fury so as it tramples reason under foot but these unbridled motions may be restrained if timely begun with For this cause a Religious man in the desert of Scythia subdued wantonness in this manner The comliness of a woman Lib. Sen. patr sect 10. he had formerly seen frequently â—an in his fancy this remembrance these representations he resolved to banish quite out of his breast He strugled long he fought valiently and overcame himself many waies yet he perceived all he did was only to preserve himself from being overcome In the mean while the Divine Providence sent a man out of Aegypt who casually related that beautiful woman was deceased The Champion of Christ took hold of the relation and seriously weighing what might â—edownd to his best advantage he at length made this resolution To depart from his Cell and hasten to the dead womans Tomb. Where determined to triumph over unchast love he makes this attempt when the night was come he rowls away the grave-stone digs up the earth and comes at last to the dead body then speaks thus to himself Behold quoth he thy treasure behold thy delight why dost thou not carry thy dearest away with thee Part at least of this Gold thou hast so sweat for shall bear thee company He spoke the word and made it good indeed for part of the winding sheet well drencht in matter and corruption he privately made his own Thence returning back to his poor cottage this well-sented booty he placed as a Looking-glass before his eyes where several times scoffing at himself he said Lo thou haâ—â— now what thou desired enjoy it glutt thy self with it satisfy thy eyes feed thy nostrils yea now I give thee leave to be all nose imagine this is a Hand-kercheif sent as a token from thy Dear why dost thou not wipe thy mouth and nose with this delicate Linnen so long did this noble combatant mortify himself with stink till all impure thoughts quite vanquished fled from his mind Thus lust though never so Rampant was conquered by stink thus Cupid that skilful and wicked Archer by stench was routed and put to flight Let us call to mind here I beseech you how not a small parcel of a winding sheet not one member of a rotten carcase but innumerable bodies of the damned send forth most intollerable stink not for a few daies but for endless ages St. Bonaventure was bold to say If one only carcass of the damned were here in this world it alone would suffice to infect it all SECT 3. THe fourth cause of stink is the Devils themselves who though spirits carry about them this most loathsome smell yea it is as proper for hell and Devils to stink as it was true which the antients said hell is full of stench Severus Sulpitius recounts how the Devil cloathed in Purple with a Crown on his head appeared to St. Martin and spoke to him these words Thou shalt know Martin in what manner thou maist worship me I am Christ But Martin being warned from above not to credit the Father of lyes said My Lord did not promise to come in this Equipage I know Christ all bloody crowned with Thorns and hanging upon a Cross but this strange King I know not He had scarce ended these words when this counterfeit Christ disappeared and to the end it might be manifest who that King was and of what kingdome he left such a horrible stink behind him that Martin conceived he was now an inmate of Hell and thus he discoursed with himself If one only Devil stink in this manner what will the stench be of all Devils and damned men together Antiochus Epiphanes Mach. 9. a fair picture of a wicked man being now sensible of vengeance from Heaven and having swarms of vermine within his members stunk so horribly that his whole Army was extreamly averse from that loathsome malady Yea as the Scripture testifies he could not endure his own stench How then in hell shall he for ever abide the stink of Devils and all that damned crue Mezentius the Tyrrhenian King not unlike to Antiochus despiser of men and Gods proceeded so far in cruelty by his wit that he slaughtered men not with the Ax nor the Gallows nor fire but with stench for to a living man he tyed the putrified body of one dead so long till the corruption of the dead killed the living A kind of torment most Barbarous most cruel and so much the more by how much the slower But what is this compared to the torments in Hell what is a noysome smell of a few daies to that other which remains for ever when therefore we look upon our Fires Racks and Gibbets we may justly exclaim O mild and gentle torment of Mezentius which bereaves of life by being fastned to one stinking carkass But O death more dreadful then any death to be tortured with the stench of so many devils and damned alwaies to dye and never to make an end of dying SECT 4. IN the Prisons of Japonia even to this day is matter found sufficient for the exercise of Christian Fortitude where many together are thrust into a loathsome Denn
its continuance is esteemed intolerable Here now let arithmetick declare how many thousands how many millions of years might pass ere that man be freed from so vast a pile of burning coals This seems altogether as unexplicable as unsufferable Yet with your leave O blind mortals this is nothing to hell for that man is exempted from the ninefold torments of Eternity saving that of fire alone which he endures Besides he hath hope his pains will have an end though after a long expectation But now to the end we may take a more particular view of the damned who lie buried in tombes of fire let us frame to our selves this imaginary spectacle Conceive you see a certain person in a most deep pit under ground fastereâ— to an iron bed with chains so as his hands neck and feet are tyed together with a ring of steed under and over this bed is plenty of hoâ— burning coals This miserable wretch has no other comfort left him but this that when first he was bound there as we suppose it was told him one should come every thousand year and take away from his heap of burning coals only one and so likewise after a another thousand years the same should happen to him and still the same course should be observed till the whole mass were removed Let us think here alass let us think how many millions of millions of years must come and go before this bed of flames be thus taken away and cease to burn But O! what a gentle hell were this in respect of that most deâ—perate eternity replenisht with other torments While eternity lasts you may exhaust a thousand such flameing bedâ— and yet meet with no end of eternity which never alas never shall have any end Many wonderful things are recounted in the lives of Saints for God indeed is Marvailous in his Saints Psa 67. For my part I think nothing less to be admited then what some account most admirable Grad 6 de mortis memoria That Auachoret of whom Climacus makes mention surpassed others in the ponderation of eternity He lived in Mount Choreb as careless of himself as of heroick vertue thâ—s man approaching to his end say as hâ— were dead for an hours space after which returning to himself he besought all there present they would avoid the room and leave him thenceforward to lead a more serious Life This said he shut up to close the entrance into this cell thâ—â— there only remained open a little hole whereat he might receive a small allowance of bread and water Within this Cave he spent twelve whole years without speaking a word to any but God and his Angels and without any other sustenance besides bread and water most sparingly taken He sate here night and day like to one in amazment ruminating in his mind continually the wheel of Eternity and seriously weighing asweâ— the endless joys of the blessed as the torments of the wicked without end he had always before his eyes the stroke of death most certain he looked towards and sighed after heaven having his cheeks for the most part moystened with silent and incessant tears in this sort he spnet twelve years when at length death long expected drew near upon notice whereof divers resorted to his poor cottage and forcibly brake down the way into it all unanimously going in and begging of him he would please to bestow upon them some spiritual legacy at his departure Whereat he fetching a deep sigh said Pardon me fathers I beseech ye and excuse my former errors Whosoever seriously considers death which is the gate to eternity will not sin This man amongst all other Saints I least admire as I said before though he lead a life worthy of admiration because whoever fixeth his mind upon Eternity will steer a course not much inferiour to his And truly it is better to shut ones self up within four walls a hundred years together and to treat the body with much austerity then to run the least hazzard of a blessed eternity Each one may perswade himself what the Angel said to Lot is also said to him Save thy life make hast and be saved Gen. c. 19. CHAP. XII Eternity is an unexplicable and a particular punishment of the Damned GOD scourged Pharao and the Inhabitants of Aegypt sundry ways he sent amongst them fountains streaming with blood frogs ciniphes flyes death of cattle ulcers hail locusts darkness great plagues in flicted by strength of arm but so soon as the tenth came their stubborness was overcome and the destruction of many ensued And it came to pass at midnight our Lord strook every first begotten in the land of Aegypt neither was thâ—re a house wherein there lay not a dead one Exod. 12. When God chastises his enemies with nine sorts of grievous punishments he never adds the tenth whereby he takes them out of this life no end appears no death no destruction for to speak with St. Gregory There is death without dying an end without ending because death lives Lib. 9. Mor. the end always begins and deficiency cannot decay That which the Aegyptians accounted a most horrid torment would be a most singular comfort to the damned to be killed and utterly destroyed What a country is this O God! which esteems death as a special favour what a country is this Holy Job with good reason terms it a land of misery indeed it is the very sink of all miseries We have run over in our discourse eight sorts of punishment in hell take now the ninth the most grievous of all the râ—â—â— which as it exceeds all expression so it can neither be comprehended nor compared to any other torment of the damned whose eternity is unexplicable as you may perceive since we are unable to declare it sufficiently by words and so must content our selves to give you an unpollisht draught of it SECT 1. ETernity of the damned is altogether beyond expression Imagine this punishment were accompanied with these four inconveniencies Let a Bee sting your right hand a Gnat suck your left let a Beetle seise upon your right cheek and a pricking thorn ranckle in the left admit these alone were the pains in hell or any one of these Fancy likewise that only your hand were bitten with a Gad-fly yet this suffering without any other would be unspeakable if it were eternal What I pray would it be if you were pinched all your life with a streit shoe what pain must he needs undergo who had but one ear-wig makeing her nest within his brain Conceive what pain you please though never so sleight if it must be endured without ceasing till death how grievous would it appear but if you must groan under its burden for eternity how unexplicable Where should I find words to declare my meaning if I should go about to express the ninefold torment of Eternity Here words here all due capacity fails me Tom. 7.14 Ap. However Surius relates a passage
night and day to repeat While we have time let us work good to all An impure conscience is here unquiet hereafter it will be furiously tormented for ever SECT 7. THe force of conscience is incredible especially after the scene of this life is acted for in the presence of God every one will so blush at his own faults that though heaven were set open and the soul uncleansed were invited to enter nevertheless through horror of its own stains it would fly back and refuse to go in till all its spots were expiated So much the conscience has aversion of and blushes at her own offenses Therefore while we have time let us work good to all for as St. Austin discourses Who ever doth not deceive himself by flattery understands well in how great danger of eternal death and how far short of perfect holiness he lives during his pilgrimage here on earth Now then let us look to it and not resist the wholsom warning our conscience gives us The conscience is never silent if it meet with a peaceable and attentive hearer And truly this is exceeding profitable so to feel the worm in our bosom here as not to be troubled with it hereafter eternally St. Serm. DeiCon vert Bernard attests thus much saying It is best then to feel the worm when it may be stilled Therefore let it bite now that it may dye and so bite no more While it bites here it feeds upon what is putrified and biteing consume it that it may be consumed together with it lest being made much of it should become immortal It is therefore much better to be warned here then by our conscience to be murthered hereafter for as the same Saint adds Lib. de Animâ— Those who are exilled from heaven shall be tortured in flesh with fire and in spirit by the word of conscience There is pain unsuffâ—rable horrible fear incomparable stench death of soul and body without hope of pardon and mercy Yet shall they dye so as that they shall ever lâ—ve and so live that they shall ever dye What shall we do O mortals Our life is short the way long the end of the way doubtful time little nothing more certain then death nor uncertain then the hour the continuance of reward â—nd pain everlasting both which depend on a moment for eternity What then O mortals what shall we do CHAP. VIII The Seventh Torment of Eternity in Hell is the Place and Company CAto Censor A man of approved vertue was accustomed to give this admonition to them who were about to buy Land that in the first place they should be sure to provide for good neighbours An ill neighbour is a great evil whence that saying of Themistocles delivered by Plutarch is well known for having a farm to sell he commanded the cryer who gave notice of the sale he should likewise certifie That it had good neighbours A ruinous and inconvenient building if it be near bad company will meet with few buyers All exiled from heaven have such places of abode that our styes and dog-kennels compared to them might seem places or lodgings fit for Kings Besides the inconveniency of the place there is company displeasing beyond expression of so many millions of devils and damned men all sworn enemies to God so as if they were in Paradise they would make one abhor it This then is the seventh torment of eternity in hell the place and company that miserable above measure this detestable beyond imagination The Judg in his definitive sentence comprehended both saying This house of flames this dreadful prison which was prepared for the devil and his angels did not concern you in the beginning Mat. 25 but in regard you valued more the familiarity of mine enemies then my favour Go now go and dwell amongst them whose company heretofore you were so much taken with go into fire everlasting which was not prepared for you but for the devil and his angels It somtimes cometh to pass that a Schoolmaster for the fault of onâ— commands rods to be made ready but for as much as others by and by become faulty too he says These rods were not tyed together for you but because you have committed the same offence with that untoward boy you shall likewise be whipt with him In like manner Christ speaks to his enemies My intent was you should have enjoyed the society of Angels Paradise was made ready for you but since you have cast away all goodness and would not obey me but the devil Go therefore go go and make your abode in the devils den remain in that company your selves have provided Of this both place and company we now treat SECT 1. BEfore we enter into the Place le ts take a view of the ground Antientently at the left hand of the entrance into Yrimalcions house not far from the Porters lodg was painted upon the wall a mighty dog in a chain over whom was written in Capital Letters Take heed take heed of the dog Many such dogs as these are in hell so many Cerberus's as devils which are far more ravenous then all Cerberus's Here both by writing and words I exclaim Take heed take heed of these dogs But now let us look upon the place It is agreed upon as well by antient Fathers as Divines that those comfortless caverns of hell are seated in the center of the earth holy writt likewise affirmes the same For after they who rebelled against Moyses were separated from the people of God Num. 16 v 32 The earth brake in sunder under their feet opening her mouth devoured them with their tabernacles and all their substance and they went down into hell quick covered with the ground This prison of the wicked is rightly seated in the lowest place as the habitation of the blessed is on the highest noblest and most pleasant Of that prison we may frame this discourse In case the damned amount to thirty times a thousand millions of men or a hundred thousand millions and that fiery prison according to its whole dimenfion of height bredth and length contain one German mile it will have room enough for that wonderful number of men Streitness sutes well with the prison it being proper for liberty to enjoy an ample habitation But the croud of the damned those dogs and swine shall dwell in a narrow compass and shall be like grapes in a wine press or salt harrings in a barrel or bricks in a kill or pieces of wood in a pyle or hot glowing coles in an iron-grate or like sheep butcher'd in the shambles they shall be close and streitly thronged together The narrowness of the prison and their being pressed one near to another makes no small addition to their torments Into this slender compass God will conveigh all the sewers and filth of the world The greatest joy this world affords is not a little diminisht by loathsomness of place Who would esteem it a pleasure
shall live in their torments but they shall so live in them as if it were possible they would dye but no one makes an end of them that their pains may last for ever Their pains there are not only endless but likewise so perpetually renewed as that they are always new They shall burn says Job c. 20. and all sorrow shall fall upon them Whence they will be seised with most desperate fury and most furious despair Some indeed despair and that but once because death allows them no longer time But in hell they despair a thousand times an hour yea their despair is without ceasing like unto a continual or hectick feaver Whatever the damned think on that is to them rageing despair they would if it were in their power tear themselves in pieces with their teeth stabbe themselves all over with sharp knives and draw death to them with open arms but death will fly from them SECT 2. SUch as despair through extream adversity somtimes bereave themselves of life by water sword halter poyson or precipices fancying hereby they shall find an end of their life and misery together whereas in hell no end may be found either of calamity life or death There is no water no sword no halter no poyson no precipice can kill them howbeit all these particulars do there torment them as doth also continual and never ending despair At which the Judges final sentence doth chiefly aime Depart from me accursed into everlasting fire from this no appeal may be granted the decree is irrevocable and as St. Austin speaks this sentence of God is unchangable The Angel which St. Apoc. c. 10. John saw swore by him that liveth for ever and ever that there shall be time no more But there shall be eternity and a reward of things done in time This immutable oath of the Angel this fatal sentence of our Lord the damned shall so certainly perceive that this storm of words this horrible thunder shall perpetually sound in their ears into fire everlasting into fire everlasting everlasting alas â—nto fire everlasting Not one syllable or tittle of these words fail of their effects these words which the damned hear and understand we hear and understand not Now as the habitation of the blessed is replenished with all delight so that of the damned is an epitome or abridgment of all dolours What ever is afflictive deplorable or dreadful those beneath are sensible of what ever is delightful pleasing or comfortable those above do plentifully participate In this world of ours no malady so great but has its remedy all affliction may if we will be mitigated Our grief is frequently appeased by reason by rest by pleasing conversation and chiefly by process of time one while our friends and kindred another while such as have suffered the like disasters but principally hope either wipes away or asswages our Calamity Whereas God knows in that region of utter desolation all gates are shut to the least solace No ease no comfort may be expected from heaven or earth from their condition past present or to come What way soever they turn their eyes they behold arrows of eternal death shot against them On every side they are environed with mourning and anguish grief and extream sadness together with torments exceeding all number They may truly say The sorrows of death have compassed me Psal 114 and the pangs of despair we have found tribulation and wailing Hereupon they will not cease to curse the name of our Lord perpetually SECT 3. THis despair of the wicked will be augmented above measure by the certain knowledge they have that with all their unspeakable sufferings not the least blemish of sin may be washt away such is the venom of one mortal sin that even venial defects accompanying it to hell must be chastised for ever Take this example our ordinary failings are idle words effused laughter some small excess in diet carelesness in the castody of our eyes distraction in prayer these and such like while we live are casily expiated One morsel for borne to curb our appetite one gentle sigh a litle patience or an easie keeping our hands or eyes in order blot out those lesser stains whereas if they be joined with one heinous crime in hell both shall be punisht eternally which adds no small fuel to enkindle the fire of despair We must needs acknowledge in this life the hand of God is armed with meekness when he strikes but in the other 't is heavier then lead harder then iron and when extended to revenge he never pulls it in again The despair we speak of ariseth from hope in excess which is called presumption this the wise man warns us to eschew Say not I have sinned and what sorrowful thing hath chanced to me for the highest is a patient rewarder Of sin forgiven be not without fear neither add thou sin upon sin And say not The mercy of our Lord is great he will have mercy on the multitude of my sins Slack not to be converted to our Lord and defer not from day to day for his wrath shall come suddainly and in time of vengeance he will destroy thee Ecclesiast c. 15. Admirably well sayd St. Gregory Lib 1 Râ—â— c 3 He hath an orderly trust in the mercy of God who corrects what he did amiss by repenting not repeating the same fault He that doth otherwise is not guided by hope but is thrust headlong by temerity SECT 4. T Is a point worthy of credit that scarce any Christian is adjudged to hell who in this life did not hope to live longer and thought death farther off then it was Out of this deceitful hope springs everlasting despair It is likewise a matter no less credible that amongst those desperate slaves scarce one may be found who during life did not often secretly despair in this manner Lo I but do and undo I shall never lead other life it is too too hard to relinquish old customes all my endeavour is to no purpose it is in vain to strive I shall never become better while I live let us therefore hold on and enjoy good things preseâ—t death posts on amain we must all be gone quickly let us then take our leave of these timely delights and solemnize our departure with pleasure Th s in reallity is to despair O Christians as you tender your selves and your own salvation I beseech you and by the death of Christ conjure you beware of this dargerous roek unless you desire without peradventure to suffer wrack It is never too late to amâ—nd while we live Have we fallen into the same offence a thousand times Let us â—iâ—e again a thousand times by pennance 'T is never past time to become better every day every hour each one may say with the Psalmist Psa 76. I sayd now have I begun He that is grown so feeble as that he will not endeavour to amend his failings but permits the reins to corrupt
Amongst a hundred thousand men you shall scarce find one who seriously endeavours to dive into these matters or frequently ruminates them in his mind Our life would be far otherwise our manners would be reformed if our thoughts were other then they use to be Whence it comes that our Conscience which was strook deaf with vices receives its hearing in torments so much more sharply now is it afflicted and desperate by how much ere while it was lulled a sleep in a drowsy security St. Austins assertion is true In Hell there shall be pennance but too late Their worm shall never dye The seventh Torment is the company and place A convenient house with ill neighbours is a great inconvenience but an inconvenient house with most wicked neighbours is the worst of inconveniences This kind of habitation is in Hell Psal 48. Their Sepulchres are their house for ever The Damned shall burn as if they were shut up in Sepulchres which are houses very incommodious but they are debarred from hiering any other Besides their neighbours are the worst imaginable such as would make even Heaven infamous and hareful a croud of damned men and Devils O what neighbours are these Take our lords sentence of them It were good for those men if they never had bin born It were good for those spirits if they never had been created Look upon damned men As sheep they are put in Hell Psa 48. death shall feed upon them But how are they now become sheep were they not while they lived Tigers Swine Vultures Wolves Lions They were indeed but the vengeance of God hath made them sheep and so tamed them that they cannot withstand any punishment inflicted on them Death shall feed upon them For as sheep feed upon grass without plucking up the roots and clip it so as they leave the root entire to spring again that it may be cropt again so doth death feed upon those captives in hell It bereaves them not of life that they may be kept alive to be perpetually slaughtered This is the second death which ever lives whereof St. Austin makes this discourse Lib. 91. de civit ch 28. The misery of those which do not belong to this City shall be perpetual which is called the second death because the soul there cannot be said to live as being estranged from the life of God nor the body which shall groan under the weight of eternal torments Wherefore this second death will be worse then death because it can never have and end by death There pain continues that it may afflict and nature is maintained in being that it may be sensible of affliction both which are preserved without decaying least punishment should decay Here I am almost in a mind to imitate Solon who carried a mournful Citizen to the top of an high Tower whence he commanded him to look over all the buildings of the City underneath saying think with your self how much grief hath heretofore been in these houses how much is at this present and will be hereafter and then cease to bewail the misery of mortals as if they were your own The like in some measure may I say Behold O mortals and consider that dreadful den of sorrow in hell O how much wailing is contained in those Caverns of Eternity what a mass of calamities will be there after infinite ages are past Cease therefore to deplore your flea-bitings as if they were unsupportable evils Here indeed is a receptacle of all miseries a forge of lamentation Who ever thou be which travellest yet upon the way take heed thou so order thy journey that this place of torments serve thee not for a perpetual Inn. The Eighth Torment is Despair THis world we live in is replenisht with many afflictions yet in process of time all of them meet with an end Such as are opprest with poverty I see find an end of it such as are aspersed with slanders are cleared of them in the end such as are sick are in the end delivered of their malady On this side I behold stripes racks and other engines prepared to torture on that blood-thirsty enemies proud Citizens gripeing Landlords but I likewise behold the stroke of death brings all those to nothing and frees these from barbarous usage But in those fiery Gulfs where Devils abide I contemplate many horrid and unexplicable torments yet I cannot espy any end of them no there is no end at all to be found Death is the best invention of nature death ends all it relieves some by others it is desired and deserves better of none then of those to whom it comes before it be sent for Death sets slaves at liberty even against their masters will death unchains Captives and looses Prisoners death is a present remedy against all injuries of this life But alas there is none of this in hell I take a view of all their lurking holes yet can espy no death at all unless it be that living death which incessantly renews its own pangs As in hell there is no end of sorrow so is there none of dying The Damned themselves as Dionisius notes cast up their own reckoning Corth in speculo amatorum mundi After ten thousand years are gone an hundred thousand more will come and after them as many millions as there are Sands in the Sea or stars in the Firmament And when those long revolutions of ages are over as if we had suffered nothing at all we shall begin to suffer a new so without ceasing end or measure the wheel of our torments will be perpetually rowled about Hence will ensue most piercing despair to the most cruel torture both of Memory Understanding and Will What ever their memory represents unto them will afflict them what ever their understanding thinks on will redound to their torment their very will will be astonisht at its own obstinacy for it can never will what God wills and so shall ever find within it self a torture of its own malice How dreadful a thing is it to know for certain they shall have God for their eternal foe they shall never escape his severe hand they shall for ever be trampled under his feet Hence will arise in them a continual and most desperate fury and an implacable hatred of God Job 20. All grief will rush in upon them All evil will be thrown upon their guilty heads O ye wretched new inhabitants of the night your delights are gone and to speak with St Iohn Apostle Apo. 18. The Apples of the desire of your Soul are departed from you and all fat and goodly things are perished from you Now only despair is left all hope is quite vanisht away You shall call upon death and it will not come you are now entred that Dungeon whence no death will ever set you free You have now nothing left you but only despair You may remember how greedily like Bears you sought after the honey of pleasure the
honey is past but the Bees sting remains with you and will do for eternity so as now you have nothing left but despair This it was you looked for after an hundred a thousand admonitions to the contrary you have found what you looked for keep it with you The worst of evils is despair The ninth Torment is Eternity LEt all Angels make use of their tongues and they shall never sufficiently declare that eternity of torments in Hell For what I pray is Hell An extream an everlasting torment without intermission The eight foregoing pains albeit most grievous yet would they be very tollerable if they were but to be endured for many thousands of years But in regard they are eternal out alas they are unexplicable and thereby become more unsufferable although they must be for ever suffered Adam â—asbant Dom. 1. quadra I consider saies an ancient Divine a thousand years I consider a thousand thousand I consider so many thousand years as torments or Minutes have passed from the worlds Creation to its consummation and yet I have nothing of eternity They shall labour for ever and shall live yet unto the end This eternity of pains is a singular torment Psal 48. For the damned do not only endure their present torture but since they are certain of its perpetual continuance they undergoe in a manner the immense and inestimable burden of Eternity over and over yea they suffer now what they must for all eternity endure For this reason many Saints condemned themselves to austerity of life while they lived that they might escape that eternity of pains The meditation of eternity intoxicates like new Wine Most Saints have done through the consideration of eternity what others might censure as mad pranks of men in drink Some perchance might say of them That these are full of new Wine Acts 2. They were so indeed but it was of that wine which they drew out of the Cellar of eternity How many of them retired into the desart how many rowled their bodies on brambles and thorns how many leaped into Frozen Lakes how many tumbled their naked bodies in Snow how many had the courage to jump into flames of fire that they might eschew sin the seminary of a doleful eternity It was the joynt desire of them all Let rottenness enter in my bones Hab. c. 3 and swarm under me that I may rest in the day of tribulation And to say the truth it is better to dye a thousand times it is better to be slaughtered a thousand and a thousand times more then to become a prey to eternal death He must either be a bruite or a stone whom Eternity doth not reclaim from his bad courses Some years ago in Flanders Bretrandus son to Cornelius was a yong man so violent troublesome vitious and addicted to quarrelling that all the City over he was called The King of Turmoyls besides he was much given to drinking matches Gameing and dancing One night next before Ash-wednesday while he was Feasting Dancing and Reveling God touched him to the quick with a glimpse of eternity whereat he withdrew himself from company under pretence to take fresh air By and by his comerades look after him and find him pensive and absorpt with other thoughts They besought him courteously he would cast away care and return to the dancing or if he would rather to engage in carousing some new healths he had now taken fresh air enough Notwithstanding his thoughts are now so far embarked in the consideration of Death Judgement and Eternity that albeit in the begining they conceived he was but in jest yet so soon as they perceived he was in good earnest and heard him discourse with much resolution they were exceedingly amazed In fine he concluded his discourse with these words I am determined my companions henceforth to become another man to abstain from these toyes to reform my misdemeanours and to live like a Christian And truly if I be wise hereafter I must let pass no occasion that may conduce to save my soul In my opinion it is not too late to do well though I am very sorry I began no sooner being I am now fully convinced these fleeting pleasures are attended by an entire eternity This is my resolution As for you I wish you may look well to your own security After he had ended his speech he took his leave of them and left them astonisht with this suddain change amongst whom some were perswaded to lead a better life and all that knew the mans violent disposition were strook with admiration About that time it fell out opportunely Eleutherius Pontanus Menenas a Priest of the Society of Jesus came into those parts and being acquainted with Betrandus was entertained at his house Of whose arrival when Betrandus had notice he cast himself at his feet Annales Soc. 1601. 2. Janua Lovarij in Belgia and made earnest sute to be admitted into the Society After some time of tryal he obtained his desire and was admitted for a Lay-brother In which course of life he happily spent four and thirty years He excelled in his care of the Sick and was so observant of religious discipline that he carried an hour-glass about with him to measure out his time of Prayer when it was accidentally interrupted with serving the sick To this pass was Betrandus brought by meditation of eternity To know that a wretched eternity depends on every mortal sin and yet to sin grievously is an argument of extream madness Eternal fire is an Epitome of all chastisements All which is excellently coucht in anoration by Sr. Lib. de anima c. 3. Bernard What grief saith he what sorrow what lamentation will then be when the wicked shall be separated from the Society of Saints and from the sight of God and being delivered over into the power of Devils shall go with them into fire everlasting and there must continue for ever in perpetual sobs and mourning For being exiled from the blessed Country of Paradise they shall be eternally tormented in hell they shall never behold the face of God they shall never enjoy any ease but shall for thousand thousands of years be there punished without ever being delivered thence Where neither the torturer is at any time weary nor the tortured ever dyes Because the fire in that place so consumes as it still keeps them alive So are their pains inflicted as that they alwaies seem new Every one according to the quality of his fault shall abide pain in hell proportionable and such as are equal in fault shall be equally punisht with their fellowes in equal guilt Nothing else shall be heard there but Weeping and wailing sighing and howling mourning and gnashing of teeth nothing shall be seen there but worms gastly Visages of Tormentors and ugly Monsters of Devils Those cruel Worms shall pinch their very heart strings whence will proceed pain trembling sighing amazement and horrid fear The
Hell where the wretches are ever a dying and never dead indeed Alas the night is long which exceeds a year and extends it self beyond the limits of an age That night is excessive long after which never day appears that night is full of Horror which is enveloped in eternal darkness with such night with such obscurity as this does God revenge himself of his enemies whose dwelling is remote from Sun Moon and Stars Job 3. A darksome hurlwind possesses their night it is not counted in the daies of the year nor numbred in the Moneths Darkness and the shadow of death obscure it a mist possesseth it and it is wrapped in bitterness The Damned neither see nor ever shall see their Maker for whose sight nevertheless they were made This darkness is their first Torment of which SECT 1 THere be two kinds one called utter darkness or of body the other of the mind or inner darkness Those farr surpass that of Aegypt though never so horrid and palpable Fire burns in Hell but gives no light so that all are shut up in a darksome Prison Elegantly speaks St. Ad Theod laps Chrysostome of this punishment saying We shall all mourn most sadly when the Fire with vehemence oppresseth us We shall see none besides those who are fellows in damnation and a vast sollitude Who can express what dreadful frights will arise from this darkness As that fire has no power to consume so it cannot shine otherwise there would be no darkness which brings upon those Inhabitants Fear Trembling Solitude and a numness with amazement As for inward darkness which Schoolmen term Pain of loss or a privation of the sight of God this is so great a punishment that none greater can be inflicted For as to see God is bliss it self and the top of Felicity so to be deprived of the vision of God for ever is the chiefest pain of the Damned whence ariseth in their wills a marvellous kind of sorrow The Faulcon while his eyes are covered with the hood flies neither after Duck nor Mallard Heron nor other Prey but so soon as the hood is pluckt off and he espies his game to the persuit whereof he is carried by Nature t is not facil to keep him quiet on the Fist he baits he strives to break the Lures and is in danger either to hurt himself or weary his Faulconer so violently is he carried after the Fowl he once sets Eye on Not unlike to this is mans condition While we live in this world we seem to be hoodwinkt we walk in darkness Hence t is no marvail that we are not ravisht with desire to see God there is a veil betwixt him and us which takes off our eagerness but immediately after Death has rent the Veil and the souls at liberty from bodily contagion it being now plac'd in the vast extent of Eternity and put into possession of its freedome will forthwith be carried away with such violence towards its Creator that of all Torments this will be greatest to be but one sole minute debarr'd from the fruition of God What then will it be to be divorced for all Eternity from the beloved Center of Bounty the very height of bliss is to see God which King David prudently weighing saies Ps 16.15 I shall be filled when they Glory shall appear The extract then of all miseries will it be for ever to be banisht the presence of God SECT 2. Every loss is so much the greater by how much the greater good it deprives us of T is a great Fine to be enforced to pay ten thousand Crowns twenty or thirty is greater but above all is an hundred thousand Yet this is far exceeded by another damage which robs one of many Millions of Gold yea of all Treasures too during life Such a mulct as this is that penalty of darkness which at one stroke divides from all good not only for life but O! for all Eternity Here St. Chrysostome astonisht In this point saies if you mention a thousand Hells Tom. 5. ad pop you come short of the grief a Soul endures by her separation from Heaven Hell I must confess is intollerable yet far more unsufferable is it to lose the Inheritance of Bliss Let this matter serve to busie thy thoughts in Tom. 2. in Matt. He inculcates the same in another place A thousand hells put into one scale weigh nothing to the being exild from Glory to the being hated of Christ and hearing from him I know you not Every tree that doth not yeild good Fruit Matt. 3.10 shall be cut down and cast into the fire Here is a double punishment of the Tree To be cut down and cast into the fire A tree were more gently dealt with if it were singed with fire then if it were so grubbed up by the roots that hereafter you may despair to have it either flourish or bring forth fruit The like is mans case in this particular whose pain would be milder to undergo those scorching heats then to be for ever banisht from the Face of God A semblance or shadow of what I say may be met with even in this life Such as have grievously sinned against God are sometimes scourged with a twofold whip The first of pain so Antiochus and Herod yet alive burst out into swarms of Vermin as if they had been dead Carcasses or rotten Cheese certainly they were smitten by God The second is the scourge of Anguish or sadness whereby all solace is taken from the offender who by this time finds no comfort in God This is an ante-past or foretast of Hell whereof notwithstanding eminent Saints have had their share Therefore Holy David cries out Cast me not away from thy face turn not away thy face from me Now as it fares both with Saints and Sinners who even in this life tast of the pain of Sense and Loss that they may be informed what passes in Hell So those whose wickedness hurls them down thither groan under the heavy burden of both kinds of punishment and shall see no light for ever SECT 3. ANy one mortal sin is sufficient to make us lose this blessed Vision of God for as the Master of Divines delivers who ever commits a mortal sin turns away his will from his last end and thereby deserves never to attain that end for which he was created Long ago was the Sentence pronounced against thse Matt. 7.23 Depart from me all ye that work Iniquity This is a most grievous punishment which by mans Fault is yet much increased as will appear by the following example A certain person might have been possest of an Inheritance worth ten thousand Crowns but through a sloathful carelesness lets the time slip and so falls short of it When t is too late he perceives what a Fat Morfel has escaped him whereupon he storms he rages he is ready to tear himself in peices and sometimes by violence of greif dies indeed
to vertue souls well disposed to hear him Great matters were expected from him But Macarius begun his Sermon not with words but weeping Let us mourn said he and let our eyes produce plenty of tears before we flee hence to that place where tears scald bodies This was the beginning this the prosecution this the confirmation this the Epilogue of his Exhortation Which speech of his though short yet was it so serious that all fell a weeping all prostrated themselves upon the ground and earnestly made this Petition O Father pray for us Macarius hit the Nail on the Head Tears while we live purge after death they punish here they wipe away our stains there they scorch the guilty There shall be weeping and most bitter howling as well of Devils as Damned Imagine the worst you can to torment the Ears The shouting of men the Barking of Doggs the Howling of Wolves the lowing of Oxen the roaring of Lions with the ungrateful noise made by other Beasts the Claps of Thunder in the Clouds the steep fall of Waters and whatever may be conceived offensive to the Ears Alas all that is nothing to the most desperate weeping and gnashing of teeth they endure in Hell Resort hither all you whose breasts boyl with hatred and envy all you who though sleightly offended snarle and Wild-bore-like whet your Tusks to revenge Here you may take a view of your own picture in the damned Hearken the kingly Prophets admonition The sinner shall observe the just Psal 36. and shall gnash upon him with his teeth Enter into consideration of our life and you shall find that we eagerly conspire to each others ruine What profit then I pray do we pursue This one so soon as our adversary lies open to our fury we sheath the Sword of Revenge up to the Hilts in his overthrow This is the work of malice this unsatiable envy persues amain Even as dogs when they quarrel shew their teeth so we dog-like men or inhumane dogs deal one with another and now and then fall at odds for a bare bone O you who swell with hatred and pine away with envy why do you assume the nature of dogs why do you imitate the Damned There there shall be weeping there shall be gnashing of teeth Who ever rightly understands the meaning of that eternal We easily laies aside all envy and malice often ruminating with himself Neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard what God hath prepared for those who forsake him In Hell shall be weeping in Heaven rejoycing such as ear hath never heard it is in thy choice now to begin to weep with those or to rejoyce with these either this or that will last for ever CHAP. IV. The third Torment for Eternity in Hell is Hunger THat exquisite Master of Rhetorick Quintilian had the boldness to say Quinti decl 12. The Plague is happy Warr is happy and all kind of Death is easy But Hunger is hard the most pinching of necessities the most deformed of evils An evil unspeakable that needs must be to which the greatest of evils compared are to be held in esteem such an evil as this in Quintillians opinion is hunger amongst all miseries worthily accounted the chiefest This assertion is not without reason since both by ancient and modern History it is apparent that extremity of hunger sometimes brings men to that height of madness as to tear their own flesh in pieces with their teeth Baron ad an 491. and to nourish their bodies by imparing them Zeno the Emperour did thus who was buried before he was dead Is it so indeed is nine dayes hunger so cruel a kind of death that whatsoever death compared unto it may be reputed a gentle punishment What then will a Famine of ten years of a hundred a thousand a million of ages be from which all hope of releif is quite cut off I may truly say of this hunger is the sharpest of necessities hunger is the worst of miseries This rageing evil is the third torment of that doleful eternity The Prophet long ago threatned this kind of punishment They shall suffer Famine as dogs Psa 58. He is truly miserable who having a desire to eat finds nothing to asswage his hunger much more is he who alwaies gapes after meat with a greedy appetite but meets with nothing nor ever shall to satisfie his stomack Nay further yet he is not only afflicted with extream hunger but is parched with most vehement thirst beside Such is the hunger such the thirst of the damned whereof in the ensuing Chapter SECT 1. CHrist threatens in good earnest Luk. 6. Wo to you that are filled because you shall be hungry Such hunger shall oppress you as will exceed that of a day a moneth a year and such an one to whom not a few but all things shall be wanting No one will no one can give either crumm or drop The remembrance of dainties past will sharpen and set their stomacks on fire that the pain of Gluttony may accompany the fault and the punishment be answerable to the offence Wis 11. By what things a man sineth by the same also he is tormented One may offend many wayes by Gluttony First when too much meat and drink is taken even against our stomach which frequently grumbles not for want but excesse The stomach has its mouth which wants not words the stomach is filled with indignation and Belching saies O I am opprest I am surcharged I faint I perish Too much kindness kills me Fain I would be refresht not stifled I would be nourisht not choaked I am not to be stuffed with meat as a Boulster with Feathers This sort of good will hurts me worse then hatred or emptiness These are the complaints of the stomach Of which St. Tom. 3. in c. 2. Joan. Chrysostome declares that What exceeds necessity in eating doth harm but nourishes not Fulness is the root of all Diseases So the first fault in Gluttony is to feed too plentifully The second fault is to have a longing of such delicate and costly viands that of necessity the Sea must be divided into and shell fishes fetched from the unknown shores of the remotest Seas Besides the Feasant other sorts of fowl must be had to satisfie ambition in the Kitchin What a dainty stomach will scarcely admit of must be brought in from the farthest Ocean To please the Palate which loaths ordinary fare search is made farr and near the whole world must be ransacked for belly cheer which is then daintiest when dearest So Alagabalus Emperour inhabiting the Sea cost would never feed upon fish These kind of people are possest with a hunger of greater extent then their belly they vomit that they may drink and drink that they may vomit Bankets sought for throughout the World they greedily devour which by and by they reject the same way they were received Observe here by the way That is accounted a Soverain
to take up his quarters for any long time in a tallow-chandlers or curriers shop in Augias stable or in a vault filled with rotten carcasses so ungrateful a place as this by reason of its stench would quite banish out of the breast all thoughts of pleasure What then will happen in that forge of Gods wrath in that horrid cave of eternity wherce all joy is removed and where there is nothing to be found but extream dolours How much will this deep obscure and stenchful place increase their pains yea what I tremble to think of a place most remote from heaven and closely shut up with a thousand locks iron grates and percullises Abraham cryes out from above Luke c. 16. Between us and you there is fixed a great Chaos a Chaos of flames that they which will passe from hence to you may not neither go from thence hither And yet Abrahams abode was not in heaven In our prisons there is ample liberty if you look upon the habitations of the damned Their Sepulchers Psa 43. their houses for ever Princes and Kings Emperours and Popes are shut up in this house neither hath Craesus nor Alexander any other dwelling place St. Luke c. 16. bears testimony The rich man also dyed and he was buried in hell O profound Sepulcher Into this now are his stately buildings and towers converted into this his pleasant fountains and triumphal arches into this his groves and flourishing gardens into this his bathes his theaters and magnificent palaces his whole house is no more then a narrow tomb Neither do they live here at their freedom and liberty but are enchained and fast bound The great King gave command Mat. 22. Bind his hands and feet and cast him into utter darkness These guilty persons cannot walk nor so much as stir whither they will they are tyed hand and foot and as if they were fastned to Spits they become fuel to that devouring fire SECT 2. IT is manifest out of antient history that several men and those none of the vulgar sort were inclosed in cages as if they had been out-landish birds Alexander the great commanded Callisthenes Olyntheus Sen others either for suspition of treason or for perswading the King not to affect the title of Lord from the Athenians to have his ears lips and nostrils cut off and to be cruelly mangled in other members whereby be became a spectacle of misery and deformity and then to be shut up in an iron cage with a dog and so carried about for a show Lysimachus who had been his Schollar moved with compassion to so great a man gave him poyson thereby to put a period to the punishment his faults deserved not but his freedom in speaking O happy cage of Callisthenes compared to the flaming prisons the damned endure The like misfortune which befel Callisthenes hath also involved others Tamerlan the worlds terrour Lissius pol c. 5. having overcome Bajaset the Turkish Monarck shut him up in a cage of Iron and so in derision showed him to all would see him three years together Christiern King of Denmark in the year one thousand five hundred Ex Jovio twenty two became an Apostate from Christian religion Afterwards by reason of his cruelty he was deprived of three Kingdoms miserably condemned to perpetual bondage and in the year one thoussand five hundred thirty two like an unruly beast was cast into a grate where he ended his days But O gentle prisons of Bajaset and Christiern if compared to those of the damned Valerian a Roman Emperour received no better usage from Sapores King of Persia Baron ad An. 262. for being encaged as well as the former he was never permitted to stir out but when he was forced instead of a footstool to lead his back to Sapores to mount on horse-back In fine Valerian had his skin pulled off and his flesh rubbed with salt Thus also was Renzus son to Frederick imprisoned till death After the same manner Mark Bishop of Arethusa Suidas famous for eloquence and sanctity of life a most renowned Martyr in the time of Julian the Apostate was first committed to boys to be stabed with bodkins then besmeared with brine and hony was enclosed in a cage hung in the open air under the scorching sun and so was exposed as a prey to hornets wasps gnats and flies that he might feel himself dye But O how mild were these punishments how delightsome these cages in respect of theirs in hell All torment here is but imaginary and a mere shaddow as being solaced either with the shortness of their continuance or sweetned with the hope of everlasting reward we know our present tribulation is light and momentary Hence the Champions of God the more pain they endure the greater recompense they expect Whereas those prisoners in hell neither receive comfort from time past which they neglected nor from that to come wherein their torments shall continue for ever Divine Justice has so decreed that the wicked shall find their enemys their executioners whose perswasions they followed and whose friendship they formerly sued for and forasmuch as heretofore they haunted plesant meddows to sport themselves in Wisd 2 they shall now inhabit streight cages for their punishment This shall be their condition for eternity SECT 3. WEre there no other torment for souls guilty of eternal death then to be shut up in so loathsome a prison amongst so many sworn enemies for ever this this alone would be abundantly enough What then shall I say of their many other torments of their worm of conscience their hunger thirst and perpetual flames which shall never have an end their torments are many indeed which last for eternity eternity which may be measured if you regard its beginning but if you seek for an end of it which you shall never find it is wholly unmeasurable The Prophet Esay chap. 34. hath a lively description of this place of everlasting banishment The torrents thereof saith he shall be turned into pitch and the ground thereof into brimstone and the land thereof shall be into burning pitch St. Apoc. c. 19. Matth. â— c. 13. c. 106 John calls this prison a Pool of fire and brimstone Christ the furnace of fire Holy Job the dark land ohat is covered with the midst of death a land of misery and darkness where is the shaddow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabiteth Here say you I would gladly be informed how to frame a lively and lasting conceit of this unconsumable Aetna this recepticle of all miseries whereby I might frequently have a remembrance of it To this purpose I call to mind a conference which passed betwixt two intimate friends the one whereof might well be termed Orestes the other Pylades this demanded to know in what manner he might best represent to himself that dungeon of the damned Whereunto Orestes replyed in my judgment the business is to be performed in
nature shall quickly be plunged into all kind of vices Such an one may justly be tearmed desperate who sets heaven to sale who deems that dreadful dungeon of hell tolerable who wretched man that he is thinks of nothing less then eternity Most truly spoke St. Bernard Despair contains in it self the accomplishment of all malice Despair is much augmented by ignorance of God There is a certain person who has some thoughts of amendment hereafter he is resolved to play the man but in regard he knows not how good God is therefore his thoughts suggest unto him what art thou about to do wilt thou lose this life and that to come Thy sins are too too many and grievous if thou didst lay down thy life for them thou couldst not make satisfaction Thou hast lived delicately hitherto wilt thou now change upon a suddain thou canst not master thy customs whatever thou doest thou wilt slide back into thy former crimes Leave then these things to their ordinary course By these degrees the miserable man sinks for according to St. Bernard wilful despair is the way to hell SECT 5. IN the prisons of this world you may somtimes meet with men of such desperate behaviour as to paint upon the very wals of the prison a pâ—ir of gallows whereof I am an eye-witness they seem to rejoice they must be so exalted in death since they make a jest of the manner of their dying Some likewise have been found knaves in grain aswell as the former who while their comrades were turned off the ladder would pick pockets and cut purses meaning perchance not to be idle spectators but actors too Our proceedings are like to these villains pardon the expression we throw the dice of eternity with equal boldness We are here in prison uncertain what day or hour we must be brought forth to execution and yet we sport and play as if we feared nothing we prodigally wast our time as if we had no other business in hand but toys and trifles 'T is true we either think our selves or hear others discourse on eternity but without feeling of it as though it were of no concern to us We are daily spectators of untimely deaths without so much as reflecting we may chance be the next for whom the bell shall toul When any mention is made of eternity who is moved therewith or if any be moved alas of how short continuance is that motion We behold a world of miseries and many justly chastised for their crimes but are so far from amendment that we boldly commit sin even within sight of the gallows This can be nothing else but a secret kind of despair which indeed is the high rode to despair eternally A Souldier at Rome Lâ—b 4. Dialog as St. Gregory relates being mortally wounded lay some time for dead but after a while returning to himself rehearsed what he had seen in the other world A spatious bridg quoth he opened a passage into most pleasant meddows under the bridg glided a stream both muddy and stenchful on the farther side of it besides many flourishing groves I discovered a numerous multitude all cloathed in white to whom the place breathed forth most grateful perfumes Here might you likewise behold many edifices of admirable structure whither divers endeavoured to make their way over the bridg but all in vain for who ever had not led a vertuous life could by no means pass only people of an upright life and a spotless conscience were allowed passage others who were defiled with sin were tumbled headlong into that noysom river During life we walk on stoutly beside this bridg the sea is never so turbulent nor the heaveâ—s so inexorable as to make us loose our confidence the remedy against all our evil is it will have an end But such as are already cast off the bridg such as drink full draughts of Cocytus are wholly destitute of hope So true it is where hope ceases there despair begins without ceasing in Lucifers territory is mere despair thence all hope is exiled for eternity what ever is heard seen or understood there foments despair There is everlasting dolour everlasting moan everlasting death where they find no end to appease their misery SECT 6. THerefore O ye accursed the just Judg has brought upon you evils he has glutted his arrows in you Your wound is uncurable your stripe is very sore with the stroke of an enemy I have stroken you with cruel chastisement your sorrow is uncurable for the multitude of your iniquity Jer. ch 30 God long ago moved this question to the Prophet Jeremy c. 1. What seest thou Hieremy To whom the Prophet said I see a rod watching Our Lord demanded the second time What seest thou to which Jeremy answered I see a pot boyling hot All our pains in this life what are they but rods without cruelty with these towardly children are chastised and give God thanks they are so geâ—tly dealt with Holy David says Ps 22. and 44. Thy rod and thy staffe they have comforted me A rod of direction the rod of thy kingdom Although we be strook with this staff or rod yet are we not miserable these strokes are signs of love these wounds are a beginning of our cure whereas that boyling pot is not a mark of direction or solace but of perdition and despair Let us therefore so be affrayed of it that we beware in time we easily perceive by what means we may avoid aswell presumption as despair God like a Gyant stretcheth forth his two mighty arms Justice and Mercy lay hold of whether you please He that takes only Mercy by the hand exposes himself to presumption he that embraces Justice alone sinks under the burden of despair Doubtless God hath exhibited both in this and the other world many remarkable effects of his Justice who looks upon these only is near to despair as on the contrary who onely considers the attractives of Mercy confides above measure happy are they that observe a mean thou mayst march on securely betwixt Mercy and Justice This is attested by the Oracles of truth All the ways of our Lord are Mercy and Truth Ps 24. The royal Prophet did contemplate dayly these two arms of God Mercy and Judgment I will sing to thee O Lord Ps 100. The matter is so indeed we must steer our course betwixt Justice and Mercy thereby to shun the rock of presumption and the gulf of despair both which are extreamly perilous and during life admit of cure but when death closes up our eyes they become uncurable for ever CHAP. X. Eternity is cause of Continual sighing to the Godly SOlomon with admirable variety describes the unexplicable circle of eternity Ecles c. 1. Generation passeth saith he and Generation cometh but the earth standeth for ever The sun riseth and goeth down and returneth to his place compassing all things goeth forward in circuit and returneth unto his circles All rivers enter into the sea and
the sea over floweth not In like manner all sorts of pains as so many streams empty themselves into eternity in hell yet eternity like an immense ocean is always the same neither ebbing nor flowing but infinite but unchangeable After a hundred centuries of ages are disburdened into this abysse a hundred more will be swallowed up and still more and more without end After the damned crue shall have dwelt in hell so many ages as to think they have lived in flames for all eternity by past yet eternity is not one jot diminisht After the revolution of so many ages eternity is not a minute less it is ever entirely the same After a thousand thousand years are come and gone the circle of eternity is as large as whole as unavoidable as it was in the beginning This is the ninth unspeakable unconceivable torment in Gods prison Now forasmuch as people yet alive busie their thoughts with eternity we assign a triple difference thereof eternity which makes the pious daily sigh eternity which is a fearful dream of the wicked and eternity which is an everlasting punishment to the damned The first of these three is the subject of this present chapter SECT 1. THe divine espouse commending the humanity of her beloved says Cant. 2. His left hand under my head and his right hand shall embrace me Under these words lyeth hid a mystery which must be unfolded In the left hand of the beloved are honours wealth and plenty in the right length of dayes or eternity Here the espouse as if she were wittingly and willingly blind exclaimes the left hand I see not because it is under my head so little do I value honour riches or transitory goods But the right wherewith he shall embrace me I behold though yet I enjoy it not all the eyes I have are fixed in contemplation of eternity things eternal are they I esteem Yet in regard I have not possession of a blessed eternity nevertheless I rest assured He shall embrace me Eternity delayed breeds torment as Hope that is differred afflicteth the soul Prov. 13. Eternity stirs up in the vertuous a dayly longing after it Boniface a Citizen of Rome having for some time kept company with Aglae a noble matron became at length so penitent for his fault that he resolved to wash out that stain by the practice of most heroick vertue This made him sl ght all danger of looseing the goods of fortune yea and his own life too this made him visit martyrs in prison and kiss their chains this made him encourage such as were to suffer and after death to bury their bodies Being taken up with these employments he took his journy to Tarsus where he performed the like good offices to the champions of Christ His dayly exhortation was they should be constant in their sufferings their labour though short would merit reward without end With these words he mervailously excited himself and others to lay down their lives couragiously While he was busie with these employments he was apprehended and had his flesh torn off his bones with iron hooks they thrust under his nails sharp needles and poured into his mouth melted lead Amidst these torments he persevered constant he believed his pains momentary and the crown he expected to be everlasting he repeated to himself his former exhortation and often redoubled I give thee thanks O my Lord Jesu In this manner he gloriously finisht his combat Eternity is cause of continual sighing to the godly SECT 2. ST Frances of Assisium the Jewel of his age through frequent weeping began to be troubled with sore eyes Divers perswaded him to forbear his dayly tears to whom with a deep sigh he said For the love of that light which is common to us flies I do not judge it meet to debar my self of the rays of light eternal Being likewise asked how in such thin clothes he could endure the austerity of winter He answered if we were warmed with love of our eternal country we should easily be sheltered from cold here This life was to St. Francis occasion of patience as eternity was of desire Christ our Lord undertaking to teach his followers how to sigh incessantly after eternity said Mat. 10 Fear ye not them that kill the body A hidden argument but according to art Do not for this reason fear saith he because they kill If any one had power to detain another in the fire or such like punishment alive him you might justly fear The sharper the pain inflicted by men the sooner it bereaves of life the more grievous the torment the quicker the end You have then no reason to fear them who can kill the body but once and that often with one blow fear him that redoubles dayly mortal wounds and always killing never kills Behold the antitheses of this divine Oratour The fear of a short death is to be overcome by fear of death eternal Our Lord therefore would glve us to understand that the souls of men are immortal subject to the sole pleasure of God and that the bodies are to be raised from death to reward or punishment everlasting Behold likewise with what artificial brevity of words Christ comprehended great mysteries the immortality of the soul the resurrection of the body and an eternity of well or wo. Eternity causeth in the vertuous continual sighing Sir Thomas More Sand. Lib. 1 a man every way accomplisht was cast into prison not to his disgrace but for manifesting his sanctity to the world His wife came to visit him with an intent to bring him off his resolution But in vain She â—â—ade her onset with a two forked argument and pleaded her cause with prayers and tears beseeching him chiefly by all conjugal fidelity he would preserve his life yet a while What fault have I made quoth she wherein have your children kinsfolk and family so much offended as to be so soon deprived of you my beloved husband All our lives depend on yours For my part I had rather dye a hundred time 〈◊〉 survive after your death 〈◊〉 my dearest More subscribe to the Kings decree and you make your self and us all live many years longer Are you so much fallen out with this present lifâ— as that you will obstinately run upon your own death Death knowes well when it is to come for us why then do we of our own accord send for it as if it had forgâ—tten us That you may have compassion for many of your friends have pitty on your self and do not despise the best share of your life which is yet behind I doubt not but God out of his goodness will grant you many more years to live in case your self be not out of liking with your own life Her Husband gave eaâ— pâ—tiently to what she said and when she had ended her speach How many years quoth he doest thou think I shall live my dear Aloysia to whom she quickly made answer you may well live
twenty years and upward Whereunto Sir Thomas replyed your design then is to have me exchange an entire eternity for twenty years Surely you have small skill in merchandise who would part with costly wares for a trifle Had you mentioned twenty thousand years you might have had some seeming pretence for your folly But alas what are twenty or thirty thousand years to eternity A small point a shaddow a moment a smoak a mear nothing Wherefore I will joyfully undergo not onely imprisonment but all the calamities likewise of this life so long as it pleases God and upon condition my eternal recompense may be secured to loose any thing of that is to loose all What he said he made good by a couragious death SECT 3. JOhn Godfrey Bishop of Wortsburg a bright shining star amongst Prelates a man of so much greater sanctity by how much it was more concealed This good Prelate I say frequently used this sentence worthy to be engraven in cedar and gold Every moment I stand at the do r of Eternity Hence proceeded that custome of placing in every room of his palace a dead mans scull or some other bones of the dead either real or drawn out in mortar lest at any time he should forget the memory of eternity At his exequies a funeral Oration in latine extolled many things in him worthy commendation but this one especially that he was so addicted to busie his thoughts perpetually with eternity as that he read over leisurely three several times a treatise of eternity Work must needs go well forward where there is ever a fresh remembrance of eternity This was a practise of most heroick spirits to pause seriously upon eternity both night and day Here I may not pass over in silence that passage worthy of credit A Priest and a religious man P. Hermanus Hugo eminent in all kind of Schollarship was carried on so fervently with desire to imprint eternity in his heart that with great care he read over seven times a little book of eternity which doubtless he had done oftner if death had not overhastily summoned him to eternity Pachomius after a long exhortation to his Disciples came in the end to this conclusion Above all things said he let us bear in mind the last day and every minute be affraid of eternal puuishment This holy man knew well which way vertue was to be â—cquired Eternity stirs up in the pious frequent and sometimes doleful sighs For since we are exposed to a twofold eternity the one blessed the other cursed and since we have no acquittance to ascertain us of beatitude no marvail if they be in a particular manner seised with fear and trembling who now approach to the confines of eternity Besides though we have great hope of attaining everlasting happiness nevertheless because we are not yet in possession of it we have just cause to fear and sigh The delay of so great a good provokes both sighing and weeping Hermenigildus King of whom we spoke before son to Levigildus King of the Visigothes having renounced Arrianism became a Catholick and endured with much fortitude wrongs imposed on him by his own father who threatned to take away his life unless he would abandon Catholick Religion To whom the young prince returned this generous answer You may determine concerning me father what you please Do you resolve to take from me a Kingdom It is but one which dayly perisheth that other which is immortal you have not power to deprive me of Do you cast me into prison you stop not our free passage to heaven thither thither we will take our journy Will you break off the thread of this dying life I expect a better an eternal one These words were becoming so royal a person It is no loss but gain to exchange temporal goods for eternal Eternity makes the vertuous often long after it SECT 4. IEzonias anciently said to Ezekiel ch 11. v. 2 c. Son of man these are the men that conceive iniquity and devise most wicked counsel in this City saying were not houses builded of late This is the caldron and we the flesh Therefore prophesie of them thou son of man Those wicked men thought they were amidst the dainties in their own City as flesh in the pot which is not easily taken out by any All goes well with us say they our city and our houses are as fortresses unto us we are safe enough our enemies cannot annoy us To these same men Ezechiel prophesied on the behalf of God Ubi supâ—a I will cast you out of the midst of the caldron and I will give you into the hands of the enemies and will do judgments in you You shall fall by the sword The like befalls them who are much enamoured with this mortal life They think they are flesh in the caldron they are well at ease gay clothes costly fare and many pleasures they account their heaven eternity as they think not on so they desire it not being well appayed with their caldron Let us leave them to run their carrier by and by the case will be altered They shall be cast out they shall fall by the sword they shall be thrown into other caldrons wherein they shall fry and boyl for ever Contrary-wise while the wicked snatch at a minutes pleasure men of good conscience steer their course upward like unto fat which in a boyling pot swims on the top whereas others like lumps of flesh sink down and remain in the bottom This choice fat the world as a busie but foolish cook scums off and casts away for froth all good men are reputed as the refuse of this world However they pass through these sufferings with joyfulness having had a foretast of blessed eternity which they are already in love with Eternity makes the pious languish for it Amongst the people of Israel divers were found whose bosoms boyled with desires of enjoying the land of promise The desert which they inhabited so many years became now loathsome to them especially after their eyes gave testimony of the fruitfulness of the country which appeared in exquisit figgs goodly pomegranats and a huge bunch of grapes brought thence What do we said they Let us go up and possess the Land because we may obtain it Num. 13. Such expressions as these daily fill the mouths of the godly What do we here amongst Sepulchers of the dead why do we snatch our food from things which fade in a moment Let us go up and possess the Land whose fertility is eternal St. Austin being enflamed with this desire Lib. 3. de Lib. arb composed the third Book of Free Will which he closes with these words So great is the beauty of Justice so much the delight of light etetnal that albeit it were not lawful to stay therein any longer then one days space for this alone numberless years of this life abounding with dainties and plenty of temporal goods might in reason worthily be
on their right hand they have the Devils to torture them on their left are their companions in misery within them is anguish the worm of conscience terrour and despair Do we Christians beleive these things and live as we do Esay ch 53. Who hath beleived our hearing and the arm of our Lord to whom is it revealed We are perswaded these things ought to be beleived but we beleive them very coldly Our beleif hath scarcely any soul it is not lively as if I should point at a painted table with my finger and say this is Abraham ready to sacrifice his son Abraham I say not living but painted Such for all the world is our faith not lively not breathing forth heat not animated but drawn with a Pencil We beleive and beleive not Wherefore I lay down here a brief method of meditating every day upon eternity A certain Father having Wealth in aboundance provided his daughters of a handsome settlement they perswaded the old man he would be pleased to bestow upon them in his life time what means he intended for them at his death promising withal their Father should be plentifully furnisht with all necessaries For the first year they made good their promise and treated him with much liberallity but when it fell out that he lived longer then they expected they grew weary of the old man and unmindful both of Piety and their Promise they began to deal more niggardly and harshly with him He to find a remedy for his folly by a wile procures a great Chest filled with Sand and Stones to be secretly conveyed into his Chamber This he opened in the night and with that small stock which he had reserved he held on counting money so long till at length it amounted to a considerable summ which he purposely exprest in such a voice as his son in Law might easily over hear him Afterwards he lockt up his wealthy Coffer Next morning his Daughters spoke more lightsomly to him and demanded why it was so late last night ere he went to rest To whom the Father made answer My Children when I judged all was silent and none could take notice of what I did I took a view of my Treasure yet remaining which of you two deserves better of me while I live shall enjoy it after my death Hence proceeded a strong emulation both of them striving which should manifest greater respect to their Father After the old man was dead they opened the Chest wherein they found besides Sand and Stones a Staffe with this Inscription Avarice brought the children to What Piety could not make them do Much after this maner though out of a superior motive may we fill our Chest with Sand or little Seeds that what Piety could not perswade us to Eternity may Thus then we must go to work Let every one fill his Coffer Trunk or Desk or what else is nearest at hand as his Purse Hat Cup or Gloves with Poppy little Stones Pease or any other small Grain and when he is to meditate on Eternity he may begin to reckon in this sort that every Poppy seed little Stone or Pease may stand for a hundred or a thousand years For example one Grain signifies a thousand years two grains two thousand ten ten thousand a hundred a hundred thousand a thousand a thousand thousand years and so of the rest This is the first point belonging to our Method The second is Although you substract ten or a hundred grains from those in your Coffer Hat Dish or other Vessel almost nothing will appear to be substracted or taken away Mean while t is most certain Eternity remains entire though so many thousand years pass as you cast into your Chest Poppy seeds Pease or other grain This is most undoubtedly true For all this number hath its end albeit you fill a most capacious house with little seeds and every one stand for a thousand years The third When during Eternity so many thousand years are gone as there be small grains in your Coffer yet eternity is whole without any diminution not so much as the least parcel of it is impaired Nay though that same Coffer be three four five times emptied and every grain signifie a thousand years nevertheless nothing is taken off from Eternity it continuing durable and of as vast extent as when it first begun The fourth This same thought if serious and attentive will somewhat afflict the mind yet must we not therefore leave it off but must go on forward He that meditates may rouse himself up in this manner Go too in Gods name le ts proceed yet farther The fifth By this kind of meditation the soul will by little and little grow warm and break forth into these or the like expressions What do we mean the trash and toyes of this life we eagerly persue and look not after Eternity T is too true we busy not out mind with years eternal The sixth Our understanding must be so by degrees informed that it may frame a conceit of those hidden secrets from what we perceive by our eyes The Philosophers Maxime is true Our understanding must take instruction from our Phansy Now as we may not with one step mount to the top of a Ladder but by degrees and as we cannot all at once fill a streit neckt bottle with Wine so it is not possible by a sleight and suddain thought of eternity to imprint it either in the understanding or will By degrees we are to proceed from less to more Even as we fill a Hat Cap or Chest and by every seed we take out we reckon a thousand years so likewise when a great room is filled we must order our computation The seventh is to make a Colloquie to ones self What is all affliction in this world compared to infinite millions of years through and after which eternity shall endure and that without any moving towards an end or being in the least impaired Here every one is constrained to acknowledge Although what ever calamity the world contains fell upon me alone yet what would this be to pains eternal Again though I alone enjoyed all pleasures the world can afford and that for an hundred years together what would this be to an eternity of bliss What then do I fool that I am that I do not take another course From this time forward at least I will learn more wit If it chance that any one be opprest with pain in body sickness or grief of mind then chiefly is the time to entertain this thought If this pain or pensiveness were to continue ten twenty an hundred thousand years O God! how unexplicable would it be But what would this be in comparison of those most sharp pangs of eternity which after Millions of ages know no end but remain entire Lo here a brief method to meditate on Eternity SECT 3. IT is most true which one returning from the other world declared No one beleives how sharp are the
torments in Hell No one understands their length no one sufficiently weighs their eternity Out alas we are too much taken up with trifles in which we are often entangled till death we now and then wrangle for we know not what and as a Jest or a Dream think upon eternity whence it comes to pass that we seldome or sleightly correct our misdemenours I who write these things as well as others who have written on eternity do openly make this Proclamation We have cured Babylon Jeremy ch 51. It was in its free choice whether it would be cured or no. The way is streit the gate is narrow and few enter in thereat Many are called and few are chosen Therefore Hieremy the Prophet cryes out with a loud voice ch 51. v. 45. Let every one save his life If he cannot do it otherwise let him condemn himself to perpetual imprisonment and bury himself alive T is better to pass out of Prison to Heaven then out of a Palace to Hell The ancient Philosophers had notice of this truth Seneca exclaims I was well pleased with inquiring after the Eternity of Souls yea and I did beleive it too Epist 101. Behold how they pondered the Mystery of eternity who were deprived of the rayes of truth What are Christians obliedged to do The same Seneca spoke wisely when he said Amongst evils our best comfort is they will have an end The end is a lenetive against all misery You may meet with one who bewails the burning of his house another who complains he has no friend no one to assist him none that cares for him This man is afflicted through pains of body that grows pensive because he is in desolation of spirit One deplores his neediness and want another deems it worse then death to see himself despised To what purpose I pray are these lamentations The best remedy in misery is it will have an end this remedy eternity is destiture of It comprehends all kind of punishments but is wholly void of any end of them Hence the eternity of the damned is a torment unexplicable Lib. 5. Hist Angl Venerable Bede faithfully rehearseth a remarkable passage which hapned in his time In the County of Northumberland lived a man of great piety called Drithelm who through extremity of sickness was brought to the gates of death so as in the beginning of the night he seemed to be dead indeed and as such lay all the night following Next morning being unexpectedly restored to himself he said to the amazement of those present he was permitted to live yet longer but after a farr different manner then hitherto he had done Wherefore he addicted himself to spend more time in Prayer he distributed all his Goods amongst his Wife Children and the poor that done he renounced all worldly cares and betook himself to great austerity which gave sufficient testimony what horrible things he had been eye-witness of in the other world What he had seen he did not promiscuously relate to all but only to such as he knew were unfeigned friends of Eternity Amongst these was King Alfride a man of eminent Learning who frequently and attentively gave ear to Drithelm while he discoursed of Hell Concerning which he enlarged himself chiefly in the explication of that horrible darkness that incomparable stench those lamentable howlings and tears those swarms of Adders the insulting of Devils the balls of fire and bitter hail which served to afflict the Damned when they were forced to make a dismal exchange by being snatcht out of flames and thrown amongst Ice These particulars compared with the delights of Paradise Drithelm much insisted on Out of which narration the greatest profit redounded to himself for in a Monastery his abode was fevered from the rest and situate on the bank of a River where his principal employment was to cleave fast to God with his desires to visit Heaven to multiply Prayers without ceasing to chastist his body and with perpetual sighs â—o meditate on Eternity And that all might perceive he was in good earnest he used often for the mortifying his flesh to go into the River which ran by his Cell sometimes to the middle sometimes to the neck and stay therein so long till the Ice in Winter frose about his body at his comeing out he did not dry his clothes by the Fire or Sun but kept them on wet as they were to the greater vexation of his body in so much as he seemed rather to be apparelled with Ice then Garments Some spectatours moved with compassion towards the man asked him How is it possible Drithelm you should be able to endure such piercing cold to whom he readily returned this answer I have beheld sharper things and more bitter colds then this Who ever shall ruminate with attention the punishments of eternity See writers of S. S. lives may pronounce the same of the greatest sufferings of Martyrs I have seen greater then these Iames a Noble Persian was by King Isdegerdes commanded to be cut in pieces from head to foot joynt by joynt But one that contemplates eternity will say I have seen sharper torments then these Serapion had all his bones broken Nicephorus Martyr after broyling on a Gridiron was cut piece-meal Yet still one may affirm I have seen more cruel usage Ianas Martyr not without bitter taunts had his fingers cut off as if they were to be sowen to spring up again his skin was pulled over his ears his tongue pluckt out himself was thrown into boyling Pitch and lastly all his Limbs were bruised upon an Engine His companion Barachisius was scourged with Thorns had his flesh miserably rent and in fine had all his bones torn a sunder and broken But I have beheld more bitter passages Saturninus being tyed to a wild Bull whom they made more wild with prickling was hurried through rough and craggy waies and so drawn in peices a horrible torment no doubt Nevertheless I have seen more horrible Martina a Noble Virgin being fastned to four stakes was beaten with staves and stripes was torn with hooks cast to the Beasts and condemned to the fire Emmeramus Bishop of Ratisbon after his fingers were chopt off his eyes pulled out his ears and nostrils divided from his head his hands and feet were cut away and his tongue out of his mouth Leodegarius Bishop of Auston in France when he had undergone Famine and long Imprisonment was deprived of his Eyes had the soles of his Feet wounded and seperated from his body his Lips cut away and his tongue pluckt out Yet worse pains then these I have beheld Alexander Bishop of Rome endured many stabs Cassianus a School master was run through with the Bodkins and Pen-knives of his Schollars whose hands by how much the weaker so much more grievous was his Martyrdome Mark Bishop of Arethusa being pricked with Lancets on all sides was anointed with Honey put into a wisket of Rushes and so exposed as a
The mystery of the blessed Trinity the Incarnation of Christ the miracle of the Holy Eucharist the resurrection of the dead and eternity of torment Now for as much as these points are hard to beleive therefore Divine Providence hath in a singular maner confirmed them by Scriptures Councils and Miracles Our talk in this place is to discourse of pains eternal and why God whose nature is to have mercy would have them eternal Divines in this point have gone different wayes to answer the difficulty Some say the Damned alwaies sin therefore they are alwaies punished What injustice therefore is it for him to groan under pain who persevers in doing injury This answer is not amiss For not only the damned sin perpetually in Hell but even here while they lived amongst us they found out a certain kind of eternity to sin in which is the matter we are to weigh with maturity Who ever heaps sin upon sin till death sins during his eternity let us call it so Therefore in Gods eternity he is most justly punisht Both truly and elegantly said St Gregory It is manifest and certain beyond controul Lib. 4. Dial. 44. that neither the blessed have an end of their joyes nor the damned of their sufferings It is an Oracle of truth And they shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Matt. 25 Since therefore Christ is true in his promises he cannot be otherwise in his threats If you demand how can it be just to punish a fault without end which had a speedy end when it was a doing The blessed Bishop answers This might well be objected if the severe Judge weighed only deeds and not the hearts of men for the wicked therefore had an end in sinning because they had an end in living since they were resolved if it had been in their power to have lived alwaies that they might alwaies have sinned It is apparent they desire to live perpetually in sin who while they live never give over sinning Therefore it appertains to the great justice of the judge that they never want pain who in this life would never be without fault Here I would by all means have this observed This circumstance goes along with sin Not only to have sinned but also to desire to sin yet more justly is this desire punished with hell because God doth not only look upon sins committed but likewise the eagerness and longing to commit more as will appear by this example Imagine a man of thirty years old is adjudged to hell because he did not leave off sining had he lived fifty sixty seventy years he had continued so long his sinful course Nay if he had lived a hundred a thousand years he had still held on sining Yea if his life had been without end so likewise had been his sins Seeing then his desire to sin was so great as to be even eternal in desire deservedly is his punishment eternal Therefore as St. Gregory inculcates Let them never be without pain who in this life would never be without fault SECT 2. MOreover the damned do not expiate faults committed they do not lay aside that malice which begun with them during life for they have not so much grace of God as to repent That which followes is most dreadful and unexplicable The damned are so deprived of divine grace that for eternity none of them will ever say Have mercy on me O God none of them shall ever have that grace In which perticular they resemble much the Devils from whom no torments what ever shall be of force to squeez these words We have sinned spare us Hence one may rightly affirm In Hell are only Devils that is most obstinate and desperate enemies of God such as are not the devils alone but likewise all the damned And in this point the wicked man during life and the damned in torments are both a like neither of them being able with their own forces to recal their soul from sin In this case help from God is necessary which he never denies while we live albeit we lose his Grace a thousand times but withal he gives us this admonition Look to thy self lo now I pardon this fault which I shall not alwaies do I forewarn thee and covenant with thee while thy Soul is in the body the gates of mercy stand open for thee enter in but so soon as the soul is gone out of the body these gates shall be close shut This proceeding of God is most just For if the damned while he lived had asked pardon ten twenty thirty thousand times he might have obtained it But when death has once bereaved us of life it is in vaine to hope for any more pardon help or grace God made this agreement with us and added a thousand admonitions that we should not reject grace when it was offered nor mercy while we might find it But we resolved to embrace neither Grace is vanisht Mercy neglected we had a mind to be miserable we were determined to perish Therefore if we perish we may thank our selves we cut our own throats and refused to be friends of God and so by our own choice we never shall be Furthermore wicked actions are directly opposite to good to those everlasting pain is due to these eternal recompence For according to that Maxime of Phylosophy the same rule holds in contraries The perfection of beatitude is to be happy without end Then the accomplishment of torments in Hell is to be miserable for eternity Christ closes all his divine Sermons with this sentence Matt. c. 25. And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting For so St. Matt. testifies And it came to pass ch 26. when Jesus had ended all these words Behold our Lord concludes his exhortations with this clause of reward and pain everlasting he is equally just and merciful whence he hath decreed to his friends joy and to his enemies torment in the highest degree SECT 3. THese things I must confess are spoken with much congruity But do we yet dive to the bottome of the matter in debate For my own particular I imbrace with reverence that wise principle of St. Austin He is become worthy of eternal ill Lib. 21 de civit deâ— c. 21 who destroyed in himself that good which might have been eternal This is the very cause of everlasting torment the infinite malice of every mortal sin For being an infinite goodness is offended the offence discovers infinite malice which was bold to violate the supream Good with such temerity Sr. Thomas the Prince of Divines avoucheth that Sin is nothing else but an ill humane act To every mortal sin he ascribes a twofold malice The one an act differing from the rule of reason The other an injury done to God by contemning him Now this malice is no other then a voluntary aversion from God which deserves infinite pain because it refuseth an infinite good
Certainly every mortal sin carries with it a contempt of God as will appear by this example There is a Law enacted under pain of death in a City of Italy Let none wear Sword nor Daggar He that knows this Law and yet will carry Sword and Daggar either contemns the Magistrate or the Prince who made it God in like manner has published to the world Let none Steal none Lye none commit Adultery c. Nevertheless what ever the Law say this man Steals in the sight of God that Lyes and the other commits Adultery Is not this to contemn God He that violates Caesars edict sins against Caesar and he that despiseth Divine Laws despiseth God This is manifest out of Holy Writ The soul that shall sin Lev. 6.1 and contemning the Lord shall deny unto his Neighbour the thing delivered to his custody So in St. Austins opinion Sin is contemning an unchangeable Good to adhere to things subject to change Hence comes to light that infinite malice of sin For by how much the Majesty offended is greater by so much is the offence more grievous To affront a Noble man is grievous to offer an abuse to a Lord is more grievous and more yet to injure an Earle but much more a Prince and most of all a King or Emperour These degrees are observed amongst men to lay open the nature of injuries offered What injury is it then to contemn God who is a Law-giver of infinite Majesty Whence it comes to pass that the infinite malice of one mortal sin though in an unclean thought only wittingly consented to cannot be Cancelled by any humane actions what ever For if into one Scale of Divine justice all the merits of the most glorious Virgin-Mother and all other Blessed were cast and into the other side of the Ballance were put one only mortal sin this would outweigh them all so as for this they would never be able to make due satisfaction It is altogether dreadful to express that all holy actions of all the just are counterpoysed by one mortal sin This notwithstanding he will cease to admire who knows how to frame a right estimate of God and his immense Majesty It is an unspeakable temerity for a creature to contemn its Creatour St. Mark testifies ch 3. He shall be guilty of an eternal sin SECT 4. SO great therefore and infinite is the malice of one mortal sin that all acts of virtue joyned together cannot counterballance it unless the Soveraign judge be pleased gratiously to pardon it In which work Gods inexplicable liberallity appears who pardons one mans sin a thousand and a thousand times but under this condition that he sin no more or if he do that he do true pennance before he dye which the sinner often times disters and dyes indebted whereby he is guilty of an eternal sin Admirable to the purpose speaks St Austin When any one is put to death for some heinous crime do the lawes esteem that short space of his execution a sufficient punishment or rather his removeal for ever from the company of the living For as the Lawes of this City cannot recal to life one that is killed no more can he that is condemned to the second death be recalled to eternal life If a Magistrate take away from an offender a life which he gave not may not God with more reason do as much Seeing therefore the malice of a mortal sin is infinite it deserves also infinite punishment which forasmuch as it cannot be inflicted by way of intension as Schools teach it is requisite it be done by extension that is what sharpness of torment was not able to do let length of time recompence He will give fire and worms into their flesh Judith c. 16 ver 21. that they may be burnt and may feel for ever While we consider these things methinks we should be so disposed as they are who being guilty of frequent robberies cannot behold others executed for the same fault as they deserve to be without sighing It falls out sometimes that a person of good repute passes by the Gallows and secretly sobs within himself while he ruminates these particulars in his mind Lo these poor wretches which totter in the air as a scorn to others and to us an object of sadness even after death pay for faults committed in their life And what crimes they were hanged for some of them perchance if all their theivery were put together have not stoln above ten or twelve shillings Whereas thou who hast purloined some thousands of crowns walks at thy liberty clothed in Silk and Sattin and art honourably treated by all having perhaps been instrumental in their death which thy self deserved a hundred times more then they who filcht away trifles and hang for them thou having carried away bags of Gold and yet goest scot-free Take heed the Gods said the Ancients tread upon Wooll with a slow pace but in the end they recompense their slowness with sharpness of revenge In this manner must we employ our thoughts when we meditate on hell Alas how many mortal sins have I committed and yet feel no smart of burning How many fry in those flames of Hell and must fry for ever who are guilty of far fewer crimes then I and perhaps had commited but one deadly sin The Sun of Gods bounty yet shines upon me they whose sins were neither so many nor grievous as mine are buried in eternal darkness Take heed Gods vengeance creeps on with a slow but sure pace Thou stands upon a tickle point and dost thou not tremble a small matter will throw thee down albeit thou hast kept footing long yet a moment serves to turn up thy heels and then whither wilt thou fall An Abisse and Chaos of flames will bid thee welcome Take heed If thou stir up a finger thou fallest one small Feavour an Apoplexie or Palsey one slender prick with a Rapier or Pistol-bullet will send thee packing into Eternity If when thou fallest thou be a friend of God his Angels will bear thee up If otherwise the Devils will snatch thee away and hell fire will give thee entertainment St. Ignatius was of opinion that perchance many were condemned to Hell for one sole mortal sin either of Perjury desire of Revenge some Lacivious thought or some other way in thought word or deed We may here seriously reflect that many of the damned were men as well as we and amongst those many Christians who by Sacraments and Sermons by pious books and wholesome admonitions were induced to a vertuous life which perhaps for some time they continued even in great familiarity with God but by degrees growing tepid and remiss they fell into mortal sin and so by Gods just judgement were condemned to eternal flames O mortals Set your hearts cryes out the Prophet Aggaeus upon your waies c. 1. ve 5 SECT 5. SIgismund the Emperour as Aeneus Silvius relates demanded of Theorick Bishop of Colen
That herd of Goats shall then be of more loathsome scent the more immoderately they have here sought after Perfumes Some of your odoriferous smells are incentives to Gluttony some to Lust and certainly an eager desire of them is an argument of incontinency But to make short this kind of allurements which are perceived by the ears eyes and nostrils are either marks of Levity or Lasciviousness To become a slave to sensual delight above measure is no less then vanity or impurity Perfumes and pretious Oyntments have been prejudicial and destructive to many Muleasses King of Tuny's faught against his Son Amida for the recovery of his Kingdome but being worsted in the encounter and seeking by flight to save himself all besmeared with blood and dust was discovered by his persumes and brought into Captivity where his son with a hot penknife cut out both the Apples of his Eyes and blinded him A young Gallant richly annoynted went to render thanks to Vespatian the Emperour for a curtesy he had lately done him But the Emperour being sensible of the sweet scent he breathed began to be angry and frowning on him spoke sharply saying I would rather thou hadst stunk of Garlick Thus Caesar recalled his grant and the Gallant after a sound check was cashiered of his pretended Honour C. Plotinus Plancus being sent into banishment and for fear of death lying privately at Salernum was betrayed by his costly odours and so lost his life and furnisht his adversaries with an excuse for their cruel proceeding So true it is that perfumes are disgraceful and dangerous Here by the way we may please to observe that many things which we beleive to be mere trifles are lookt upon by God with a rigorous eye ch 3.24 Therefore as Esay foretold For sweet savour there shall be stink Forget not I pray this admonition of the Prophet Micheas I will shew thee O man what is good ch 6.8 And what our Lord requireth of thee verily to do judgement and to love mercy and to walk solicitous with thy God The fifth Torment is fire OF this fire admirably speaks Isidorus Pelusiota Epist 47 You may be pleased to take notice my friend that none can lye hid from that All-seeing and watchful eye no not in the most secret retreat if you do any thing amiss For all things are naked and open to him though they seem to be never so private and out of sight Wherefore such as sin and do not true pennance shall be plunged in certain perpetual floods boyling with dreadful fire whose streams are no other then flames prepared for torment Let us therefore fear the Majesty of God This fire alas may not with any revolution of years nor as St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks with any numberless number of ages be extinguisht What way soever you turn all is Fire Pitch Brimstone Anger and Wrath of our Lord. Where you may note amongst our fires a main difference that of the Thunderbolt being more active then our usual fire and that eternal devouring fire of hell more powerful then either Now let me demand with Esay c. 33.14 Which of you can dwell with devouring fire which of you shall dwell with everlasting heats What fiery Salt-Sea though it be hot night and day yet in the year it hath its intermission from heat several dayes when it remains quiet and free from burning In Hell after an hundred a thousand yea ten thousand years are past Tom. 9. trac 5. de met not one day nor minute of respite will be allowed He saith St. Austin who hath a sound consideration and beleives what God hath revealed fears more eternal fire then the Sword of any Tyrant though never so barbarous He dreads more perpetual death then any death here whatever How many houres then how many moneths or years must those Traitours to God abide in that fire Neither hours dayes nor years may be numbred the hours shall be eternal the dayes and moneth eternal the years and fire shall be eternal Why will God reject for ever Psa 76. He will reject for ever The triumpher in Israel will not spare 1. Kings 15.29 and he will not be turned with repentance He that is afraid of these things saith St. Bernard bewares of them he that sleights them slips into them The like advice is instilled by Climacus Let the memory of eternal fire sleep with thee every night Grad 7. The sixth Torment is the Worm of Conscience A Guilty Conscience though but for a day good Lord what a punishment is it What then will it be when it lasts for ever The conscience of the damned is throughly wounded which makes it ever afflicted alwaies in despair without comfort Pathetically writes St. Lib. 5. de Isid ch 12. Bernard of this point Amongst so great a multitude of spectators no ones eye will be more troublesome then every one 's to himself There is no sight either in Heaven or Earth which the dark some conscience would rather avoid but cannot Darkness is not covered from its self it beholds it self that can discover nothing else The works of darkness follow them they can hide themselves no where from darkness no not in darkness it self This is the worm that dyeth not the remembrance of things past which being once cast into or rather bred in the soul by sin sticks so fast that henceforth it can never be pluckt away It doth not cease to gnaw the conscience wherewith being fed as with inconsumptive food it preserves its life perpetually Here the truth of those words will experimentally appear I will reprove thee and set it against thy face In Hell are no Clocks Psal 49 nor Stars to guide Clocks by no Almanacks nor Kalendars no means there to know any difference of times Ecclesiastes affirms Neither work nor reason nor wisdome nor knowledge shall be in Hell ch 9. ver 10. whither thou dost hasten Here only the Clock of Conscience is heard but much out of order It is irksome to one that is sick and cannot sleep to hear no Clock nor to be able to know how the time passeth Hence one quarter seems as long as an hour and an hour as long as a whole night and yet after six or seven hours are gone the little birds with chirping melody welcome in the morning the Sun by degrees rises out of his dayly tomb the feaverish heat remits and a gentle slumber seises on the temples all things that by approaching night grew worse by this time are become more mild Anon some will come in to ask how the sick man doth and will not only cheer him up with comfortable words but also with other necessaries Nothing of all these O my God! is to be found in Hell no Day no Sun no Dew no Morning no Birds but Devils no refreshment not so much as a drop of water there is perpetual darkness everlasting dolours and butchery of Conscience without end
miserable wretches shall fry in eternal flames for Eternity and longer In body they shall be tormented by fire and in spirit by the worm of Conscience There shall be pain intollerable horrible fear and stink incomparable death both of soul and body without hope either of pardon or mercy And yet shall they so dye as that they shall alwaies live and so live as that they shall ever dye Thus the soul of a sinner is either in hell tormented for sins or for good works placed in Paradise Now therefore let us choose one of the two either to be for ever tormented with the wicked or to rejoyce with Saints perpetually For good and evil life and death are set before us that we may stretch forth our hand to which we choose If pains do not terrify us at least let rewards invite us These things we are tought by Faith which yet as we declared before we either permit to degenerate into drowsness and sloath or wholly to perish Peter Barocius Lib. 2. de ratione bene moriendi Bishop of Padua recounts how a certain man famous for learning appeared after death to one of his intimate friends and spoke to him in this manner At the hour of Death in matters of Faith I was shamefully deceived by the Devil In which condition death found me carried me away and presented me to the judge by whom I was commanded to depart into flames Which though they be excessive yet should I deem them tollerable if after a thousand thousand years they were to have an end But they are eternal and so sharp as the like was never seen in this world Accursed be that knowledge which threw me headlong into so great misery After he had spoken thus he disappeared but his surviveing friend astonisht at the relation and especially strook with his friends eternal damnation consulted with his best friends what advice were most profitable for him in this case He became a new man and dyed holily The Conclusion THerefore St. Psal 68. Austin discoursed well Who saith he would not drink off a cup of temporal tribulation for fear of hell fire And who would not despise the sweetness of worldly pleasure out of love to the delights of everlasting life a greater fear makes us contemn smaller matters and a greater longing after Eternity makes us loath all temporal things As much saith St. Chrysostome as a grain of Sand Tom. 4. hom 11 in ep ad titum or a drop comes short of the immense abiss so far doth this present life differ from eternal and never ending treasures The things we have we do not truly possess we only make use of them and that improperly too T is vertue alone which will bear us company in our journey hence T is vertue alone which hath admittance into everlasting life Let us then at length open our eyes and quite extinguish all appetite to worldly wealth that all our desire may be placed on eternal But alas how great want of consideration is to be found amongst men how great blindness we wrangle for a half penny and make a laughter and jest on 't to lose Heaven Thus we are infected with the ordinary contagion of madness and take pleasure to perish for company Dost thou not blush saith St. Chrysostome to be so wedded to things present When wilt thou part with thy youth toyes and lay a side thy wonted folly What ever is here troublesome is of small continuance what is delightful there is everlasting Remove therefore thy mind from transitory and fading goods and settle it on better and eternal eagerly thirst after Heaven that thou maiest enjoy delights to come Is not reward of force to invite thee at least let fear of torment keep thee in awe Those punishments therefore saith Valerianus ought to have the first place in our thoughts where man lives while the pain lasts where neither pains are wanting to the body nor the body to pains To the like intent writes St. Chrysostome If the Ninivites had not been afraid of destruction Tom. 2. in epist 1. ad Thess they had bin destroyed If in the time of Noe they had feared the deluge they had not been drowned If the Sodomites had dreaded the fire they had not been burned It is a great misery to contemn menaces Nothing is so profitable as frequently to treat of hell speak of it every day that you may never fall into it A soul solicitous to escape hell cannot easily commit sin None of those who have a lively remembrance of hell will fall into it as none who sleight hell will escape it A certain man as Iohn Moscus relates came to Alexander Prat. spur c. 141. a venerable person who governed the Monastery of Abbot Gerasimus and said unto him Father I have a design to flit from my old habitation because the unpleasant situation of it is irksome to me To whom the good old man spoke in this manner Son this is a manifest sign you never consider with attention either the joyes of heaven or the pains of hell for if you did seriously weigh these things in your mind beleive me you would find no fault with your old habitation This was an Oracle of truth for who ever meditates attentively on heaven or hell either is not sensible of difficulty though never so great or if he be he makes his benefit of it and is most ready to undergo greater hardships so he may avoid eternal pains Of this temper was Abbot Olympius as Clymacus testifies who being asked how he could abide to live in such a Cave how he could endure such excessive heats or pass so many daies amongst whole swarms of gnats and flies he returned this answer I suffer these things willingly that I may be freed from future torments I am content to be bitten with gnats because I am afraid of the worm that never dyes heat is welcome to me in regard I stand in fear of fire everlasting for those sufferings pass away with time and will quickly have an end but these are without end and continue for eternity Wherefore these things deserve our dayly consideration and ought to be ruminated when our thoughts are most active As Physick is taken by way of prevention even when the body is well in health so likewise must our soul be prepared with these considerations to withstand vice I confess these thoughts are somewhat bitter but they are wholesome too they do not become familiar upon a suddain but by degrees time place and practise will nourish and bring them to maturity All idleness is a sworn enemy unto them which as it is pernitious to vertue so it opens an easy passage to let in all kind of vices Go too then c. 27. ver 4. who ever thou be and provide in time for thy own salvation Give ear to the Prophesy of Ecclesiasticus If thou hold not thy self instantly in the fear of our Lord thy house shall quickly be subverted It is now in thy choice whether thou wilt reign or perish A soft bed seldome makes a Souldier more valiant remember that beatitude is a daughter of labour and vertue Let none saith St. Tom. 10 ser 60. de tem Austin he ashamed to do pennance who was not ashamed to commit sin but let him strive without delay to renew himself by good works that he may be owned for a child by his father least being excluded from the Wedding feast and shut out from eternal bliss he have his hands and feet bound and be cast into exteriour darkness Excellently said Turtullian The ceasing from sin is the root of pardon the meditation of hell is the begining of salvation seeing hell abounds with all evil it wants chiefly that good which is the best amidst evils an end of Torment An End of this Treatise But where art thou O end of eternal Torments
and all that was carelesly omitted Whence they will condemn themselves of wicked folly each ones Conscience casting sloth in their teeth will say How often shouldst thou have prayed when thy time passed in sleep or play Thy prayers were seldom sluggish and drowsie ones thou payest for it now How often shouldst thou have fasted when thou chose rather to feast then obey but now chou payest for it How often without prejudice to thy estate mightest thou have given alms when thou was more addicted to avarice then mercy thou suffers for it now How often was thou warned how often craved to pardon thine enemies and like a good christian forget injuries but thou wouldest not thou art punished for it now How often amidst crosses was patience recommended to thee but thou refuse to be patient therefore thou art now chastised How often mightest thou have practised humility and charity which needed but a good will no labour no running sweat or starving was required here this might have been done without whipping hair-cloth or other austerity but thou refused thou art now justly scourged How often was reason brought to invite to draw thee to the right use of Sacraments but thou wouldest not be perswaded to it suffer hardly Opportunity was never wanting to thee thou alwayes to it thou hadst power but wouldest not pay now pay for thy wickedness Lo here how many ways thou hast multiplyed sins when it had been far more easie to have practised vertue then vice See miserable wretch how with sport and pastinâ—e thou hast lost a Kingdome it was in thy power to have been happy for ever if thou wouldest a short and easie labour would have purchased a blessed immortality which thou refused to undergo See fool how for a filthy and fading pleasure thou hast cast away immense delights It appears now thy flesh was dearer to thee then heaven Doest thou perceive now what pleasures thou pursued I foretold thee I warned thee I frequently checkt thee But all in vain I did nothing but loose my labour I am now meet with thee when all hope is fled from thee thy folly is justly recompensed with pain Open thine eyes thou sordid slave to behold how thou hast lost all for wallowing in impurity but a moment Thou art now remote from the honours treasures and delights of the blessed which 't is impossible for thee ever to attain Thy lust has plunged thee into this abyss of torments thy incontinency has drawn upon thee these unquenchable flames that merry and short madness of thine is waited on by eternal mourning Dost thou deplore the privation of Paradise thou hast deprived thy self Dost thou bewail the joys of heaven were neglected thou didst neglect them Dost thou lament that heaven gates are shut thou didst shut them against thy self At this very instant thou mightst have been most happy but happy thou wouldst not be It was easie to have merited heaven but delays and careless negligence have brought thee hither blind and mad as thou art whence thou mayst not go out for eternity Here is no freedom no salvation despair a hundred a thousand times despair eternally dye eternally yet thou canst never meet with death after infinite ages Thou art cast away from the face of God because thou averted thy self from him Thou perishest by no ones fault but thine own perish for ever Such Sermons as these the Conscience makes but too late all hope is turned into despair A timely pennance is so efficacious that it blots out all sins and punishment for sins forgiven or at least diminisheth it besides it augments the favour of God For this reason that Angel of the desert St. John instiled this one thing into the ears of those that resorted to him Do pennance for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 3. Do pennance Pennance in hell has none of these effects it washeth not away the least sin it takes off no pain nor restores any of Gods grace They are enemies to God who first begin there to do pennance they obtain nothing they are wise when it is too late All these particulars those banisht souls from heaven know well hence it is their worm dyeth not They behold as in a table their faults committed they behold them and have a horror of them Their ridiculous vanity their superfluity in apparel and all their vain glory they utterly detest their rash judgments and envy Their base covetousness and sordid luxury they most furiously curse They see unhappy that they are immense herps of lascivious thoughts plainly before their eyes The foulness of intemperance is abominable to them the Lethergy of sloth the fallacy of voluptuousness the blandishments of impure love they execrate but all this comes too late They cry out with most bitter but fruitless moan All those things are passed away as a shaddow but in our naughtiness we are consumed Wisdom c. 5. It was in our power to avoid things forbidden and perform things commanded but we would not This will be the canticle of the conscience for ever Their worm dieth not SECT 4. THe third cause which racks the Conscience in hell is the contemning Gods grace Job c. 29.2.6 Job made a wise wish when he said Who will grant me that I may be according to the former moneths when I washed my feet with butter and the rock powered me rivers of oyl Job 29.2.6 It is scarce credible how much it gauls to be tumbled down from the height of plenty to the ebb of poverty The damned know well that formerly they rowed in abundance They had right to heaven they might if they would have inherited that blessed Kingdome They remember the butter of divine grace flowed plentifully to them wherein they might have bathed themselves but they refused it They apprehend most lively that rivers of oyl from the rock and fountains of divine love and mercy were streamed upon them by Christ all which through their own fault they neglected Now they cry out but in vain Who will grant us that we may be according to the former months when we washed or might wash our feet with butter and the rock Christ powered out rivers of oyl of his precious blood now neither one drop of oyl nor butter runs any more The fountain of Gods mercy is dried up the rivers of divine grace stream not at all The blood of the heavenly Lamb was shed in vain for us the pains and death of Christ avail us nothing all done for us is bootless alas we are utterly undone This will rent asunder the hearts of the damned that with slight labour with a resolute will they might have won heaven but would not that grace offered them a thousand times they a thousand times rejected Hence the wretches will furiously rage against themselves and will incessantly sing to themselves this doleful song O time pretious above measure O days O hours estimable above gold whither are you gone never to return We blind
and senseless with eyes and ears shut loosed the reins to lust and by joint example drew one another to destruction Hither unhappy that we are we posted amain and despâ—sing all admonition ran upon death alas death eternal What good do we reap now from all that the deceitful world fobb'd us with the memory of pleasures past is worse then death to us all delight is gone and quite vanisht away which though we might have enjoyed for some ages what had those joys been to these torments Alas we leaped only at a shadow of bitter pleasure Who was it that did so cruelly bewitch us O that we had but once a year seriously meditated on eternity O that we had now but one day one sole hour at our own disposal But O these wishes are in vain we are utterly undone all our hope is turned into despair Accursed be the day in which we were born accursed be God by whom we were created Here I stop my pen and send back these impious words thither from whence they came Let him be wise and beware in time whoever desires to escape this dreadful butchery of conscience SECT 5. IT were incredible if our eyes were not witnesses how industrious and witty how attentive and serious how watchful and quick-sighted how knowing and wary we are in amassing together things of this world When affairs of the body are to be looked after then it is we are wise careful and laborious here is the center of our lives and actions Behold I pray how exquisitely some have their Garments Embroydered see what artificial pictures edifices and statues others possess look upon that fine linnen which many wear for whiteness like snow for thinness equal to the spiders web look upon those master-pieces of art clocks musick with other forreign merchandise O how acute and unfatigable are we in raising works of handy-craft to perfection in heaping up wealth in dispatching worldly business and attaining honour When as God knows all these things are fading transitory and pass away in a moment Contrary-wise when any thing is to be done for heaven good Lord how dull and stupid how slothful and heedless how frosen and drowsie are we In this business alone we go coldly to work we languish we loyter we lay us down by the way T. Kem. l. 3 c. 3. It was most truly spoken For a little Prebend a long journey is undertaken for everlasting life many will scarce once lift a foot from the ground Here we are all as if we were struck with a palsie we snort and the devil stands centinel But when the soul once awakes indeed the conscience will no longer be lulled a sleep it will pinch gnaw vex and torture for eternity Their Worm dyeth not This Worm is fed with unexplicable dolours with sorrow void of all comfort The damned grieve for the loss of beatitude without hope of ever repairing that immense damage they think without ceasing it was their own folly drowned them in that Ocean of sadness neither will it ever be in their power to divert their fancy from that dismal thought to any other that may exhilerate them St. Bernard did contemplate these things attentively Lib. â— deâ— coâ—fiâ— c. 12. What is so painful saith he as always to have a mind of that which you shall never compass and always to loath that you shall ever have The damned shall for ever covet that which they shall never obtain and what they utterly dislike they must endure eternally Amongst so great a multitude of spectatours no ones eye will be more troublesome then every one 's to himself There is no sight either in heaven or earth which the darksome conscience would rather avoid but cannot Darkness is not covered from it self it beholds it self that can discover nothing else The works of darkness follow them they can hide themselves no where from darkness no not in darkness it self Here is the worm that dyeth not the remembrance of things past which being once cast into or rather bred in the soul by sin sticks so fast that henceforth it can never be pluckt away It doth not cease to gnaw the conscience wherewith being fed as with inconsumptive food it preserves its life perpetually I tremble at this gnawing worm Mat. 2â— and living death I tremble for fear of falling into the hands of living death and dying life Therefore while the soul endures the memory endures but what an one stained with sins rough with crimes swoln with vanity evergrown and neglected through contempt All which though they have gone before yet are they not passed they have passed from the hand to the mind That which is done cannot be undone wherefore though the doing was in time yet the having been done remains for ever that doth not pass away with time which goes away beyond all time It is therefore necessary that should torment for ever which thou shall ever remember to have done amiss Hitherto St. Bernard SECT 6. ADivine and Suffragan Bishop of St. Th Can Dominicks Order a faithful writer of the History of his time relates a strange passage in this manner A Bishop there was in in Germany of Princely race from which by his life and means he did degenerate This same man at first was somewhat bashful in gapeing after gold and in giving way to secret venery afterwards he proceeded further so as not careing to amend his life he loosed the reins to things forbidden and freely abandoned him self to rapine and luxury God checked him sundry ways one while by sickness another while by other calamities inviting him to reform his life In fine as he led a debaucht life so he took a miserable end At that very time Conrade Bishop of Hildeâ—heim was got out a bed to go to Mattins Hildemensis which ended he betook himself to his study to prepare for a Sermon next day Here being for some space in an ecstasy he thought he saw a Bishop with a Mitre on his head but with his face covered hurried away to judgment Presently his accusers laid to his charge that he was chiefly infamous for rapine and guilty of lust Here the Judg spoke to some of his attendance Examine his cause and give sentence They did so and forthwith the Executioners took away from the condemned Person his Mitre Ring and other Ornaments which they cast at the feet of the supream Judg. The attends rise up and as they go away each one for a conclusion of their Judgment says Therefore while we have time Paul Galaâ— c 6. vs 10. let us work good to all These things the foresaid Bishop beheld who after he came to himself found his head busied with enquiring what Bishop it might be which died at that time When lo one weeping at the Gate declares how his Master whom he named coming last evening ino the next village was suddainly dead Conrade at this lamentable accident fetcht a deep sigh resolving with tears
callest stench would smell like balsome these moans would be harmonious musick that pain thou speakest of would prove a play-game it is a paradise indeed thou lookest on as a hell For if it be troublesome to converse with a few who hate thee what may be imagined more grievous then to abide there where no one loves another but every ones breast boyles with hatred towards each other These fashions are in request in Satans Court all burn with such deadly hatred that if it were in their power they would tear one another peice-meal with their teeth For these inmates of hell extreamly abhor the image of God both in themselves and others yea as they have an excessive spleen against God so they have a tooth against every thing that resembles him How cumberson then is it to live amongst such domesticks as these Amongst this accursed crue the eyes shall be chiefly tormented with the presence of them who have any way been the cause of their condemnation whether they be parents or wife or children or friends or other companions in sin amongst whom the devils are not to be reckoned in the last place who by the judgment of God as Divines affirm shall be appointed to torment men that they may find by experience to what tyrants they submitted themselves Never to be able to rid themselves of this society is a far greater torment then to be cast into a ditchful of snakes without ever being released thence or to be continually stung by â—hose poysonous creatures and never killed by them You would easily imagine this unsociable company might be of force sufficient to make us eschesh the wicked meetings of drunkards gamesters perjured persons and lascivious talkers whose vices often stick close to such as communicate with them especially being we ought to beware lest we hurt others by our bad example Christ makes this publick proclamation to the world Matth. 18. Wo be to the world for scandals he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me it is expedient for him that a Milstone be hanged about his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea Wo be to the world for scandals Wo be to that man by whom scandal cometh Sins of ill example which we call scandals bring with them hot service in Lucifers kingdom Therefore Eccles 7. It is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of banketting for in that the end of all men is signified and he that liveth thinketh what shall be It behooves every one to look to himself while he hath time All men have two ways to enter into eternity out of which there is no way left to return Hast thou made thy entry into heaven fear not thou shalt never be thrust out again Hath hell taken possession of thee rest assured no door no nor so much as a chink will ever afford thee passage thence thou art now become a Citizen thou hast taken house-room thou hast settled thy abode here thou must dwel eternally Thou knowest well that warning of Ecclesiastes ch 11. If the Tree shall fall to the South or to the North in what place soever it shall fall there shall it be CHAP. IX The Eighth Torment of Eternity in Hell is Despair THe antient Thebans mervailed that the common-wealth of the Lacedaemonians did so flourish that their Citizens were kept in such order as vices were seldom heard of amongst them Hereupon they sent Philonius the Philosopher to pry into their proceedings and to bring back in writing what he observed either concerning their laws or government Philonius having curiously marked all particulars returned to Thebes where being to give an account of his Embassy in publick he laid open upon the Theatre rods snares whips racks axes wheels and gibbets then after some time of silence he broke forth into these words Behold quoth he and become eye-witnesses you Theban Citizens what keeps the Lacedaemonians in order no one offends amongst them who is not forthwith chastised vertue goes not without reward nor vice free from punishment hence it is their manners are better then ours God the worlds law-giver with admirable wisdom performs his part and that orderly discipline may not go to wrack he does not threaten gibbets racks nor wheels but hell fire which burns for ever Nevertheless such is mans impiety the world dares stil transgress the laws of God what I pray would not mans boldness attempt if they were only punishable for an hour or a day or to be imprisoned for a year or two To all such as swerve from Gods commands we know thraldom without end pains eternal are decreed and yet which cannot be spoken without wonder transgressors of divine laws are Numberless VVhence I beseech you doth this incredible temerity proceed The fear of God is not before their eyes Psalm 13. because the mercy of God so often as men offend hinders him from throwing down Thunder-bolts upon the offenders therefore they become audacious above measure whence many void of fear trample the ordinations of Heaven under foot and loose the reins to wickedness forbidden A deceitful hope sooths many up and leads them insensibly into the gulf of despair which is that torment of eternity we now treat of SECT 1. HOpe in this world is an admirable lenitive for all sorts of affliction and miseries whatever it may fitly be termed a Soveraign oyntment that appeases all our aggrievances Hope chiefly regards profit and the end though tears trickle down abundantly yet they are easily wiped away with this spunge Those noble champions of Christ those invincible Martyrs though they suffered much yet were they much comforted with the fruits of patience The like solace are they partakers of to speak with St. Bernard who do good and suffer evil It happens sometimes that one purchases a Farm for which he pays many thousand crowns and yet for all that says he doth not repent him of his bargain because all his charges will in time come back again with interest Their torments in hell are exceedingly increased for that their sufferings bring them in no profit whereas with us one small tear so it be serious is able to wash away many heinous offences it is not so with them for albeit their pains be never so grievous yet do they not expiat one venial sin nor deserve so much as a drop of water How heavy a burden is it for pesants and labourers to work without wages So is all toyl without hope of recompence In this manner slaves who labour for their masters not themselves esteem their pains troublesome because fruitless yet they may receive comfort from the end of their labours which death brings to a period This is a benefit wholly denyed to those slaves in hell who shall seek for death Apoc c. 9. Serm. 112. and shall not find it they shall desire to dye and death shall fly from them The wicked says S. Austin