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
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
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
receive a foretast of hell before they part with this life So those of Sodom and Gomorrah had a tryal of Hell Hom. 4. Epist ad Rom. before they came thither Patly spoke St. Chrysostome When mention is made of Hell if thou want faith and scoff at it call to mind the burning of Sodom For we have beheld we have beheld I say even in this life a representation of Hell in that conflagration of Sodom as they can testify who have travelled to those places and bin eye witnesses of Divine indignation thundred down from Heaven Imagine how grievous that offence was which brought hell upon them ere they went down into Hell The wonderful and almost incredible effects of the Plague and Lightning who is of sufficient ability to declare and yet much more exceeding all expression is that Plague and Lightning of sin which consumes and layes all wast Sin of all evils is the greatest and only evil it is worse then Death then Hell then any punishment because it is the source from whence all punishment proceeds Susanna being tempted to prostitute her Chastity Daniel ch 13. broke forth into this gallant expression If I shall do this it is death to me and if I do it not I shall not escape your hands What dost thou say woman mark well thy words For if thou do not consent to the Adulterers thou shalt dye if thou do consent thou shalt escape death Nevertheless she stands to what she said If I shall do this it is death to me The chast Matron knew well there was another death besides that of the body a perpetual an Eternal death James 1. in comparison whereof bodily death deserves not the name of death That of the Apostle is most certain Sin when it is consummate ingendreth death Daniel ch 13. Hereupon Susanna advanceth her resolution to the height It is better for me without the act to fall into your hands then to sin in the sight of our Lord. Learn of this noble Matron O Christians rather to lose the life of the body then the grace of God SECT 3. TAke now our third assertion Whoever sins mortally doth wilfully draw upon himself all kind of miseries and calamities Because sin is the principal yea the sole and only Origen of them all St. Cyprian in writing exhorts Donatus to climb up to the top of the Mountain of sublime judgement and thence to take a view of the Seas infested with Pyrates and journeys by Land beset with Robbers Thieves and Menslayers in great aboundance every where Cities rent a sunder with dissentions and whole Kingdomes over-run by wars so as no place may be found free from calamities which have their rise from sin Sin is the firebrand and root of all misery Most truly said St. Hom. 5. ad pop Chrysostome The several names of calamities are bare names to them that discourse aright that alone is calamity indeed to offend God He hath too mean a conceit of God who dares prefer before him any Lucre or base delight Were there some other deity as amiable rich liberal and holy which we valued more then God our folly might have some colour of excuse but since we esteem most vile trash and set more by a few drops then the whole Ocean and put an higher price on creatures then the Creatour of them is not this down right madness manifest impiety the worst of evils the seminary of all calamities But what dare not fool-hardy mortals attempt Even Fables themselves discover unto us mans temerity Gyants have a design against Heaven Hercules invades Hell Jason with his fellowes dives into the Bowels of the Sea Daedalus takes his flight through the air This Lesson we learn from Fictions The proud like Gyants assail Heaven which is exposed only as a conquest for humility Such as despise God make hell but a business of langhter covetous persons Iason like hoyse Sails in pursuit of the Golden Fleece Ambitious men as Daedalus did his wings open their jaws to every breath of vain glory Bold mortals stoutly undertake any enterprize which leads them by the hand to forbidden wickedness And whence I pray proceeds Discord Strife War and utter ruine but from sin alone All the health comliness and strength which is in mans body by means of sin becomes a prey to sickness and to death This made the Royal Prophet exclaim Psal 37. There is â—ealth in my flesh my bones have no peace at the face of my sins This likewise moved our Heavenly Physitian to arm us against all Maladies with this wholesome document Now sin no more least some thing worse happen to thee Pestilence and all sorts of diseases made their entrance into the world by the Portal of sin Turn over the History of Kings and you shall manifestly observe Pride brought them under the lash read Ezechiel and you may find Rapine chastised as well as Luxury by the Prophet Ioels testimony No place wants examples of divine justice What misery did sin involve the Kings of Israel in what the Corites Sodomites Dathan and Abiran with multitudes of the Jewish race and infinite others How many hundred thousands how many millions of men hath sin bereaved of life by Famine Plague Warr Fire Water and other untimely means They have perished for their iniquity Psa 72. Because they that are malignant shall be cast out So unto all men death did pass by sin that life is no beter then a continual death This truth receives light from the rehearsal of some of those many instruments of death invented to take away life Wherefore are Prisons in the world wherefore have we stocks Pillories Shackles Bolts Halters Racks Scourges Grid-irons Wheels Scorpions Frying-pans Iron-combs Gallows and such like provision had not these a begining to revenge sin committed or were they not found out by such as were resolved to do amiss by tyrannizing over the innocent I must needs acknowledge the Variety of Punishments to be great but far greater is the diversity of crimes which deserve punishment Proteus never put on so many several faces nor Empedocles changes nor Pythagoras trasmigrations nor Chaldeans varieties nor Evantius shapes as sin doth different forms and representations Now as honesty and innocency of life elevate a man above the ordinary strain so lewdness and impiety cast him down below the meanest of men and rank him amongst bruite beasts Is he worthy the name of a man who for ravenousness contends with the Wolf who by anger resembles the dog by Pride the Peacock by Avarice the Toad by Levitv the Sparrow by subtilty the Fox by Greediness the Vulture by Fury the Lion by Fearfulness the Heart by Laciviousness the Goat Hence King David gave unto Snakes and Asps the Epithete of angry and of foolish to Mules Hieremy termed Horses Adulterers Ezechiel called Pharao a Dragon St. Iohn likened the Pharasees to a brood of Vipers Christ branded the shameless with the name of Dogs
above all things which is the Virgin that bore thee and which did never sin if I say she had sinned mortally and had dyed without due contrition thou art such a friend of Justice that her soul could never have arrived in Heaven but must have been with us adjudged to hell The nature of one mortal sin is wonderful to amazement Pliny admires Silver Gold and Brass sealed up in a bag can be melted with Lightning and both seal and bag remain untoucht Much more worthy admiration it is that the soul can be so murthered by the secret admission of one deadly sin as thereby to become a prey to eternal death without ever dying or being destroyed Hom. 4. ad Pop. St. Chrysostome gives this prudent admonition Brethren be not children in your understanding but as to malice become little ones for it is a childish fear to fear death as children do who are afraid of Vizards and not of fire to which they apply their hand after the same manner we stand in fear of death which is but a contemptible bug-bear and fear not sin which indeed ought to be feared Because it robs us of all Gods grace makes us lyable to all sorts of miseries and guilty of eternal Flames Thus much concerning our third assertion SECT 4. THe fourth assertion is Who ever sins mortally loseth Heaven for all Eternity Sin shuts against us the gate of Heaven the Empyrial Heaven which is adorned with all delight which is for situation most sublime for extent most ample and in every respect most compleat in a word the worlds wonder from this heaven doth only deadly sin debar us We acknowledge the Soveraign Kings decree promulgated by St. Paul Eph. 5. No Fornicator or Unclean or covetous person which is the service of Idols hath inheritance in the Kingdome of Christ and of God This loss is not the last though it be the worst For in case no other harm proceeded from sin yet this alone were abundantly enough and too too great to be for ever excluded from the joyes of Heaven We may mention this damage t is true yet are we unable to make a right estimate of it well said St. Austin If it were in our power brethren Psa 49. to hinder the coming of the day of judgement yet in my opinion we ought not to lead a wicked life Suppose then the fire of divine judgement should afflict no body but each one might swim in what pleasures he listed for ever notwithstanding if they were separated from the face of God and never must enjoy the sight of their Creatour their loss would be infinite their punishment immense so as to speak with St. Austin they would have cause for all eternity to bewail their condition though they were not guilty of sin Amand. hoâ— sap Lib. 1. ch 4. That expression seems to have been framed amongst Rhetoricians Who will furnish me with Parchment as large as the heavens who will provide me of Quills which for number should equal the leaves of the trees Who will give me a Sea of Ink that I may write down the harms which proceed from mortal sin yet this is no exaggaration for though there were so many Quils so much Parchment and Ink to write with still it would go beyond the art of man to summ up what damage accrues to man by sin since it is eternal Truth it self proclaims to the world It were good for him Mart. 26 if that man had not been born Since God hath quite blotted out his image in Heaven and that most deservedly in regard of that infinite affront offered to so Soveraign a Majesty which is so much more notorious by how much the good preferred before God is of less value But all treasure delight and Honour are infinitely below God therefore the wrong done to God is infinite and consequently the punishment must be proportionable Is not he much obleiged to the giver who bestows on him gratis an hundred Marks in Gold Now our Tongue or Eyes alone which God hath freely gigen us are infinitely more worth then a thousand Marks in Gold to say nothing thing of our Soul and Body which are far more estimable then a thousand worlds Giles one of St. Francis his companions Catechising an ignorant person said A certain man wanted Hands Feet and Eyes to whom one of his friends spoke in this manner My friend if one should restore thee both Hands Feet and Eyes what requital wouldst thou make him I would quoth he become his servant all the dayes of my life Well then replyed Giles who gave thee Hands Feet Eyes Tongue Ears Soul and Body together with the good thou injoyest God without doubt If then thou wouldst be his servant that only restored some few Limbs what is it meet thou shouldst do for God who gave thee all Tell me now what a base part it is to offend him with thine eyes that bestowed them on thee or to affront God by word or deed who framed both tongue and hands for thee Hence ariseth in us an infinite obligation to serve God from which if we swerve by transgression both fault and punishment must needs be infinite Because according to St. Bernard what was short in time or action was certainly long in the setled resolution of the will Now as he is justly condemned that wilfully persists in vice so is he blame-worthy that strives not to better himself in vertue In like manner he who dies in sin hath a living death in eternal pain wherein he must abide for ever that he may suffer torment for ever but never be consumed Alas one merry moment of nimble winged time we prefer before treasures of glory and delights eternal we lose a needle and are sorry for the loss Heaven is snatcht from us and we laugh at it We know full well that upon every greivous crime an happy or wretched eternity depends the privation of that and possession of this is due to every great offence Thus much we know and yet sin boldly especially while we are not certain of one minute of life For who I pray after sin committed hath so much as one sole moment sure to do pennance in Nevertheless in a business of huge consequence and such extreme uncertainty we expose our eternal weal to manifest hazard of eternal wo so freely do we exchange everlasting glory for endless torments and in effect fools as we are demonstrate our hatred to Heaven For Heaven he hates who by contempt or carelesness intangles his soul with sin A Lacedemonian saies Plutarch made a vow to throw himself headlong from the Summit of Lucas But when he beheld the dreadful height of the Rock he was strook with horrour and altered his purpose Afterwards being upbraided for want of courage he answered I did not imagine that for performance of my vow I needed a greater vow Who ever designs to execute some difficult exployt must take upon him a resolution
sutable to the exploit But alas what comparison betwixt this precipe from a high Mountain to casting ones self headlong from Heaven to Hell How then do so many throw themselves down from the fruition of bliss to thraldome amongst Devils They shut their eyes ere they attempt to do so they consider not the infinite malice of sin nor the inexplicable windings of eternity They jogg on towards Hell blindfolded He that is not pleased with his own blindness endeavours by all means possible to escape this downfal and chooses rather to undergo what ever happens then to be cast into that abisse whence there is no redemption SECT 5. OUr fifth assertion is Who ever commits a mortal sin throws himself into Hell fire for ever Fire everlasting is an unexplicable punishment of sin Were there no other mischief in sin this assuredly would be an abridgement of all evils The reward of sin is death eternal The soul that shall sin Ezechi ch 18. the same shall dye the justice of the just shall be upon him and the impiety of the impious shall be upon him Admirable is St. Psal 49. Austins discourse How great a punishment is it only to be deprived of the sight of God Such as have not tasted of that sweetness if they do not desire to see the face of God let them at least be afraid of fire those who are not invited with reward may be terrified with torments If what God promiseth seem to thee of small account tremble at what he threatens The sweetness of his presence is offered to thee and thou art not changed nor moved nor sighest after nor desirest it Thou still huggest thine own sins and the delights of thy flesh Thou heapest to thy self straw and fire will come upon thee Fire will burn in his sight That fire will not be like thine into which notwithstanding if thou wert compelled to thrust thy hand thou would rather do any thing then that If he that compels thee should say Either sign this wrighting against the life of thy Father and Children or thrust thy hand into thy own fire thou wouldst obey him rather then burn thy hand or any member of thy body which could not abide in pain forever Thy enemy therefore threatens a sleight evil and thou dost evil God threatens eternal evil and wilt thou not do good What trouble soever the Devil causeth in our souls it is by means of sin Hence our passions rebel and we are molested with fear suspicion inconstancy grief anxiety despair whereby mans soul is reduced by sin to resemble Hell Esay 48. There is no peace to the impious saith our Lord. Such as abandon themselves to sin are loaden with so many Chains by the Devil till at length with their own weight they sink down into hell While they live they draw nearer to hell as a great stone tumbled from the top of a Mountain tumbles so often till in the end it lye in the bortome In this manner while a notorious theif went up the Ladder the Hangman encouraged him saying You have but one step further to go and so he turned him off In this manner little birds with others of the same feather fly again and again to take their food till at last they are ensnared In this manner Drunkards animate their pot-companions this one cup and no more This course they continue till they drown each other in strong liquor And the like method is observed by sinners In the beginning they think it much to commit one sin by and by they double redouble and multiply offences till they come to hundreds Thus he who at first sinned privately and with much bashfulness by degreeâ—s puts on a bold face and dares now aâ—â—t confidently what ere while he blusht to think on Thus the first naughtiness is seldome acted alone but drawes after it a long train of impurities The beggining was indâ—ed with one crime then two afterwards more till in procesâ—s of time the number encreased almost above number Thus a sprout growes up into a wood thus a drop swells into an Ocean thus a spark becomes a fire of that greatness as it is not to be extinguisht for all eternity All these proceedings serve to recompence sin Whence some have arrived to such a generous resolution that they choose rather to dye then admit of one sin The most chast Ioseph would rather lose his good name together with his life then to undergo the least impeachment of Chastity Daniell ch 13. The modest Susanna breaks forth into this exclamation It is better for me without the act to fall into your hands then to sin in the sight of our Lord. It was more pleasing to her to be stoned to death then stained with Adultery Blessed St. Paul was sure that death it self could not separate him from the love of Christ St. Ambrose was resolved to undergoe all hardship whatever rather then act any thing misbecoming his profession Foâ—t when Ruffinus put Theodosius the Emperour in hope the Holy Bishop would change his resolution No quoth Theoâ—dosius I know well the constancy of Ambâ—rose no fear of temporal Majesty can make him forsake the Law of God St. Chrysostome with equal fortitude opposed himself against the menaces of Eudoxia the Empress and was so far from being dismaied with her fury that she was told in these express words It is in vain to go about to terrify the man he fears nothing but sin Lewis King of France being yet a child learned this lesson of his Mother Blanch Rather to part with life then consent to a mortal sin St. Anselm Bishop of Canterbury would rather leap into Hell then commit a mortal sin St. Edmund his successour in the same See frequently said I would rather throw my self into a burning Furnace then wittingly commit any sin against God Democles a comely youth to escape the unnatural dealing of King Demetrius leapt into a hot boyling Cauldron Such a death suted better with his generous mind then an unchast life So Papinian the Lawyer though no Christian resolved to dye before he would Patronise the design of Caracalla Emperour against his Brother A man defiled with mortal sin is more vile and contemptible then a Dog a Swine or a Toad For these owe but one death to nature he two the first to nature which is soon past the second to God which continues for eternity A man plunged in sin may fitly be termed a nest of Basiliskes a Den of infernal Theives of whom take St Pauls affirmation They shall suffer eternall pains in destruction from the face of our Lord and from the Glory of his Power they are quite excluded for ever 2. Thess ch 1.9 Out alas What age ever brought forth such a Monster that would not have its fury satisfied with one death What Executioner what Tyrant contented not their cruelty with Malefactors dying once but after that would proceed to a second death One death hath
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
This same happens to each one of the Damned I might saies he grace was not wanting I was called upon I might Alas I might it was in my power but I would not I am justly excluded from that Soveraign Good and for ever I shall not behold light because I would not behold it A grief it is not to be exprest for one to call to mind how through his own fault he is deprived of so great a good Wonder not this cannot be exprest for since our thoughts cannot dive into those hidden joyes of Heaven since we comprehend not what it is to see God no marvail we do not set a sufficient estimate upon the loss of it An Infant when the Patents die knows not what it loses by their death therefore it neither sighs nor weeps Thus we do when we sin we little know poor wretches what Treasures we cast away None in this life is overwhelmed with such extream Miseries but he may find some slender space to breath in Besides we have no exact knowledge how affairs stand in the World to come Hence you may perchance find some one who with Gilimer King of the Wandals will laugh under a great burden of evils But know all Laughter is banisht from hell In every mortal crime Aversion and Conversion are chiefly considerable To speak with Divines he that sins averts himself from the Creatour and converts himself to the Creature which is a twofold injury to God To aversion therefore corresponds the pain of loss as to conversion that of sence this yeilds to the other so much that he who felt the first alone would be far from laughing would have Hell enough in that one pain of loss Gen. 4. ch 14. Wicked Cain anciently made this greivous complaint Lo thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the Earth and from thy face shall I be hid And yet there was hope he might return to the state of Grace What shall I say now of those Captives in Hell they are cast out from the face of the Earth they are hid from the Divine Countenance God has now done what he formerly threatned he would do he has forsaken them he has hid his face from them they are left to be devoured all evil and Affliction is come upon them the greatest whereof is They are cast out from the Face of God This which Holy David with iterated Vowes besought God might never befall him is now their Lott they are cast away never to be admitted to favour again He needs must have matter of excessive grief who being ready to be Annointed King should upon a suddain be hurried away and made fellow-prisoner with Theives Look upon Nabuchodâ—nâ—ser the worlds terror seated under the Canopy of Glory from whence he was thrown headlong to be a Companion to Bruits amongst them to learn how to play the Beast who had acted his part so ill amongst men Behold King Sedecias snatcht from his Royal Throne whom it was not thought sufficient to bereave of all the gifts of Fortune unless he were deprived of both his eyes too Then was verified that of Boetius The greatest part of misery is to remember one has been happy No otherwise shall the Damned be haled away into Infernal Dens for Eternity when they might have been elevated as Kings amongst the blessed never to have the least sense of any evil alwaies to be in the perfect fruition of the cheifest good The loss of this may rightly be termed a loss and such an one as can never be worthily deplored because never to be recovered SECT 4. VVHat other Petition should one that wants his sight make Luk. 18.41 but that of the blind man Lord that I may see In case one damned might have leave to ask some one of the Joyes of Heaven he would ask none else but this Let me see God I covet not a place more pleasant I am not ambitious of better company I do not refuse to abide still in these Flames only Let me see God But this no Law permits Still I crave at least after a thousand years let my suite be granted This is by no means lawful I am content with a denial till ten thousand years be expired Neither will this be allowed O that I might after twenty thousand years obtain my request That will by no means be granted At least after fifty thousand years let my Petition take effect Nor this neither Ah! when a hundred thousand are come and gone then Let me see God The Laws of God are opposite to this as well as the former O that my Prayer might be heard when a hundred thousand thousand years are past Here may nothing be obtained t is in vain to sue for favour the Gate of Grace is shut the entrance to Heaven is close lockt God thou shalt never see Psal 48. He shall not see light for ever Ponder this well saith St. Chrysostome Let us consider I beseech you and weigh maturely what difference there is betwixt these sober matters and our Bables and Toyes If a man had used his utmost endeavours and left no wind unsailed that he might compass Honours Riches or a beloved Espouse and in this persuite had spared neither Labour nor Charges till all things were in a readiness to Solemnize the Nuptialls and then another should unexpectedly step between him and home were not this enough to force the poor man off his Senses Here Shame and Loss meet to his Destruction which must be endured or he must shake hands with fury or clash with his opposer Couple me now this man thus frustrate of his hope with another buried in everlasting darkness and you will find a palpable difference that may remove his quarters chase other Honors and win a new Espouse but this can neither change place nor escape his torments he is wholly void of hope and most desperate for ever Nevertheless he is forced to acknowledge that God was careful of him God called him many times into his way again but he slighted the Call and refused to follow his guide He knows right well wherefore he was Created wherefore by Christ redeem'd wherefore Baptized whitherto invited hither forsooth that he would vouchsafe to come and mount the Throne of Glory in that blessed Kingdome where he might live eternally in the embracements of his Creatour But I saies he to himself am in fault I neglected I plunged my self into these dreadful flames whereupon my pain fury and confusion is horrible is immense Esay exclaims Esa 32. Darkness and palpableness are made upon the Denns for ever Thus much the Devils themselves acknowledge when they are upbraided in possest persons O miserable wretches you shall never see God Whereat they will fume fret gnash the teeth and by uncouth motions of the body manifest in some sort how incredibly they are tortured upon that sole account SECT 5. CHrist our Lord briefly explicates his most blessed Vision of God when
dish though otherwise most vile which the appetite most longs for Hence it may come to pass that one may offend more grieveously with feasting on toad-stools then another on Partridge and Feasants Esau was reprehended for over greedily gurmandiling a dish of Pulse-Pottage not for eating fat Hens or Capons The third fault is to lavish too much time and treasure in feasting many feast in a Circle as the children of Iob did they leave scarce one day in a year free from Riot and Excesse in Banqueting Parents now and then Prophesie to their children Wo be to thee my boy when thou comest into strange countries where thou shalt want those dainties thou didst enjoy at home How uncouth will it be for thee either to take pains or starve The like may be returned to the Parents Wo be to you who feed plentifully every day how will you be able to digest Hunger and Thirst The fourth fault of Gluttony is rashly to violate the Laws of Fast or at least to expound them as they list Hence the fast of forty dayes in Lent is changed into ten or twenty dayes temperance Many beleive they are fasting when they are not drunk We are now come to that pass as to perswade our selves that fasting was only ordained for Religious People others are so favourable Interpreters of this Law as they still find some excuse to free them from fasting But the Physitian you say and my Confessour exempt me from fasting true but over entreated by your importunity I beleive they would be of another opinion if they met with one less eloquent and more indigent The first is Drunkenness the Origin of many crimes and of all Vices the most dangerous because if a drunken man chance to fall suddainly which is not unusual or be surprised with some disease which hales him to the Gates of Death where poor wretch unable to grieve for his sins or to raise his mind up to his Maker in the state of mortal sin and ignorant of his sad condition he is hurried away to Eternity alas a prey to Death and to the Devil SECT 2. VVO therefore wo to you that are filled In spec because you shall be hungry With good reason said Reginaldetus Infinite men shall be damned for this sin of Gluttony Gluttony has an ample command and is much assistent to all sorts of vices ch 16. Lo this saies Ezechiel was the iniquity of Sodom fulness of Bread and abundance and the idleness of her For this cause our Saviour most carefully warns us Look well to your selves Luk. 27.34 lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged wi h surfeting and drunkenness For that is the malice of this vice not only to burden the body but likewise to fasten the soul to earth to trample it under foot and throw it headlong into Hell Here is Hunger and Thirst here is a long fast Because you shall be Hungry Consider what a great share of our misery it is that we neither value nor sufficiently understand the affaires of the next life Which of us has made tryal of extream Famine Hence we weigh not our own nor the Famine in Hell A pattern of this manifestly appears in Cities Besieged and in close Prisons For to that extreamity are people brought by rageing hunger that not only Dogs Cats and Horses but also Mice Serpents and Toads are greedily devoured by them they pluck the Grass up by the roots they strip their Bucklers off their skins to feed on Hunger compels them to convert into mans meat the Excrements of Birds and Beasts yea and the bodies too of their dearest friends Cambises Lib. 3. de tra as Seneca relates conducted a vast Army through Sands and Deserts into Aethiopia but being scarce well entred upon their march their Victuals and Provision failed their way was unknown unto them and that barren and barbarous Nation afforded them no releif Tender sprouts and tops of trees supplyed their wants in the begining afterwards they boyled skins or what ever they met with to asswage their hunger in fine neither finding Herbs Rats nor Cattel they slaughtered every tenth man a remedy against Famine worse then Famine it self This was but a little Hunger put them upon more cruel designs The Mother 's butchered their own Children as if they had been Chickens and with their own teeth tore in peices members dearer then their life This may yet seem little when compared to more wild attempts How often have people in Prison massacred themselves through hunger and fed upon their own limbs what way soever they could lay hold upon arms or shoulders thither their teeth hastned to make a prey of themselves to their own destruction SECT 3. NOw to the matter in hand This hunger which we behold with our eyes we are not sufficiently capable of and how then shall we understand that most rageing and eternal Famine in Hell by how much our hunger is more Rampant by so much it is the shorter whereas that other though most furious is nevertheless everlasting Wo to you because you shall be hungry Good Lord what a Countrey is this which sets before us for great dainties Horseflesh raw Mice and Toads with Pigeon dung of which notwithstanding we cannot obtain our fill we would esteem it a special favour to part from life but even that is denied Apoc. c. 9. They shall desire to dye and death will fly from them Everlasting hunger is unexplicable everlasting thirst intolerable To these Torments that other may be adjoyned Divines affirme that the delights in Heaven shall be so aboundant as to fill all the Members and Senses of the blessed with peculiar happiness Hereupon the tast and tongue shall swim in a juice of most delicious sweetness in so much that each one of the blessed may seem to enjoy this Divine repast according to and beyond all they can desire Contrary wise that malignant tongue of the Damned shall flow in bitter Gall this was foretold by the Hebrew Prophet Deut. 2. ch 32. The Gall of Dragons their Wine and the Venim of Asps uncurable No sweetness can be of force to mitigate this hunger or temper the bitterness of this Gall their torments are uncurable Moreover some are of opinion that they are afflicted with most cruel fits of the tooth-ach who ever has experienced these in this life let him imagine how afflictive they will be after death In case there were no other torments in Hell besides those of the teeth or head-ake or Gout or Stone and these being to endure for ever what expences labour and royl would one undergo to be quit of them But we fear and fear not these things while with exceeding cheerfulness we commit sins more to be feared In Inns now and then wee feed plentifully we drink off full bowls we sing merrily we dance and skip about but as soon as the Host brings in the reckoning and calls his guests to an account they are
at a stand they look one upon another and at length break forth into these words would to God we had never come hither our shot is wonderful dear While we are here on our journey we live in an Inn and unmindful of the reckoning Feast jovially carouse till within night sing sport and dance But who will discharge the shot O people ill advised We must pay a just reckoning though a dear one T is we have Banketted Quaffed and playd the good fellows t is we have wasted our health age and substance in riotous company keeping Now mine Host calls for a discharge just debts must be paid Creditours will have satisfaction either from our Purses or Persons We have eaten but with excess with too much expence and delecacy we have Feasted but too often and at too high a rate We have fasted but in a prophane manner and too seldome we have buried our selves in Wine we must now digest the surfetting Wo because we shall be hungry eternal Famine thirsts eternal expects us O what a Supper after a full but short dinner while the damned lived they seem to have licked nothing but salt so rageing is their thirst in hell How horrible a torment thirst is it is hard for any one to express unless he have made some certain tryal thereof In this particular we may well credit the sick who are frequently so tortured with thirst that they esteem it the very dregs of their distempered cup or their greatest disease SECT 4. THe Rich Glutton thrusting out his scorched Tongue cries in hideous manner I am tormented in this flame O one drop from the tip of a finger to refresh me Lo how modestly be begs He does not crave a Bason of water nor a Barrel of Oyle nor a Vessel of Wine but what is most obvious a drop of Water which yet he obtains not This wealthy Banketter is grown so poor that he does not ask a Goblin of Chrystal but the extremity of a finger not the choicest Wine from Greet but a small parcel of water not to have some Noble Cub-bearer but the Beggar Lazarus Mark well what thou sayest O thou Purple Gallant Lazarus has scabbed hands thou wilt be loath to drink water which drops from his finger Ah! let me have but one sole drop and that from the hand of Lazarus which I shall esteem as the choicest of Distelled Waters For all this he gets nothing no body hearkens to him both Eares and Gates are close shut And why I pray is one drop denied to this Glutton in so extream hunger and thirst Abraham was a practiser of Hospitallity and might have said Give him one little drop it will do him no good so great a flame will not be asswaged by so small a dew But their manner of proceeding is farr otherwise in the next world For as Heaven is repleanisht with Joy and Pleasure without the least mixture of sadness so Hell is stored with meer Grief and Pains void of all solace mitigation or ease Hence ellegantly and truly said St. Austin No death is worse or greater Lib. 6. de Livi. c. 12 then where Death dyes not So no Hunger and Thirst is more cruel or deadly then where Death cannot be obtained by Hunger and Thirst SECT 5. TWo brothers as it is recorded the one wise the oter a Fool went a Travellin together and came at length to a place divided into too waies Pet. Regin In spec The Fool was taken with the more pleasant way the wise man preferred the more rugged as more secure Here they fell at debate wherein the wise man deemed it better to yeild then contest So both were surprised by Robbers both were cast into Prison but the one a part from the other whence after a time they were brought before a judge Here the wise man accused the Fool and laid all the fault on him the fool retorts all the miscarriage upon his brother In conclusion the Judge makes this Decree Both are guilty the fool because he should have submitted to one wiser then himself the wise man because he should not have condescended to a fool This is plainly our condition the Soul and Body are brothers but extreamly unlike the soul by its descent being Noble and Wise is not afraid of a thorny way to Heaven she loves temperance and enters into strict league with Fasting as knowing well how these things avail her the spirit is prompt On the other side the body from its birth is foolish so espying a way that smiles with many delights it presently hastens thither it is forceably perswaded that all it has to do is to eat drink sport sleep well fly from labour follow idleness and repose amongst pleasures these things agree well with the body but toyl hunger watching it hates and avoydes as one would the Plague The Soul again endeavours with all her Rhetorick to evince that a smooth way leads not to Heaven as doth the sharp and stony and that they who cannot away with thorns covet not Roses But the body is slow in obeying dull in admitting wholesome counsel it will not be friends with subjection and frugallity so at length the soul yeelds and permitting the body to live as it lists becomes of a Master a slave In this maner they go and perish together thus they fall into the hands of theeves vices and Devils These brothers are parted in the end and committed to several prisons the body to the Grave and the soul to hell whence both are to make their appearance before the Soveraign Judge at the latter day where each will accuse the other Now because the foolish body would not be obedient to the soul and the wise soul was not of courage to subdue the wantonness of the flesh both convinced of impiety shall receive sentence of eternal torment This inevitable decree like a sharp two edged sword Apoc. c. 1. shall peirce through both soul and body Wherefore our Lord saies Matt. c. 10. Fear him that can destroy both soul and body into Hell Where hunger and thirst eternal shall serve as a sauce for their torments neither shall they have any other liquor to their feast then boyling brimstone Fire and Brimstone is part of their cup. Psa 10. SECT 6. ALL this notwithstanding men much addicted to Gluttony are little moved to what has bin said they gape after bankets and costly Viands they thirst after full cupps what ever you say of Famine in the next life O Christians a little more consideration would do well to eat and drink is not forbidden provided it be not against conscience or with neglect of Divine Laws We despise good counsel and dare transgress the commands of God not reflecting that the Gibbet is erected before our doors Wo to you that are filled because you shall be hungry Fault and punishment are linked together many crimes proceed from Gluttony not to be expiated even with most rageing hunger and
a companion of Scorpions and wild Beasts He that seriously contemplates those fiery Prisons finds fault with the straitness of no place but converts every Prison into Paradise SECT 5. HEre now I beseech you let us make use of discourse to our purpose Imagin hell to be nothing else but a loathsome and starving prison where a thousand Captives for stench and vermine can neither sit nor lie conveniently where their meat is rotten Rice and drink muddy Water where they cannot sleep for famine stink and pain and that all this should continue a thousand years Imagin I say that hell is but such a Prison as this notwithstanding who would not tremble at the very name of this hell But if the matter be well scanned and weighed according to what is revealed in holy Scripture it will manifestly appear that the most loathsom prisons in Japonia or any other barbarous nation compared to hell maybe reputed a florishing Garden the delights of Thessaly or Paradise it self The reason is clear In our prisons we have some meat sleep and time to rest in hell is neither meat sleep nor rest there corrupt Rice would tast like Ambrosia puddle Water would drink like Nectar In our prisons none ever counted a thousand winters in hell which is most sad a hundred thousand years strike not off one tittle from eternity after a thousand millions of ages eterninity is entire Again Our prisons though dreadful yet are they without fire and the prisoners have a singular comfort that they can die the Dennes of the damned are full of flames and are not free from the second death because in hell death is always present but death without death and a continual death which lasts for ever Alas how far are we from thinking on these things how little do we consider things worthy our thoughts every hour Much better in this point and more considerate was St. Bernard I tremble Serm. de 5. regionibus says he I quake all over at the remembrance of that country and all my bones are shaken that is a place in which their is a worm immortal stench intolerable hammers striking palpable darkness O Awake all you that are Saints and Sinners especially you that are slaves to luxury if you will not tast how sweet Christ our Lord is how delicious Paradise take a tast at least of the bitterness of hell SECT 6. THis hellish stink fitly admonisheth us how many ways we offend by smelling for we are not only bound to keep in order our eyes tongue and ears but our nose also though for the most part we will not abide any ill smell Hence we frequently have an aversion from distressed Captives and poor sick folk because they carry a scent of Garlick rather then Saffron or Musk. Therefore the Judg out of the clouds will upbraid these tenderlings I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me Mat. c. 25. Impatience forsooth is so nice that where there is any suspition of stink thither we will not be drawn with Coach and Horses Them we love their familiarity we sue for who breath Cinnamon Civet and Balsom But ere long the case will be altered as Esay foretold c. 3. For sweet savor there shall be stink Moreover they sin by smelling who fill their beds garments and closets with sweet odours yea what they more frequently use must have a touch of outlandish perfumes or pretious ointments that they may be still provided to cherish the nostrils This 't is true is not accounted a heinous crime yet God established under pain of death Exod. c. 30. Such confection you shall not make unto your own uses because it is holy to the Lord. What man soever shall make the like to enjoy the smell thereof shall perish out of his People Hence therefore we sin by intemperance of smelling so many things which seem to us trifles and of small moment the eye of God observes and deems worthy of punishment It is here worth our frequent and serions reflection to know what the holy Scripture means in proposing unto us the stench of brimstone Gen. c. 19. Our Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorah brimstone and fire from our Lord out of heaven and he subverted these Cities and all the Countrey about all the Inhabitants of the Cities and all things that spring of the earth This shower of brimstone and stench punished the heat and stench of lust this rain was requisite to cure the ardor of luxury Extream heat is as proper to the fire as extream stink to brimstone since therefore they were corrupted with lasciviousness of the flesh they were also burned with fire and brimstone that they might learn by their punishment what their fault deserved A man addicted to venery is guilty of a twofold pain while he lives he wallows more and more in the mire of impurity after death he is thrown into a bath of boyling sulfur SECT 7. LUst therefore in hell shall in a special manner be tormented with fire and brimstone which St. Gregory learnedly asserts Then saith he Lib. 4. Mor. c. 17. the rageing fire burns those whom carnal delight had polluted Every wicked man is enflamed with a proper fire such as himself had enkindled in his heart by heat of temporal desires while he now boyls with these now with those and sets his thoughts a burning more and more with divers allurements of the world Now then let weeping expiate what the soul negligently given to pleasure did transgress It is altogether worthy of credit that few are plunged into those flaming gulfs who were not tâ—inted with stench of wantonness Here now let every one living learn to be wise in time and beware he be not smothered in the puddle of Luxury Wine and Drunkenness c. 4.11 as Osee testifies take away the heart but most of all fornication this last so steals away the heart that it hardly ever restores it It is wholly to be admired and dreadful above measure that under one sole thought which Divines call deliberate delight should lurk numberless pains endless torments and death everlasting The business is manifest Mat. c. 5. Whosoever shall see a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart Here one cast of the eye one only thought one secret consent to lust contains innumerable infinite millions of ages wherewith that glance that thought that consent is to be revenged but never expiated This I say is wonderful and horrible to amazement I will say what I think though we perhaps think of these things yet we do not thoroughly weigh or examine them Hence it comes as Isidorus Clarus delivers it Tom. 1. Orat. 53. that we would rather be smudged for a moment then shining for eternity lascivious for an hour then glorious for ever such is our inconsideration and to speak plainly sottish rashness One that fights for his life might securely say I thought not
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
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
this sort Let some one in the spring or autumn when the season of the year is sharpest be conveyed down into the bottom of a deep pit under ground where there is neither fire nor table nor bed Hither once a day let a crust of mouldy-hard bread with a small cup of stinking water be cast down by a rope this dainty fare must likewise be seasoned with reading this lecture that the party so enthralled is without ceasing to meditate on eternity both day and night Well said Pylades I deem that an efficacious way to imprint eternity in the mind Yet oblige me with a further courtesie and make me partaker of a more ample discourse touching the man before mentioned SECT 4. THat man in the beginning will esteem three weeks as irksome as three whole years and if he chance to be restored again to his liberty he will openly profess his sufferings were excessive What were his sufferings I pray hunger thirst cold want of sleep with privation of all comfort Hitherto the miscreant says true But observe I beseech you how tolerable this prison is how plentiful his diet what freedom he seems to enjoy when you look down upon that close imprisonment in hell he had his share of meat and drink to preserve his life in hell is neither one drop nor crum of comfort Besides no one derided that poor man in the pit none insulted over him no one loaded him with stripes whereas in hell they are perpetually oppressed with all these calamities Again that silly wretch might passe over the day in quiet and the night in rest though both were accompanied with difficulty but in hell is not so much as one sole minute of ease or sleep to be found Moreover that mans brest was not torn to pieces with sadness all grief horror amazement howling anguish and despair did not any ways afflict him as they do incessantly them in hell That mans thraldom was free from torments he was molested with no other disease then hunger thirst and cold but the damned are racked in all the members of their bodies and their souls being drencht in affliction always live in flames and never dye this death is more bitter to them then death it self In a word albeit that Caitif be remote from delights though he behold no sun haven o company but be debarred all sport and relaxation of mind yet he cherrishes this hope in his bosom that one day he shall enjoy himself again he shall see the suns face meet with his beloved companions and return afresh to his accustomed pastimes and delights Whereas God wot all their hope in hell is changed into despair they know certainly at their first entrance thither they must never look upon the sun any more they must never meet again either with their wished for company or content The sight of God the society of Angels together with all celestial pleasure is quite taken from them eternally without hope of recovery Despair lives in hell as at home it spares none of these Inhabitants Lo here O Christians with what facility we may gain knowledg of Eternity SECT 5. A Learned man of St. Dominicks Order recounts this passage to my present purpose Joan Junier A Jester says he a nimble-witted buffon in an assembly of noble men took upon him to play the preacher whom he had heard that morning and with an intent to draw mirth out of serious matters he thus begun his Sermon You know my masters how much my company conduceth to your jovial entertainment whether you be carousing feasting gaming or dancing I am still as the fool in the play ready to chear you up But listen I beseech you to what lately befel me as I lay upon a down bed and could not sleep I began to think with my self if thou wert so fast bound here for twenty or thirty years space that thou couldest neither stir hand nor foot what wouldst thou do to purchase liberty How if thou couldst riot otherwise obtain it then by bidding adieu to all company keeping and not I said to my self nay I would swear it if need required that I would utterly forswear all my pot-companions all jollity play and danceing rather then be in this sort debarred of my freedom But say I pray thee what course wouldest thou take if thou wert in Pluto's Court not buried in feathers but flames not amidst ripplers but devils where all chatting for merriment is wholly forbidden where one small drop of water is no less precious then a celler stored with the choicest canary whither one may enter as beasts did to the sick Lyon whose footsteps you might behold all going in but none coming out again To go down into hell is an easie matter but who was ever seen to have returned thence Now then if thou wert there tell me seriously what wouldest thou do His Sermon being thus ended he found himself so suddenly changed that one might justly perswade himself he was become another Porphyrius who played the Jester to Julian the Emperor and who whiles acting upon the stage he scoffed at the rites of Christian Religion found himself suddenly changed into another man and openly profest he was a christian yea and as a christian obtained the crown of Martyrdome with the loss of his head So serious conclusions follow out of jesting premisses so that other caviller drew earnest out of jest to his own great advantage and others 'T is a true and sure way of reasoning from a slight and transitory pain to frame a right estimate of pains eternal To which purpose give ear to S. Hieroms admonition Ad Po. Ocean Do we think brethren that the Prophets Preach in Jest the Apostles speak in a laughing manner or Christ thunders out menaces like a child Those are no Jests which are accompanied with real torments SECT 6. BEsides the place of hell which is infamous for all kinds of torments there is likewise company by all means detestable As the blessed in heaven will be replenisht with unexplicable delight when they behold Christ the worlds Saviour his most glorious Mother and Disciples together with so many Quires of Angels and millions of triumphant Saints So the reprobate will receive an addition to their horrid torments from that execrable company from which they shall never be delivered What sentiment wouldst thou be of if sound and in health thou should be constrained to lodg night and day in the same Hospital with sick folks covered over with ulcers sores and rottenness What if thou shouldst see their limms flowing in their own putrified matter and corruption How would thou be able to endure the stench of some the mourning and lamentations of others the sighs of this the complaints of that man the cough of the lungs in one and in another wailing till he give up the ghost O what a hell saist thou would this life be Nay how meer a nothing would this be compared to hell that which thou
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
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
covered those that were invited Most costly for there hung on every side hangings of Sky-colour and Green and Hiacinthine colour held up with cords of Silk and Purple which were held up with Marble Pillers and this for the space of half a year 5. What meats were set before them Most choice and fit for Kings and this endured for half a year 6. What drink was prepared for them Wine plenteous and the best as was worthy of the Kings Magnificence and this for half a year 7. What Cups Dishes and other Vessels were made use of Golden ones for the Guests drank in Goblets of Gold and the meats were brought in change of Vessels and this for half a year 8. What Musick did exhilarate the â—nvited Most noble all the Graces and a Consort of Siâ—ens seemed to have met together for half a year Were all the Guests merry exceeding merry for half a year This particular intelligence one of Assuerus his guests might give the like might more reasonably be affirmed of Heaven if eternity were but to last for half a year But let us now proceed in questioning one of the Damned What is the greatest pain of the Damned Darkness or a privation of the sight of God and this for all eternity What is the second pain Weeping and Gnashing of teeth this Musick is in Pluto's Court for all eternity What the third Hunger and incredible thirst for all eternity If this hunger and thirst did but continue ten thousand times an hundred thousand year it would appear less burthensome then formerly a Fast injoyned in the Sacrament of Pennance seemed What is the fourth pain Intollerable Stench arising from so many stinking carcasses from a Sea of Brimstone and the Society of so many Devils All the stink in this world seems to breath Cinamond and Balsome if compared to that in Hell It was often foretold them you must expect to be bathed in sorrow if you hold on this course But they turned the deaf ear to these admonitions they kept on their way which lead them into a Bath out of which they must never go How tollerable would it be to be tormented with this stench so many years as minutes have passed since the world began to this hour But alas this stench will afflict them without end for all eternity What is the fifth torment of the damned Most dreadful fire to which our flames appear no more then meerly painted That goes beyond expression that their fire is unquenchable since no Rivers no Seas no Deluge is of force to extinguish it which Eternity it self cannot put out The Judge gave warning aforehand the decree is confirmed and intelligeable enough Go into fire everlasting They shall be burned but not consumed for all Eternity What is the sixth The worm of Conscience So much the more grievous torment by how much it is farther extended That this matter may be palpable to the eye we need imagine no more then a fiery Cat sticking fast to each ones bosome and scratching and tearing it with her claws in such sort as though it be torn in pieces yet it grows together again that it may be torn anew for all eternity What the seventh the place and accursed company These were the allurements of sin which might have bin avoyded but were not now instead of dainties they are buried in a Tomb of Flames and in lieu of the society of their dearest friends they are fast chained to the most execrable company of Devils and damned men This place they must inhabit for ever this company will stick to them for eternity What do you call the Eight Torment Rageing Despair which every moment murthers that impious crue but yet it kills them not as if a Knife or Dagger were continually stabbed to the heart for all eternity What now is the Ninth Alas alas alas unexplicable immense incomprehensible Eternity This of all torments is the greatest To suffer Darkness Weeping Famine Stink Fire the worm of Conscience Despair the Cohabitation with Devils for one two ten an hundred thousand years or for so many thousand as a skilful accountant could express in a sheet of Paper would amount to a number so great as no Arithmeticians tongue could declare it Nevertheless it would be finite and upon this score most welcome to the damned because at last after almost numberless Millions of years their torments would have an end But the sentence is pronounced and cannot be recalled Their torments must be endured without end yea as the Prophet has it For perpetual Eternities This is it which can never be sufficiently declared no nor conceived or understood Eternity causes in the vertuous dayly sighing it is to the wicked a fearful dream and to the Damned an unexplicable torment Here now adjoyn we three conclusions SECT 2. THe first Conclusion All the world esteems pretious is despicable and a mere shadow compared to Eternity If all Silver Gold and costly Gemmes were amassed together in two Balls all Ensigns of Honour all glory of Triumphs all Salomons and Sardanaphalus his delights all allurements of pleasure all sweetness of Voluptuousness were joyned in one they would be of no more value then a contemptible Mushrum base trash or an empty shadow or to speak more closely to the point all aforesaid in respect of eternity is but like a bare resemblance of a fly Who would care for that Feast which after one or two morsels hastily swallowed must be relinquisht Who would extol that reward which passes through the Panch such are the treasures of this life vile Morsels Crums Vanity Nothing Excellently well to the purpose spoke St. Austin Psal 68. It doth not suffice us what ever is long in time if it have an end and therefore deserves not the name of long If we will be covetous let us covet eternal life All besides this which we have amongst us is but Nutshels mere Bables Hence proceeded those words of St. Paul Phi. c. 3. I esteem all things to be detriment for the passing knowledge of Iesus Christ for whom I have made all things as detriment and do esteem them as Dung. The second Conclusion No Religious man lives so spareingly nor trears himself so roughly no one is so rigorous against his body as they would be if they were freed from the punishments of the other world What we account a most severe life is a life swiming in pleasure if compared to that perpetual necessity they have in Hell to live and dy for ever We may be thought to sleep most sweetly though we pass over many nights awake we though surrounded with calamities flow in delights whereas they are tormented indeed and every hour dye a thousand deaths An Authour worthy of credit recounts Caesari Heisterb Lib. 2. how Theodorick Bishop of Virecht had a Servant called Eberbach This man was in good repute with his Master as well for his great prudence as faithful industry yet could he not escape the envy
setled without revocation Heretofore they were beautiful Angels now they are ugly Devils heretofore they were friends of God now as his sworn enemies they shall be tormented with fire everlasting And what offence brought them to this sad Catastrophe we told you even now One proud thought O King of Nations who will not â—and in â—ear of thee Here now let no one deceive himself and imagin the sin of the Angels was of a far different rank from those of men We may behold the like example in our first Parents as in the Angels Who together with their posterity were deprived of Gods grace robbed of the garment of innocency shut out of Paradise whence they were perpetually banisht and heard this fatal sentence pronounced against them You must dye Neither was it sufficient for them to dye once they were lyable to eternal death which now began to domineer over immense multitudes of people yea even over all mankind had not the Son of God taken pitty of us and become man to dye upon the Cross for our redemption We had all bin lost but that he vouchsafed to dye who was immortal for Original sin had already infected the whole mass of mankind What now I pray was that horrible offence of Adam He tasted of the forbidden Apple Alas Was the only biteing of an Apple to be chastised with so many Tears so many Funerals so many Calamities But wherefore do we complain This is the nature of sin it is infinitely displeasing to God it is punished with infinite pains and in conclusion is never expiated God is wrath when he is angry at sin Take yet a nearer view of the destruction of mankind The whole world served as a Tomb to bury all men in by a deluge of waters scarce eight persons being preserved alive from that inundation What was the cause of such prodigious mortality Who tumbled into the angry waves so many hundred thousand men Sin and especially that of Lust Who consumed with fire those strately Cities of Gomorrah Sodom and the rest Sin and chiefly Lust Who ruined the City of the Sichimites Sin and particularly that of Lust Who slew five and twenty thousand Benjamites and forty thousand Israelites in Battail Sin and principally that of Lust Thus God proceeds thus he vents his spleen against all sin in this point he knows not how to dissemble No sin escapes without punishment for though many obtain pardon yet none goes free from chastisement What punishment is that of Heli the Priest for his carelesness in correcting his Children what of Saul for disobedience Of David for incontinence Of Nabuchodâ—nâ—sor for Pride Of Ananias and Saphira for Avarice What vengeance was laid upon divers others for seemingly small faults Achan for stealing from the spoils of the enemies lost his life That poor man for gathering sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death Oza for upholding the Ark from falling was strook suddainly dead The Prophet permitting himself at unawares to be deceived was strangled by a Lion The Israelites murmur against Moyses and are killed by fiery Serpents The Bethsamites look upon the Ark less reverently and above fifty thousand men are slain Boyes scoff at Elizeus and forty two of them are torn in peices by wild Bears God doth not spare offenders Ose ch 21. Let Samaria perish let the soul perish because she hath stirred up her God to bitterness If into a Sea of Honey one drop of Gall fell and turned the whole Sea into bitterness what would you say of that gall you might rightly affirm it were unspeakably nay infinitely bitter Of this nature is sin The goodness and mercy of God is infinitely sweet like unto an immense Sea of Honey But one deadly sin is of that bitterness and contains in it so much Gall as to turn God who is a boundless Ocean of sweetness into most dreadful bitterness of wrath and indignation This is asserted by Osee The Soul by sin hath stirred up her God to bitterness Doth she not therefore deserve to perish God himself complains of this dealing by the same Prophet Ephraim hath provoked me to wrath in his bitterness St. Hierom expounds it thus By his wickedness he hath made me bitter who was most sweet God therefore doth not spare the offender I now leave off to admire the saying of holy Iob ch 9. I feared all my works knowing thou didst not spare the offender God is so far from sparing offenders that he punished most severely others sins in his own son Christ's most painful death manifestly declares with what hatred God persecutes sin When a Medicine is prepared of liquid Gold Pearls or Bezoar stone one may reasonably affirm the Disease is dangerous and life desperate So we must needs acknowledge the grievousness of sin was excessive which could not be taken away but by the blood of Christ which is of infinite value Acknowledge therefore O man saith St. Bernard how grievous are those wounds for whose cure it was necessary Christ our Lord should be wounded Yea Christ when he went to be Crucified forbad them weep for his wounds and death that those tears might be shed for sin which was the cause of so ignominious a death Christs tears alone were sufficient to wash away sin for if all the Angels in Heaven assumed mens bodies and with tears bewailed one mortal sin for many ages all their weeping would not be of force to Cancel it which only Christs bloody tears would aboundantly expiate SECT 2. OUr second assertion is He loseth all Gods grace that sins mortally Any one mortal sin robs the Soul of all Divine grace There is nothing more amiable then a Soul adorned with Gods grace nothing more ugly then a Soul without it though it be defiled but with one deadly sin Sin is a most venemous Serpent whose sting is mortal how ever his Poyson seem to enter with delight O that we might behold with our eyes the deformity of sin we should fly as fast from it as we now pursue it sin is more terrible and deformed then the Devil Lucifer a Prince amongst Angels surpassed the rest in comeliness but all his beauty was so defaced with one sin that now he is most ugly stinking and dreadful to behold his sole aspect as many affirm is able to bereave the Spectatour of his life Divine grace is of such value that one may justly pronounce there is nothing more pretious in all the world I declare my self It may be affirmed of liquid Gold or of the water of life that one drop of either is more esteemable then a hundred vessels of the choycest Wine This same may be patly applyed to Divine Grace the least degree of it is far more pretious then all the favour of men or all the worlds wealth besides Imagine the World were all refined Gold it were of no value in comparison of Divine Grace Yet one mortal sin hath such opposition with it that when sin is committed
and Swine as he did Herod with that of Fox Sin changes men into beasts as is apparent out of Holy Writ Psa 48. Man when he was in honour did not understand he was compared to beasts without understanding and became like to them This is no great change Sin converts a man into a Devil as Christ plainly said to his Discisples John 6. Of you one is a Devil He objected likewise unto the Jews You are of your Father the Devil John 8. Now the Devil according to St. Anselm though warned by terrour and menaces would not abstain from sin neither would man beware of it albeit he was threatned with death if he did transgress The Devil sinned once but man offends many sand times he rebelled against his Creatour whereas man impiously kicks both at his Creatour and Redeemer St. In cap. 9. Joan. hom 54. Chrysostome inveighs severely against an envious person An envious man is worse then the Devil the Devil indeed bears envy but to men not to his own companions whereas thou being a man dost envy men and practise hatred against those of the same kind and nature with thy self which Satan doth not A wicked man may rightly be stiled a Devil yea hell it self Apoc. c. 20. And Hell and death saith the Apostle were cast into the Pool of fire How could this be was hell cast into hell it was so if we credit Expositours upon this place because he who steers a wicked course may justly be termed an Hell For as hell is a place of torments and an abode for Devils so a man of debaucht carriage suffers the pangs of a guilty Conscience wherein the Devil hath taken up his quarters Thus then this Hell shall be cast into Hell O sin O blasting and pestiferous whirlwind which killest in the budd both blossoms leaves and fruit of humane actions which deprivest man of justice and innocency and robbest him of himself O Poyson which dost murther when beloved and infectest even the very Marrow of the Soul and canst not be asswaged by an Ocean of calamities nor extinguished by the flames of Hell God makes this question to our first Parent after his fall Gene. 3. Adam where art thou Adam might with reason have returned this answer I am no where He was then no where indeed For by sin committed he was separated from God and punishment for his fault exiled him from Paradise Neither was he in himself by reason of the remorse his Conscience endured neither was he in other creatures which his offence had moved to Rebellion nor in the world because of his own inconstancy He was then no where alas he was no where where he might find repose But he was like unto a swift running torrent whose streams in regard of their rapid motion can neither be affirmed to be here nor there Do you desire to know what sin is Take a leisurely view of Adams fall How many millions of men were plunged into the depth of miseries by it from it sprung Famine War and Pestilence from it all Calamities Disasters yea death it self Such a tree might well bring forth such fruits from such a cause such effects were easily produced True it is the Son of God was fastned to a Cross to expiate this crime and yet how many millions suffer wrack in hell through sin Who ever will attentively consider these things when soothing pleasure invites him to offend may freely say I will not buy eternal repentance at so dear a rate When the Heavens frown and burst forth into storms of Hail Snow Whirlwinds Thunder and Lightning the cause is that Exhalations and Vapours through their native lightness are easily drawn up and afterwards in various tempests fall down to the earth again No otherwise descend from Heaven upon us violent storms of Dearth Warr Plague Sickness and other miseries which God indeed rains down amongst us but after the Exhalations and Vapours of our transgressions had ascended on high that lecture we learn from the Schools of Phylosophy this of Divinity St. Gregory speaks to the purpose The evil we suffer our sins have deserved The same is attested by Ecclesiasticus Death ch 40. Bloud Contention and Sword Oppressions Famine and Contrition and Scourges For the wicked all these were created Sin Banisht us from Paradise into this vale of tears into this tempestuous Sea where boysterous Winds and lofty Surges cause frequent Ship-wracks and all other miseries Sin maketh people miserable saith Salomon Pro. 14. How came the Turks so often to infest Christendome Whence proceeded so many inroads of Barbarous Nations So many Victories obtained against us What is the cause we are so much pestered with Famine and Plague Why doth that Face of Heaven toward us seem to be all of Brass and either drown us with too much wet or make us pine away for want of Rain Whence do Diseases rush in upon us by whole swarms All these are effects of sin sin is an abiss of all calamities I must needs deliver my mind in Seneca's words Epist 95 He is deceived that thinks God can have a will to do hurt he cannot God neither doth evil nor hath evil Albeit he chastise some and keep them in awe with punishments His eyes are clean from seeing evil and cannot look toward iniquity Therefore he bears extream hatred against sin Even as light of its own nature hath opposition with darkness Comliness with Deformity Goodness with Malice Purity with Uncleanness Life with Death So hath sanctity with all wickedness Wherefore as God loves sanctity beyond expression in like manner his aversion from sin is infinite Marks of his aversion are these that follow First he withdraws himself and his grace from a sinner Then he punisheth sin with many calamities as with present coyn even in this life Thirdly he takes from the Malefactour all right to Heaven Therefore we must either do true pennance or bid adieu to Heaven Fourthly every mortal sin he chastiseth with flames eternal and yet which cannot be exprest without admiration the chastisement is less then the sin deserves All Divines unanimously affirm an everlasting torment is decreed for every mortal sin neither can it ever truly be said This sin hath been punisht sufficiently What then is a mortal sin Alas alas Let all Angels answer this question which yet they are not able fully to declare that which lurks under one deadly sin is infinitely abominable That which Ludovicus Blosius recounts to stir up detestation of mortal sin is exceeding dreadful Monil spur c. 1. If the Mother of our Lord the most Blessed Virgin had sinned mortally and had dyed without contrition she had never attained Heaven but must have been tormented with the Devils in Hell So rigorous is Gods justice This likewise was revealed to St. Lib. 4. ch 7. Brigit who heard the Devils cry out to the supream Judge in this manner If that thing which thou lovest
in our own bosoms the coals of wrath and envy We greedily expect everlasting repose but still continue our sloathful courses as if we meant to make a business of idleness and when industry is required to falter in the very onset O we men who do not offer violence to Heaven But rather O we blind men who choose rather to erre in the broad and smooth way then to go right in the rough and narrow Christ and his Saints call upon us Strive to enter by the narrow gate Luke ch 13. strive strive Because many shall seek to enter and shall not be able Make hast run we must cope with difficulties if we will overcome Strive But God knows we neither run nor hasten our pace nor strive at all we yawn and gape and like unto Camels and Lyons go slowly after step by step And God grant we go after and do not rather stand still Our resolutions and purposes are like to the feeble endeavours of one Sick who now and then raiseth himself up crawls off his bed and attempting to go points his foot to the ground and strives to walk but by and by for want of strength falls upon his bed again his Thighes and Legs are far too weak to bear the weight of his body he would fain take a turn but is not able Not much unlike are our endeavours we design great matters we attempt many things we resolve to become Saints we seem to have a will to do gallantly But these attempts are frivelous without strength we want alacrity of spirit we languish in all our actions Whence we willingly slide back into our former vices which we only intermitted for a time but did not quite abandon Thus we fall down again upon our bed which we were about to leave and are overwhelmed with our old Lethargy We read over the Legends of Saints and extol them but follow them not nor imitate them at all We honour vertue with specious titles but express it not in our actions we gape after a blessed Eternity but shun with all wariness the troublesome way which leads us to it After Prayers are ended and the Sermon is past we pack home sit down to table and within a short space renew our old customs It is our fashion to go to Church to hear a Sermon to fetch now and then a sigh which may manifest we are fallen out with our sins and are angry with our selves for sining But how long I pray is this fashion in request Almost in the turning of your hand all our former Sanctity is joyfully buried in oblivion We do something t is true but that with extream tepidity and so what we do is either worth nothing or very imperfect Whence it falls out that after six hundred Sermons we are no better then before we swear as we did we are as impatient as ever Lust Envy and wrath have as much power over us as formerly The wings of our Pride are nothing clipt we are big swoln with the same avarice and gluttony domineers as it was wont to do our old sloth still keeps us under we defile our Souls with our accustomed stains weare without changing the ragged cloathes of our bad habits O strange blindness of mankind which with an Ocean of tears may not be sufficiently deplored the Pulpit in every Church rings with Eternity Eternity Eternity and yet we are drawn away with pleasures present such a desire we have of our own Perdition SECT 4. MUch after the same manner as we hear Sermons and neglect them which come in at one ear and pass out at the other so we run over spiritual books from which we draw no profit but presently forget what we read Out of sight out of mind Inculcate Eternity as often as you will we are resolved to spin out the thread we have begun we approve of good things but follow worser we put on Piety and quickly throw it off again as if we were still minded to stick in the same mud O Christians Look up Lu. 2.21 and lift up your heads and hearts because your redemption is at hand Fix your eyes and hearts in Heaven Do all things fall out cross and trouble you it will not alwaies be so Heaven promiseth you something better which a little patience will put you in possession of Do matters go well on with you doth all succeed to your mind Put no confidence in that success nothing is permanent in this world all things ebb and flow in their several seasons Eternity still remains the same it is only Eternity which admits no change These things we deliver by word and writing these things we represent unto you with variety of Pictures But who gives them leave to take impression in his heart Who understands these points aright Who groundedly strives to beleive them O therefore once again blind mortals who then act most carelesly when the great business of Eternity is in agitation when our eternal welfare lies at stake Conc. 3. Dom. 2. advent Lewis of Granada famous for Learning and Religion gives an account of one who appeared again after death to a friend of his in this life and discovered unto him this stupendious blindness of mankind Two intimate friends quoth he there were you may call one of them Theseus the other Pirithous which were almost as one Soul in two Bodies Both of them lead an upright life both loved each other so tenderly and were so agreed amongst themselves as that they desired nothing more then to dy together But Death crost their agreement and dissolved their amity by dispatching one out of this life before the other However all their familiarity could not be extinct by death For not long after they were parted he that was dead appeared to his surviveing friend both in habit and countenance composed to sadness as if he meant he should ask him some question At first the living man was almost dead with fear to see his friend so unexpectedly present in so doleful a posture But after a while taking courage he demanded if his portion were among the blessed or how matters stood with him In answer to which demands the dead man fetching a deep sigh repeared thrice in a distinct but mournful tone these words No one beleives no one beleives no one beleives The other with trembling asked again what that was which no one beleives No one said the dead man beleives how exactly God calls men to an account how rigorously he judges how severely he punnishes After which words he disappeared leaving the other surprized with horrour and ruminating with himself in silence the whole passage SECT 5. O words most true No one beleives now accurate every way are the judgements of God and how severe his punishments these particulars are frequently delivered in Sermons that of St. Iohn is often inculcated Do pennance for now the Ax is put to the root of the trees Matt. c. 3. And no one
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