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
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
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
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
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
utters his discontent in this manner O unhappy Fortune O base Villains How shall I recover my Gold again In this humor he goes home venting his spleen with furious complaints he disquiets his whole Family miscals his Servants and turns all topsy turvy Thus he wasts the night and after the loss of his money scarcely retains his Wits This Chest-table decyphers mans life which doth not want the light of reason the different Chest-men represent the diversity of States and Qualities amongst mortals Some are Kings and Queens some Peers and Nobles some Country and City Peasants who for Dignities and Riches are much unequal amongst themselves He that is skilful carries away the Victory and leaves the ignorant in the Lurch Afterwards ensues a perpetual night a night enveloped in horrid darkness and eternal despair They shall not see light for ever O dismal night O disconsolate darkness The second Torment is Weeping THe Angel as an Herauld from Heaven Apo. 18. long since denounced As much as she hath glorified her self and hath been in delecacies so much give her torment and mourning Hell is a place allotted for lamentation where they weep without shedding a tear or diminishing their grief with weeping O mortals why do we bewail the loss of money the death of friends or the troublesomness of the times These Tears are in vain these accidents hurt none but such as hurt themselves by their own crimes Luk. 23. Weep not upon me said our Saviour but weep upon your selves T is a matter worthy of lamentation to be cast for ever from the Face of God this no Sea of Tears may sufficiently bewail If you consider all the Prophets and their Predictions they commonly denounce great miseries they foretel great calamities But by and by they turn over the leaf and seem to say all damages are repaired all things are in a good condition Hence are those words of comfort The Hills shall flow with Milk and Honey And these likewise The threshing of your Harvest shall reach unto Vintage Lev. 26. and the Vintage shall reach unto sowing time and you shall eat the bread to your fill Thus storms and fair weather succeed each other The reason is manifest There is no wound in this world so uncurable whereunto God cannot lay a Playster no evil so great which may not have a remedy Tobias was poor and blind but continuing in patience was cured with a fishes Gall Naaman was a Leaper but was wealthy and healed with the water of Iordan Thessaly abounds with Poyson but is not destitute of Antidotes The Philippine Islands bring forth no Vines but Palmes which store them with a liquor more pretious then Wine Italy is bare of Woods but enjoyes a milder Winter and great variety of fruits So God substituted Christ instead of Adam the Blessed Virgin for Eve grace was provided to take away sin obedience satisfied for transgression and life is a comfort against death No sore can here be found without a cure no malady without a remedy But in that doleful Eternity all calamities want releif there be many Vlcers but no salve there is the worst of evils and that eternal without the least mitigation M. Marcellus at the taking of that flourishing City of Siracusa wept for compassion The Damned may weep tears of blood when they behold themselves in thraldome for all Eternity this this were just cause of such tears if they were available There shall be weeping without the least mixture of consolation The third Torment is Hunger THe wicked here feasted too magnificently at dinner wherefore they must now sit down with a short supper they did not restrain their immoderate appetite to meat and drink whereupon they became guilty of many sins by Gluttony as of Drunkenness and all that train of vices which attend it They did not eat to live but live to eat their mind lived amongst their dishes since they regulated their lives by the rules of Cookery Of these St. Tom. 10 serm 63 Austin speaks plainly Seeing they should eat to live they think they should live to eat but every wise man blames such Gluttons Drunkards and Gurmandisers and especially Holy Writ reproves them whose belly is their God These people come not to meat for want of food but to please their Palate and so become slaves to meat and drink What men are these who place their happiness in their Table as Beasts do in their Manger They did eat drink and vomit but now they hunger thirst and suffer for their Gluttony without the least mitigation of either hunger or thirst The Famine of Samaria or saguntum would be esteemed as dainties in hell where their famine is more cruel and rageing where a drop of water is as eagerly begged as justly denied Thus gluttony is chastised thus a small delight in eating is punisht with pains everlasting Albidius a Prodigal young man after he had consumed his inheritance in gluttony returned home in despair Whom Cato espying said O what a Religious yongster are you that with such liberality offer sacrifice to Protervia It was the custome in sacrificing to Protervia that what was not wasted in feasting should be devoured by Vulcan or consumed by fire So many as are condemned to Hell have indeed sacrificed to folly by lavishing most shamefully their Patrimony by contemning the Law of God and riotously glutting themselves with Feasting Wherefore now both they and their habitations burn and must burn eternally Of whose miserable condition thus speaks St. â—pra Austin There is no voice but groaning no rest but fire without ceasing there is no refreshment in that flame but continual burning of perpetual fire They shall never see light nor want darkness they shall have no remembrance of good who are possest with forgetfulness of God Their food is their torment their abode is not Abrahams bosome but Satans Den. Amend thy life while it is in thy power call upon God ere it be too late mourn while mourning is available and do not differ to do true pennance The fourth Torment is Stench TO the end the whole man may be chastised with all sorts of pain the nostrils shall be filled with most pestilent stink Poverty and needy persons are exceeding noysome to some mens smelling others when they meet with Perfumes wish with Catullus they were all nose O that these nicelings would consider what kind of odours are burning in Hell What wonder I pray if that loathsome prison be replenisht with stink it is a stable for Kids and Goats for so they are called by the Soveraign Judge Matt. 25 He shall set the sheep at his right hand but the Goats at his left These creatures have a scent neither of Fish nor Flowers they are fitter for a sty or Augias Stable and as Goats and Swine are banisht from the delights of Heaven Apo. 21. Into that seat of the blessed shall not enter any polluted thing nor that doth abomination
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
he teaches all the felicity of Angels to consist therein Mart. 18 They alwaies de see the face of my Father When in a Sermon he expounded that Parable of the Kings Marriage he concludes it with this saying of the King ch 22. Cast him into the utter darkness In the Hebrew Phrase under the notion of darkness is signified a most loathsome Prison such as we have none in this world St. Austin discoursing hereof saies He must needs be separated from God Psal 6. who while he has space will not become better Such is the condition of this life and pestered with so much sadness that sometimes we are only minded to be sad No Sirens charmes no gracious entertainments no Allurements of Pleasures past are of force to cheere us up so obsâ—inately are we sometimes bent to sadness It is Authentically Recorded of an Emperour of the last Age that he was so opprest with sadness as no Musical Harmony no Playes or Pastimes no mirth or pleasing conversation whatever was able to reduce him to cheerfulness Good Lord what means all this what instruction may we gather hence This surely O Mortals Do you not perceive that all humane affaires are a meer painted vanity See you not now that your selves and all you have wholly depends on God Learn this after all that all your Joyes amassed in one are not powerful without God to raise up to mirth a Soul drenched in Melancholy The matter stands thus indeed thou hast O God! guilty persons enough who confess this truth Nevertheless if but for one sole moment God did shew His Divine Countenance to a man overwhelmed with nere so much greif all Clouds of sorrow would in a trice be quite dispersed farr better then his would be who suddenly awakeing out of a dismal Dream should find himself in some stately Palace surrounded with a joyful company of his Bosome-friends Moreover to see God is an Ocean of such immense delight that though a man were in Flames of fire yet whilst he saw God through excess of joy he would not be sensible of burning If you search narrowly what effect the sight of God imparts to the beholder it appears manifestly that the loss of it infinitely surpasses all sorrow all Grief all Calamity all Punishment whatever SECT 6 THis darkness or privation of the sight of God is the first and cheifest punishment of the Damned eternally herewith the blindness of mans heart is justly chastised it being the first and last of evils in this life He is altogether miserable who is possest with this blindness For neither Admonitions nor Examples nor Menaces nor Instructions nor any other warning will take hold to do him good This blind madness hath seised on him and leads him headlong into wickedness T is all one to commend a chast and sober life unto him as to praise colours in presence of a blind man Of this stamp were those two wicked old men treacherous Judges of the chast Susanna Dan. 13.9 who subverted their sence and declined their eyes that they would not see Heaven nor remember just judgements Impure Love had so besotted these men that their Conscience will and reason were involved in a night of darkness even as one who begins to tumble in obscurity sees not how to stop his course so they as they began to slide fell at length into horrid wickedness Hence let no man wonder if many polluted with foul offences proceed without scruple since blindness hath prepossest their souls Their former faults bereaved them of day so now they go on secure under the shadow of a wicked night they subvert their sense decline their eyes that they may not see Heaven Iob made a Covenant with his eyes that they should not behold a Virgin they with theirs not to look up to Heaven fearing perchance least it should strike them with terrour or amendment This is the property of a Soule plunged in darkness and sin which therefore the pain of loss does most justly torture you would not see God you shall not see him for ever Hereupon Hieremy the Prophet exhorts in this manner Give the Glory to our Lord your God before it waxe dark The Grecian Oratour St. ch 13. v. 16. Chrysostome delivers this most worthy rule of Christian Philosophy This t is true is sweet but not immortal which may be thus applyed to all things To Feast and pamper the body is sweet but short To please the Palate and seek after dainties is sweet but not permanent To loose the Reines to Laciviousness is sweet but not lasting To flow in wealth is sweet but changeable To be honoured and praysed by all is sweet but not eternal To be revenged of our enemies is sweet but not stable To live as I list and to follow my humor in every thing is sweet and pleasing but alas not perpetual Contrariwise to be excluded from the sight of God is most bitter and perpetual afflictive above measure and immortal Let us not therefore saith St. Tom. 4. ep in 2. ad Cor. Chrysostome abandon our selves to floath and delicasies for a moment for this present life is no more and thereby incurr the torments of infinite ages But let us take pains for a moment to merit a Crown everlasting Do not you see that even in worldly matters most men walk this path and prefer before a little toyl a long rest albeit they often meet the contrary How much sweat do they frequently spend for a little fruit and sometimes none at all Take a view of the Husbandman who labours the year about and in the end finds his Harvest shorter then his hopes Aswell the Commander as Common Souldier pass over their lives in perils if they be cut off by untimely death the one leaves his Wealth the other his Trophies to be buried in dust What excuse then shall we have who in secular affairs undergo much hardship for a little a very little and that uncertain ease and in spiritual matters do quite otherwise for a sloathful moment acquiring to our selves pains unexplicable Wherefore I earnestly beseech you awake at least now at length out of this dangerous Lethargy for the time will come when neither Father nor Brother Child nor Friend Neighbour nor any other shall be of power to deliver us but if we be destitute of good works we shall be left in the Lurch to our utter destruction SECT 7. VVEE are therefore excellently well admonisht by Isidorus Pelusiota Let us fix our eye upon Eternity as upon a mark and learn wisedome dayly out of the Oracles of Heaven let this alone terrify while each one saies to himself do I lose God in this moment I lose then all pleasure all good together with him eternally Let this alone comfort us do I deserve in this minute to see the Face of God with this I merit all pleasures all good for ever St. Gregory affirms the same you relinquish and yet retain all if
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
thirst Great was the hunger of Erisichthon but far inferiour to that in Hell all our famine is a mere dream to that of the damned Hereby we are admonished to beware all intemperance Those who feasted in old time were accustomed to leave some part of their meat on the table to teach us not to eat for pleasure or till we could eat no more T is a Proverb amongst the Germans Mirth when it comes to the height must be broken off so we must leave off Feasting before the Feast end Who is so sottish as when he knows for three or four houres feasting he must fast a whole year to command presently a feast prepared for him Yet such sots are we that though we know our abstinence and fast continue but a few houres nevertheless we are resolved to fare daintily and please our Pallates Hence are those invitations Come let us take wine Esay ch 56. and be filled with drunkenness and it shall be as to day so also to morrow and much more O wretched fools within a while it will not be as to day your mirth to day is waited on by a sad to morrow Fulness must be accompanied with Famine and drunkenness tormented with thirst After a short space that doleful song will amuze your ears you have received your share of goods in this life away with you now there is no more due to you heretofore you feasted now you must fast let others feast that formerly fasted For this reason thus saies our Lord Behold my servants shall eat and you shall be hungry behold my servants shall drink Esay ch 65. v. 13. and you shall be thirsty behold my servants shall rejoyce and you shall be confounded Behold my servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart and you shall cry for sorrow of heart and for contrition of spirit you shall howl Though you were deaf to admonition yet it was told you often and long ago that delicasies were paid with torments This none would give ear to I called and you have not answered I spake and you have not heard and you did evil in my eyes Es v. 12. and you have chosen the things that I would not Now your jovial but short madness shall be requited with long and everlasting Famine fleeting pleasures are to be expiated with perpetual thirst T is now too late to apply a remedy to this hunger and thirst Such a supper sutes well with such a dinner Therefore be sober and watch Pet. 1. c. 5. Ose c. 4. for Fornication and Wine and Drunkenness take away the heart He that has a horrour of eternal famine let him now endure hunger neither long Luk. c. 6. ver 25. nor cruel Blessed are ye that now are an hungred because you shall be filled Christian suffering has a seast prepared for it which lasts for ever but to wantonness and intemperance eternal punishment is appointed Who often meditates on hell escapes it CHAP. V. The fourth Torment for Eternity in Hell is Stench T Is pleasant to live Hom. 5. in Epâ—st ad Heb. but now and then it happens that life is more displeasing then death it self This St. Chrysostome observing said Every one well descended and of good education judgeth it more unsufferable then death to be cast in Prison to abide stench to lye in darkness and Fetters with Homicides Look down into Hell and you will confess there was never so noysome and cruel a Goal neither that under ground of the Messenians called The Treasure nor that of the Persians called Lethe or oblivion nor the Quarries of Syracusa nor the Labyrinth of Creet nor the House and Dungeon of the Athenians nor the Tullianum of the Romans nor the Ceramon of the Cyprians nor the Decas of the Spartans nor the Ancon of Gilimer nor that infamous Prison of Actiolinus which for cruelty surpassed all sorts of torments Neither were there ever detained in any Prison so many in thraldom as God punisheth damned Captives in his grand Prison This Prison of God under ground if you look upon the place is most deep if upon the Jaylor he is most cruel if on the foulness of it it is most stinking if on the imprisoned it is of vast extent containing innumerable yet if you consider the infinite number of offenders it is exceeding strait In fine if you seek after its continuance it is eternal none can escape thence all passages and gates being closely locked up And forasmuch as all the filth of the whole world is devolved into this Dungeon it is a most nasty sink a Den replenisht with loathsome stink This is the fourth torment of eternity intollerable stench How unexplicable this torment is how far beyond our conceit of it we will now declare SECT 1. THe holy Scripture frequently proposes to our consideration the intollerable stench of Hell Psal 10. Holy David saies He shall rain snares upon sinners fire and brimstone and blast of storms the potion of their Cup. Now as drops of rain may not be numbred so the pains of the wicked He shall rain torments upon them like a turbulent showre or swift running torrent He shall rain snares wherewith they shall be so fast bound as it will be impossible for any of them to escape or to break their chains or to undermine the Prison walls wherein they shall be inclosed Their part shall be in the Pool burning with fire and brimstone Apoc. c. 21. Here let us come nearer to our present matter and consider attentively how great will the stench be of one burning in brimstone How if a hundred if a thousand be joyned in the like flame This yet is nothing to the brimstone in Hell whose stench ariseth from divers causes The first after the world is buried as it were in one grave after the general judgement all the Ordure of the Earth shall run down into that sink of Hell whereby the world shall be purged The Psalmist foretold Psa 96. Fire shall go before him and shall inflame his enemies round about Divines relying on this Prophecy affirm that fire shall go before the worlds judge as an apparitour and shall bring all before the Tribunal till the whole judgement be compleatly ended that done and the definitive sentence pronounced that fire like a thunderbolt shall throw down the wicked headlong and as an Executioner shall set upon and bind that guilty multitude so fast as they shall despair of ever escapeing Then will it hurry them like chained dogs into their kennels he shall enflame his enemies round about and together with them all the filth and mud of the world shall flow down into the Lake of hell for hell is indeed the sink of the earth the receptacle of all ordure The second cause of stench is Brimstone Ubi supra whereof the eye of our Lord St. Iohn speaks Their part shall be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death
The sacred volumes of Scripture are wonderful exact in observing every word In the pool which contains stinking and immoveable waters which do not grow less do not flow out nor are dryed up after a thousand years this pool will be like it self after thirty yea threescore thousand years it will lose nothing it once had after a hundred thousand after a thousand Millions of years that pool will not have one drop of it dryed up As it was in the beginning so it will be then and for all ensuing ages Moreover such as had plunged their soul in wantonness and lust in this life shall be drowned in that pool in these baths of brimstone they shall swimme and sweat and be throughly drenched for their cleansing The greatness of this may be best learned from experience if the water of a fish-pond were all drawn out and the fish for some dayes space were not removed they would fill the air with such incredible stench that no one though in the open air would be able to abide long there What a torment will it be in hell to be seated in the midst of unsufferable stink without power to stir one foot thence for all eternity long custome makes tollerable sorded and ill sented trades but those torments in hell can by no means become more gentle SECT 2. THe third cause of that stink is the bodies of the damned more noysome then any dead carkase Esay foretold Out of their carcasses shall rise a stink All of them shall be tortured with the stink of one and one with that of all What a strange kind of Incense is flesh rotten and crawling with Maggats In Lucifers kingdome numberless carkasses of the damned like stinking carrion shall lye for ever upon hot coales Lust is possest with a certain kind of rageing fury so as it tramples reason under foot but these unbridled motions may be restrained if timely begun with For this cause a Religious man in the desert of Scythia subdued wantonness in this manner The comliness of a woman Lib. Sen. patr sect 10. he had formerly seen frequently â—an in his fancy this remembrance these representations he resolved to banish quite out of his breast He strugled long he fought valiently and overcame himself many waies yet he perceived all he did was only to preserve himself from being overcome In the mean while the Divine Providence sent a man out of Aegypt who casually related that beautiful woman was deceased The Champion of Christ took hold of the relation and seriously weighing what might â—edownd to his best advantage he at length made this resolution To depart from his Cell and hasten to the dead womans Tomb. Where determined to triumph over unchast love he makes this attempt when the night was come he rowls away the grave-stone digs up the earth and comes at last to the dead body then speaks thus to himself Behold quoth he thy treasure behold thy delight why dost thou not carry thy dearest away with thee Part at least of this Gold thou hast so sweat for shall bear thee company He spoke the word and made it good indeed for part of the winding sheet well drencht in matter and corruption he privately made his own Thence returning back to his poor cottage this well-sented booty he placed as a Looking-glass before his eyes where several times scoffing at himself he said Lo thou haâ—â— now what thou desired enjoy it glutt thy self with it satisfy thy eyes feed thy nostrils yea now I give thee leave to be all nose imagine this is a Hand-kercheif sent as a token from thy Dear why dost thou not wipe thy mouth and nose with this delicate Linnen so long did this noble combatant mortify himself with stink till all impure thoughts quite vanquished fled from his mind Thus lust though never so Rampant was conquered by stink thus Cupid that skilful and wicked Archer by stench was routed and put to flight Let us call to mind here I beseech you how not a small parcel of a winding sheet not one member of a rotten carcase but innumerable bodies of the damned send forth most intollerable stink not for a few daies but for endless ages St. Bonaventure was bold to say If one only carcass of the damned were here in this world it alone would suffice to infect it all SECT 3. THe fourth cause of stink is the Devils themselves who though spirits carry about them this most loathsome smell yea it is as proper for hell and Devils to stink as it was true which the antients said hell is full of stench Severus Sulpitius recounts how the Devil cloathed in Purple with a Crown on his head appeared to St. Martin and spoke to him these words Thou shalt know Martin in what manner thou maist worship me I am Christ But Martin being warned from above not to credit the Father of lyes said My Lord did not promise to come in this Equipage I know Christ all bloody crowned with Thorns and hanging upon a Cross but this strange King I know not He had scarce ended these words when this counterfeit Christ disappeared and to the end it might be manifest who that King was and of what kingdome he left such a horrible stink behind him that Martin conceived he was now an inmate of Hell and thus he discoursed with himself If one only Devil stink in this manner what will the stench be of all Devils and damned men together Antiochus Epiphanes Mach. 9. a fair picture of a wicked man being now sensible of vengeance from Heaven and having swarms of vermine within his members stunk so horribly that his whole Army was extreamly averse from that loathsome malady Yea as the Scripture testifies he could not endure his own stench How then in hell shall he for ever abide the stink of Devils and all that damned crue Mezentius the Tyrrhenian King not unlike to Antiochus despiser of men and Gods proceeded so far in cruelty by his wit that he slaughtered men not with the Ax nor the Gallows nor fire but with stench for to a living man he tyed the putrified body of one dead so long till the corruption of the dead killed the living A kind of torment most Barbarous most cruel and so much the more by how much the slower But what is this compared to the torments in Hell what is a noysome smell of a few daies to that other which remains for ever when therefore we look upon our Fires Racks and Gibbets we may justly exclaim O mild and gentle torment of Mezentius which bereaves of life by being fastned to one stinking carkass But O death more dreadful then any death to be tortured with the stench of so many devils and damned alwaies to dye and never to make an end of dying SECT 4. IN the Prisons of Japonia even to this day is matter found sufficient for the exercise of Christian Fortitude where many together are thrust into a loathsome Denn
night and day to repeat While we have time let us work good to all An impure conscience is here unquiet hereafter it will be furiously tormented for ever SECT 7. THe force of conscience is incredible especially after the scene of this life is acted for in the presence of God every one will so blush at his own faults that though heaven were set open and the soul uncleansed were invited to enter nevertheless through horror of its own stains it would fly back and refuse to go in till all its spots were expiated So much the conscience has aversion of and blushes at her own offenses Therefore while we have time let us work good to all for as St. Austin discourses Who ever doth not deceive himself by flattery understands well in how great danger of eternal death and how far short of perfect holiness he lives during his pilgrimage here on earth Now then let us look to it and not resist the wholsom warning our conscience gives us The conscience is never silent if it meet with a peaceable and attentive hearer And truly this is exceeding profitable so to feel the worm in our bosom here as not to be troubled with it hereafter eternally St. Serm. DeiCon vert Bernard attests thus much saying It is best then to feel the worm when it may be stilled Therefore let it bite now that it may dye and so bite no more While it bites here it feeds upon what is putrified and biteing consume it that it may be consumed together with it lest being made much of it should become immortal It is therefore much better to be warned here then by our conscience to be murthered hereafter for as the same Saint adds Lib. de Animâ— Those who are exilled from heaven shall be tortured in flesh with fire and in spirit by the word of conscience There is pain unsuffâ—rable horrible fear incomparable stench death of soul and body without hope of pardon and mercy Yet shall they dye so as that they shall ever lâ—ve and so live that they shall ever dye What shall we do O mortals Our life is short the way long the end of the way doubtful time little nothing more certain then death nor uncertain then the hour the continuance of reward â—nd pain everlasting both which depend on a moment for eternity What then O mortals what shall we do CHAP. VIII The Seventh Torment of Eternity in Hell is the Place and Company CAto Censor A man of approved vertue was accustomed to give this admonition to them who were about to buy Land that in the first place they should be sure to provide for good neighbours An ill neighbour is a great evil whence that saying of Themistocles delivered by Plutarch is well known for having a farm to sell he commanded the cryer who gave notice of the sale he should likewise certifie That it had good neighbours A ruinous and inconvenient building if it be near bad company will meet with few buyers All exiled from heaven have such places of abode that our styes and dog-kennels compared to them might seem places or lodgings fit for Kings Besides the inconveniency of the place there is company displeasing beyond expression of so many millions of devils and damned men all sworn enemies to God so as if they were in Paradise they would make one abhor it This then is the seventh torment of eternity in hell the place and company that miserable above measure this detestable beyond imagination The Judg in his definitive sentence comprehended both saying This house of flames this dreadful prison which was prepared for the devil and his angels did not concern you in the beginning Mat. 25 but in regard you valued more the familiarity of mine enemies then my favour Go now go and dwell amongst them whose company heretofore you were so much taken with go into fire everlasting which was not prepared for you but for the devil and his angels It somtimes cometh to pass that a Schoolmaster for the fault of onâ— commands rods to be made ready but for as much as others by and by become faulty too he says These rods were not tyed together for you but because you have committed the same offence with that untoward boy you shall likewise be whipt with him In like manner Christ speaks to his enemies My intent was you should have enjoyed the society of Angels Paradise was made ready for you but since you have cast away all goodness and would not obey me but the devil Go therefore go go and make your abode in the devils den remain in that company your selves have provided Of this both place and company we now treat SECT 1. BEfore we enter into the Place le ts take a view of the ground Antientently at the left hand of the entrance into Yrimalcions house not far from the Porters lodg was painted upon the wall a mighty dog in a chain over whom was written in Capital Letters Take heed take heed of the dog Many such dogs as these are in hell so many Cerberus's as devils which are far more ravenous then all Cerberus's Here both by writing and words I exclaim Take heed take heed of these dogs But now let us look upon the place It is agreed upon as well by antient Fathers as Divines that those comfortless caverns of hell are seated in the center of the earth holy writt likewise affirmes the same For after they who rebelled against Moyses were separated from the people of God Num. 16 v 32 The earth brake in sunder under their feet opening her mouth devoured them with their tabernacles and all their substance and they went down into hell quick covered with the ground This prison of the wicked is rightly seated in the lowest place as the habitation of the blessed is on the highest noblest and most pleasant Of that prison we may frame this discourse In case the damned amount to thirty times a thousand millions of men or a hundred thousand millions and that fiery prison according to its whole dimenfion of height bredth and length contain one German mile it will have room enough for that wonderful number of men Streitness sutes well with the prison it being proper for liberty to enjoy an ample habitation But the croud of the damned those dogs and swine shall dwell in a narrow compass and shall be like grapes in a wine press or salt harrings in a barrel or bricks in a kill or pieces of wood in a pyle or hot glowing coles in an iron-grate or like sheep butcher'd in the shambles they shall be close and streitly thronged together The narrowness of the prison and their being pressed one near to another makes no small addition to their torments Into this slender compass God will conveigh all the sewers and filth of the world The greatest joy this world affords is not a little diminisht by loathsomness of place Who would esteem it a pleasure
shall live in their torments but they shall so live in them as if it were possible they would dye but no one makes an end of them that their pains may last for ever Their pains there are not only endless but likewise so perpetually renewed as that they are always new They shall burn says Job c. 20. and all sorrow shall fall upon them Whence they will be seised with most desperate fury and most furious despair Some indeed despair and that but once because death allows them no longer time But in hell they despair a thousand times an hour yea their despair is without ceasing like unto a continual or hectick feaver Whatever the damned think on that is to them rageing despair they would if it were in their power tear themselves in pieces with their teeth stabbe themselves all over with sharp knives and draw death to them with open arms but death will fly from them SECT 2. SUch as despair through extream adversity somtimes bereave themselves of life by water sword halter poyson or precipices fancying hereby they shall find an end of their life and misery together whereas in hell no end may be found either of calamity life or death There is no water no sword no halter no poyson no precipice can kill them howbeit all these particulars do there torment them as doth also continual and never ending despair At which the Judges final sentence doth chiefly aime Depart from me accursed into everlasting fire from this no appeal may be granted the decree is irrevocable and as St. Austin speaks this sentence of God is unchangable The Angel which St. Apoc. c. 10. John saw swore by him that liveth for ever and ever that there shall be time no more But there shall be eternity and a reward of things done in time This immutable oath of the Angel this fatal sentence of our Lord the damned shall so certainly perceive that this storm of words this horrible thunder shall perpetually sound in their ears into fire everlasting into fire everlasting everlasting alas â—nto fire everlasting Not one syllable or tittle of these words fail of their effects these words which the damned hear and understand we hear and understand not Now as the habitation of the blessed is replenished with all delight so that of the damned is an epitome or abridgment of all dolours What ever is afflictive deplorable or dreadful those beneath are sensible of what ever is delightful pleasing or comfortable those above do plentifully participate In this world of ours no malady so great but has its remedy all affliction may if we will be mitigated Our grief is frequently appeased by reason by rest by pleasing conversation and chiefly by process of time one while our friends and kindred another while such as have suffered the like disasters but principally hope either wipes away or asswages our Calamity Whereas God knows in that region of utter desolation all gates are shut to the least solace No ease no comfort may be expected from heaven or earth from their condition past present or to come What way soever they turn their eyes they behold arrows of eternal death shot against them On every side they are environed with mourning and anguish grief and extream sadness together with torments exceeding all number They may truly say The sorrows of death have compassed me Psal 114 and the pangs of despair we have found tribulation and wailing Hereupon they will not cease to curse the name of our Lord perpetually SECT 3. THis despair of the wicked will be augmented above measure by the certain knowledge they have that with all their unspeakable sufferings not the least blemish of sin may be washt away such is the venom of one mortal sin that even venial defects accompanying it to hell must be chastised for ever Take this example our ordinary failings are idle words effused laughter some small excess in diet carelesness in the castody of our eyes distraction in prayer these and such like while we live are casily expiated One morsel for borne to curb our appetite one gentle sigh a litle patience or an easie keeping our hands or eyes in order blot out those lesser stains whereas if they be joined with one heinous crime in hell both shall be punisht eternally which adds no small fuel to enkindle the fire of despair We must needs acknowledge in this life the hand of God is armed with meekness when he strikes but in the other 't is heavier then lead harder then iron and when extended to revenge he never pulls it in again The despair we speak of ariseth from hope in excess which is called presumption this the wise man warns us to eschew Say not I have sinned and what sorrowful thing hath chanced to me for the highest is a patient rewarder Of sin forgiven be not without fear neither add thou sin upon sin And say not The mercy of our Lord is great he will have mercy on the multitude of my sins Slack not to be converted to our Lord and defer not from day to day for his wrath shall come suddainly and in time of vengeance he will destroy thee Ecclesiast c. 15. Admirably well sayd St. Gregory Lib 1 Râ—â— c 3 He hath an orderly trust in the mercy of God who corrects what he did amiss by repenting not repeating the same fault He that doth otherwise is not guided by hope but is thrust headlong by temerity SECT 4. T Is a point worthy of credit that scarce any Christian is adjudged to hell who in this life did not hope to live longer and thought death farther off then it was Out of this deceitful hope springs everlasting despair It is likewise a matter no less credible that amongst those desperate slaves scarce one may be found who during life did not often secretly despair in this manner Lo I but do and undo I shall never lead other life it is too too hard to relinquish old customes all my endeavour is to no purpose it is in vain to strive I shall never become better while I live let us therefore hold on and enjoy good things preseâ—t death posts on amain we must all be gone quickly let us then take our leave of these timely delights and solemnize our departure with pleasure Th s in reallity is to despair O Christians as you tender your selves and your own salvation I beseech you and by the death of Christ conjure you beware of this dargerous roek unless you desire without peradventure to suffer wrack It is never too late to amâ—nd while we live Have we fallen into the same offence a thousand times Let us â—iâ—e again a thousand times by pennance 'T is never past time to become better every day every hour each one may say with the Psalmist Psa 76. I sayd now have I begun He that is grown so feeble as that he will not endeavour to amend his failings but permits the reins to corrupt
nature shall quickly be plunged into all kind of vices Such an one may justly be tearmed desperate who sets heaven to sale who deems that dreadful dungeon of hell tolerable who wretched man that he is thinks of nothing less then eternity Most truly spoke St. Bernard Despair contains in it self the accomplishment of all malice Despair is much augmented by ignorance of God There is a certain person who has some thoughts of amendment hereafter he is resolved to play the man but in regard he knows not how good God is therefore his thoughts suggest unto him what art thou about to do wilt thou lose this life and that to come Thy sins are too too many and grievous if thou didst lay down thy life for them thou couldst not make satisfaction Thou hast lived delicately hitherto wilt thou now change upon a suddain thou canst not master thy customs whatever thou doest thou wilt slide back into thy former crimes Leave then these things to their ordinary course By these degrees the miserable man sinks for according to St. Bernard wilful despair is the way to hell SECT 5. IN the prisons of this world you may somtimes meet with men of such desperate behaviour as to paint upon the very wals of the prison a pâ—ir of gallows whereof I am an eye-witness they seem to rejoice they must be so exalted in death since they make a jest of the manner of their dying Some likewise have been found knaves in grain aswell as the former who while their comrades were turned off the ladder would pick pockets and cut purses meaning perchance not to be idle spectators but actors too Our proceedings are like to these villains pardon the expression we throw the dice of eternity with equal boldness We are here in prison uncertain what day or hour we must be brought forth to execution and yet we sport and play as if we feared nothing we prodigally wast our time as if we had no other business in hand but toys and trifles 'T is true we either think our selves or hear others discourse on eternity but without feeling of it as though it were of no concern to us We are daily spectators of untimely deaths without so much as reflecting we may chance be the next for whom the bell shall toul When any mention is made of eternity who is moved therewith or if any be moved alas of how short continuance is that motion We behold a world of miseries and many justly chastised for their crimes but are so far from amendment that we boldly commit sin even within sight of the gallows This can be nothing else but a secret kind of despair which indeed is the high rode to despair eternally A Souldier at Rome Lâ—b 4. Dialog as St. Gregory relates being mortally wounded lay some time for dead but after a while returning to himself rehearsed what he had seen in the other world A spatious bridg quoth he opened a passage into most pleasant meddows under the bridg glided a stream both muddy and stenchful on the farther side of it besides many flourishing groves I discovered a numerous multitude all cloathed in white to whom the place breathed forth most grateful perfumes Here might you likewise behold many edifices of admirable structure whither divers endeavoured to make their way over the bridg but all in vain for who ever had not led a vertuous life could by no means pass only people of an upright life and a spotless conscience were allowed passage others who were defiled with sin were tumbled headlong into that noysom river During life we walk on stoutly beside this bridg the sea is never so turbulent nor the heaveâ—s so inexorable as to make us loose our confidence the remedy against all our evil is it will have an end But such as are already cast off the bridg such as drink full draughts of Cocytus are wholly destitute of hope So true it is where hope ceases there despair begins without ceasing in Lucifers territory is mere despair thence all hope is exiled for eternity what ever is heard seen or understood there foments despair There is everlasting dolour everlasting moan everlasting death where they find no end to appease their misery SECT 6. THerefore O ye accursed the just Judg has brought upon you evils he has glutted his arrows in you Your wound is uncurable your stripe is very sore with the stroke of an enemy I have stroken you with cruel chastisement your sorrow is uncurable for the multitude of your iniquity Jer. ch 30 God long ago moved this question to the Prophet Jeremy c. 1. What seest thou Hieremy To whom the Prophet said I see a rod watching Our Lord demanded the second time What seest thou to which Jeremy answered I see a pot boyling hot All our pains in this life what are they but rods without cruelty with these towardly children are chastised and give God thanks they are so geâ—tly dealt with Holy David says Ps 22. and 44. Thy rod and thy staffe they have comforted me A rod of direction the rod of thy kingdom Although we be strook with this staff or rod yet are we not miserable these strokes are signs of love these wounds are a beginning of our cure whereas that boyling pot is not a mark of direction or solace but of perdition and despair Let us therefore so be affrayed of it that we beware in time we easily perceive by what means we may avoid aswell presumption as despair God like a Gyant stretcheth forth his two mighty arms Justice and Mercy lay hold of whether you please He that takes only Mercy by the hand exposes himself to presumption he that embraces Justice alone sinks under the burden of despair Doubtless God hath exhibited both in this and the other world many remarkable effects of his Justice who looks upon these only is near to despair as on the contrary who onely considers the attractives of Mercy confides above measure happy are they that observe a mean thou mayst march on securely betwixt Mercy and Justice This is attested by the Oracles of truth All the ways of our Lord are Mercy and Truth Ps 24. The royal Prophet did contemplate dayly these two arms of God Mercy and Judgment I will sing to thee O Lord Ps 100. The matter is so indeed we must steer our course betwixt Justice and Mercy thereby to shun the rock of presumption and the gulf of despair both which are extreamly perilous and during life admit of cure but when death closes up our eyes they become uncurable for ever CHAP. X. Eternity is cause of Continual sighing to the Godly SOlomon with admirable variety describes the unexplicable circle of eternity Ecles c. 1. Generation passeth saith he and Generation cometh but the earth standeth for ever The sun riseth and goeth down and returneth to his place compassing all things goeth forward in circuit and returneth unto his circles All rivers enter into the sea and
the sea over floweth not In like manner all sorts of pains as so many streams empty themselves into eternity in hell yet eternity like an immense ocean is always the same neither ebbing nor flowing but infinite but unchangeable After a hundred centuries of ages are disburdened into this abysse a hundred more will be swallowed up and still more and more without end After the damned crue shall have dwelt in hell so many ages as to think they have lived in flames for all eternity by past yet eternity is not one jot diminisht After the revolution of so many ages eternity is not a minute less it is ever entirely the same After a thousand thousand years are come and gone the circle of eternity is as large as whole as unavoidable as it was in the beginning This is the ninth unspeakable unconceivable torment in Gods prison Now forasmuch as people yet alive busie their thoughts with eternity we assign a triple difference thereof eternity which makes the pious daily sigh eternity which is a fearful dream of the wicked and eternity which is an everlasting punishment to the damned The first of these three is the subject of this present chapter SECT 1. THe divine espouse commending the humanity of her beloved says Cant. 2. His left hand under my head and his right hand shall embrace me Under these words lyeth hid a mystery which must be unfolded In the left hand of the beloved are honours wealth and plenty in the right length of dayes or eternity Here the espouse as if she were wittingly and willingly blind exclaimes the left hand I see not because it is under my head so little do I value honour riches or transitory goods But the right wherewith he shall embrace me I behold though yet I enjoy it not all the eyes I have are fixed in contemplation of eternity things eternal are they I esteem Yet in regard I have not possession of a blessed eternity nevertheless I rest assured He shall embrace me Eternity delayed breeds torment as Hope that is differred afflicteth the soul Prov. 13. Eternity stirs up in the vertuous a dayly longing after it Boniface a Citizen of Rome having for some time kept company with Aglae a noble matron became at length so penitent for his fault that he resolved to wash out that stain by the practice of most heroick vertue This made him sl ght all danger of looseing the goods of fortune yea and his own life too this made him visit martyrs in prison and kiss their chains this made him encourage such as were to suffer and after death to bury their bodies Being taken up with these employments he took his journy to Tarsus where he performed the like good offices to the champions of Christ His dayly exhortation was they should be constant in their sufferings their labour though short would merit reward without end With these words he mervailously excited himself and others to lay down their lives couragiously While he was busie with these employments he was apprehended and had his flesh torn off his bones with iron hooks they thrust under his nails sharp needles and poured into his mouth melted lead Amidst these torments he persevered constant he believed his pains momentary and the crown he expected to be everlasting he repeated to himself his former exhortation and often redoubled I give thee thanks O my Lord Jesu In this manner he gloriously finisht his combat Eternity is cause of continual sighing to the godly SECT 2. ST Frances of Assisium the Jewel of his age through frequent weeping began to be troubled with sore eyes Divers perswaded him to forbear his dayly tears to whom with a deep sigh he said For the love of that light which is common to us flies I do not judge it meet to debar my self of the rays of light eternal Being likewise asked how in such thin clothes he could endure the austerity of winter He answered if we were warmed with love of our eternal country we should easily be sheltered from cold here This life was to St. Francis occasion of patience as eternity was of desire Christ our Lord undertaking to teach his followers how to sigh incessantly after eternity said Mat. 10 Fear ye not them that kill the body A hidden argument but according to art Do not for this reason fear saith he because they kill If any one had power to detain another in the fire or such like punishment alive him you might justly fear The sharper the pain inflicted by men the sooner it bereaves of life the more grievous the torment the quicker the end You have then no reason to fear them who can kill the body but once and that often with one blow fear him that redoubles dayly mortal wounds and always killing never kills Behold the antitheses of this divine Oratour The fear of a short death is to be overcome by fear of death eternal Our Lord therefore would glve us to understand that the souls of men are immortal subject to the sole pleasure of God and that the bodies are to be raised from death to reward or punishment everlasting Behold likewise with what artificial brevity of words Christ comprehended great mysteries the immortality of the soul the resurrection of the body and an eternity of well or wo. Eternity causeth in the vertuous continual sighing Sir Thomas More Sand. Lib. 1 a man every way accomplisht was cast into prison not to his disgrace but for manifesting his sanctity to the world His wife came to visit him with an intent to bring him off his resolution But in vain She â—â—ade her onset with a two forked argument and pleaded her cause with prayers and tears beseeching him chiefly by all conjugal fidelity he would preserve his life yet a while What fault have I made quoth she wherein have your children kinsfolk and family so much offended as to be so soon deprived of you my beloved husband All our lives depend on yours For my part I had rather dye a hundred time 〈◊〉 survive after your death 〈◊〉 my dearest More subscribe to the Kings decree and you make your self and us all live many years longer Are you so much fallen out with this present lifâ— as that you will obstinately run upon your own death Death knowes well when it is to come for us why then do we of our own accord send for it as if it had forgâ—tten us That you may have compassion for many of your friends have pitty on your self and do not despise the best share of your life which is yet behind I doubt not but God out of his goodness will grant you many more years to live in case your self be not out of liking with your own life Her Husband gave eaâ— pâ—tiently to what she said and when she had ended her speach How many years quoth he doest thou think I shall live my dear Aloysia to whom she quickly made answer you may well live
twenty years and upward Whereunto Sir Thomas replyed your design then is to have me exchange an entire eternity for twenty years Surely you have small skill in merchandise who would part with costly wares for a trifle Had you mentioned twenty thousand years you might have had some seeming pretence for your folly But alas what are twenty or thirty thousand years to eternity A small point a shaddow a moment a smoak a mear nothing Wherefore I will joyfully undergo not onely imprisonment but all the calamities likewise of this life so long as it pleases God and upon condition my eternal recompense may be secured to loose any thing of that is to loose all What he said he made good by a couragious death SECT 3. JOhn Godfrey Bishop of Wortsburg a bright shining star amongst Prelates a man of so much greater sanctity by how much it was more concealed This good Prelate I say frequently used this sentence worthy to be engraven in cedar and gold Every moment I stand at the do r of Eternity Hence proceeded that custome of placing in every room of his palace a dead mans scull or some other bones of the dead either real or drawn out in mortar lest at any time he should forget the memory of eternity At his exequies a funeral Oration in latine extolled many things in him worthy commendation but this one especially that he was so addicted to busie his thoughts perpetually with eternity as that he read over leisurely three several times a treatise of eternity Work must needs go well forward where there is ever a fresh remembrance of eternity This was a practise of most heroick spirits to pause seriously upon eternity both night and day Here I may not pass over in silence that passage worthy of credit A Priest and a religious man P. Hermanus Hugo eminent in all kind of Schollarship was carried on so fervently with desire to imprint eternity in his heart that with great care he read over seven times a little book of eternity which doubtless he had done oftner if death had not overhastily summoned him to eternity Pachomius after a long exhortation to his Disciples came in the end to this conclusion Above all things said he let us bear in mind the last day and every minute be affraid of eternal puuishment This holy man knew well which way vertue was to be â—cquired Eternity stirs up in the pious frequent and sometimes doleful sighs For since we are exposed to a twofold eternity the one blessed the other cursed and since we have no acquittance to ascertain us of beatitude no marvail if they be in a particular manner seised with fear and trembling who now approach to the confines of eternity Besides though we have great hope of attaining everlasting happiness nevertheless because we are not yet in possession of it we have just cause to fear and sigh The delay of so great a good provokes both sighing and weeping Hermenigildus King of whom we spoke before son to Levigildus King of the Visigothes having renounced Arrianism became a Catholick and endured with much fortitude wrongs imposed on him by his own father who threatned to take away his life unless he would abandon Catholick Religion To whom the young prince returned this generous answer You may determine concerning me father what you please Do you resolve to take from me a Kingdom It is but one which dayly perisheth that other which is immortal you have not power to deprive me of Do you cast me into prison you stop not our free passage to heaven thither thither we will take our journy Will you break off the thread of this dying life I expect a better an eternal one These words were becoming so royal a person It is no loss but gain to exchange temporal goods for eternal Eternity makes the vertuous often long after it SECT 4. IEzonias anciently said to Ezekiel ch 11. v. 2 c. Son of man these are the men that conceive iniquity and devise most wicked counsel in this City saying were not houses builded of late This is the caldron and we the flesh Therefore prophesie of them thou son of man Those wicked men thought they were amidst the dainties in their own City as flesh in the pot which is not easily taken out by any All goes well with us say they our city and our houses are as fortresses unto us we are safe enough our enemies cannot annoy us To these same men Ezechiel prophesied on the behalf of God Ubi supâ—a I will cast you out of the midst of the caldron and I will give you into the hands of the enemies and will do judgments in you You shall fall by the sword The like befalls them who are much enamoured with this mortal life They think they are flesh in the caldron they are well at ease gay clothes costly fare and many pleasures they account their heaven eternity as they think not on so they desire it not being well appayed with their caldron Let us leave them to run their carrier by and by the case will be altered They shall be cast out they shall fall by the sword they shall be thrown into other caldrons wherein they shall fry and boyl for ever Contrary-wise while the wicked snatch at a minutes pleasure men of good conscience steer their course upward like unto fat which in a boyling pot swims on the top whereas others like lumps of flesh sink down and remain in the bottom This choice fat the world as a busie but foolish cook scums off and casts away for froth all good men are reputed as the refuse of this world However they pass through these sufferings with joyfulness having had a foretast of blessed eternity which they are already in love with Eternity makes the pious languish for it Amongst the people of Israel divers were found whose bosoms boyled with desires of enjoying the land of promise The desert which they inhabited so many years became now loathsome to them especially after their eyes gave testimony of the fruitfulness of the country which appeared in exquisit figgs goodly pomegranats and a huge bunch of grapes brought thence What do we said they Let us go up and possess the Land because we may obtain it Num. 13. Such expressions as these daily fill the mouths of the godly What do we here amongst Sepulchers of the dead why do we snatch our food from things which fade in a moment Let us go up and possess the Land whose fertility is eternal St. Austin being enflamed with this desire Lib. 3. de Lib. arb composed the third Book of Free Will which he closes with these words So great is the beauty of Justice so much the delight of light etetnal that albeit it were not lawful to stay therein any longer then one days space for this alone numberless years of this life abounding with dainties and plenty of temporal goods might in reason worthily be
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
on their right hand they have the Devils to torture them on their left are their companions in misery within them is anguish the worm of conscience terrour and despair Do we Christians beleive these things and live as we do Esay ch 53. Who hath beleived our hearing and the arm of our Lord to whom is it revealed We are perswaded these things ought to be beleived but we beleive them very coldly Our beleif hath scarcely any soul it is not lively as if I should point at a painted table with my finger and say this is Abraham ready to sacrifice his son Abraham I say not living but painted Such for all the world is our faith not lively not breathing forth heat not animated but drawn with a Pencil We beleive and beleive not Wherefore I lay down here a brief method of meditating every day upon eternity A certain Father having Wealth in aboundance provided his daughters of a handsome settlement they perswaded the old man he would be pleased to bestow upon them in his life time what means he intended for them at his death promising withal their Father should be plentifully furnisht with all necessaries For the first year they made good their promise and treated him with much liberallity but when it fell out that he lived longer then they expected they grew weary of the old man and unmindful both of Piety and their Promise they began to deal more niggardly and harshly with him He to find a remedy for his folly by a wile procures a great Chest filled with Sand and Stones to be secretly conveyed into his Chamber This he opened in the night and with that small stock which he had reserved he held on counting money so long till at length it amounted to a considerable summ which he purposely exprest in such a voice as his son in Law might easily over hear him Afterwards he lockt up his wealthy Coffer Next morning his Daughters spoke more lightsomly to him and demanded why it was so late last night ere he went to rest To whom the Father made answer My Children when I judged all was silent and none could take notice of what I did I took a view of my Treasure yet remaining which of you two deserves better of me while I live shall enjoy it after my death Hence proceeded a strong emulation both of them striving which should manifest greater respect to their Father After the old man was dead they opened the Chest wherein they found besides Sand and Stones a Staffe with this Inscription Avarice brought the children to What Piety could not make them do Much after this maner though out of a superior motive may we fill our Chest with Sand or little Seeds that what Piety could not perswade us to Eternity may Thus then we must go to work Let every one fill his Coffer Trunk or Desk or what else is nearest at hand as his Purse Hat Cup or Gloves with Poppy little Stones Pease or any other small Grain and when he is to meditate on Eternity he may begin to reckon in this sort that every Poppy seed little Stone or Pease may stand for a hundred or a thousand years For example one Grain signifies a thousand years two grains two thousand ten ten thousand a hundred a hundred thousand a thousand a thousand thousand years and so of the rest This is the first point belonging to our Method The second is Although you substract ten or a hundred grains from those in your Coffer Hat Dish or other Vessel almost nothing will appear to be substracted or taken away Mean while t is most certain Eternity remains entire though so many thousand years pass as you cast into your Chest Poppy seeds Pease or other grain This is most undoubtedly true For all this number hath its end albeit you fill a most capacious house with little seeds and every one stand for a thousand years The third When during Eternity so many thousand years are gone as there be small grains in your Coffer yet eternity is whole without any diminution not so much as the least parcel of it is impaired Nay though that same Coffer be three four five times emptied and every grain signifie a thousand years nevertheless nothing is taken off from Eternity it continuing durable and of as vast extent as when it first begun The fourth This same thought if serious and attentive will somewhat afflict the mind yet must we not therefore leave it off but must go on forward He that meditates may rouse himself up in this manner Go too in Gods name le ts proceed yet farther The fifth By this kind of meditation the soul will by little and little grow warm and break forth into these or the like expressions What do we mean the trash and toyes of this life we eagerly persue and look not after Eternity T is too true we busy not out mind with years eternal The sixth Our understanding must be so by degrees informed that it may frame a conceit of those hidden secrets from what we perceive by our eyes The Philosophers Maxime is true Our understanding must take instruction from our Phansy Now as we may not with one step mount to the top of a Ladder but by degrees and as we cannot all at once fill a streit neckt bottle with Wine so it is not possible by a sleight and suddain thought of eternity to imprint it either in the understanding or will By degrees we are to proceed from less to more Even as we fill a Hat Cap or Chest and by every seed we take out we reckon a thousand years so likewise when a great room is filled we must order our computation The seventh is to make a Colloquie to ones self What is all affliction in this world compared to infinite millions of years through and after which eternity shall endure and that without any moving towards an end or being in the least impaired Here every one is constrained to acknowledge Although what ever calamity the world contains fell upon me alone yet what would this be to pains eternal Again though I alone enjoyed all pleasures the world can afford and that for an hundred years together what would this be to an eternity of bliss What then do I fool that I am that I do not take another course From this time forward at least I will learn more wit If it chance that any one be opprest with pain in body sickness or grief of mind then chiefly is the time to entertain this thought If this pain or pensiveness were to continue ten twenty an hundred thousand years O God! how unexplicable would it be But what would this be in comparison of those most sharp pangs of eternity which after Millions of ages know no end but remain entire Lo here a brief method to meditate on Eternity SECT 3. IT is most true which one returning from the other world declared No one beleives how sharp are the
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
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
Amongst a hundred thousand men you shall scarce find one who seriously endeavours to dive into these matters or frequently ruminates them in his mind Our life would be far otherwise our manners would be reformed if our thoughts were other then they use to be Whence it comes that our Conscience which was strook deaf with vices receives its hearing in torments so much more sharply now is it afflicted and desperate by how much ere while it was lulled a sleep in a drowsy security St. Austins assertion is true In Hell there shall be pennance but too late Their worm shall never dye The seventh Torment is the company and place A convenient house with ill neighbours is a great inconvenience but an inconvenient house with most wicked neighbours is the worst of inconveniences This kind of habitation is in Hell Psal 48. Their Sepulchres are their house for ever The Damned shall burn as if they were shut up in Sepulchres which are houses very incommodious but they are debarred from hiering any other Besides their neighbours are the worst imaginable such as would make even Heaven infamous and hareful a croud of damned men and Devils O what neighbours are these Take our lords sentence of them It were good for those men if they never had bin born It were good for those spirits if they never had been created Look upon damned men As sheep they are put in Hell Psa 48. death shall feed upon them But how are they now become sheep were they not while they lived Tigers Swine Vultures Wolves Lions They were indeed but the vengeance of God hath made them sheep and so tamed them that they cannot withstand any punishment inflicted on them Death shall feed upon them For as sheep feed upon grass without plucking up the roots and clip it so as they leave the root entire to spring again that it may be cropt again so doth death feed upon those captives in hell It bereaves them not of life that they may be kept alive to be perpetually slaughtered This is the second death which ever lives whereof St. Austin makes this discourse Lib. 91. de civit ch 28. The misery of those which do not belong to this City shall be perpetual which is called the second death because the soul there cannot be said to live as being estranged from the life of God nor the body which shall groan under the weight of eternal torments Wherefore this second death will be worse then death because it can never have and end by death There pain continues that it may afflict and nature is maintained in being that it may be sensible of affliction both which are preserved without decaying least punishment should decay Here I am almost in a mind to imitate Solon who carried a mournful Citizen to the top of an high Tower whence he commanded him to look over all the buildings of the City underneath saying think with your self how much grief hath heretofore been in these houses how much is at this present and will be hereafter and then cease to bewail the misery of mortals as if they were your own The like in some measure may I say Behold O mortals and consider that dreadful den of sorrow in hell O how much wailing is contained in those Caverns of Eternity what a mass of calamities will be there after infinite ages are past Cease therefore to deplore your flea-bitings as if they were unsupportable evils Here indeed is a receptacle of all miseries a forge of lamentation Who ever thou be which travellest yet upon the way take heed thou so order thy journey that this place of torments serve thee not for a perpetual Inn. The Eighth Torment is Despair THis world we live in is replenisht with many afflictions yet in process of time all of them meet with an end Such as are opprest with poverty I see find an end of it such as are aspersed with slanders are cleared of them in the end such as are sick are in the end delivered of their malady On this side I behold stripes racks and other engines prepared to torture on that blood-thirsty enemies proud Citizens gripeing Landlords but I likewise behold the stroke of death brings all those to nothing and frees these from barbarous usage But in those fiery Gulfs where Devils abide I contemplate many horrid and unexplicable torments yet I cannot espy any end of them no there is no end at all to be found Death is the best invention of nature death ends all it relieves some by others it is desired and deserves better of none then of those to whom it comes before it be sent for Death sets slaves at liberty even against their masters will death unchains Captives and looses Prisoners death is a present remedy against all injuries of this life But alas there is none of this in hell I take a view of all their lurking holes yet can espy no death at all unless it be that living death which incessantly renews its own pangs As in hell there is no end of sorrow so is there none of dying The Damned themselves as Dionisius notes cast up their own reckoning Corth in speculo amatorum mundi After ten thousand years are gone an hundred thousand more will come and after them as many millions as there are Sands in the Sea or stars in the Firmament And when those long revolutions of ages are over as if we had suffered nothing at all we shall begin to suffer a new so without ceasing end or measure the wheel of our torments will be perpetually rowled about Hence will ensue most piercing despair to the most cruel torture both of Memory Understanding and Will What ever their memory represents unto them will afflict them what ever their understanding thinks on will redound to their torment their very will will be astonisht at its own obstinacy for it can never will what God wills and so shall ever find within it self a torture of its own malice How dreadful a thing is it to know for certain they shall have God for their eternal foe they shall never escape his severe hand they shall for ever be trampled under his feet Hence will arise in them a continual and most desperate fury and an implacable hatred of God Job 20. All grief will rush in upon them All evil will be thrown upon their guilty heads O ye wretched new inhabitants of the night your delights are gone and to speak with St Iohn Apostle Apo. 18. The Apples of the desire of your Soul are departed from you and all fat and goodly things are perished from you Now only despair is left all hope is quite vanisht away You shall call upon death and it will not come you are now entred that Dungeon whence no death will ever set you free You have now nothing left you but only despair You may remember how greedily like Bears you sought after the honey of pleasure the
honey is past but the Bees sting remains with you and will do for eternity so as now you have nothing left but despair This it was you looked for after an hundred a thousand admonitions to the contrary you have found what you looked for keep it with you The worst of evils is despair The ninth Torment is Eternity LEt all Angels make use of their tongues and they shall never sufficiently declare that eternity of torments in Hell For what I pray is Hell An extream an everlasting torment without intermission The eight foregoing pains albeit most grievous yet would they be very tollerable if they were but to be endured for many thousands of years But in regard they are eternal out alas they are unexplicable and thereby become more unsufferable although they must be for ever suffered Adam â—asbant Dom. 1. quadra I consider saies an ancient Divine a thousand years I consider a thousand thousand I consider so many thousand years as torments or Minutes have passed from the worlds Creation to its consummation and yet I have nothing of eternity They shall labour for ever and shall live yet unto the end This eternity of pains is a singular torment Psal 48. For the damned do not only endure their present torture but since they are certain of its perpetual continuance they undergoe in a manner the immense and inestimable burden of Eternity over and over yea they suffer now what they must for all eternity endure For this reason many Saints condemned themselves to austerity of life while they lived that they might escape that eternity of pains The meditation of eternity intoxicates like new Wine Most Saints have done through the consideration of eternity what others might censure as mad pranks of men in drink Some perchance might say of them That these are full of new Wine Acts 2. They were so indeed but it was of that wine which they drew out of the Cellar of eternity How many of them retired into the desart how many rowled their bodies on brambles and thorns how many leaped into Frozen Lakes how many tumbled their naked bodies in Snow how many had the courage to jump into flames of fire that they might eschew sin the seminary of a doleful eternity It was the joynt desire of them all Let rottenness enter in my bones Hab. c. 3 and swarm under me that I may rest in the day of tribulation And to say the truth it is better to dye a thousand times it is better to be slaughtered a thousand and a thousand times more then to become a prey to eternal death He must either be a bruite or a stone whom Eternity doth not reclaim from his bad courses Some years ago in Flanders Bretrandus son to Cornelius was a yong man so violent troublesome vitious and addicted to quarrelling that all the City over he was called The King of Turmoyls besides he was much given to drinking matches Gameing and dancing One night next before Ash-wednesday while he was Feasting Dancing and Reveling God touched him to the quick with a glimpse of eternity whereat he withdrew himself from company under pretence to take fresh air By and by his comerades look after him and find him pensive and absorpt with other thoughts They besought him courteously he would cast away care and return to the dancing or if he would rather to engage in carousing some new healths he had now taken fresh air enough Notwithstanding his thoughts are now so far embarked in the consideration of Death Judgement and Eternity that albeit in the begining they conceived he was but in jest yet so soon as they perceived he was in good earnest and heard him discourse with much resolution they were exceedingly amazed In fine he concluded his discourse with these words I am determined my companions henceforth to become another man to abstain from these toyes to reform my misdemeanours and to live like a Christian And truly if I be wise hereafter I must let pass no occasion that may conduce to save my soul In my opinion it is not too late to do well though I am very sorry I began no sooner being I am now fully convinced these fleeting pleasures are attended by an entire eternity This is my resolution As for you I wish you may look well to your own security After he had ended his speech he took his leave of them and left them astonisht with this suddain change amongst whom some were perswaded to lead a better life and all that knew the mans violent disposition were strook with admiration About that time it fell out opportunely Eleutherius Pontanus Menenas a Priest of the Society of Jesus came into those parts and being acquainted with Betrandus was entertained at his house Of whose arrival when Betrandus had notice he cast himself at his feet Annales Soc. 1601. 2. Janua Lovarij in Belgia and made earnest sute to be admitted into the Society After some time of tryal he obtained his desire and was admitted for a Lay-brother In which course of life he happily spent four and thirty years He excelled in his care of the Sick and was so observant of religious discipline that he carried an hour-glass about with him to measure out his time of Prayer when it was accidentally interrupted with serving the sick To this pass was Betrandus brought by meditation of eternity To know that a wretched eternity depends on every mortal sin and yet to sin grievously is an argument of extream madness Eternal fire is an Epitome of all chastisements All which is excellently coucht in anoration by Sr. Lib. de anima c. 3. Bernard What grief saith he what sorrow what lamentation will then be when the wicked shall be separated from the Society of Saints and from the sight of God and being delivered over into the power of Devils shall go with them into fire everlasting and there must continue for ever in perpetual sobs and mourning For being exiled from the blessed Country of Paradise they shall be eternally tormented in hell they shall never behold the face of God they shall never enjoy any ease but shall for thousand thousands of years be there punished without ever being delivered thence Where neither the torturer is at any time weary nor the tortured ever dyes Because the fire in that place so consumes as it still keeps them alive So are their pains inflicted as that they alwaies seem new Every one according to the quality of his fault shall abide pain in hell proportionable and such as are equal in fault shall be equally punisht with their fellowes in equal guilt Nothing else shall be heard there but Weeping and wailing sighing and howling mourning and gnashing of teeth nothing shall be seen there but worms gastly Visages of Tormentors and ugly Monsters of Devils Those cruel Worms shall pinch their very heart strings whence will proceed pain trembling sighing amazement and horrid fear The