Apple they were quickly banisht from that Garden of Pleasure and an Angel in Arms placed to guard the entrance thereof this is attested by Holy Writ And he cast out Adam Gene. 3. and placed before the Paradise of Pleasure Cherubims and a flaming and a turning sword This was a most signal testimony of Divine mercy there to place a servant only and not the Lord of Paradise with a sword to hinder all entrance It will not be so in the day of Judgement when no servant shall be permitted to have a sword Our Lord will take the sword himself and draw it against the damned Matt. 25 Get ye away from me you accursed These words are but few yet do they make a volume of so vast a bulk as will never be sufficiently read over It behoves us therefore now to look well 〈◊〉 us The less misery each one shall 〈◊〉 to in the other world the more 〈◊〉 he undergoes miseries in this CHAP. XIV What is the Fuel of Eternal Fire With an Explication of the grievousness of mortal sin VVEll said an Ancient Philosopher The begining of Wisdome is the knowledge of sin He will never sin grievously who with attention ruminates the gravity and ugliness thereof Take sin out of the world and you take away all evil together with it Sin is the onely evil in the world yea the very nursery of all other evils a most profound sea of all miseries and a bottomless depth of torments Hence issued that of St. Chrysostome Sin is a willing madness a voluntary Devil This moved the Mother of St. Lewis King of France while he was young to instill this principle into his heart My son I would rather thou shouldst dye then sin mortally well to our purpose spoke Iohn Climacus Though we should fast a thousand years continually with Bread and Water though we should bring the whole world to mourn with us though we should equal the River Iordan by weeping drop by drop yet could we never satisfy for our faults committed This made the Wise man cry out Ecc. 21. As from the face of a Serpent flee from sins Who touches the cup wherein Death has Vomited to speak with Turtullian and in which Poyson is offered to the taster There is nothing in the world more formidable then sin Upon which subject much hath been delivered as well by word of mouth as writing whereunto we will annex five assertions who ever sins mortally 1. Offends God most grievously and makes him his adversary and foe 2. He loseth all Gods Grace 3. He becomes guilty of all miseries and calamities 4. He loseth Heaven for all Eternity 5. He throws himself headlong into everlasting pains in Hell St. Paul comprehends the whole business in a word The wages of sin is death and all the train of death sorrow pain sickness anguish which are Harbingers are followed by eternal death All this t is meet we should consider more exactly therefore we will proceed with our assertions in order SECT 1. THe first is Whoever sins mortally offends good grievously and makes him his adversary and foe By sin the supream God is wronged so far as man places his final end in the creature with neglect of the Creatour This is an extream injury and not much unlike to Idolatry for which cause sins in Holy Writ are frequently called Idolatry Such temerity as this is found in all grievous sin and is worthy of all punishment whatever For in regard God is most present every where the sin is committed before his eyes who so much abhors it and so becomes an injury to God who is both Spectatour and hearer Thus we affront the Soveraign King before his face Yea and what is worse we abuse benefits to the displeasure of our Benefactour For that very help which God affords us in every action we turn against him As if a Father should provide his little Son of a Dagger wherwith he might learn to defend himself and withal should guide his childs tender arm yet the wicked Boy should strive to murther his father even while he held up the hand ready to stab him This is every ones case that sins While God both helps and directs his actions these he most injuriously converts against God Now for better manifestation of this notorious affront take a view of what ensues So often as a man is about to sin he stands betwixt God and the Devil as judge and umpire whether he will declare for God explicates his own Law and withal shewes his Crucified Son to withdraw man from sin The Devil sets before him pleasure the bait to all evil hereby to perswade and entice him to sin Whoever now sins declares without any more adoe for the Devil because turning away from God he most unjustly adjudges the cause to the Devil What else is this but to say indeed Let Laws command or prohibit what they will let Gods Son Crucified admonish crave move or manifest what he please let God himself menace what he list from Heaven the Devil invites me so sweetly he drinks to me in such a sugred cup that he perswades he gets the victory I go I run after the Devil I permit my self to be drawn by him This Inkeeper gives me content what shot soever he demand This is exactly the proceeding of every one that sins grievously Thus God is put into one scale and Pleasure into the other man comes to weigh them and when he is determined to sin he resolves rather to lose the friendship of God then debar himself of pleasure and so prefers Barabbas the Theif and Murtherer before Christ our Redeemer What more base horrible and unworthy so Soveraign a Majesty then for a creature to deal thus with its Creatour Be astonied O Heavens upon this Jeremy ch 2. and O Gates thereof be ye desolate exceedingly saith our Lord. For two evils hath my people done Me they have forsaken the Fountain of living water a most clear fountain and have thirsted after muddy water Yet for further Declaration of this particular Man as we said is drawn two waies this way God draws that the Devil It is freely in mans choice whom he will follow The Devil ties man in a thread for he can do no more and proposes to him something which may either sooth the flesh or stuffe the purse or puff him up with ambition with these threds he draws man whom he has entangled whither he pleases Now that man may satisfy his Lust or encrease his Fortune or be seated on the Throne of Honour he tramples underfoot the express Law of God Contrariwise God binds man with cords not easily broken He sets before his eyes his numberless benefits he requires from him due service he threatens to banish him from Heaven and throw him into Hell for ever if he be disobedient But all in vain what ever God either promises or menaces The Devil bears the Bell and through mans wilfulness is
Prey to Bees Wasps and Gnats Notwithstanding I have seen more harsh dealing then this Blessed Maximus after he had bin rent with Hooks and had suffered the Rack and bin beaten with clubs was stoned to death Anthimus Martyr was tormented with hot glowing Aulls broken potsheards fiery shooes and stretched upon a Rack Zoe wife to Exuperius Martyr after six daies Famine endured in a dark Dungeon was hung up by the hair of her head and stifled with smoak of burnt Excrements Glycerius haveing been beaten till his bones appeared was cast into the fire Peter the Exorcist companion to Marcelliuus Martyr first was torn with whips then had Vinegar and Salt poured into his gaping wounds and lastly was roasted with a flow fire Christiana Virgin was likewise roasted and basted with Oyl Serpents were let loose against her her tongue was pluckt out and shot to death with Arrows Maxima and Donatilla were cruelly beaten with rods then had their wounds rubbed with quick Lime and finally being broyled on a Gridiron were condemned to the beasts Theonilla had the top of her head taken off with a Rasour which was afterwards Crowned with Thorns and Brambles then being tyed to four stakes she was barbarously beaten with thongs of Lether and had hot Coales thrown upon her belly amongst which torments she gave up the Ghost Horrible pains were these no doubt and sharp sufferings Albeit I have seen sharper and more horrible Pantaleon haveing been for a long time burned was at last thrown into a Cauldron of molten Lead Paul and Iuliana Brother and Sister were tortured on the Rack were afflicted with boyling Pitch beaten with rods of hot iron seated in Chaires and cast upon beds strook full of Nails and after three dayes abode amongst Snakes were for the Faith of Christ consumed with fire Blessed St. Barbara was cruelly rotmented with burning Torches stripes and iron hooks and having her breasts cut off suffered her head to be barbarously smitten with Hammers Auxentius had his feet bored through with iron and then being hanged upon a Wheel was so long pierced with hot auls till he ended his Martyrdome Quintinus of the illustrious order of Senatours in Rome underwent mervailous torments for after he had been dressed with boyling Oyle Pitch and Fat his sides were scorched with burning Torches all his body was beaten with Chains Mustard Lime and Vinagre were poured into his mouth O strange kind of drink and himself was thrust through with two Iron Spits from the Neck to the Thighes having besides sharp needles strook into all his fingers between the Flesh and Nails Do these seem great extremities of cruelty But far greater are to be found in Hell and those eternal in comparison whereof the former may be reputed as a Play-game or a jest We have seen far sharper pains then all before mentioned Even this Age we live in hath been witty in inventions of Tyranny In some places the bellies of men consecrated to God being ripped open and stuffed with Provend have served as Mangers for Horses or troughs for Hogs to feed in Quick Mice have likewise bin placed upon mens naked bellies and covered there under Basons on the tops whereof a fire being made the little creatures were compelled to seek for their liberty which finding no other way they eate into the bowels of liveing men Hence Caligula thou maist learn something to imitate In other places mens bodies were cut asunder joynt by joynt burning Torches were put under their Armpits and applyed to their whole breasts Hooks were thrust into their entrals and that they might be longer tortured before death fires were kindled under them Some have been cloathed in Bears-skins and so baited by Mastive Dogs till they were devoured Some again have been rowled on sharp stones some have been covered with a board and pressed under a thousand pound weight and so bruised to peices with so much more cruelty and pain by how much their death was slower These are cruel most cruel sufferings yet who ever looks upon the pains of Hell with the eye of contemplation will constantly pronounce of all the torment of Martyrs together I have seen much more cruel I have beheld much more dreaful All the inventions of cruesty found out by Tyrants are small are nothing at all in respect of the Torments in Hell which are eternal alas alas they are eternal SECT 4. GOd commanded Ezechiel to make this Proclamation That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn my Sword out of his Scabbard not to be revoked ch 21. ver 5. Where this Sword is once unsheathed it will never be put up again it is irrevokable For the better understanding hereof let us I pray betake ourselves to a quiet posture as he did in Mount Choreb who did contemplate Eternity with much attention Let us sit down and cast up our accounts on Paper or on our fingers ends in this manner The Damned shall be tormented in Hell a thousand years that is not enough Two thousand years nor that Three thousand years that is too little Four thousand years and that too Five thousand years that is not sufficient Ten thousand years neither will that suffice Twenty thousand years that falls short of their due Fifty thousand years so likewise does that A hundred thousand years this compared to eternity is nothing it will not do the deed To what summe would our computation amount it we should go on reckoning half a daies space as we reckoned before What book of accounts would contain that summe By midday he that Calculated would be overwhelmed with his own work in fine he would be constrained to say the measure of Eternity is not to be taken by the fingers it cannot be reckoned it cannot be summed up by any numbers what ever it is altogether numberless Joyn what numbers you please together let your product rise to what height you will Eternity goes beyond it how farr Infinitely it surpasses all computation and hides its end in that endless revolution of Ages Ah Mortals ah Christians ah how little do we consider these things how seldome do we leisurely cast up our accounts in this manner Indeed no one beleives no one beleives no one beleives These things I must tell you are not dreams they are no Fables nor Rhetorical flourishes here are no amplifications no exaggarations at all Matt. c. 25. Eternal truth has uttered the Oracle Depart from me accursed into fire everlasting The Sun is not clearer then these words which makes me repeat No one beleives no one beleives no one beleives In our first part of Eternity we lead the Reader on by the hand to a right consideration of Eternity Here now imagine a thousand Cubes a thousand Millions of years These are soon said but not so soon considered with attention They make thus many years 1000 000000000000000,000,000,000,000 or a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand times a thousand thousand years After
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