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
beleives In books and loose Papers frequent mention is made of eternal mourning and pains eternal And yet no one beleives Joyes everlasting delights without end perpetual pleasures of Paradise are much treated of and no one beleives We are often told we must use violence in the conquest of Heaven and no one God wot no one beleives or so few that Christ hath said Matt. 7. And few there are that find it Our Faith wherewith we beleive Heaven is a drowsy and dull Faith whence it comes that Heroick acts and generous attempts are so seldome heard of From the same root also sprung that Religious Oracle Tho. de Kempis Lib. 3. ch 3. The world promiseth temporal and small things and is served with great diligence Christ promiseth most high and eternal things and the hearts of men are nothing moved with it A thing of small value is sought after greedily for a penny sometimes there is foul contention for a vain thing and slight promise men cease not to toyl day and night Who is so vigorous and active in persuit of Heaven How many are not sensible of their watching all night when they are Gameing Dancing or Carousing Who watches so cheerfully for the service of Christ for Heaven for everlasting reward We may repeat a thousand times And no one beleives Now where Faith is lively and apprehends the immense joyes of Heaven as well as the endless torments in Hell there is a new course of life and a special reformation of our manners We thirst not after base and fading delights we esteem labour for God at a high rate as also suffering sweet and pleasing Francis Borgia Duke of Gandia being brought low by a hot Feavour learned this lesson that in humane affairs there was nothing permanent nothing perpetual Another time when this Feaver was so rageing that his marrow seemed to boyl within the bones this pious thought possest his mind What flames scorch them who for their crimes sustain eternal torments This thought was of singular use to him all the rest of his life A thought indeed most profitable whether we be opprest with Sickness or environed with other calamities since what is burdensome to the body serves to instruct the Soul He walks through pleasant fields to Prison Serm. de primordiis novissimis nostrss who goes on through prosperity in this life to perdition And truly it is a dangerous vanity to wish long life without thinking which way to live better Hearken what St. Bernard whispers in your ear Consider whence thou camest and blush consider where thou art and sigh consider whither thou goest and tremble Affected blindness which involves many will excuse none We were warned long agoe the gate is narrow and the way streit which leads to life The ready way to Hell is by Luxury and sensual pleasure If thou once begin to walk this path thy journey will be so quickly over had as if thou didst not go but run and fly thither This made that Learned and Holy man Sir Thomas More affirm what he left written in these verses He that the ready way to Hell would know ' Let him in Baths in Wine and Venus flow These things have been so often inculcated unto us that we almost loath to hear them any more Yea and what is yet worst of all we value more a merry moment of brutish delight then the chast fruition of eternal joyes Whence we make it appear we have an earnest desire of our own destruction Wherefore we are constrained again and again to say And no one beleives CHAP. XVII An Abridgement and Conclusion of what was treated before T Is certain no mans tongue is able though after an unpolisht strain to set forth the pains of Hell much less to declare them eaxactly or in their proper colours Admonitions in this matter pass from the lips to the ears but for the most part touch not the Soul to the quick Exceeding great is the difference between a real and painted fire which nevertheless appear sometimes much alike but our pains when compared with those of the damned Good Lord how unlike are they since betwixt a thing finite and infinite there is no proportion T is likewise certain which many Christians say they do not seriously beleive the guilty are punished in Hell otherwise they would certainly lead another life The saying of our lord points out this truth The Son of man coming Luâ— shall he find trow you Faith in the earth It may be as truly affirmed of others that either never or seldome do they think on the pains of Hell and when they do lend a thought to this matter they do not stay upon nor attentively consider or imprint these sad passages in their imagination but if it chance they fix their cogitations upon this subject that wholesome flame is quickly extinguished with a world of cares and worldly business and so both Deaf and Dumb they go down into Hell For all that go thither are Deaf and Dumb like that Citizen of Jerusalem who murthered Lazarus and who then begun to open his eyes when he was arrived at his journeys end But now to summe up what we treated at large in those nine-fold torments of that doleful eternity we judge it fit to renew the memory of each one in particular The first Torment is Darkness THe Royal Prophet saith Psal 18 Day unto day uttereth word and night unto night sheweth knowledge Who is able now to perswade the wicked that they go astray and commit wickedness The best of their time they spend in Toyes and Fooleries which yet they will not be perswaded till they meet with that darksome and eternal night in Hell Night unto night sheweth knowledge Even as the day of everlasting happiness will manifest to the blessed how seasonably they imployed their daies in works of Piety so that dreadful night will discover night eternal which the impious spend in their impieties and must ere long be buried in perpetual darkness O night O darkness wherein the curr of Conscience barks the favour of men sleeps all pleasure is exil'd no glitter of Gold nor Silver dazles the eyes Friends are silent Physitians are absent Shades terrify Flames environ Eternity holds fast what she hath gotten O night O darkness Please to look upon two wealthy Marchants sitting up till late in the night at the Chess-play Lo here is the Table whereon stands the King and Queen two Bishops two Knights two Rooks and eight Pawns on a side which doubled make up an Army of two and thirty men and so each man hath sixteen in Battel Array Upon the board is placed a burning Taper to give light to the Combate the sport goes merrily on the Gamesters grow warm with study and in fine almost all their Gold is layd down to make good the stake One of them after a long contest wins the game and carries away the Goal leaving the loser to fret and chafe who
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
A PLEASANT AND PROFITABLE Treatise of HELL WRITTEN By Hieremy Drexelius S. J. Fear him that can destroy both Soul and Body into Hell Matth. ch 10. v. 28. Printed 1668. The Translator to the Reader I Presume your intent is I wish the event may correspond to march on towards Heaven Now that you may not miss your way which is dangerous I have provided you of a Guide which is the Fear of God You must not begin your journey but by his Conduct nor hope to finish it without erring unless he go on with you hand in hand Be not dismaid if he lead you through the desert to the Land of Promise through Hell to Heaven for that is his Native Countrey whose passages he is well acquainted with and from whose desolate shades he is able to usher you to the comfortable splendour of Paradise He requires no other Salary for all his labour in the enterprise then your serious perusal of this slender Treatise of Hell Startle not at this frightful word least you discover humane fear to be more prevalent with you then that of God If it chance to be I fear at the first sight you will shrink back and either not undertake to read or quickly cast away the book with an I look for Novelties to chear me up not for sad discourses of Hell to drive me into Melancholly or I have other business and cannot attend to reading But with your good leave no business concerns you more then your right progress towards a blessed Eternity And it is undoubtedly a principal point of Wisdome to go down into Hel alive by reading and a lively consideration aswel to escape going thither after Death whence there is no return as also to vanquish humane fear which is prejudicial and beget in your soul a wholesome fear of God Without which you can neither begin nor hold on with success your intended journey towards eternal bliss Lay hold then on this Manual Book which if leisurely read will not a little conduce to attain the chiefest Good and avoid the worst of Evils Farwel A Treatise of Hell CHAP. I. The Authors design in this Book with Advice to the Reader LEarnedly spoke Philo the Jew Lib. de som The House of God is the thought of a Wiseman This House the Eternal Wisdome enters into this it Inhabits in this it sweetly reposes To see to speak to hear to write are humane actions yet such as are not wholly denyed to Brutes for Wild-Beasts do likewise hear and see and herein some of them go far beyond man himself Amongst Animals some are reported to have spoken unto the Elephant is ascribed something not unlike to writing but to think and discourse with reason is proper to Man alone God associates himself to men whose thoughts are Holy and without spot and here he abides as in his own Mansion-house hence flowed that learned saying of Philo The House of God is the thought of a wiseman Here now arises the dispute what is fittest for man to busie his thoughts in setting a part his Creatour In this quarrel King David enters the Combate and avers I thought upon old dayes and the eternal years I had in mind Ps 76.6 This thought is most profitable this becomes man and is not unworthy of God Here is discovered a plain of such vast extent to think on that none was ever able yet to run it over with thinking One may seek an end in this matter which he shall never find Eternity knows no end it s not acquainted with any bounds and for limits it admits of none Eternity best deserves to be thought on Ten years ago I exposed a draught of Eternity to the pulick view it remains now for us to set before your eyes something as to the eternity of the Damned this requires our more serious reflexion it being not sufficient for us to scrape somewhat from the outsides of it which may serve us to hear write or talk of we must proceed further and lodge Eternity in the very bosome of our souls wherefore the task of this Chapter shall be to declare what we mean when we write on the eternity of the Damned SECT 1. THe wiseman of Rome friendly expostulates with Lucilius in this sort Sen. ep 102 As he is troublesome who awakes a man from a pleasant Dream because he bereaves him of that counterfeit which yet resembles real pleasure So thy Epistle did me wrong for it took me off once and oftner from considerations that suted with me I was well pleased to enquire after yea and beleive too the eternity of Souls For well might I beleive the Opinions of great men Besides I had so much hope that I now began to be irksome to my self now I despised the remnant of my feeble age as being about to enter into that immense time and the possession of all ages But the receit of thy Epistle awakned me and so I lost my goodly Dream which notwithstanding I 'le to again when I have done with thee and hereby redeem what formerly I lost I am almost now of that Opinion which Flavius Lucius Dexter of Barâ—inona an ancient Historian one who had Command in the Eastern Empire and an intimate friend to St. Hierom delivers in a Chronicle of his at the year of Christ our Saviour sixty four in these express words Lucius Annaeus Seneca native of Cordova in Spain by intercourse of Letters betwixt him and St. Paul had a good Opinion of Christian Religion became a Christian privately and is beleived to have been his Disciple to whom he writ with much feeling during his abode in Spain For my part I affirm nothing in this particular but reverence the testimony of the Ancient Chronicler Yet certain it is Annaeus Seneca did not only begin to think of but likewise to beleive an Eternity We may observe this mans deep-searching Wit he attempted and went on most attentively to weigh Eternity in its proper Ballance The contemplation whereof he compares to a Dream which lulls asleep the toylsome watches of the outward senses and commands the inward to keep strict Centinel This this is to meditate and to be withdrawn from this Annaeus was much unwilling in regard this kind of meditation proved so beneficial to him as himself declares saying I contemned the small residue of my life and stretched my self forward into that Volume of Ages never to be unfoulded Seneca by this time had a loathing of all things if compared to the sole possession of that never ending Circle of times When Heathens meditate in this manner upon Eternity what does it behove us Christians to do Our beleif of Eternity is bootless if we seldome or tepedly think on it Many are the reasons which may move us dayly to meditate upon eternity take this one in lieu of many Eternity mollifies our hearts when they are as hard as flint and Steel it quite vanquisheth all the stubbornness of our Soul That man
at a stand they look one upon another and at length break forth into these words would to God we had never come hither our shot is wonderful dear While we are here on our journey we live in an Inn and unmindful of the reckoning Feast jovially carouse till within night sing sport and dance But who will discharge the shot O people ill advised We must pay a just reckoning though a dear one T is we have Banketted Quaffed and playd the good fellows t is we have wasted our health age and substance in riotous company keeping Now mine Host calls for a discharge just debts must be paid Creditours will have satisfaction either from our Purses or Persons We have eaten but with excess with too much expence and delecacy we have Feasted but too often and at too high a rate We have fasted but in a prophane manner and too seldome we have buried our selves in Wine we must now digest the surfetting Wo because we shall be hungry eternal Famine thirsts eternal expects us O what a Supper after a full but short dinner while the damned lived they seem to have licked nothing but salt so rageing is their thirst in hell How horrible a torment thirst is it is hard for any one to express unless he have made some certain tryal thereof In this particular we may well credit the sick who are frequently so tortured with thirst that they esteem it the very dregs of their distempered cup or their greatest disease SECT 4. THe Rich Glutton thrusting out his scorched Tongue cries in hideous manner I am tormented in this flame O one drop from the tip of a finger to refresh me Lo how modestly be begs He does not crave a Bason of water nor a Barrel of Oyle nor a Vessel of Wine but what is most obvious a drop of Water which yet he obtains not This wealthy Banketter is grown so poor that he does not ask a Goblin of Chrystal but the extremity of a finger not the choicest Wine from Greet but a small parcel of water not to have some Noble Cub-bearer but the Beggar Lazarus Mark well what thou sayest O thou Purple Gallant Lazarus has scabbed hands thou wilt be loath to drink water which drops from his finger Ah! let me have but one sole drop and that from the hand of Lazarus which I shall esteem as the choicest of Distelled Waters For all this he gets nothing no body hearkens to him both Eares and Gates are close shut And why I pray is one drop denied to this Glutton in so extream hunger and thirst Abraham was a practiser of Hospitallity and might have said Give him one little drop it will do him no good so great a flame will not be asswaged by so small a dew But their manner of proceeding is farr otherwise in the next world For as Heaven is repleanisht with Joy and Pleasure without the least mixture of sadness so Hell is stored with meer Grief and Pains void of all solace mitigation or ease Hence ellegantly and truly said St. Austin No death is worse or greater Lib. 6. de Livi. c. 12 then where Death dyes not So no Hunger and Thirst is more cruel or deadly then where Death cannot be obtained by Hunger and Thirst SECT 5. TWo brothers as it is recorded the one wise the oter a Fool went a Travellin together and came at length to a place divided into too waies Pet. Regin In spec The Fool was taken with the more pleasant way the wise man preferred the more rugged as more secure Here they fell at debate wherein the wise man deemed it better to yeild then contest So both were surprised by Robbers both were cast into Prison but the one a part from the other whence after a time they were brought before a judge Here the wise man accused the Fool and laid all the fault on him the fool retorts all the miscarriage upon his brother In conclusion the Judge makes this Decree Both are guilty the fool because he should have submitted to one wiser then himself the wise man because he should not have condescended to a fool This is plainly our condition the Soul and Body are brothers but extreamly unlike the soul by its descent being Noble and Wise is not afraid of a thorny way to Heaven she loves temperance and enters into strict league with Fasting as knowing well how these things avail her the spirit is prompt On the other side the body from its birth is foolish so espying a way that smiles with many delights it presently hastens thither it is forceably perswaded that all it has to do is to eat drink sport sleep well fly from labour follow idleness and repose amongst pleasures these things agree well with the body but toyl hunger watching it hates and avoydes as one would the Plague The Soul again endeavours with all her Rhetorick to evince that a smooth way leads not to Heaven as doth the sharp and stony and that they who cannot away with thorns covet not Roses But the body is slow in obeying dull in admitting wholesome counsel it will not be friends with subjection and frugallity so at length the soul yeelds and permitting the body to live as it lists becomes of a Master a slave In this maner they go and perish together thus they fall into the hands of theeves vices and Devils These brothers are parted in the end and committed to several prisons the body to the Grave and the soul to hell whence both are to make their appearance before the Soveraign Judge at the latter day where each will accuse the other Now because the foolish body would not be obedient to the soul and the wise soul was not of courage to subdue the wantonness of the flesh both convinced of impiety shall receive sentence of eternal torment This inevitable decree like a sharp two edged sword Apoc. c. 1. shall peirce through both soul and body Wherefore our Lord saies Matt. c. 10. Fear him that can destroy both soul and body into Hell Where hunger and thirst eternal shall serve as a sauce for their torments neither shall they have any other liquor to their feast then boyling brimstone Fire and Brimstone is part of their cup. Psa 10. SECT 6. ALL this notwithstanding men much addicted to Gluttony are little moved to what has bin said they gape after bankets and costly Viands they thirst after full cupps what ever you say of Famine in the next life O Christians a little more consideration would do well to eat and drink is not forbidden provided it be not against conscience or with neglect of Divine Laws We despise good counsel and dare transgress the commands of God not reflecting that the Gibbet is erected before our doors Wo to you that are filled because you shall be hungry Fault and punishment are linked together many crimes proceed from Gluttony not to be expiated even with most rageing hunger and
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
nap under it when a passenger hastily awaking the careless follow should speak thus to him friend what dost thou mean what makes thee stay here in such imminent danger arise quickly betake thy self to some secure place this wall is a falling every minute how darest thou sleep here be gone speedily What would you say if the traveller after all this should refuse to depart thence and say to him who warned him of his peril Do not molest me look you to your self I am resolved to take out my nap He that will perish let him perish hardly this fellow is determined the â—uinous wall shall be his tomb let him be buried in Gods name in the grave he hath chosen Mans life is indeed a tottering wall what day hour or moment it will fall who can tell the time is uncertaine albeit most certain it is a work â—â—ill cemented cannot stand long everyday hour and moment you may well expect a downfal Nevertheless we fool hardy and rash-brained people lean to this wal and nod without fear Each one is seised with his peculiar sleep this man lies snorting under the sleep of avarice that under lust another under drunkenness envy or pride The royal Prophet saw and admired many who slept in this manner They slept their sleep Psal 75. Thus every one gives way to his proper sleep which holds him closely oppressed with a deadly lethargy though there want not several persons to a wake him out of it Christ calls his Disciples call the antient Fathers call Catholick Preachers call from their Pulpits all with joint consent admonish us not to trust to a ruinous wall which already reels and by and by will lie equal with its foundation Moreover they show us where the defect is and change us without delay to put our selves in security Notwithstanding some are so fast asleep that they listen to no admonition at all others by so many clamours awake 't is true though to little purpose because ever and anon they fall into their slumber again and give you no other answer then the traveller did Let us a one we will take out our 〈◊〉 we are wâ—ll where we are All this notwithstand faithful monitours cease not to redouble their admonitions and these they repeat so much more earnestly and continually by how much they perceive their danger more imminent and certain for in this case 't is not the body alone whose safety lies at stake but the eternal welfare of both soul and body which is exposed to utter perdition everlasting death makes a prey of those whom this wall takes under its ruins But alas after so many iterated warnings many trust to this staggering wall shut their eyes and sleeping securely dream on eternity wherewith they are terrified no otherwise then dreamers use to be who together with their dream shake off dread too Thus we live thus we slumber thus we dream thus we perish for upon a suddain the wall falls and oppresses such as slept under it Immediately after an entire Eternity is represented to their view which is now no shore dream but an everlasting torment O travellers too too rash O sleep no less deadly then destructive Tell me now I beseech you whether you do not believe these particulars as matters of undoubted certainty SECT 4. IT is a business worthy of credit that in case any of the damned appeared again from hell and pulled these sleepers by the sleeve and charged them to look to it and foretold them in what danger they lived they could notwithstanding not awake them so great is the blindness and stupidity of mans soul Hereupon Abraham refuseth to condescend with the rich gluâ—tons request of sending some of the dead to warn his brothers yet alive the reason whereof he alledgeth in these words If they hear not Moyses and the Prophets if they despise the admonitions of the living neither if one shall rise again from the dead will they believe Luke c. 16. The matter is plainly so indeed Orat de Lazaro Whence St. Chrysostom said Hell is not seen to unbelievers to such as believe it is manifest When mention is made of punishments inflicted on offenders how often may you hear such words as these This was sent into banishment that was whipt for his fault another was condemned to the gallies another was beheaded he was hanged that other was stretched upon a rack and lastly this fellow was burnt to death Even malefactours hear such pâ—ssages as these and yet become no better by hearing of them Many who are guilty of death though their pardon be granted them yet they commit the same crimes again or worse Like unto these are we if we would acknowledg the truth how often by means of pennance do we obtain pardon for our sins and so escape hell how promptly do we undertake any thing to purchase our freedom When God knows almost in the turning of ones hand we slide back again and become worse by abusing of our liberty We take our leave of anger and envy covetousness and pride we may not endure we are wholly out of likeing with lasciviousness we abhor stealing and profess our selves sworn enemies to all debauchery But alas I upon the next occasion we loose the reins to anger envy dominiers in us we enter into league with avarice and pride we steal as readily as ever our wantonness draws us into the mire again feasting and riot have reduced us to their friendship in a word we commit the same if not more horrid offences then formerly Is not this to look upon eternity as a dream and in the mean while to act things meritorious of flames eternal In that prison which Pharao had in Aegypt two of his guilty Courtiers were detained to each of whom happened a different dream which neither of them had the skill to interpret whereupon turning to Joseph their fellow prisoner they said We have seen a dreum and their is no body to interpret it to us Gen. c. 40. There are many dreamers on Eternity but few interpreters let us help them with our interpretation SECT 5. IN the first edition which we published of Eternity we set it forth adorned with several pictures whereunto we now adjoin these ensuing particulars which are not so much to be read over as to be considered with attention Imagin a pyle or heap of hot glowing coals Monachium which for bigness equals this city of Munichen and which for three or four cubâ—â—â— goes down into the earth let one man alone be cast into this mass of fire upon this condition not to be released from the bed of flames till all the coals be taken away one by one which is to be performed no otherwise then by a Vultur which once in a hundred years shall carry away only one and no more Lo this man amongst nine sorts of torments which eternity brings with it is tormented only with that of fire which yet by reason of
is lost whom Eternity doth not draw to a better life he may take his course he may perish who is in such a dead-sleep as this dreadful thunder cannot awake him Here one may object The Flames of Hell-fire may well be cast in their way who run amain towards Hell why do you with them terrifie those that are dayly longing after Heaven that abstain from sin not so much for fear of punishment as for love of God What need these so frequently to contemplate those flames eternal They need very much Wherefore I shall lay down three documents whereunto we are concerned often to look back in this ensuing discourse SECT 2. THe first Document is All Holy men are partakers of no small comfort by this contemplation of Hell for whilest they assuredly trust themselves to be out of the reach of those scorching heats their hearts even leap for joy accompanied with most amorous thanksgiving most profound contempt of themselves and a most ample extolling of the Divine bounty But for as much as men of an upright conscience do slip and have their faylings therefore Eternity ever and anon plucks them as it were by the sleeve and sayes Beware look to thy self thou art not yet shot free thou knowst not whether in Gods favour thou shalt give up thy Ghost Final perseverance is a meer gift of God a meer Grace which we are not able by any actions of our own to merit in this point it is not lawful to call God our debtour he stands disingaged to every one If then God deny to bestow this grace upon thee thou art utterly undone for ever This serves as a strong bridle to every good man since we are not ignorant that divers have served God some forty some fifty years some longer and yet have sustained the loss of their former Holiness by a sinful end witness that unfortunate Hero of whom Cassian makes mention This if seriously weighed may stir up in each ones soul many pious affections The second Document is Wheresoever an attentive meditation of Eternity preceds there must needs follow a great care a fervour of spirit and a wonderful exactness in doing all our works This cogitation alone teaches manifestly that we owe all to God as to our Soveraign Lord and that we can never serve him so worthily as we ought but must needs acknowledge that what ever we do is not answerable to but far below so great a Majesty This same consideration of Eternity puts us in mind of the present condition of our life and withal warns us that now it is time to take pains in erning repose without end that years eternal will ensue in which we may neither labour nor merit any thing at all I remember to have read and that with admiration of a certain man who framed this conceit of Eternity What living man said he to himself endowed with reason and in his wits would lay claim to the Kingdome of France Spain Poland such wealthy Dominions as these upon condition that before he came to be absolute Lord of them he should lye with his face upward upon a delicate bed of Roses for forty years together It may so fall out that some one may be found overjoyed with the bargain and so may begin to throw himself upon that soft and well-sented lodging yet questionless he will not continue his posture for the space of three whole years but will forthwith depart from the former agreement and say Let me rise I would be deprived of three yea all Kingdoms rather then be constrayned to lye continually as I consented to do upon never so soft a bed And does the matter stand even thus Will no one of Reason if he might enjoy three Kingdoms take up his quarters as aforesaid during the space of thirty or forty years what raging madness then and blind folly is it for trifles for toyes for bables to will and do that for which thou maist be tormented upon a hot-glowing-Grid-iron not for forty nor four hundred nor four thousand nor yet four hundred thousand years but for all Eternity If therefore we provide not for our selves and affairs while we have time and space we are worse then mad and something more then Furies hath seised on us SECT 3. THe third Document I wish I could but obtain this one favour of all who read these things that they would accustome themselves to make use of two sorts of Spectacles the one Purple-coloured the other blew this later is to be used in this manner whensoever matters go well with us when the Body Soul or both are well disposed as often as comely and beautiful Objects are represented to the sight or harmonious concent tickles the Eares or delightful attractives charm the tast or Sabaean Odours satiare the Nostrils or things of smoothest temper flatter our touching or in brief when ever any thing contributes to our delight pleasure or satisfaction then then is the time to lay hold of our Sky-coloured Spectacle and reason thus with our selves Behold this pleases that satisfies the other gives content but what is all this compared to the Eternity of the Blessed what is this drop of Honey to that Sea of Delights in Heaven Wherefore do I debar my self from that Ocean of Pleasures above by gathering scattered drops here below O cast an eye up then towards that blessed Eternity aspire thither where there is all plenty of pleasure that either is or may be imagined Amongst Banquets and sporting yea amidst great variety of Dainties this Discourse may be serviceable unto us This Secret of Art may be made use of when we are soothed by any kind of Complacence whatever Lo this is the right use of the Azure Spectacle to raise the mind from things present and terrene to those to be met with hereafter in Heaven by this means we may be moderate amongst allurements to excess and environed with Pleasures may pass without peril But now on the contrary when we are not well at ease when pain Arrests the Body when sadness seizes on the Soul upon occasion of what Corrasive or Affliction soever take into your hand your Purple Glass and speak to your self as followeth Does this vexe thee so much does that Torture thee so far as almost to make thee Frantick Yet what a Flea-biting is this if thou regard the Eternity of the Damned Look down and take a view of Hell what ever here molesteth by Sufferings Crosses or Disasters is and may be reputed one of the choicest Felicities on Earth if we but lend an eye to those never ending Torments beneath Wherefore then dost thou burden Heaven and Earth with idle Complaints This both discovers thy Impatience and Folly T is clear thou knowest not what Hell is otherwise these Complaints would cease After all this thou tellest me thy Miseries are many thy Callamities intollerable What For want of house-room art thou enforced to lye in a Stall But the Damned are confined to Swine-sties
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
night and day to repeat While we have time let us work good to all An impure conscience is here unquiet hereafter it will be furiously tormented for ever SECT 7. THe force of conscience is incredible especially after the scene of this life is acted for in the presence of God every one will so blush at his own faults that though heaven were set open and the soul uncleansed were invited to enter nevertheless through horror of its own stains it would fly back and refuse to go in till all its spots were expiated So much the conscience has aversion of and blushes at her own offenses Therefore while we have time let us work good to all for as St. Austin discourses Who ever doth not deceive himself by flattery understands well in how great danger of eternal death and how far short of perfect holiness he lives during his pilgrimage here on earth Now then let us look to it and not resist the wholsom warning our conscience gives us The conscience is never silent if it meet with a peaceable and attentive hearer And truly this is exceeding profitable so to feel the worm in our bosom here as not to be troubled with it hereafter eternally St. Serm. DeiCon vert Bernard attests thus much saying It is best then to feel the worm when it may be stilled Therefore let it bite now that it may dye and so bite no more While it bites here it feeds upon what is putrified and biteing consume it that it may be consumed together with it lest being made much of it should become immortal It is therefore much better to be warned here then by our conscience to be murthered hereafter for as the same Saint adds Lib. de Animâ— Those who are exilled from heaven shall be tortured in flesh with fire and in spirit by the word of conscience There is pain unsuffâ—rable horrible fear incomparable stench death of soul and body without hope of pardon and mercy Yet shall they dye so as that they shall ever lâ—ve and so live that they shall ever dye What shall we do O mortals Our life is short the way long the end of the way doubtful time little nothing more certain then death nor uncertain then the hour the continuance of reward â—nd pain everlasting both which depend on a moment for eternity What then O mortals what shall we do CHAP. VIII The Seventh Torment of Eternity in Hell is the Place and Company CAto Censor A man of approved vertue was accustomed to give this admonition to them who were about to buy Land that in the first place they should be sure to provide for good neighbours An ill neighbour is a great evil whence that saying of Themistocles delivered by Plutarch is well known for having a farm to sell he commanded the cryer who gave notice of the sale he should likewise certifie That it had good neighbours A ruinous and inconvenient building if it be near bad company will meet with few buyers All exiled from heaven have such places of abode that our styes and dog-kennels compared to them might seem places or lodgings fit for Kings Besides the inconveniency of the place there is company displeasing beyond expression of so many millions of devils and damned men all sworn enemies to God so as if they were in Paradise they would make one abhor it This then is the seventh torment of eternity in hell the place and company that miserable above measure this detestable beyond imagination The Judg in his definitive sentence comprehended both saying This house of flames this dreadful prison which was prepared for the devil and his angels did not concern you in the beginning Mat. 25 but in regard you valued more the familiarity of mine enemies then my favour Go now go and dwell amongst them whose company heretofore you were so much taken with go into fire everlasting which was not prepared for you but for the devil and his angels It somtimes cometh to pass that a Schoolmaster for the fault of onâ— commands rods to be made ready but for as much as others by and by become faulty too he says These rods were not tyed together for you but because you have committed the same offence with that untoward boy you shall likewise be whipt with him In like manner Christ speaks to his enemies My intent was you should have enjoyed the society of Angels Paradise was made ready for you but since you have cast away all goodness and would not obey me but the devil Go therefore go go and make your abode in the devils den remain in that company your selves have provided Of this both place and company we now treat SECT 1. BEfore we enter into the Place le ts take a view of the ground Antientently at the left hand of the entrance into Yrimalcions house not far from the Porters lodg was painted upon the wall a mighty dog in a chain over whom was written in Capital Letters Take heed take heed of the dog Many such dogs as these are in hell so many Cerberus's as devils which are far more ravenous then all Cerberus's Here both by writing and words I exclaim Take heed take heed of these dogs But now let us look upon the place It is agreed upon as well by antient Fathers as Divines that those comfortless caverns of hell are seated in the center of the earth holy writt likewise affirmes the same For after they who rebelled against Moyses were separated from the people of God Num. 16 v 32 The earth brake in sunder under their feet opening her mouth devoured them with their tabernacles and all their substance and they went down into hell quick covered with the ground This prison of the wicked is rightly seated in the lowest place as the habitation of the blessed is on the highest noblest and most pleasant Of that prison we may frame this discourse In case the damned amount to thirty times a thousand millions of men or a hundred thousand millions and that fiery prison according to its whole dimenfion of height bredth and length contain one German mile it will have room enough for that wonderful number of men Streitness sutes well with the prison it being proper for liberty to enjoy an ample habitation But the croud of the damned those dogs and swine shall dwell in a narrow compass and shall be like grapes in a wine press or salt harrings in a barrel or bricks in a kill or pieces of wood in a pyle or hot glowing coles in an iron-grate or like sheep butcher'd in the shambles they shall be close and streitly thronged together The narrowness of the prison and their being pressed one near to another makes no small addition to their torments Into this slender compass God will conveigh all the sewers and filth of the world The greatest joy this world affords is not a little diminisht by loathsomness of place Who would esteem it a pleasure
this sort Let some one in the spring or autumn when the season of the year is sharpest be conveyed down into the bottom of a deep pit under ground where there is neither fire nor table nor bed Hither once a day let a crust of mouldy-hard bread with a small cup of stinking water be cast down by a rope this dainty fare must likewise be seasoned with reading this lecture that the party so enthralled is without ceasing to meditate on eternity both day and night Well said Pylades I deem that an efficacious way to imprint eternity in the mind Yet oblige me with a further courtesie and make me partaker of a more ample discourse touching the man before mentioned SECT 4. THat man in the beginning will esteem three weeks as irksome as three whole years and if he chance to be restored again to his liberty he will openly profess his sufferings were excessive What were his sufferings I pray hunger thirst cold want of sleep with privation of all comfort Hitherto the miscreant says true But observe I beseech you how tolerable this prison is how plentiful his diet what freedom he seems to enjoy when you look down upon that close imprisonment in hell he had his share of meat and drink to preserve his life in hell is neither one drop nor crum of comfort Besides no one derided that poor man in the pit none insulted over him no one loaded him with stripes whereas in hell they are perpetually oppressed with all these calamities Again that silly wretch might passe over the day in quiet and the night in rest though both were accompanied with difficulty but in hell is not so much as one sole minute of ease or sleep to be found Moreover that mans brest was not torn to pieces with sadness all grief horror amazement howling anguish and despair did not any ways afflict him as they do incessantly them in hell That mans thraldom was free from torments he was molested with no other disease then hunger thirst and cold but the damned are racked in all the members of their bodies and their souls being drencht in affliction always live in flames and never dye this death is more bitter to them then death it self In a word albeit that Caitif be remote from delights though he behold no sun haven o company but be debarred all sport and relaxation of mind yet he cherrishes this hope in his bosom that one day he shall enjoy himself again he shall see the suns face meet with his beloved companions and return afresh to his accustomed pastimes and delights Whereas God wot all their hope in hell is changed into despair they know certainly at their first entrance thither they must never look upon the sun any more they must never meet again either with their wished for company or content The sight of God the society of Angels together with all celestial pleasure is quite taken from them eternally without hope of recovery Despair lives in hell as at home it spares none of these Inhabitants Lo here O Christians with what facility we may gain knowledg of Eternity SECT 5. A Learned man of St. Dominicks Order recounts this passage to my present purpose Joan Junier A Jester says he a nimble-witted buffon in an assembly of noble men took upon him to play the preacher whom he had heard that morning and with an intent to draw mirth out of serious matters he thus begun his Sermon You know my masters how much my company conduceth to your jovial entertainment whether you be carousing feasting gaming or dancing I am still as the fool in the play ready to chear you up But listen I beseech you to what lately befel me as I lay upon a down bed and could not sleep I began to think with my self if thou wert so fast bound here for twenty or thirty years space that thou couldest neither stir hand nor foot what wouldst thou do to purchase liberty How if thou couldst riot otherwise obtain it then by bidding adieu to all company keeping and not I said to my self nay I would swear it if need required that I would utterly forswear all my pot-companions all jollity play and danceing rather then be in this sort debarred of my freedom But say I pray thee what course wouldest thou take if thou wert in Pluto's Court not buried in feathers but flames not amidst ripplers but devils where all chatting for merriment is wholly forbidden where one small drop of water is no less precious then a celler stored with the choicest canary whither one may enter as beasts did to the sick Lyon whose footsteps you might behold all going in but none coming out again To go down into hell is an easie matter but who was ever seen to have returned thence Now then if thou wert there tell me seriously what wouldest thou do His Sermon being thus ended he found himself so suddenly changed that one might justly perswade himself he was become another Porphyrius who played the Jester to Julian the Emperor and who whiles acting upon the stage he scoffed at the rites of Christian Religion found himself suddenly changed into another man and openly profest he was a christian yea and as a christian obtained the crown of Martyrdome with the loss of his head So serious conclusions follow out of jesting premisses so that other caviller drew earnest out of jest to his own great advantage and others 'T is a true and sure way of reasoning from a slight and transitory pain to frame a right estimate of pains eternal To which purpose give ear to S. Hieroms admonition Ad Po. Ocean Do we think brethren that the Prophets Preach in Jest the Apostles speak in a laughing manner or Christ thunders out menaces like a child Those are no Jests which are accompanied with real torments SECT 6. BEsides the place of hell which is infamous for all kinds of torments there is likewise company by all means detestable As the blessed in heaven will be replenisht with unexplicable delight when they behold Christ the worlds Saviour his most glorious Mother and Disciples together with so many Quires of Angels and millions of triumphant Saints So the reprobate will receive an addition to their horrid torments from that execrable company from which they shall never be delivered What sentiment wouldst thou be of if sound and in health thou should be constrained to lodg night and day in the same Hospital with sick folks covered over with ulcers sores and rottenness What if thou shouldst see their limms flowing in their own putrified matter and corruption How would thou be able to endure the stench of some the mourning and lamentations of others the sighs of this the complaints of that man the cough of the lungs in one and in another wailing till he give up the ghost O what a hell saist thou would this life be Nay how meer a nothing would this be compared to hell that which thou
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
it leaves not one sole dram of grace in the soul What merit soever hath been collected for many years one sole sin destroyes in a moment This is asserted by Ecclesiastes c. 9. He that shall offend in one point shall lose many good things If any one had made himself acceptable to God by the practise of all kinds of Vertue for fifty for an hundred years space if any one had lead a strict life and fasted every day with bread and water if any one had girt his loins with an Iron Chain whipped himself dayly and bestowed all he had in Almes and after all this should commit one mortal sin he would lose all the merits of his life past all the Grace of God and of a bosome Friend become a professed Enemy to God The matter is certain and admits of no contest You may give credit to the Prophet Ezechiel ch 18. If the just man shall turn away himself from his justice and do iniquity all his justices which he had done shall not be remembred Hast thou committed one sole mortal sin all thy former labours are lost all grace is lost thou hast lost Heaven God and all Wherefore either recover thy losses or resolve to bewail them Eternally Amongst other punishments threatned by God to Israel that as most dreadful is rehearsed by Osee c. 9. Woe to them when I shall depart from them This departure of God from the Soul is the death of it An incomparable evil an evil that surpasseth all the sufferings of Holy Martyrs yea the everlasting torments of all the damned Take a view I pray of the misery of man deserted by God for sin what ever such a man doth what ever he suffereth while destitute of Divine Grace though he remove Mountains leap into the fire pluck the Stars from Heaven set whole Fountains on fire and act wonders to be admired in all ages yet shall he not merit the least degree of Heavenly bliss while he continues in Gods disfavour The reason of what I affirm is manifest The Origen of all merit is divine grace therefore let him either purchase grace or despair of Heaven I adjoyn another point altogether as deplorable He that hath forsaken God as aforesaid might indeed throw himself down at his pleasure but all the strength he hath cannot rise again He cast himself into a ditch out of which he can never escape unless God by his singular favour lend him his hand An Echo returns no answer but when provokeed by a previous noyse and he who has sinned doth not true pennance except he be first excited by God Nevertheless let none despair of pardon though he have fallen a thousand times Hast thou offended Be of good courage After a slip our steps are more warily if not more constantly setled Seeing therefore the nature of sin is so cruel de simil ch 190. and its malice so detestable St. Anselm generously cryes out If on one side I saw the deformity of sin and on the other the horrour of Hell by one whereof I must needs be overwhelmed I would rather throw my self into those flaming Gulfs then admit of sin For I had rather go into hell innocent and free from sin then defiled with it be seated in Heaven since it is certain only the wicked are tormented in Hell and the just alone possess eternal happiness Hereupon likewise the same Author discourses in this manner Open thine eyes miserable Soul and see what formerly thou hast bin and what now thou art what was thy condition then and what now Thou wast an Espouse of the Highest a Temple of the living God a Vessel of Election a Bride-chamber for an eternal King a Throne of the true Salomon a seat of Wisdome a Sister of Angels an Heir of Heaven All these prerogatives thou didst enjoy but now with tears lament thy suddain change The Espouse of God is become an Adultress of the Devil the Temple of the Holy Ghost is turned into a Den of Theives the Vessel of Election into one of Corruption the Bride-Chamber of Christ into a puddle for Beasts to wallow in the feat of Wisdome into a chair of Pestilence the Sister of Angels into a companion of Devils yea she who ere while like a Dovesoared above the Heavens now like a Serpent creeps upon the earth Bewail therefore bewail O wretched Soul thy doleful state for the Heavens mourn for thee the Angels and all Saints deplore thy condition the tears of Paul and bloody streams issuing from the body of Christ our Lord condole with thee because thou hast sinned and hast not done pennance for sin committed Proceed we now to a fuller examination of this point He who hath sinned is either sepsible his Conscience is wounded or he is not sensible If he be sensible he is also miserable because he groans under most piercing grief a guilty conscience is an excessive torment But if he have no feeling of his inward wounds then he is miserable above measure it is the worst of evils to cherish ones own wickedness without perceiveing it and to have lost all sense after one is mortally wounded Thus Drunkards while they are Carousing perceive not the strength of wine which when digested they are sensible of Well said St. Chrysostome The chiefest wickedness is to be wicked Serm. 5. de jeju Albeit the Physitian doth not scarify a sick person yet doth his sickness still remain with him and although God doth not punish the offender nevertheless he that offends is diseased yea already dead Not unlike to this is that assertion of Seneca The prime and greatest punishment of sinners is to have sinned Neither is any crime without pain because the torment of wickedness is in wickedness it self The Conscience is scourged with what ever is done amiss Where Vice is there is also punishment Neither can a goared Conscience be without grief Though no one strike a wicked man though no one maim or torture him with rack or flames yet he himself is his own Executioner Peradventure he is insensible and hath lost all feeling of his sad condition He is therefore so much nearer to Hell fire by how much he is farther off from the knowledge of his own offences Such an one may be rightly termed dead and buried Who hath sinned and is not sorry who hath grievously transgressed and sues not for pardon who hath lost Gods grace and sighs not for it who is deprived of his right to Heaven and esteems it no damage who is ready to be tumbled into Hell and laughs at it What a bruite is this what a stone what a block this is the malignant nature of sin so to transform men into beasts stocks and stones as that they perceive not their own scars till they be discovered by hell fire We then begin to abhor sin when it is attended by rigorous chastisement Yea it often comes to pass that such as through impiety have lost all feeling
above all things which is the Virgin that bore thee and which did never sin if I say she had sinned mortally and had dyed without due contrition thou art such a friend of Justice that her soul could never have arrived in Heaven but must have been with us adjudged to hell The nature of one mortal sin is wonderful to amazement Pliny admires Silver Gold and Brass sealed up in a bag can be melted with Lightning and both seal and bag remain untoucht Much more worthy admiration it is that the soul can be so murthered by the secret admission of one deadly sin as thereby to become a prey to eternal death without ever dying or being destroyed Hom. 4. ad Pop. St. Chrysostome gives this prudent admonition Brethren be not children in your understanding but as to malice become little ones for it is a childish fear to fear death as children do who are afraid of Vizards and not of fire to which they apply their hand after the same manner we stand in fear of death which is but a contemptible bug-bear and fear not sin which indeed ought to be feared Because it robs us of all Gods grace makes us lyable to all sorts of miseries and guilty of eternal Flames Thus much concerning our third assertion SECT 4. THe fourth assertion is Who ever sins mortally loseth Heaven for all Eternity Sin shuts against us the gate of Heaven the Empyrial Heaven which is adorned with all delight which is for situation most sublime for extent most ample and in every respect most compleat in a word the worlds wonder from this heaven doth only deadly sin debar us We acknowledge the Soveraign Kings decree promulgated by St. Paul Eph. 5. No Fornicator or Unclean or covetous person which is the service of Idols hath inheritance in the Kingdome of Christ and of God This loss is not the last though it be the worst For in case no other harm proceeded from sin yet this alone were abundantly enough and too too great to be for ever excluded from the joyes of Heaven We may mention this damage t is true yet are we unable to make a right estimate of it well said St. Austin If it were in our power brethren Psa 49. to hinder the coming of the day of judgement yet in my opinion we ought not to lead a wicked life Suppose then the fire of divine judgement should afflict no body but each one might swim in what pleasures he listed for ever notwithstanding if they were separated from the face of God and never must enjoy the sight of their Creatour their loss would be infinite their punishment immense so as to speak with St. Austin they would have cause for all eternity to bewail their condition though they were not guilty of sin Amand. hoâ— sap Lib. 1. ch 4. That expression seems to have been framed amongst Rhetoricians Who will furnish me with Parchment as large as the heavens who will provide me of Quills which for number should equal the leaves of the trees Who will give me a Sea of Ink that I may write down the harms which proceed from mortal sin yet this is no exaggaration for though there were so many Quils so much Parchment and Ink to write with still it would go beyond the art of man to summ up what damage accrues to man by sin since it is eternal Truth it self proclaims to the world It were good for him Mart. 26 if that man had not been born Since God hath quite blotted out his image in Heaven and that most deservedly in regard of that infinite affront offered to so Soveraign a Majesty which is so much more notorious by how much the good preferred before God is of less value But all treasure delight and Honour are infinitely below God therefore the wrong done to God is infinite and consequently the punishment must be proportionable Is not he much obleiged to the giver who bestows on him gratis an hundred Marks in Gold Now our Tongue or Eyes alone which God hath freely gigen us are infinitely more worth then a thousand Marks in Gold to say nothing thing of our Soul and Body which are far more estimable then a thousand worlds Giles one of St. Francis his companions Catechising an ignorant person said A certain man wanted Hands Feet and Eyes to whom one of his friends spoke in this manner My friend if one should restore thee both Hands Feet and Eyes what requital wouldst thou make him I would quoth he become his servant all the dayes of my life Well then replyed Giles who gave thee Hands Feet Eyes Tongue Ears Soul and Body together with the good thou injoyest God without doubt If then thou wouldst be his servant that only restored some few Limbs what is it meet thou shouldst do for God who gave thee all Tell me now what a base part it is to offend him with thine eyes that bestowed them on thee or to affront God by word or deed who framed both tongue and hands for thee Hence ariseth in us an infinite obligation to serve God from which if we swerve by transgression both fault and punishment must needs be infinite Because according to St. Bernard what was short in time or action was certainly long in the setled resolution of the will Now as he is justly condemned that wilfully persists in vice so is he blame-worthy that strives not to better himself in vertue In like manner he who dies in sin hath a living death in eternal pain wherein he must abide for ever that he may suffer torment for ever but never be consumed Alas one merry moment of nimble winged time we prefer before treasures of glory and delights eternal we lose a needle and are sorry for the loss Heaven is snatcht from us and we laugh at it We know full well that upon every greivous crime an happy or wretched eternity depends the privation of that and possession of this is due to every great offence Thus much we know and yet sin boldly especially while we are not certain of one minute of life For who I pray after sin committed hath so much as one sole moment sure to do pennance in Nevertheless in a business of huge consequence and such extreme uncertainty we expose our eternal weal to manifest hazard of eternal wo so freely do we exchange everlasting glory for endless torments and in effect fools as we are demonstrate our hatred to Heaven For Heaven he hates who by contempt or carelesness intangles his soul with sin A Lacedemonian saies Plutarch made a vow to throw himself headlong from the Summit of Lucas But when he beheld the dreadful height of the Rock he was strook with horrour and altered his purpose Afterwards being upbraided for want of courage he answered I did not imagine that for performance of my vow I needed a greater vow Who ever designs to execute some difficult exployt must take upon him a resolution
The mystery of the blessed Trinity the Incarnation of Christ the miracle of the Holy Eucharist the resurrection of the dead and eternity of torment Now for as much as these points are hard to beleive therefore Divine Providence hath in a singular maner confirmed them by Scriptures Councils and Miracles Our talk in this place is to discourse of pains eternal and why God whose nature is to have mercy would have them eternal Divines in this point have gone different wayes to answer the difficulty Some say the Damned alwaies sin therefore they are alwaies punished What injustice therefore is it for him to groan under pain who persevers in doing injury This answer is not amiss For not only the damned sin perpetually in Hell but even here while they lived amongst us they found out a certain kind of eternity to sin in which is the matter we are to weigh with maturity Who ever heaps sin upon sin till death sins during his eternity let us call it so Therefore in Gods eternity he is most justly punisht Both truly and elegantly said St Gregory It is manifest and certain beyond controul Lib. 4. Dial. 44. that neither the blessed have an end of their joyes nor the damned of their sufferings It is an Oracle of truth And they shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Matt. 25 Since therefore Christ is true in his promises he cannot be otherwise in his threats If you demand how can it be just to punish a fault without end which had a speedy end when it was a doing The blessed Bishop answers This might well be objected if the severe Judge weighed only deeds and not the hearts of men for the wicked therefore had an end in sinning because they had an end in living since they were resolved if it had been in their power to have lived alwaies that they might alwaies have sinned It is apparent they desire to live perpetually in sin who while they live never give over sinning Therefore it appertains to the great justice of the judge that they never want pain who in this life would never be without fault Here I would by all means have this observed This circumstance goes along with sin Not only to have sinned but also to desire to sin yet more justly is this desire punished with hell because God doth not only look upon sins committed but likewise the eagerness and longing to commit more as will appear by this example Imagine a man of thirty years old is adjudged to hell because he did not leave off sining had he lived fifty sixty seventy years he had continued so long his sinful course Nay if he had lived a hundred a thousand years he had still held on sining Yea if his life had been without end so likewise had been his sins Seeing then his desire to sin was so great as to be even eternal in desire deservedly is his punishment eternal Therefore as St. Gregory inculcates Let them never be without pain who in this life would never be without fault SECT 2. MOreover the damned do not expiate faults committed they do not lay aside that malice which begun with them during life for they have not so much grace of God as to repent That which followes is most dreadful and unexplicable The damned are so deprived of divine grace that for eternity none of them will ever say Have mercy on me O God none of them shall ever have that grace In which perticular they resemble much the Devils from whom no torments what ever shall be of force to squeez these words We have sinned spare us Hence one may rightly affirm In Hell are only Devils that is most obstinate and desperate enemies of God such as are not the devils alone but likewise all the damned And in this point the wicked man during life and the damned in torments are both a like neither of them being able with their own forces to recal their soul from sin In this case help from God is necessary which he never denies while we live albeit we lose his Grace a thousand times but withal he gives us this admonition Look to thy self lo now I pardon this fault which I shall not alwaies do I forewarn thee and covenant with thee while thy Soul is in the body the gates of mercy stand open for thee enter in but so soon as the soul is gone out of the body these gates shall be close shut This proceeding of God is most just For if the damned while he lived had asked pardon ten twenty thirty thousand times he might have obtained it But when death has once bereaved us of life it is in vaine to hope for any more pardon help or grace God made this agreement with us and added a thousand admonitions that we should not reject grace when it was offered nor mercy while we might find it But we resolved to embrace neither Grace is vanisht Mercy neglected we had a mind to be miserable we were determined to perish Therefore if we perish we may thank our selves we cut our own throats and refused to be friends of God and so by our own choice we never shall be Furthermore wicked actions are directly opposite to good to those everlasting pain is due to these eternal recompence For according to that Maxime of Phylosophy the same rule holds in contraries The perfection of beatitude is to be happy without end Then the accomplishment of torments in Hell is to be miserable for eternity Christ closes all his divine Sermons with this sentence Matt. c. 25. And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting For so St. Matt. testifies And it came to pass ch 26. when Jesus had ended all these words Behold our Lord concludes his exhortations with this clause of reward and pain everlasting he is equally just and merciful whence he hath decreed to his friends joy and to his enemies torment in the highest degree SECT 3. THese things I must confess are spoken with much congruity But do we yet dive to the bottome of the matter in debate For my own particular I imbrace with reverence that wise principle of St. Austin He is become worthy of eternal ill Lib. 21 de civit deâ— c. 21 who destroyed in himself that good which might have been eternal This is the very cause of everlasting torment the infinite malice of every mortal sin For being an infinite goodness is offended the offence discovers infinite malice which was bold to violate the supream Good with such temerity Sr. Thomas the Prince of Divines avoucheth that Sin is nothing else but an ill humane act To every mortal sin he ascribes a twofold malice The one an act differing from the rule of reason The other an injury done to God by contemning him Now this malice is no other then a voluntary aversion from God which deserves infinite pain because it refuseth an infinite good
Certainly every mortal sin carries with it a contempt of God as will appear by this example There is a Law enacted under pain of death in a City of Italy Let none wear Sword nor Daggar He that knows this Law and yet will carry Sword and Daggar either contemns the Magistrate or the Prince who made it God in like manner has published to the world Let none Steal none Lye none commit Adultery c. Nevertheless what ever the Law say this man Steals in the sight of God that Lyes and the other commits Adultery Is not this to contemn God He that violates Caesars edict sins against Caesar and he that despiseth Divine Laws despiseth God This is manifest out of Holy Writ The soul that shall sin Lev. 6.1 and contemning the Lord shall deny unto his Neighbour the thing delivered to his custody So in St. Austins opinion Sin is contemning an unchangeable Good to adhere to things subject to change Hence comes to light that infinite malice of sin For by how much the Majesty offended is greater by so much is the offence more grievous To affront a Noble man is grievous to offer an abuse to a Lord is more grievous and more yet to injure an Earle but much more a Prince and most of all a King or Emperour These degrees are observed amongst men to lay open the nature of injuries offered What injury is it then to contemn God who is a Law-giver of infinite Majesty Whence it comes to pass that the infinite malice of one mortal sin though in an unclean thought only wittingly consented to cannot be Cancelled by any humane actions what ever For if into one Scale of Divine justice all the merits of the most glorious Virgin-Mother and all other Blessed were cast and into the other side of the Ballance were put one only mortal sin this would outweigh them all so as for this they would never be able to make due satisfaction It is altogether dreadful to express that all holy actions of all the just are counterpoysed by one mortal sin This notwithstanding he will cease to admire who knows how to frame a right estimate of God and his immense Majesty It is an unspeakable temerity for a creature to contemn its Creatour St. Mark testifies ch 3. He shall be guilty of an eternal sin SECT 4. SO great therefore and infinite is the malice of one mortal sin that all acts of virtue joyned together cannot counterballance it unless the Soveraign judge be pleased gratiously to pardon it In which work Gods inexplicable liberallity appears who pardons one mans sin a thousand and a thousand times but under this condition that he sin no more or if he do that he do true pennance before he dye which the sinner often times disters and dyes indebted whereby he is guilty of an eternal sin Admirable to the purpose speaks St Austin When any one is put to death for some heinous crime do the lawes esteem that short space of his execution a sufficient punishment or rather his removeal for ever from the company of the living For as the Lawes of this City cannot recal to life one that is killed no more can he that is condemned to the second death be recalled to eternal life If a Magistrate take away from an offender a life which he gave not may not God with more reason do as much Seeing therefore the malice of a mortal sin is infinite it deserves also infinite punishment which forasmuch as it cannot be inflicted by way of intension as Schools teach it is requisite it be done by extension that is what sharpness of torment was not able to do let length of time recompence He will give fire and worms into their flesh Judith c. 16 ver 21. that they may be burnt and may feel for ever While we consider these things methinks we should be so disposed as they are who being guilty of frequent robberies cannot behold others executed for the same fault as they deserve to be without sighing It falls out sometimes that a person of good repute passes by the Gallows and secretly sobs within himself while he ruminates these particulars in his mind Lo these poor wretches which totter in the air as a scorn to others and to us an object of sadness even after death pay for faults committed in their life And what crimes they were hanged for some of them perchance if all their theivery were put together have not stoln above ten or twelve shillings Whereas thou who hast purloined some thousands of crowns walks at thy liberty clothed in Silk and Sattin and art honourably treated by all having perhaps been instrumental in their death which thy self deserved a hundred times more then they who filcht away trifles and hang for them thou having carried away bags of Gold and yet goest scot-free Take heed the Gods said the Ancients tread upon Wooll with a slow pace but in the end they recompense their slowness with sharpness of revenge In this manner must we employ our thoughts when we meditate on hell Alas how many mortal sins have I committed and yet feel no smart of burning How many fry in those flames of Hell and must fry for ever who are guilty of far fewer crimes then I and perhaps had commited but one deadly sin The Sun of Gods bounty yet shines upon me they whose sins were neither so many nor grievous as mine are buried in eternal darkness Take heed Gods vengeance creeps on with a slow but sure pace Thou stands upon a tickle point and dost thou not tremble a small matter will throw thee down albeit thou hast kept footing long yet a moment serves to turn up thy heels and then whither wilt thou fall An Abisse and Chaos of flames will bid thee welcome Take heed If thou stir up a finger thou fallest one small Feavour an Apoplexie or Palsey one slender prick with a Rapier or Pistol-bullet will send thee packing into Eternity If when thou fallest thou be a friend of God his Angels will bear thee up If otherwise the Devils will snatch thee away and hell fire will give thee entertainment St. Ignatius was of opinion that perchance many were condemned to Hell for one sole mortal sin either of Perjury desire of Revenge some Lacivious thought or some other way in thought word or deed We may here seriously reflect that many of the damned were men as well as we and amongst those many Christians who by Sacraments and Sermons by pious books and wholesome admonitions were induced to a vertuous life which perhaps for some time they continued even in great familiarity with God but by degrees growing tepid and remiss they fell into mortal sin and so by Gods just judgement were condemned to eternal flames O mortals Set your hearts cryes out the Prophet Aggaeus upon your waies c. 1. ve 5 SECT 5. SIgismund the Emperour as Aeneus Silvius relates demanded of Theorick Bishop of Colen