that he may without them enter into the everlasting flames and fire of hell.
1. The terribleness of this sentence, and the pain that the damned shall suffer in this conflict, I may consider by that which happens to a priest who has committed some crime, for which he deserves to be burned. For, not to disgrace the sacerdotal dignity with so infamous a punishment, first a bishop degrades him, taking off from him, one by one, his priestlike garments, saying unto him, " Seeing thou hast made thyself unworthy of the honour of a priest, we take from thee thy priestlike garments, and deprive thee of the honour that thou hadst';" and so being degraded they deliver him to the secular power, which executes upon him the punishment that he deserves.
2. In this manner I may imagine that Christ our Lord, " the bishop and pastor of our souls," [1] degrades the soul of the sinner, to whom he gave in baptism the dignity of spiritual priesthood, and adorned him with sacerdotal ornaments; depriving him of them, because he made himself by sin unworthy of this honour, stripping himself naked of the principal vestment of grace and charity. First, in that instant Almighty God will take from him the light of "faith," which was the spiritual " girdle of his reins," [2] saying to him, " Because thou madest thyself unworthy of this girdle, and didst not gird thyself therewith, leading thy life according to thy belief, I take it from thee that thou mayest remain bound hand and foot in perpetual darkness." Then will He take from him the virtue of hope, saying to him, " Because thou madest thyself unworthy of this virtue, not making thy profit of it, I take from thee the hope of those aids which I had offered thee to carry the sweet yoke of my law; and the ' stole' and pledges 'of immortality' and eternal life that I had given thee; and I pluck
