Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/235

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so that in it will be joined together the pains of the eyes, ears and teeth, of the side, of the heart, and of the gout, and of all others that torment us in this life. Now if the pain of one sense alone cause so great agony in this life, how much agony shall that pain cause that is made up of the pains of all the senses entering together? Oh, unhappy sensual delights, whose end is such terrible bitternesses!

2. With this consideration I must animate myself to bewail the sins which I have committed with these five senses, bewailing the liberty I have given them, and resolving to mortify and restrain them, that " death" and hell enter [1] not by them.

POINT II.

Secondly, I must consider the pain of the fire, which is so terrible that in comparison of it this here is no more than as if it were but painted, for it is an instrument of God's justice and omnipotence to chastise and torment, not only bodies, but souls also and pure spirits. The properties of this fire are,

1. First, that it is embodied with the damned by such a connexion, that wheresoever the devil goes, he is tormented with this fire; and we may say that he carries the fire of hell with him, because he carries the torment that he receives from it

2. Secondly, though this fire be one and the same, yet it torments not all the damned alike; for the greater sinners it torments much more, and the lesser less. [2] Yea, and it will even torment one part of the body of the damned more than another when that part was a special instrument of his sin. Some it will torment more in the tongue, because they were murmurers and perjured. Others in the throat, because they were gluttons and drunkards. And all this wrought by the

  1. Hier. ix. 21.
  2. S. Th. 1 p. q. lxiv. art. 4 ad 8.