THE THIRTEENTH DAY.
On hell.
CONSIDER, that as it is said in holy writ, that neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those that serve him, 1 Cor. ii. 9. So we may truly say with regard to hell's torments, that no mortal tongue can express them, nor heart conceive them. Beatitude, according to divines, is a perfect and never-ending state, comprising at once all that is good, without any mixture of evil. If, then, damnation be opposite to beatitude, it must needs be an everlasting deluge of all that is evil, without the least mixture of good, without the least alloy of ease, without the least glimpse of comfort; a total privation of all happiness and a chaos of all misery.
2. Consider, more in particular, what damnation is, and how many and how great the miseries it involves. A dying life, or rather a living death; a darksome prison; a loathsome dungeon; a binding hand and foot in eternal chains, and a land of horror and misery; a lake of fire and brimstone; a bottomless pit; devouring flames; a serpent ever gnawing; a worm that never dies; a body always burning and never consumed; a feeling always fresh for suffering; a thirst never extinguished; perpetual weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. No other company but devils and damned wretches, all hating and cursing one another; all hating and cursing God; spirits always in an agony, and sick to death, yet never meeting with this death, which they so much desire; cast forth from the face of God into the land of oblivion; none to comfort, none to pity them; wounded to the heart with the sense of lost happiness; and oppressed with the feeling of present misery. And all these sufferings everlasting, without the least hope of end, of intermission, or abatement. This is a short description, drawn, for the most part, from God's unerring word, of the miseries which eternal damnation imports; this is the bitter cup, of which all the sinners of the earth must drink, Ps. lxxiv.
3. Consider, that God in all his attributes is infinite: as in his power, wisdom, goodness &c: so in his avenging justice too. He is a God in hell as much as in heaven. So that by the greatness of his love, mercy and patience here, we may measure the greatness of his future wrath and vengeance against impenitent sinners. By his infinite goodness he has drawn them out of nothing; he has preserved and sustained them for a long time; he has even come down from his throne of glory, and suffered himself to be nailed to a disgraceful cross for their eternal salvation; he has frequently delivered them from the dangers to which they were daily exposed; patiently borne with their insolence and repeated treasons, still graciously inviting them to repentance. Ah! how justly does patience, so long abused, turn at length into fury! Mercy at last gives place to justice; and a thousand woes to those wretches that must for ever feel the dreadful weight of the avenging hand of the living God!
4. Consider, and in order to understand something better what hell is, set before your eyes a poor sick man lying on his bed, burning with a pestilential fever, attended with a universal pain over all his body, his head perfectly rent asunder, his eyes ready to fly out, his teeth raging, his sides pierced with dreadful stitches, his belly racked with violent cholic; his reins with the Stone and gravel; all his limbs tormented with rheumatic pains; and all his joints with the gout; his heart even bursting with anguish, and he crying out for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Could any thing be conceived more miserable! and yet, let me tell you, this is but an imperfect picture of what the damned must endure for eternity; where these victims immolated to the justice of God, shall be salted all over with fire; and endure in all the senses and members of their body, and in all the faculties of their souls most exquisite torments!
5. Consider, that the state of the poor sick man, of whom we have just now been speaking, how deplorable soever it may seem, might still be capable of some alloy or ease, or some degree of comfort: a good bed to lie on; a good friend to encourage or condole with him; a good conscience to support him; a will resigned to the will of God, and, in fine, a certain knowledge that his pains must shortly abate, or put an end to his life. But the damned have nothing of all this. Their bed in hell is a lake or pit burning with fire and brimstone, to which they are fastened down with eternal chains. Their companions are merciless devils, or what will be to them worse than devils, the unhappy partners of their sins. Their conscience is ever gnawed with the worm that never dies. Their will is averse from God, and continually struggling in vain with his divine will. And what comes in to complete their damnation, is a despair of ever meeting with an end or abatement of their torments. Good God! what would not a prudent man do to prevent the lying but for one night in torments in this life? And where then are our faith and reason, when we will do so little for escaping the dreadful night of hell's merciless flames!