THE FOURTEENTH DAY.
On the exterior pains of hell.
CONSIDER the description which Holy Job gives us of hell: Job x. when he calls it a darksome land and covered with the obscurity of death; a country of misery and darkness, where no order but everlasting horror dwells. In this gloomy region, no sun, no moon, no stars appear; no comfortable rays of light, not even the least glimpse, are ever to be seen. The very fire that burneth there, contrary to the natural property of that element, is black and darksome, and affords no light to the wretches it torments, except it be to discover to them such objects as may increase their misery. Christians, what would you think were you to be sentenced to pass the remainder of your days in some horrid dungeon, or hole, deep under ground, where you could never see the light? Would not death itself be preferable to such a punishment? And what is this to that eternal night to which the damned are sentenced? The Egyptians were in a sad condition, when for three days the whole kingdom was covered with dreadful darkness, caused by such gross exhalations, that they might even be felt by the hand. But this misery was soon over, and they were comforted by the return of light. Not so the damned in hell; whose night shall never have a morning, nor ever expect the dawning of the day!
2. Consider, that the horrors of this eternal night shall be beyond measure aggravated by the dismal music, with which those poor wretches shall be for ever entertained in this melancholy abode, — the dreadful curses and blasphemies, — the insulting voices of the tormentors, and the bowlings, the groans and shrieks of the tormented, &c. And that the other senses may also come in for their share in misery, the smell shall be for ever regaled with the loathsome exhalations of those infernal dungeons, and the intolerable stench of those half putrified carcases which are broiling there: the taste shall be oppressed with a most ravenous hunger and thirst, and the feeling, with an insupportable fire.
3. Consider, that of all bodily torments, which we can suffer in this world, there is none more terrible than to burn alive: but, alas! there is no comparison between burning here, and burning in hell. All our fires upon earth are but painted flames, if compared to the fire of hell. The fire of this world was made to serve us, and to be our comfort: that of hell was created to be an instrument of God's vengeance upon sinners. The fire of this world cannot subsist without being nourished by some combustible matter, which it quickly despatches and consumes: the fire of hell, kindled by the breath of an angry God, requires no other fuel than sin; and feeds on this without ever decaying or consuming. Oh! dreadful stain of sin, which suffices to maintain an everlasting fire! The fire of this world can only reach the body: the fire of hell reaches the soul itself, and fills it with the most exquisite torments. Ah! sinners, which of you all can dwell with this devouring fire? Which of you all can endure this eternal burning?
4. Consider, and in order to frame some better notion of hell's torments, give ear to a most authentic vision, related by St. Teresa, chap, xxxii. of her life. "As I was one day," says the saint, "in prayer, on a sudden I found myself in hell; I know not how I was carried thither; only I understood that our Lord was pleased that I should see the place, which the devils had prepared for me there, and which I had deserved by my sins. What passed here with me lasted but a very little while; yet if I should live many years, I do not believe I should ever be able to forget it. The entrance appeared to me to resemble that of an oven very low, very narrow, and very dark. The ground seemed like mire, exceeding filthy, stinking, insupportable, and full of a multitude of loathsome vermin. At the end of it there was a certain hollow place, as if it had been a kind of a little press in a wall, into which I found myself thrust, and close pent up. Now, though all this which I have said was far more terrible in itself, than I have described it, yet it might pass for a pleasure in comparison with that which I felt in this press. This torment was so dreadful that no words can express the least part of it. I felt my soul burning in so dismal a fire, that I am not able to describe it. I have experienced the most insupportable pains, in the judgment of physicians, which can be corporally endured in this world, as well by the shrinking up of all my sinews, as by many other torments in several kinds: but all these were nothing: in comparison with what I suffered there: joined to the horrid thought, that this was to be without end or intermission: and even this itself is still little, if compared to the agony the soul is in; it seems to her that she is choked, that she is stifled, and her anguish and torture go to a degree of excess that cannot be expressed. It is too little to say, that it seems to her that she is butchered and rent to pieces: because this would express some violence from without, which tended to her destruction; whereas, here it is she herself that is her own executioner, and tears herself in pieces. Now, as to that interior fire and unspeakable despair, which comes in to "complete so many horrid torments; I own I am not able to describe them. I saw not who it was that tormented me; but I perceived myself to burn, and at the same time, to 'be cut as it were, and slashed in pieces: in so frightful a place, there was no room for the least hopes of comfort; there was no such thing as even sitting or lying down: I was thrust into a hole in a wall; and those horrible walls close in upon the poor prisoners and press and stifle them. There is nothing but thick darkness without any mixture of light, and yet I know not how it is, though there be no light there, yet one sees there all that may be most mortifying to the sight. Although it is about six years since this happened which I here relate, I am even now in the writing of it so terrified that my blood chills in my veins. So that whatsoever evils or pains I now suffer, if I do but call to my remembrance what I then endured, all that can be suffered here appears to me just nothing.' So far the saint, whose relation deserves to be pondered at leisure: for if such and so terrible torments had been prepared for her, whose life, from her cradle, setting aside a few worldly vanities which for a short time she had followed, had been so innocent, what must sinners one day expect?
5. Consider, that there is no man on earth, that has not quite lost his senses, who would be willing, even for the empire of the world, to be broiled like.a Lawrence on a gridiron, or roasted for half an hour by a slow fire, though he was sure to come off with his life; nay, where is the man that would even venture to hold his finger in the flame of a candle for half a quarter of an hour, for any reward that this world can give? Where is then the judgment of the far greater part of Christians, who pretend to believe a hell, yet live on with so little apprehension and concern, for years together, in the guilt of mortal sin; in danger every moment of falling into this dreadful and everlasting fire, having no more than a hair's breadth, that is, the thin thread of an uncertain life, between their souls and a miserable eternity! Good God! deliver us from this unfortunate blindness; from this desperate folly and madness.