But, oh my Soul! How canst thou ever sufficiently conceive of the dreadfulness of such a departure from God, as this is? How canst thou even in any tolerable measure, know what thou shalt lose, in losing that Infinite Abyss of Happiness? How canst thou bear the Thoughts of existing, so much as one moment, when thou shalt be frown’d upon by him, in whose favor alone, is life, that is, every thing which makes Life desirable? Oh! How wilt thou be able to endure thyself, when thy Father, thy most tender and compassinate Father, thy Savior, thy most loving and relenting Savior, the Holy Angels and just Men made perfect, those best natur’d of Created beings, when the God of all comfort and giver of every good gift, when he, who once lov’d thee so well, as to lay down his life for thee, when they, who have made it their constant business to minister to thee, and have rejoic’d without measure, when they have seen the least hopes of thy becoming happy; in one word, when all those beings who are good and continually delight in doing good, and from whom alone all good must come, shall not endure thee, shall detest and abhor thee, shall spurn thee from the presence, shall laugh at thy calamity, and mock when thy fear cometh? Good God! How will it vex and fret our Souls to reflect upon those bright and glorious Mansions of happiness, from which we shall then be banish’d? How will the Contemplation even of Heaven itself torment us, when it shall serve only to create in us strong and eager desires and longings after it, which must never be satisfi’d, and to remind us of a loss, which is as Infinite as God himself? But, above all, how will it gall and wound our Souls, how will it make us all rage and fury against ourselves, to consider that we have lost all this through our own fault; and that, when we had it all within our reach and in our power, we were contented (foolish Creatures that we were!) for mere gugaws and trifles, mere shadows and appearances of happiness, to part with it? Certainly, were there no other punishment for the wicked in Hell than this, they would have great reason to say of it, as Cain did of his, it is greater than we can bear.
But secondly, There will likewise be the lashes of their own guilty minds, and of all those vexatious Lusts and Passions, which they shall carry with them into another World, and which will be mightily heighten’d and inflam’d there. By the worm of the wicked, which shall never die, so often mentioned in Scripture as what is to be part of their Punishment in Hell, we are doubtless to understand the remorse of their own guilty minds or Consciences, which shall, as it were, gnaw and prey upon them, and give them much greater pain and torment than a worm preying upon their living flesh would do. Their Consciences, I say, which will there be continually and most sensibly reproaching them, not only with the loss of Heaven (though this will be reproach enough), but with all that baseness, ingratitude, unreasonableness, folly, and sinfulness toward God, which they shall have been guilty of in their past lives. And with all that shame, anguish, horror, inconceivable and endless Misery, which they shall thereby have brought upon their own Heads. And, as we are sure, from the nature of the thing itself, that, when the wicked shall no longer be cloth’d with such bodies of flesh, as they now are, which mightily obstruct and press down the Soul in her operations, but shall put on spiritual bodies, bodies in which their Souls may freely and uncontrollably exert their utmost powers, their apprehensions and resentments of things most necessarily become vastly more quick and vigorous, and consequently their sense of their own folly, guilt, and misery, and their remorse, anguish, and trouble for them, exceedingly more keen and poignant than they had ever been in this World. So have we all the reason that can be to believe that the Divine Vengeance will both add new stings to these, their own inbred Tormentors, and (as I have before proved to you, it sometimes does with the wounded spirits of Sinners, even in this World) whet and sharpen, in a supernatural manner, the points of their old ones. So that, whereas in this World their Consciences did only chastise them with whips, they shall there chastise them with Scorpions.
Besides this, some Divines have been of the opinion that wicked Men shall carry their appetites and lustings after sensual pleasures into Hell along with them, and there, to their unspeakable Torment, continually burn with the most raging and vehement desires and longings after these things, which yet at the same time they shall be infallibly assur’d, it shall never in the least be in their power to enjoy. But, this seeming not very agreeable to the notion of those spiritual Bodies which the wicked shall be clothed within a future State, I shall not insist upon it, but only suppose what I think very probable that the wicked shall retain in Hell a remembrance of those pleasures which they once enjoyed in this World, in their Bodies of flesh, and that this remembrance shall be extremely grateful and pleasing to them, and put them upon wishing most earnestly that they were again to be clothed in such Bodies, again to act over the same pleasures, which having long accustom’d themselves to, the full bent and inclination of their Souls has been long wholely set toward them, and has made them utterly incapable of relishing or delighting in any other. And, if there shall be any such eager longings and hankerings after bodies of flesh and the pleasures belonging to them, these join’d with an utter despair of ever obtaining what they so much long for, must needs be an unsupportable Torment to the damn’d.
But, be this as it will, it is certain both from Reason and Scripture that the wicked shall be subject to all those peevish and uneasy Passions in Hell, which are purely Spiritual, as Pride, Envy, Malice, Anger, Hatred, Fear, Self-Revenge, &., and moreover shall have all these in a much higher degree there, much more troublesome and vexatious to them than they were in this World. All these we find ascrib’d to the Devil and his Angels, spiritual Beings, in Scripture. And indeed, it is inconceivable to Reason how wicked souls can exist without them, and these being purely spiritual Passions, or Passions of the mind consider’d abstractedly from the body, must needs grow and increase, as we become more and more spiritualiz’d. Besides, that the objects of these vexatious passions will be infinitely enlarg’d to the Damn’d in Hell, and that they will there meet with the most provoking occasions of raising and inflaming their passions to the utmost, and yet at the same time with the most tormenting balks and disappointments to them, that can possibly be imagin’d. Did the envious Man grow big and swell with Envy here at the sight of the earthly prosperity of his Brethren? He will even burst with it there at the Contemplation of the happiness of the Saints in Heaven. Did the Malicious Man hate and malign those, who never did him much hurt here? Oh, how will he rage and flame out with hatred and ill-will against those malicious Beings, his Companions in Hell, who shall continually be doing him all the mischief that they are able there? Did not the proud man know how to brook any, even the smallest, disappointments here? Alas! He shall meet with nothing else but disappointments, and those too of the highest kind, there. There, I say, where he shall be sure of having every such thing as he would not, and no one such thing as he would. Was the angry Man apt to be soon put into a passion here, by little Crosses and Vexations? He will there be continually heated, fired, nay, even made and kept red-hot, by a constant series of great ones. To say all at once, the fears of the wicked shall be there heightened into despair, their displeasure against themselves into the utmost indignation, and the most exasperated Rage, fretfulness and bitterness of Soul, the most unmix’d Sorrow, irksomeness and self abhorrency, the keenest Anger and Revenge, shall be the portion of their Cup. So that, indeed, the wicked Men seem to carry complete Misery into Hell along with them, while they carry such appetites as, though never so eager and craving, cannot in the least there be satisfied, such passions as, though never so vexatious and intolerable, cannot in the least be pacifi’d and allay’d there. And yet this Misery will still be enhanc’d.
Thirdly, By the loathsomeness and uncomfortableness of the place of Hell and the troublesome conversation of the Devil and wicked spirits, which the damn’d shall be there confin’d to . . . As to the company of Hell, we know that this is wholly made up of Devils and wicked Men. And these being all most malicious and ill-natur’d beings, and besides
such, as, we shall then be sensible, have been highly instrumental in drawing us into this place of Torments, and moreover, some of them such, as are to be our very Tormentors, the bare sight of them must needs be extremely odious and uneasy to the wicked. And nothing can be expected from such company, but continual jangling, hatred, anger, snarling, and biting at one another, nothing but the most terrible Fears and jealousies of, the most malicious and spiteful bickerings against, each other. And good God! If it be thought so very irksome a thing here, to be oblig’d to spend only a few hours in Company that is disagreeable, how shall we ever be able to bear the thoughts of taking our dwelling among that Hellish Crew, who study nothing else, day and night, than how they may be best able to provoke and exasperate each other to the highest degree possible.
Besides the Damn’d must needs be very ghastly and doleful Spectacles to each other and their perpetual weeping, wailing, sighing, howling, and loud outcries, occasion’d by their Torments, must needs be very dreadful and effecting. So far will it be, in this case, from being any comfort to us to have Companions in our Misery, that this very thing will be a great addition to our Torments. Oh! how sadly shall we read our own Miseries, in the melancholy countenances of every one of our Companions? How terrible and killing must the sound of those groans and complaints needs be, which are, as it were, but the faint echoes of our own? What a hideous, what a heartbreaking consort of woes must that be, which comes from an innumerable company of poor unhappy Wretches, laboring under the sharp pangs of a wounded Conscience, and a Mind gall’d and fretted by all the most vexatious Passions, and yet farther, burning and scorching in the flames of Hell fire, which is the fourth thing, which I propos’d to speak to.
And here I must freely confess that I cannot see any manner of reason, why we should suppose that the fire of Hell will not be a real and material, but only a metaphorical and figurative, fire . . . Certainly nothing, if it were purposely study’d and design’d, could serve more effectually to satisfy our Minds in this point than the Parable of the rich Man in the Gospel, who is there represented as burning in a material Fire in Hell and begging for water to cool his Tongue, an expression properly belonging only to a material Fire.3
If it is said that the Torments of Hell are sometimes expressed in Scripture by other things than that of fire, and that therefore fire is to be understood not properly but figuratively, I answer that there are other Torments of Hell, besides those of fire, and that these are they which are express’d by those other things, as that of a guilty Conscience in particular, which is represented in the Text from which these Men fetch this Argument by a worm that dieth not, but which is there plainly represented as a thing different from the fire of Hell: Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quench’d.4
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Fifthly, The uninterrupted continuance and eternal duration of them. For so the Scripture tells us that the smoke of the torment of the wicked ascendeth up for ever and ever and that they have no rest day nor Night, and again that they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.5 And what a dreadful addition will this be to the Torments of the Damn’d that they shall be without intermission and without end? Will not the very thoughts of this give a keener edge to all their sufferings and be a kind of new Hell to them? But I shall say no more of this here, because I design to treat particularly of the Eternity of Hell-Torments in my following Discourses, and under that shall have occasion to say something of the uninterrupted continuance of them.
INTO THAT ETERNAL FURNACE1
For their part, Catholics did not abandon their millennium-old traditions about the torments of Hell. During the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church staged the “Counter-Reformation” to combat Protestant claims about Christian doctrine and to assert that scripture and tradition were equally authoritative in determining religious truth about the afterlife. Moreover, a new monastic order—the Society of Jesus, whose members were called Jesuits—spread the Catholic message about the dangers of Hell through their missionary activities around the globe from Canada to China to Brazil. The Jesuits practiced guided meditation on the passion and death of Christ as a way to cultivate compassion. As novices, they learned techniques of imaginative visualization that allowed them to self-identify with Christ’s suffering. They applied these same techniques in their contemplation of the terrors of Hell. The Spiritual Exercises of their founder, Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), instructed Jesuits to imagine Hell with all of their five senses: “See in imagination the vast fires, and the souls enclosed, as it were, in bodies of fire . . . hear the wailing, the howling cries, and blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against His saints . . . smell the smoke, the sulfur, the filth and corruption. . . .” These techniques were on full display in a treatise called Hell Opened to Christians to Caution Them from Entering into It (1693), written by the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti (1632–1703). With a startling vividness that recalled Christian visionary literature like the Apocalypse of Paul and the Vision of Tundale, Pinamonti evoked for the attentive reader a sensory experience of unending torment in Hell that stood in marked contrast to the emphasis on the wounded conscience and remorse of the soul favored by contemporary Protestant and Anglican theologians.
THE FIRST CONSIDERATION FOR SUNDAY: THE PRISON OF HELL
I. Its Straitness
Consider that the first injustice a soul does to God is the abusing of the liberty granted her by breaking his commandments, and in effect, declaring not to be willing to serve him, “You said, I will not serve.”2 To punish, therefore, so great a boldness, God has framed a prison in the lowest region of the universe, a very suitable place, as the farthest of all from heaven. Here, though the place itself is wide enough, the damned will not even have that relief, which either a poor prisoner has in walking between four walls, or the sick man in turning himself in bed, because here they shall be bound up like a faggot, [bundle of wood] and heaped upon one another like unfortunate victims; and this by reason of the great numbers of the damned, to whom this great pit will become narrow and strait; as also because the fire itself will be to them like chains and fetters, “He shall rain snares on sinners: fire and brimstone, and the spirit of storms will be part of their cup.”3 Besides, God will not concur with anything that can give them any manner of relief: making no more account of them, than if they had never been in the world; and, therefore, “forgotten by his mercy.”4 Those miserable wretches will not only be straitened, but also be immoveable; and therefore, “if a blessed saint,” says St. Anselm, in his Book of Similitudes, “will be strong enough, should there be occasion, to move the whole earth, the damned will be so weak, as not to be able even to remove from the eye a worm that is gnawing it.”5 The walls of this prison are more than four thousand miles thick, that is, as far from here to Hell; but were they as thin as paper, the prisoners will be too weak to break through them to make their escape, “Binding him hand and foot, throw him into utter darkness.”6 What, then, will that sinner do, who was accustomed to command and have everything done his own way, even in despite of God himself, when he finds himself shut up in so deep an abode, under the feet of all creatures, even the devils themselves, never to recover, for a whole eternity, that liberty which was so dear to him? Oh, detestable liberty, which endeth thus in a slavery that has no end! How much better would it have been to have submitted one’s self, for a short time, to the pleasant yoke of divine precepts than to live forever chained up in such dismal fetters!
II. Its Darkness
Consider that this prison will not only be extremely strait, but also extremely dark. It is true there will be fire, but deprived of light; yet so that the eyes shall suffer with the sight of most horrible appearances, and yet be debarred of the comfort which in the midst of all their terror, the lightnings themselves might cause in the frightfulest tempests, “The voice of the Lord descends like the flame of fire.”7 That will be true, because, as St. Thomas says, “There will be heat without brightness,” by a
contrary miracle to what was wrought in the Babylonian furnace, for there, by the command of God, the heat was taken from the fire, but not the light or brightness; but in Hell the fire will lose its light, but not its heat.8 Moreover, this same fire burning with brimstone will have a searching flame, which being mingled with the rolling smoke of that infernal cave, will fill the whole place, and raise a storm of darkness according to what is written, “These are the persons to whom the storm of darkness is reserved forever.”9 Finally, the same mass of bodies heaped on one another will contribute to make up a part of that dreadful night, not a glimpse of transparent air being left to the eyes of the damned, thus darkened and almost put out. Ponder now the despair of a sinner buried in this manner, “He shall not see light forever.”10 Oh, poor wretch, who for a whole eternity shall not so much as behold one single ray of any friendly light! One night alone has sometimes made a poor prisoner turn quite gray. What effect then must that night, which shall never see day, cause in those unfortunate creatures? “There was a horrible darkness.”11 Among all the plagues of Egypt, if darkness alone was called horrible, what name shall we give to that darkness, which is not to last for three days only, but for all eternity!
The Penguin Book of Hell Page 16
