Chapter 14. On the Pains of Hell, Where the Subject of the Last Meditation is Considered at Greater Length

§ 1.—Shewing the advantages to be obiained in various ways by meditating on the pains of hell.

1.—The contemplation of the pains of hell is extremely - profitable to the soul. First to incite us to bear our sufferings | and the bitterness of penance in the same way as the blessed St. Jerome was moved thereto, who tells us of himself that from the great fear he had conceived of the pains of hell, he condemned himself to such a severe course of penance as to take up his habitation in the desert.

2.—It is also profitable, according to Ricardus, to enable us to overcome the temptations of the enemy, when at the first suggestion of wicked thoughts, we set before the mind the horror of the punishment which awaits indulgence in them, and so quench the flame of concupiscence by thinking on the flames which will burn for ever. In conformity with this, it is written that one of the fathers of the desert being tempted by the enemy with wicked thoughts, thrust his hand into some burning coals, to see if he could endure their comparatively insignificant heat, and being unable to do so, turned upon himself, saying, ‘‘If I am unable to bear this slight heat for so short a time, how shall I be able to stand the fire of hell for all eternity ?”

3.—The consideration of this subject serves also to awaken in the heart the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom Ecele. i, and xxv. and of the love of God, and the most powerful curb to restrain us from sin. But it serves above all to create a horror of sin, by shewing the wretched consequences of it, to be everlasting death. What a subject then for wonder to find so many believers daring enough to sin against God. There are two things which give special occasion for our astonishment. The one, that after all the miracles wrought amongst men by our Saviour there should be found so many unbelievers, the other, that amongst believers there should be found so many bold offenders. It is certainly wonderful that when our Saviour, amongst other miracles had worked such a miracle as the raising of Lazarus from the tomb after he had been four days dead, that many of those who were witnesses of the fact refused to believe in him; and it is also wonderful that amongst men, who through his preachings John ii, believe in eternal punishments and happiness, there should be found so many daring enough to sin against him. It is astounding to witness such incredulity after such miracles, ‘and such lax morality after such belief. 4.—But as this misfortune arises rather from want of thought than from want of faith, it is profitable to reflect upon what faith teaches, that being impressed with the thought of the severity of the punishment, we may live in more dread of the sins for which the punishment will be inflicted.

$ 2.—On the two kinds of pain suffered in hell.

5.—Innumerable as are the pains of hell, they may be all divided into two classes—the pains of the feelings or senses and the pain of loss. The pains of feeling are those which torment the senses and the bodies of the damned, and the pain of loss, is that of losing for ever the sight and company of God. These two sorts of pain correspond to the two evils and misfortunes attached to sin, the one arising from the inordinate love of the creature, the other from the contempt of the Creator. To these two evils the two sorts of punishment correspond. The pains inflicted on the senses are in punishment of sensual pleasures, that the indulgence in them contrary to God’s commands may receive the reward due to the

. 4 AE E e os ~ CI libidinous character of the sin; and the pain of the eternal loss of God, is inflicted as a punishment for the contempt of God, because inasmuch as man was the first to abandon God, it is but a just retribution that he should be eternally abandoned by God. And as the latter of these two kinds of sin, viz. the contempt for God, is incomparably more heinous than

• the former, so the pain of loss, its corresponding punishment, is heavier beyond comparison than those inflicted on the senses.

6.—The first of all the pains to be inflicted on the external senses is by fire, according to St. Augustin, of such intensity that our fire here below is but a painted flame compared with it. This fire will not only burn the body, but the soul also, and will torment both without consuming, so that the’pains may endure for ever. This, says St. Augustin, will happen by a special miracle, because God who endows everything in nature with its special attributes will bestow on this fire the special power to torture without consuming that on which it feeds.

7.—Behold now what must be the feelings of those unhappy creatures stretched for ever on such a bed as this! And the better to comprehend them, think what thy feelings would be if thrown into a boiling cauldron or cast into a furnace of fire like that of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, the

Dan- hii. flames from which mounted upwards of forty cubits, and thou mayst thus form some idea of the realities there: for if this one fire on earth be, as we have said, but of painted flames what will be the reality of that? It appears to me I need proceed no further, if man would but dwell for a short while on this reflection and pause until he has fully realized its meaning.

8.—Added to this pain will be another of a totally opposite character, yet not less dreadful, a feeling of the intensest cold; truly a frightful refresher to those who are burning in that fire, they being plunged, according to holy Job, from the —

Job xxiv. scorching flame into freezing waters, that no sort of torment may be wanting to punish every species of pleasure in which they delighted to indulge.

9.—And not only will their torments consist of cold and heat, but the very demons in the figures of ferocious wild beasts and frightful monsters will stalk before them; the sight of which will torture the adulterous and lascivious eyes of those who were wont to paint their faces with artificial colours to serve as beautiful snares and nets of Satan.

10.—This punishment will be much more terrible than anyone can suppose, for if it be a well known fact that some persons have lost their senses and even died from fright, with the sight, nay the bare imagination of horrible things, and at times the mere suspicion of their presence, has caused the hair to stand on end from fear, what must be the terror in that dark lake, filled with such frightful chimeras as will then rise before the eyes of the wicked? Particularly reflect on the horrible appearance of the devil himself as represented in such a fearful form by God himself in the Holy Scriptures; as when in the Book of Job he is thus described. ‘ Who can Job xii, discover the face of his garment? Or who ean go into the midst of his mouth? Who can open the doors of his face? His teeth are terrible round about. His body is like molten shields, shut close up with scales pressing upon one another. One is joined to another, and not so much as any air can come between them; they stick one to another and they hold one another fast, and shall not be separated. His sneezing is like the shining of fire, and his eyes like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of lighted fire. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke like that of a pot heated and boiling. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame cometh forth out of his mouth.” How ' would the sight of such a horrible monster as here described, terrify us?

11.—To the torments inflicted on the eyes will be added another fearful punishment for the nose; the intolerable stench which will pervade those regions in chastisement for the scents and perfumes which the carnal children of the _ world delighted to indulge in, in this life, as God has threatened, speaking through the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah; “Because the daughters of Sion are haughty and have walked with stretched-out necks, and wanton glances of

Isaiah iii, 16. their eyes, and make a noise as they walked with their feet, and moved in a set pace, and boasted of their pomps and riches amongst the empty and the naked. The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Sion with all their other profane ornaments, and instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle a rope, and instead of curled hair baldness, and instead of a stomacher haircloth.” Behold the punishment awaiting the scents and fripperies of the children of the world.

12.—The better to appreciate the extent of this punishment, pause and reflect on that horrible torture invented by a cruel tyrant as a mode of treating criminals, he commanded the executioner to extend the living man upon a dead carcass, and bound tightly together the living and the dead leaving them thus united until the dead man killed the living one with the stench and the worms crawling out of him. If this torment appears to thee so horrible, tell me what that will be steaming from the stench of all the bodies of the damned and from that abominable dwelling of the wicked? There may they ery out to each of these wretched ones in the words of Isaiah: “Thy Isaiah. pride hath gone down into hell, and there thy dead body hath fallen; the moth shall spread itself beneath thee, and thy covering over thee shall be worms.” - 13.—If such be the punishment for the nose, what will that be for the ears, through which greater sins are committed ? These shall be tormented with never-ceasing cries, sereams, _ groans and blasphemies. For as in the heavens no sound will be heard but eternal hallelujahs and divine praises, so on the other hand in this den of tormentors, nothing but blasphemies and curses, the discordant sound of an infinite number of harsh voices singing to the clang of the hammers and blows of the executioners; and such will be the confusion and noisy discord and such the shrieks from that miserable prison-house that the sounds when Troy was sacked and Rome reduced to ashes were nothing in comparison.

14.—The better to appreciate this punishment, imagine thyself traversing a deep valley amidst an infinite crowd of wounded and sick prisoners all screaming and crying out, each after his own manner, men and women children and old people; tell me what thou wouldst think of this horrible din and confusion? What then must be the dreadful noise of all the crowd of the damned ever employed in shrieking out their blasphemies against God and his saints? What galley filled with renegades and convicts is peopled like hell? These are their daily matins. This is the dismal chapel of the prince of darkness. These are his lauds and these his singers, these will be the brothers and companions of all murmerers and cursers and of those who hearkened to the lies of the enemy.

15.—The tongue and dainty palate will not escape their punishment, since we read in the Gospel of the thirst suffered by the rich glutton amongst the flames, and how he cried out to the holy patriarch begging for a single drop of water to cool his burning tongue.

§ 3.—On the tormenis of the internal powers of the soul.

16.—Dreadful as are these pains inflicted upon the body, more dreadful still will be those inflicted on the internal powers of the soul, on which the punishment will fall much heavier inasmuch as they were more guilty, in neglecting to put a bridle upon sin. First the imagination will be tormented — with such dreadful apprehensions of all these sufferings as to be utterly incapable of dwelling upon any other subject. If when suffering from some acute pain we are unable to withdraw our thoughts from it, however much we may struggle to do so, because the mind is so occupied with the pain that it has no room for any thought beyond, how much worse will it befall it there, where the pain is incomparably more intolerable? Thus will the imagination keep alive suffering, and suffering the imagination, so that. in every way the pains of the damned may be aggravated. These subjects will supply continual meditations for those, who never during this life wished to toflect on these pains, in order that those who would not think here and so place a bridle on their lives, may there suffer the chastisement due to their crimes. ;

17.—The memory also on her part will be tormented, with the recollection of former joys and past pleasures for the gratification of which she has now to suffer such tortures. There will men clearly see the cost of their wretched gluttony, and find the savoury mouthfuls once so sweet were yet seasoned with pepper. A wise man remarked that under all sorts of adversity one of the severest trials was after having enjoyed prosperity to come afterwards to want. When then the rich and powerful in this world, shall look back and call to mind their former prosperity and the abundance in which they lived, and see that abundance followed by the want of everything, even of a single drop of water, and that their feasts have been converted into labours, their luxuries into miseries, their perfumes into stenches, their music into groans, what pain so grievous could afflict their memory ?

18.—But that pain will be still greater, when they compare the duration of past pleasures with present sorrows, and find the one over in an instant, the other lasting for ever. How overwhelming will be their sorrow, how deep their * groans, when after casting up the account they shall find this life was but a shadow of a dream; and that for the pleasures of a moment they will have to suffer everlasting torments ?

19.—The memory will suffer the pains occasioned by the recollection of past happiness, but the understanding will suffer more from the contemplation of the glory she has lost. Hence is born remorse the worm of conscience, with which the sacred Scriptures so often threaten us, which day and night shall bite and gnaw and feed upon Mo bowels of the damned. The worm is born in wood and is always gnawing the wood out of which it sprung; so this worm born of sin is always biting the sin which engendered it.

20.—This worm means rage and rabid remorse which seize on the wicked, when they reflect upon what they have lost, the cause of their loss, and the opportunity they had not to lose it. This opportunity is ever present to their minds, and always, but to no purpose, devouring their innermost soul, making them ever ery out: Oh, woe is me, that once had the opportunity of gaining all that is good, and would not avail myself thereof! There was a time when this good was offered me, when I was prayed to accept it, but to no purpose, I desired it not. One confession, once pronouncing my sins with my tongue in contrition and I should have obtained pardon ; if I only asked of God for a remedy, he offered to bestow it. In return for one cup of cold water he would have given me everlasting life. Now I shall for ever fast and pray and do penance, but to no purpose. Oh, for the time gone by, never to return! What did I receive for risking so much? Though they had given me all the kingdoms and delights of the world to enjoy for as many years as there are grains of sand on the sea shore all would be as nothing set against the pains I here suffer. But they gave me nothing of the sort, only the small shadow of a transitory pleasure, and have I for this to undergo eternal torments? Oh accursed pleasure, accursed exchange! And aceursed be the hour and the moment when I was so blind! Oh blind, and miserable and a thousand times unfortunate thus to have deceived myself! Cursed be he that deceived me, and cursed he who withheld chastisement from me. Cursed be the father who pampered me and cursed the mother who gave me suck, and the bread that I ate and cursed too all the life I lived. Cursed be the hour of my birth and all that contributed to give me being. Thrice happy those who never existed, who were never born, happy the womb that never conceived and the breasts that never gave suck. -

21.—In this way will these unfortunates vent their maledictions on all created things and especially on those which have been the cause of their perdition. We read in the lives of the fathers of a holy man who beheld in a vision a deep well full of flames and in the midst of them walked a father and his son bound fast together and cursing each other with the most ferocious fury. The father cried out, ‘Cursed child, tomake thee rich J was a usurer and for that am I condemned;” and the son said, ‘‘ Cursed be thou, my father, for thinking to do me good, thou hast been my ruin, for thou bequeathest to me an inheritance of ill-gotten goods, through means of which I am condemned !”

22.—Beyond all these however, what will be the torments and the pains of the will? She will ever be possessed with a raging envy of the glory of God and his elect, which will ever gnaw her interior like the worm we have before spoken of. .

Speaking of this pain, the Psalmist says; “The sinner shall

Psalm tii see and be angry; he shall gnash with his teeth and pine away; and the desire of the wicked shall perish.”” They shall moreover feel a great horror and hatred of God for detaining and punishing them there, and as a savage dog wounded with a spear turns with fury to bite it, so would they, if it were possible, tear to pieces the Almighty who has thrust the spear into them and who from on high strikes them with the sword of his justice. The greatest obstinacy in their sins will also possess them; they will grieve not because they are wicked, nor because they were wicked, nay they would wish rather to have been worse, and if they have any regret for having led a life of wickedness, it is not from any love of

Ged, but from their self-love and because they might have avoided those torments if they had chosen to live otherwise. Moreover they will be filled with eternal despair, because they think so badly of God and his mercy that they have no hope of ever receiving pardon and are certain that their pains will endure for ever without any mitigation; and this is the cause of their blasphemies, and of their lewdness of tongue against God, for as they have now nothing to hope from him, so will they strive to their utmost to avenge themselves with their raving tongues.

§ 4.—On the pain of loss.

23.—Is it possible to believe that beyond all these pains, there is something still worse to suffer? Yes, it is certain that all these pains united are as nothing compared with that of which we are about to speak. Look thou well to that, since we may call all the horrible torments above described as absolutely nothing compared to it. Because all the pains hitherto mentioned for the most part affect the feelings and the senses: but the pain of loss, of which we now speak is beyond comparison greater. This is clearly the case and for the following reason; because this pain is a spoliation of something good once possessed or hoped to be possessed ; and the greater the good, the greater the pain felt for its loss; this is evident in the loss of temporal goods where the more valuable the property the greater is the suffering for the loss of it. Since then God is infinite goodness itself and the greatest of all good, it is certain the loss of him must be an infinite evil and the greatest of all evils.

24.—In addition to this, God being the centre of the reasoning powers of the soul and the place wherein dwells her complete repose, it follows that the separation of this soul from God, is the most painful of all separations. “Therefore,” says St. Chrysostom, “all the fires of hell combined could not inflict such pain upon the soul as this separation from God himself.”

25.—Words do not suffice to describe the extent of this suffering; the separations which are continually happening in war through captivity where infants are snatched from their mothers’ breasts are nothing compared to this eternal bereavement and separation... To appreciate it better, stop and consider,a most horrible kind of death which tyrants have from time to time inflicted on some of the martyrs. They caused the branches of large trees to be forcibly bent to the ground, and bound by the feet a holy martyr to the ends of the boughs. Suddenly they ordered the branches to be loosed that flying back again to their natural positions the body of the martyr might be hurled on high and torn to pieces in the air, each bough carrying away suspended from it a portion of the body. If this rending asunder of the parts of the body was so dreadful a torture, what must be the rending asunder from God, ‘who is not a part but the whole essence of our soul? And this act of rending asunder will not endure for - only the short space of time the branches required to fly to their places, but as long as God shall be God.

§ 5.—On the particular pains of the damned.

26.—There are other punishments in addition to those already mentioned, which are general and common to all the damned, viz:—particular punishments assigned and ordained for each individual according to the quality of his offences, as signified by the Prophet Isaiah, when he said “In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off thou shalt judge it, Isaiah xxvii. 8. he hath meditated with his severe spirit in the day of heat.” ‘The day of heat’ means the day of the divine wrath. ‘The severe spirit’ signifies the terrible nature of the sentence, which will punish temporal crimes with eternal pains, ‘the measure against measure’ means the quantity and proportion of the punishment according to the quality of the crime. Because, there will be displayed the beautiful consistency of divine justice rendering to every one according to his merits and according to his offences. Hence a learned doctor says that there the avaricious will be reduced to miserable want. The lazy will be pricked with burning goads.* The glutton will be tormented with insatiable hunger and thirst. The carnal and lewd will be assailed by stinking flames of brimstone. The envious will howl with griping pains like rabid dogs. The proud and presumptuous will be filled with eternal confusion; and so of the rest. Then, Oh worshippers of this world, lovers of honour, ye who gather together riches, inventors of new fashions, new dishes, and new pleasures! Then Oh sorrowful and miserable City of Babylon who shall now take pity on thee, and again weep over thee with the compassionate tears of our Saviour? saying, poise ax. “Tf thou too hadst known this thy day!” Oh if only thou hadst known how dear these mouthfuls were to cost thee, and what severe executioners would prove-these idols which thou adorest. Those who eat fruit before it is ripe will have their teeth edged, and if worldlings choose to indulge in ease before its time and to live on earth as a paradise instead of as a place of exile, they will some day find

• their teeth set on edge, according to that threat of God through his prophet, when he says, ‘‘ Let every man who

Jeremiah. eateth sour grapes before they ripen know that they will taste bitter,” he eats them before they are ripe who desires to forestall and anticipate in this life the pleasures of the next, and his mouth shall be filled with bitterness when he shall receive his chastisement from God for desiring before the time, to enjoy pleasures and repose.

§ 6.—On the eternity of the pains of hell. 27.—Terrible as are all these pains united, what will they be if in addition they are to last for a never-ending eternity ? After ten thousand years and a hundred thousand more, add as many thousands of millions as there are stars in the heavens and grains of sand upon a shore and still when ee Se Se Stk = t — this. number is completed, their sufferings will go on commencing as afresh, and so continue for ever revolving round the eternal wheel of torture. ‘‘ For Tophet is prepared from yesterday,” says Isaiah, “prepared by the king deep and

Isaiah xxx. 33., wide. The nourishment thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord as a torrent of brimstone kindleth it.” This valley of Tophet is the abyss of hell prepared from yesterday; viz. from the beginning of the world, for the punishment of the wicked. Its nourishment is the fire which burns but does not consume, that which sup-plies the fire cannot possibly be finished or wasted by time. And why this fire can never die is, that it is fed by devils whose eternal charge is to blow and kindle it, and being immortal they can never weary of supplying it. But should they fail, the breath of the eternal God will never fail to fan the flames. ”Twere well for men to understand the meaning of this duration, for doubtless it would profit them much as a curb during life. -On this account it will not be amiss to give a few examples from parallel cases the better to understand some little of this.

28.—Pause then a moment, and consider the mode of torture adopted in some places against malefactors who are burnt alive; and who according to the heinousness of their crimes are subjected to various degrees of heat, as the less the fire, the longer will be the duration of their tortures. But will this ingenious species of cruelty be able to lengthen the torments much? Scarcely the length of a day. Tell me then, I pray thee, if this style of torment so terrific and inhuman can at most even with a slow fire be protracted for the space of but one single day, what must that be which with such a fire will endure for an eternity? Where is the mathematician who can calculate the infinite excess of the one over the other? If then man to escape such sufferings would undergo every danger and privation, how much more are we called upon to use every effort to escape these torments ?

29.—Consider further that terrible species of torture invented by that most cruel tyrant Phalaris, of whom it is written, that he ordered a prisoner to be enclosed in the belly of a brazen bull and a fire afterwards to be lighted under it, so that the miserable wretch by the heat of the metal was gradually roasting, unable to escape and unable to receive assistance, until he was burnt to death amidst his shrieks and contortions. At the bare relation of this, does not the flesh creep upon our bones at the thought of it? Tell me then now Oh Christian soul, what is all this but an empty sound ‘compared with that of which we are speaking? If the thought of this alone makes us shudder, what will it be not to think on, but to suffer this torment? Truly eternal torments are so dreadful, that were only one of all the children of Adam destined to endure them, that would suffice to make every other tremble. Because only one of Christ’s disciples had to betray him, and when our Lord said; ‘‘One of you is about o to betray me,” all began to fear and be filled with sorrow, so grievous was the charge; how is it then that we do not tremble knowing so well that the number of fools is infinite, and that narrow is the way to life? And that hell has opened its arms to receive the multitudes that

Heclesi. i. rush into it? If we do not believe this, nieve. vit, where is our faith? If we believe it and LE Nl | acknowledge it, where our judgment and reason? And if we have judgment and reason how is it we do not fill the streets with cries and lamentations? How is it we do not fly to the deserts like many of the saints and pass our lives amongst wild beasts to escape these torments? How can we sleep at night? How is it our brain is not turned by the thought of such extreme dangers, since less misfortunes have sufficed not only to overturn the reason but even to deprive men of their lives ?

30.—It is then one of the heaviest punishments of the damned to know that God and his chastisements ever co-exist, aoe | = therefore there is no consolation for them as their punishment can know no end. -If these unfortunate wretches could only believe that after the lapse of a hundred thousand millions-of years their sufferings would end, this alone would be of the greatest comfort, for however late still an end would come. But this cannot be, for according to St. Gregory, death befalls the wicked but they never die, and their end closes upon them but their career never ends, for there death lives eternally and the ends for ever beginning. Therefore said the prophet; Psalm Lxxx, “Like sheep they are folded in hell and they shall graze upon death.” The grass that is grazed is not plucked up, because it remains alive at the root which is the © seat of its life and causes it again to spring up that it may bepastured again. Therefore the herbage of the fields is everlasting, it is ever grazed and always revives. Thus shall death be for ever the pasturage of the damned; and as death cannot die it will for ever supply the pasture, never weary of its duty nor fail to supply a mouthful, because it will have always food to supply, as they will for ever have sufferings to endure.