The hell of a guilty Conscience. [ 310]
PHilo Iudaeus telleth,* 1.1 that Flaccus plaid all the parts of cruelty that he could devise against the Iewes, for their Religion's sake; but afterward, when the doom if Caligula fell upon him, and he was banished to Andros, an Island neer Greece,* 1.2 he was so tormented with the memory of his bloody iniquities, and a fear of suffering for them, that if he saw any man walking softly neer to him, he would say to himselfe, This man is devising to work my destruction: If he saw any go hastily, Surely it is not for nothing, he maketh speed to kill me. If any man spake him fair, he suspected that he would cousen him, and sought to entrap him; If any talked roughly to him,* 1.3 then he thought that he contemned him: If meat were gi∣ven to him in any plentifull sort, This is but to fat me as a sheep, or an ox, to be slaughtered. Thus his sin did lie upon him, and ever remember him, that some vengeance was to follow from God, or Man, or both: And this is the case of all wilfull, bloody, presumptuous sinners, that though there be some struglings and wrestlings to the contrary, yet their hearts and consciences are greater than them∣selves, and will put them in mind, that nothing but destruction waiteth on them; if they walk abroad, sonus excitat omnis suspensum, they are afraid of every leaf that wags; if they stay at home, nothing but horrour attends them: In the day, they are struck with variety of sad apprehensions; and in the night, they are tormented with fearfull dreams, and strange apparitions: Such and so great is the hell of a guil∣ty conscience.