A treatise of the difference bbtwixt [sic] the temporal and eternal composed in Spanish by Eusebius Nieremberg ... ; translated into English by Sir Vivian Mullineaux, Knight ; and since reviewed according to the tenth and last Spanish edition.

§ 3.

The pains of the Powers of a damned Soul.

THe Imagination shall no less afflict those misera∣ble offenders, encreasing the pains of the Senses by the liveliness of its apprehension. For if in this life the imagination is sometimes so vehement, that it hurts more than real evils, in the other the torment, which it causes, will be excessive.* 1.1 Alexander Tralianus writes of a Woman who was extremely ill, onely with a false imagination that she had swallowed a Snake, and was perswaded that she already felt most grievous pains by the Snakes gnawing of her entrals. What will the apprehension of the truth do in those miserable wretch∣ches, when the worm of their conscience will be con∣tinually gnawing their very hearts? Assahara••ius writes of others who complained of the great pains they endured by whipping, when no man touched a thread of their Garment. Much more is that which Fulgosius recounts as an eye-witnese, that being Judge in a Duel, one of the Competitors made the other flye,* 1.2 but instantly fell down dead himself without any o∣ther cause than an imagination that he was hurt to death; for he neither received wound nor blow, nei∣ther was the sign of any found upon his dead body. If in this life the imagination be so powerful in men, who are in health, and have other diversions, as to cause a sense of pain, where none hurts, grief, where none molests, and death, where none kills, What shall it be in Hell, where there is nothing of delight to divert it, where so many Devils punish and afflict with

torments, preserving onely life that the pain of death may live eternally? And if we see some timorous people with an imaginary fear tremble and remain half dead, there is no doubt but the imagination of those misera∣ble persons joyned with the horror of the place, where they are, will cause a thousand pains and torments.

The powers of the Soul shall be those which shall suffer the greatest lashes. The Will shall be torment∣ed with an eternal abhorring and rage against it self, against, all creatures, and against God the Creator of all: and shall with an intolerable sadness, anger, grief and disorder of all the affections violently desire things impossible, and despair of all what is good. And if joy consists in the possessing of what one loves, and pain in the want of that which is desired, and be∣ing necessitated to what is abhorred, What greater pain and torment than to be ever desiring that which shall never be enjoyed, and ever abhorring that which we can, never be quyt of?* 1.3 Wherefore St. Bernard sayes, What thing more painful, then ever to will that which shall never be, and ever to will that which shall not cease to be? That which he desires, he shall never ob∣tain: and what he desires not, eternally suffer. And from hence shall spring that raging fury, which David speaks of: The sinner shall see and he raging, he shall gnash his teeth and be consumed.

This rage and madness shall be augmented by the despair, which shall be joyned unto it. For as no man sins without injury to the Divine mercy, presuming to sin in, hope he may repent and be pardoned: So it was fit that the Divine justice should chastise the sin∣ner with a despair of all remedy, that so he, who a∣bused the Divine benefits with a false hope, might feel the punishment of a true despair. This torment shall be most terrible unto the damned. For as the greatest evil is eased by hope, so the least is made grie∣vous by despair. Hope in afflictions is supported by two things; One is the fruit, which may result from

suffering; The other is the end and conclusion of the evil suffered. But in regard the despair of the damned is of so great evils, the despair it self will be a most terrible one. If one suffers and reaps fruit from it, 'tis a comfort unto him, and the grief is recompenced by the joy of the benefit thereof; but when the suffering is without fruit or profit, then it comes to be heavy indeed. The hope of a good harvest makes the labour∣er with chearfulness endure the toyl of plowing and sowing; but if he were certain to reap no profit, eve∣ry pace he moved would be grievous and irksome un∣to him. A Day-labourer with the hope of his wages goes through the toyl of the day with great comfort: But if they commanded him to work for nothing, he would have no heart to work at all. The holy Mar∣tyrs and Confessors of Christ, what penances, what ri∣gours, what martyrdomes have they willingly under∣gone, expecting the fruit they were to draw from their patience? And though in temporal afflictions this hope of recompence should fail, yet the hope, that they would sometime cease and have an end, would afford some comfort and ease unto the sufferers. But in Hell both those are wanting; The damned shall nei∣ther receive reward for their sufferings, nor shall their torments ever have an end. Of them it is that St. John speaks; They shall seek death, and shall not find it; * 1.4 They shall desire to die, and death shall flye from them. O let a Christian consider how great a recompence at∣tends the least of our sufferings here in Christs service, and how vain and unprofitable shall all our sufferings be hereafter. One penitent knock upon the breast here may gain eternal glory; There the most intense pains and torments both in soul and body cannot deserve a drop of cold water, nor so much ease, as to turn from one side to the other. In this raging despair ends the temerarious hopes of sinners. Hell is full of those, who hoped they should never enter into it: and full of those, who despair of getting out of it. They of∣fended

with a presumptuous hope they should not die in sin: and that proving false, are fallen into eternal desperation. There is no hope can excuse the falling in∣to so great a danger. Let us therefore secure Heaven, and not sin.

The Memory shall be another cruel Tormentor of those miserable sinners, converting all they have done good or bad into torments: The good, because they have lost their reward, The bad, because they have deserved their punishments. The delights also, which they have enjoyed, and all the happiness of this life, in which they have triumphed, (seeing that for them they fell into this misery,) shall be a sharp sword, which shall pierce their hearts. They shall burst with grief, when they shall compare the shortness of their past pleasures with the eternity of their present torments. What Mathematician so learned, as can perfectly set out the excess of those eternal years of the other life unto those short few and evil dayes of this? What groans, what sighs will they pour out, when they see that those delights have hardly lasted an instant, and that the pains they suffer for them shall last for a∣ges and eternities, all that is past appearing but as a dream? Let us tremble now at the felicity of this life, if it make such wounds in the hearts of those, who have used it ill. Let us tremble at all our pleasures, since they may turn into Arseneck and Hemlock. The miserable wretch shall with great grief remember how often he might have gained Heaven, and did it not, but is now tumbled into Hell, and shall say unto him∣self, How many times might I have prayed, and spent that time in play? but now I pay for it. How many times ought I to have fasted, and left it to satisfie my greedy appetite? How many times might I have gi∣ven alms, and spent it in sin? How many times might I have pardoned my enemies, and chose rather to be revenged? How many times might I have frequented the Sacraments, and forbore them, because I would

not quit the occasion of sinning? There never want∣ted means of serving God: but I never made use of it, and am therefore now justly paid for all. Behold ac∣cursed Caitiff, that entertaining thy self in pleasures, thou hast for toyes and fooleries lost Heaven. If thou wouldest, thou mightest have been a companion for Angels; if thou wouldest thou mightest have been in eternal joy: and thou hast lost all for the pleasure of a moment. O accursed and wretched fool, thy Re∣deemer courted thee with Heaven, and thou despisedst him for a base trifle. This was thy fault, and now thou sufferest for it; and since thou wouldest not be happy with God, thou shalt now be eternally cursed by him and his Angels.

The Understanding shall torment it self with dis∣courses of great bitterness, discoursing of nothing but what may grieve it. Aristotle shall not there take de∣light in his wisdom, nor Seneca comfort himself with his Philosophy. Galen shall find no remedy in his Physick, nor the profoundest Scholar in his Divinity. A certain Doctor of Paris appeared after death unto the Bishop of that City, and gave him an account that he was damned. The Bishop demanded of him, if he had there any knowledge. He answered, That he knew nothing but onely three things; The first, that he was eternally damned: The second, that the Sen∣tence past against him was irrevocable: The third, that for the vain pleasure of the world he was depri∣ved of the vision of God. And then he desired to know of the Bishop if there were any people in the world remaining. The Bishop asking him the reason of that question, he answered, that within these few last dayes there have so many souls descended into Hell, that me-thinks there should not any be left up∣on earth.

In this power of the Soul is engendered tho worm of conscience, which is so often proposed unto us in holy Scripture as a most terrible torment, and greater

than that of fire. Onely in one Sermon, or rather in the Epilogue of that Sermon Christ our Redeemer three times menaces us with that Worm,* 1.5 which gnaws the consciences and tears in pieces the hearts of the Damned, admonishing us as often, That their worm shall never die, nor their sire be quenched. For as the worm, which breeds in dead flesh, or that which breeds in wood, eats and gnaws that substance of which they are engendered; so the Worm, which is bred from sin, is in perpetual enmity with it, gnaw∣ing and devouring the heart of the sinner with raging, desperate, and now unprofitable grief: still putting him in mind, that by his own fault he lost that eter∣nal glory, which he might so easily have obtained, and is now fallen into eternal torments, from whence there is no redemption. And certainly this resentment of the loss of Heaven shall more torment him, than the fire of Hell. Of an evil conscience even in this life St. Austin said,* 1.6 that amongst all the tribulations of the Soul none was greater than that of a guilty consci∣ence. Even the Gentils knew this, and therefore Quin∣tilian exclaims, O sad remembrance and knowledge more grievous than all torments! And Seneca sayes, that evil actions are whipt by the conscience of them∣selves: that perpetual vexation and resentment brings great afflictions and torments upon the Actors: that wickedness drinks up the greatest part of its own poi∣son, and is a punishment unto it self.

Certainly it were a great rigour, if a Father should be forced to be present at the execution of his Son: but more, if he should be compelled to be the Hang∣man; and yet greater, if the Gallows should be pla∣ced before his own door, so that he could neither go in or out without beholding that affront and contu∣mely; but far greater crueltie, if they should make the guilty person to execute himself, and that by cutting his body in pieces, member after member, or tearing off his flesh with his own teeth. This is the

cruelty and torment of an evil Conscience, with which a sinner is racked and tortured amongst those eternal flames, not being able to banish his faults from his memory, nor their punishment from his thoughts. The envy also, which they shall bear towards those, who have gained Heaven by as small matters as they have lost it, shall much add to their grief. Those who are hungry, if they see others meaner than they feed at some splen∣did and plentiful Table, and cannot be admitted them∣selves, become more hungry; so shall it fare with the damned, who shall be more afflicted by beholding o∣thers, sometimes less than themselves, enjoy that eter∣nal happiness, which they through want of care are deprived of. Esau, though a Clown, having under∣stood, that his Brother Jacob had obtained▪ his Fathers Benediction, cried out and roared like a Lion, and consumed himself with resentment and horror. What lamentations shall those of the damned be, when they shall see that the Just have gained the Benediction of God, not by any deceit or cozenage used by them, but that they lost it through their own neglect? Those who with opinion of merit earnestly aim at some va∣cant Dignity, if at length they see themselves neglect∣ed, and with shame put off, their grief and indig∣nation swells above measure: In like manner, I say, shall it be with those damned wretches, who will be far more afflicted by the consideration of those great goods and eternal felicities, which they see them∣selves have lost, and those to enjoy them, whom they deemed far inferiour to them in merit. Let us now therefore have remorse of conscience whilest we may kill the Worm, lest it then bite us, when it can∣not die.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Vide Marcel. Don. in Hist. M••∣dica l. 2. c. 1.
• * 1.2

  Baptist. Fulgos. l. 9.
• * 1.3

  Bern. l. 5. de Consid. ad Eugen. Papam.
• * 1.4

  Apoc. 9.
• * 1.5

  Marc. 9.
• * 1.6

  Aug. in Psal. 45. Quint. Declam. 12. Senec. ep. 97.