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.

§ 2.

To this may be added, that in this banishment of the Damned the exiles are not allowed the liberty of o∣ther banished persons, who within the Isle or Region of relegation may goe or move whither they please: but not so the Damned in Hell; because the place of their exile is also a Prison, that so this grievous sort of punishment may be also added to their other tor∣ments. Hell is the Prison of God, a most rigorous Pri∣son, horrid, and stinking, wherein so many millions of men shall for ever lye fettered in chains: for chains, or something answerable unto them shall not there be wanting. Whereupon St. Austin sayes, and is follow∣ed by the Schoolmen, that the malign spirits shall be fastned to fire or certain fiery bodies, from which the pain which they receive shall be incredible, being there∣by deprived of their natural liberty, as it were fetter∣ed with manicles and bolts, so as they are not able to remove from that place of mishap and misery. It were a great torment to have burning irons cast upon our hands and feet; but this and much more shall be in Hell, where those fiery bodies, which are to serve in∣stead of shackles and fetters, are (as grave Doctors affirm) to be of terrible forms proportionable unto their offences, and shall with their very sight affright them.

Besides, the bodies of the Damned after the final Judgement past shall be so streightned and crowded together in that infernal Dungeon, that the holy Scrip∣ture compares them to grapes in the Wine-press, which press one another until they burst. Most inhu∣mane was that torment inflicted upon three Fathers of the Society of Jesus by their Enemies at Mastrick. They put certain rings of iron stuck full of sharp points of needles about their arms and feet, in such manner as they could not move without pricking and wound∣ing

themselves. Then they compassed them about with fire, to the end that standing still they might be burnt alive: and if they stirred, the sharp points pier∣ced their flesh with more intolerable pains than the fire. What shall then be that torment of the Damned, where they shall eternally burn without dying, and without possibility of removing from the place design∣ed them? where whatsoever they touch shall be fire and sulphur; into which their bodies shall at the lat∣ter day be plunged, as their souls at present swim in the middle of that lake or pond of fire, (as the Scrip∣ture calls it) like fishes in the Sea, which enters into their very substance more than the water into the mouth, nose, and ears of him who is drowned.

Neither shall unsavoury smells, so proper unto Pri∣sons, be wanting in that infernal Dungeon. For first that fire of sulphur being pent in without vent or re∣spiration shall send forth a most poisonous sent; and if a match of brimstone be so offensive here, what shall such a mass of that stuffe be in Hell? Secondly, the bodies of the damned shall cast forth a most horri∣ble stench of themselves, and that more or less accord∣ing to the quality of their sins. It happened in Lions that a Sexton entring into a certain Vault, where the body of a man not long before dead lay yet uncovered, there issued forth so pestilential, a smell, that the dead man killed the living. If one mans body then cause such a stink, what shall proceed from a million of bo∣dies, which, though alive for their further evil, yet are dead in the second death? besides (as hath been said) all the uncleanness and filth of the World, when it is purified, must fall into that eternal Sink, which shall infinitely encrease this noisome quality. Paulus Jovius writes, that the Enemy of mankind Actiolinus the Tyrant had many Prisons full of torments, misery, and ill smells: insomuch as men took it for a happiness ra∣ther to die, than to be imprisoned: because being load∣en with irons, afflicted with hunger, and poisoned

with the pestilential smell of those who died in Prison, and were not suffered to be removed, they came to end in a slow but most cruel death. The Messenians also had a most horrible Prison under earth, full of stench and horror, into which offenders were let down with a cord never after to see the light. But what are these Prisons to that of Hell, in respect of which they may be esteemed as Paradises full of Jessemy and Lillies? Victor Africanus relating the torments which the Arian Vandals inflicted upon the holy Martyrs, accounts the stench and noisomness of the Prison to be the most hidious and unsufferable of all the rest. There were, saith he, in one Prison 4996 Martyrs, which was so straight and narrow, that they flung the holy Confessors into it one upon another, who stood like swarms of Locusts, or, to speak more piously, like precious grains of Wheat. In this want of room they had not place to comply with the necessities of nature, but were forced to ease themselves where they stood, which caused so horrid a savour, as exceeded all the rest of their afflictions. One time (saith the Author) giving a good summe of money to the Moors, we had leave, whilest the Vandals slept, to see them, and at our entrance sunk up to the knees in that filth and loathsomness. It seems that the stink of Hell could not be more lively expressed than in the uncleanness and stench of this Prison; but without doubt all this was but a rough draught and a dead image of that which shall be there, in respect whereof this here was Perfume and Amber.

If one were cast into some deep dongeon, without cloathes, exposed to the inclemency of the cold and moysture of the place, where he should not see the light of Heaven, should have nothing to feed on but once a day some little peece of hard barley bread, and that he were to continue there six yeares without speaking or seeing of any body, and not to sleep on other bed but the cold ground, what a misery were this? one

week of that habitation would appeare longer than a hundred years. Yet compare this with what shall be in that banishment and prison of Hell, and you shall finde the miserable life of that man to be a happiness. There in all his troubles he should not meet with any to scoff and jest at his misfortunes, none to torment and whip him; but in Hell he shall finde both. The Devils shall not cease to deride, whip, and cruelly tor∣ment him. There should be no horrid fights, no feare∣full noyses of howlings, groanings and lamentations. In hell the eyes and eares of the damned shall never be free from such affrights. There should be no flames of fire to scorch him. In hell they shall burn into his very bowels. There he might move and walk. In hell not stirr a foot. There he may breath the ayr without stink. In hell he shall suck in nothing but flames, stink, and sulphur. There he might hope for coming forth. In hell there is no remedy, no redemption. There that little peece of hard bread would every day seem a dainty. But in hell in Millions of yeares his eyes shall not behold a crum of bread, nor a drop of water, but he shall eternally rage with a dog-like hunger, and a burning thirst. This is to be the cala∣mitie of that Land of darkness: barren of all things, but of the brambles and thorns of grief and tor∣ments.

Notes

• Aug. l. 1. de Civit. Cap. 10.
• Ʋ. Less. de Perfec. Divin. l. 13. c. 30.
• Ʋictor. Afric. l. 2. de Persec. Vandal.