And as there are diversity of torments in hell, so the torments of heU are everlasting. Mark, everything that is conducible to the tor- ments of the damned is eternal. 1. God himself that damns them is eternal, Deut. xxxiii. 27; 1 Tim. i. 17. 2. The fire that torments them is eternal, Isa. xxx. 33, and Ixvi. 24 ; Jude 7. 3. The prison and chains that hold them are eternal, Jude 6, 7, 13 ; 2 Pet. ii. 17. 4.
^ Homer : Od. x. 513 ; cf. Paus. i. 17, sec. 5. Rather Pyriphlegeton. — G.
- jEacus; Ovid, Met. xiii. 25; Horat, Carm. ii. 13, 22; Plato, Gorg. and Apolog. — Minos: Homer, H. xiii. 450, xiv. 322; Od. xi. 321, 567, xvii. 523, xix. 178.— Bhada- tnanthus: ApoUod. ill. 1, sec. 2, ii. 4, sec. 11; Horn. Od. iv. 564, vii. 323; Piniar. ol. ii. 137.— G.
* Eather Tisiphone : Orph. Arg. 966. Megsera and Alecto ; Orph. Hymn 68 ; Virg.. Mn. xii. 845 ; Cerberus : Horn. 11. viii. 368 ; Od. xi. 623.— G.
* Purchas his Pilgrims, 3d vol., pp. 407, 408.
130 THAT THE TORMENTS OF HELL ARE
The worm that gnaws them is eternal, Mark ix. 44. 5. The sentence that shall be passed upon them shall be eternal, Mat. xxv. 41, ' De- part from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' You know that fire is the most tormenting element. l Oh, the most dreadful impression that it makes upon the flesh, everlasting fire !_ There is the vengeance and continuance of it. You shall go into fire, into everlasting fire, that shall never consume itself, nor consume you. Eternity of eternity is the hell of hell. The fire in hell is like that stone in Arcadia, which being once kindled could never be quenched. If all the fires that ever were, or shall be in the world, were contracted into one fire, how terrible would it be ! Yet such a fire would be but as a painted fire upon the wall, to the fire of hell. For to be tormented without end, this is that which goes beyond all the bounds of desperation,. Grievous is the torment of the damned, for the bitterness of the punishments, but it is more grievous for the diversity of the punishments, but most grievous for the eternity of the punishments.^ If, after so many millions of years as there be drops in the ocean, there might be a deliverance out of hell, this would yield a little ease, a little comfort to the damned. Oh, but this word eternity, eternity, eternity ; this word everlasting, everlasting, everlasting; this word /or ever, for ever, for ever, will even break the hearts of the damned in ten thousand pieces ! Oh, that word never, said a poor despairing creature on his death-bed, breaks my heart. ' The reprobate shall have punishment without pity ; misery without mercy, sorrow without succour, crying without com- passion, mischief without measure, and torment without end,' [Drexe- lius.] Plato could say, ' That whoever are not expiated, but profane, shall go into hell, to be tormented for their wickedness, with the greatest, the most bitter and terrible punishments for ever in that prison of hell.' And Trismegistus could say, ' That souls going out of the body defiled, were tossed to and fro with eternal punishments.' Yea, the very Turks, speaking of the house of perdition, do affirm, ' That they who have turned God's grace into wantonness, shall abide eternally in the fire of hell, and there be eternally tormented.' 3 A certain religious man going to visit Olympius, who lived cloistered up in a dark cell, which he thought uninhabitable, by reason of heat, and swarms of gnats and flies, and asking him how he could endure to live in such a place, he answered, ' All this is but a light matter, that I may escape eternal torments : I can endure the stinging of gnats, that I might not endure the stinging of conscience, and the gnawing of that worm that never dies ; this heat thou thinkest grievous, I can easily endure, when I think of the eternal fire of hell ; these sufi'erings are. but short, but the sufierings of hell are eternal.' 4 Certainly, infernal fire is neither toler- able nor terminable. Impenitent sinners in hell shall have end with- out end, death without death, night without day, mourning without mirth, sorrow without solace, and bondage without liberty. The damned shall live as long in hell as God himself shall live in heaven.
^ Melanchthon calls it a hellish fury. Of this fire, see more in my ' London's Lamen- tation on the late Eiery Dispensation,' part ii. pag« 105-131. [Vol. vi. — Q.j ' Dionys. in 18. Apocalyps. fol. 301.
* Alcoran Mahom. c. liv. p. 160, &c. ; c. xx. p. 198, &c.
* There is no Christian which doth not believe the fire of hell to be ererlasting. Dr Jackson on the Creed, lib. xi. c. 23.
MATCHLESS, BASELESS, AND ENDLESS. 131
Their imprisonment in that land of darkness, in that bottomless pit, is not an imprisonment during the king's pleasure, but an imprisonment during the everlasting displeasure of the King of kings. Suppose, say some, that the whole world were turned to a mountain of sand, and that a little wren should come every thousand year and carry away from that heap one grain of sand, what an infinite number of years, not to be numbered by all finite beings, would be spent and expired, before this supposed mountain could be fetched away ! Now if a man should lie in everlasting burnings so long a time, and then have an end of his woe, it would administer some ease, refreshment, and com- fort to him ; but when that immortal bird shall have carried away this supposed mountain, a thousand times over and over, alas, alas, sinful man shall be as far from the end of his anguish and torment as ever he was ; he shall be no nearer a-coming out of hell, than he was the very first moment that he entered into hell, l If the fire of hell were terminable, it might be tolerable ; but being endless, it must needs be easeless, and remediless. We may well say of it, as one doth, Oh, killing life ! oh, immortal death ! 2
Suppose, say others, that a man were to endure the torments of hell as many years, and no more, as there be sands on the sea-shore, drops of water in the sea, stars in heaven, leaves on trees, piles of grass on the ground, hairs on his head, yea, upon the heads of all the sons of Adam that ever were or are, or shall be in the world, from the be- ginning of it to the end of it, yet he would comfort himself with this poor thought. Well, there will come a day when my misery and tor- ment shall certainly have an end. But woe and alas, this word, ' never, never, never,' will fill the hearts of the damned with the greatest horror and terror, wrath and rage, amazement, and astonishment.