ance of the damned! how rigorous art thou ! — but, ah ! how fruitless !
2. Never to see God — to be burning in flames for ever — the blood boiling in our veins, the marrow in our bones— to be trampled on by the devils — to have all that is hideous for ever before our eyes — to have rage, anguish, and despair eternally rooted in our hearts, without comfort or mitigation1. O what a life!
3. These unhappy souls are full of anguish at having had so many opportunities of salvation, and for having neglected them. The recollection of their past pleasure is one of their most sensible torments. Hut nothing more keenly gnaws them than the impossibility of forgetting that God, whom, by their own fault, they have miserably forfeited.
[Go down in spirit into hell, and inquire of the damned what it is that has made them fall into it. Question them upon their present state, and learn from them to fear God and your own danger.]
“Which of you can dwell with devouring, flames?”— Isaias xxxiii.
“ The impious pass from one punishment to another— from the burnings of concupiscence to the dames of hell.”- St. Augustine.
SEVENTH DAY. — ON THE ETERNAL TORMENTS OF THE DAMNED.
1. Can the wrath of God go farther than punishing pleasures, which are so soon over, by tortures which will never have an end? To be miserable while ever God is God!— can any misery be like it? Is it not enough that the evils of the damned are extreme? Must they still, besides this, be eternal? To be hurt by the point of a pin is trifling in itself; yet, were this pain to last always, it would become insupportable. What shall it be then , &c.
2. O Eternity! When a damned soul shall have
