Hunolt Sermons/Volume 10/Sermon 43

by Franz Hunolt

FORTY-THIRD SERMON.

ON THE PAIN CAUSED TO THE DAMNED BY THE THOUGHT OF HEAVEN.

Subject.

Heaven and its elect shall be to the reprobate an eternal hell.—Preached on the second Sunday in Lent.

Text.

Transfiguratus est ante eos.—Matt. xvii. 2.

“He was transfigured before them.”

Introduction.

If this transfiguration of Our Lord, in which He manifested for a short time some few rays of His divinity, and the figure of His eternal glory in heaven—if this occasioned such lively joy to His disciples that Peter, ravished out of himself, wished to remain in that place forever, what must be the joy of the elect in heaven, where the God of all beauty shows Himself face to face as He is, and allows Himself to be possessed by them for all eternity? “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” we shall all cry out in ecstasy, if we shall have the happiness of gaining heaven. Unhappy, reprobate sinners! you, alas! shall never for all eternity have any share in this manifestation of heavenly glory, or in the joy of the elect. Yet what am I saying? Truly, even you shall have your share in it. But how? you will ask, my dear brethren. Are the damned to be one day released and to be admitted to the glory of heaven and the joys of the blessed? Ah, no! they have no hope of that; they are buried in hell forever; but they shall, quite against their will, turn their thoughts and minds to heaven, and contemplate the glory of God and the bliss of the saints. This thought shall be present to their minds for all eternity, and it will make another hell for them, as I now propose to show.

Plan of Discourse.

Heaven and its elect shall be to the reprobate an eternal hell. Such is the whole subject of this meditation. Ah, dear Christians! let us so live that we may one day possess heaven, not in hell, but in heaven itself. Such shall be the conclusion.

Do Thou, O gracious Saviour, help us thereto by Thy powerful grace, which we beg of Thee through the intercession of Thy Mother Mary, who is ours also, and of our holy guardian angels.

The damned shall be incessantly tormented by the thought that they have lost heaven. Heaven, a hell! The country of eternal joys, a prison of everlasting torture! The palace of the sovereign Monarch, in which God bestows all the treasures of His goodness, according to the greatness of His magnificence and glory, and inundates His chosen children with a torrent of delights, the least drop of which, according to the holy Fathers, would suffice, if it were let fall into hell, to extinguish that fire and turn the place of torments into a delightful paradise; is that palace, I ask, to be changed into a hell? Yes, my dear brethren, so it is. The more joyous and blissful the dwelling of the saints, the more painful shall hell be for the damned souls who are confined in that abyss. First, on account of the constant yearning for the eternal happiness that the damned have lost by their own fault, and can never hope to gain during eternity. The greater and more desirable the good that one longs for, the more intense is the bitterness and disappointment caused by being deprived of it. If you wish to torture a human being, or even a brute beast, in a most cruel manner, chain him up in a prison and place beside him the most costly food and drink that he cannot reach, so that he has to die of hunger and thirst with food and drink before his greedy eyes. Death itself is not so painful as to be thus tantalized. Poor Moses! how was it with thee when God brought thee to the top of the mountain and showed thee from afar the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, and at the same time announced to thee that as a punishment for thy doubting thou wert to have no part therein? Hear, my dear brethren, what the Sacred Scriptures say of this: “And the Lord said to him: This is the land for which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: I will give it to thy seed.” Consider it well, Moses! But know that it is not for thee! “Thou hast seen it with thy eyes, and shalt not pass over to it.”^[1] How great must have been the affliction of Moses at hearing those words! But in that affliction you have a mere shadow of the torture caused the damned in hell by heaven itself.

Of which they have a clear knowledge. According to the teaching of theologians, following St. Thomas of Aquin, God will impress the souls of the damned with a lively perception of the divine majesty, beauty, and other perfections, in the contemplation of which consists man’s perfect happiness; He will also give them a clear knowledge of the ineffable joys and delights which are the lot of His chosen friends and servants in heaven for all eternity. This twofold knowledge shall become much clearer on the day of general judgment, when the reprobate shall see Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in His majesty and glory, and shall behold the happiness of the elect, as I have said already on a former occasion. That knowledge shall remain impressed on their minds for all eternity, nor shall they be able to shut it out of their thoughts for a single moment, as the Prophet Daniel saw in his vision: “Many of these that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, to see it always.”^[2] Mark the words, “to see it always.” The eyes of those unhappy wretches shall be opened so that they shall see always. They shall always see the sovereign Good for the possession of which they were created; they shall always see the sovereign Good that they could have gained possession of if they had earnestly wished it; they shall always see the sovereign Good that they have no hope of possessing for all eternity; they shall always see and long eagerly for the joys of heaven, from which they are forever banished. Besides, as the Almighty strengthens and raises above their nature His elect in heaven by a supernatural light called “the light of glory,” as theologians tell us, that his chosen friends may have an almost infinite joy and pleasure in contemplating Him; so, on the other hand, the just, avenging God shall fill the minds of His reprobate enemies with a painful light, that the knowledge and contemplation of the joys of the elect may be to them a source of almost infinite torment and unhappiness.

This is called the pain of loss, and is the worst of all. This is the terrible pain of loss, as it is called, that is so often alluded to in Holy Writ, as a warning to the living that we may all avoid hell, that is, sin. “He shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,” such are the words of St. John in the Apocalypse, speaking of one of the reprobate, “which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of his wrath, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb.”^[3] Nearly similar are the words of St. Paul concerning those “who obey not the gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”^[4] That is, in the midst of their torments they shall know the glory and majesty of the Lord and of His elect, not otherwise than as the sick man, whilst suffering the pains of illness, clearly recognizes what a great good health is, and ardently longs for it.

It is increased by the fact that The Prophet Isaias also testifies to the fact that one of the worst torments of the damned shall be to suffer while they have, the damned, while suffering, see the bliss of the elect. so to speak, before their eyes the joys and delights of the children of God in paradise. “You did evil in My eyes,” says the Lord, “and you have chosen the things that displease Me. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, My servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry: behold, My servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty: behold, My servants shall rejoice, and you shall be confounded: behold, My servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for grief of spirit.”^[5] Ah, how terrible the howling of the damned under those circumstances! The Holy Scripture says of Esau, after he had been deprived by Jacob of his birthright and had lost his father’s blessing, that he “roared out with a great cry.”^[6] Why? For although he had lost his birthright, he still had his father alive with him to console him in his sorrow; he did not secure the first blessing of his father, but he was not accursed on that account, and had still a second blessing to hope for: “And when he wept with a loud cry, Isaac being moved, said to him: In the fat of the earth, and in the dew of heaven from above shall thy blessing be.”^[7] Nevertheless he “roared out with a great cry,” like a lion in his sorrow. Unhappy reprobate! how will you now roar and howl after having lost your eternal inheritance, the blessing and favor of your heavenly Father, the eternal kingdom of heaven, the whole world and everything, being moreover accursed by God and condemned to the fire of hell, when you see with the eyes of the mind your former brothers and sisters, surrounded with shining stars, seated on thrones of glory, and rejoicing in eternal delights! Ah, would that your eyes were buried in the deepest pit of darkness, that you might not be able to see heaven and its elect! Is it not true that you would then be freed from a great part of the hellish torments you have to suffer?

As the rich glutton saw Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. Truly, what would not the rich glutton give if that view were shut out from him! “And lifting up his eyes,” says St. Luke, “when he was in torments, he saw.” Where did he lift his eyes to? What did he see? “Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.”^[8] Oh, truly a painful sight! Unhappy wretch that I am! he must have exclaimed; Abraham was rich as I was during life, and by making a proper use of his wealth gained eternal happiness; my riches have hurled me into hell, because I made a bad use of them! Lazarus was formerly a poor beggar, whom I looked on as less than my dog, and he now rejoices in Abraham’s bosom, and is a child of everlasting glory and happiness, while I lie here in the abyss of hell! O joys! of which I cannot hope for a single drop during eternity! O flames! in which I have to burn forever without hope of release! O lost heaven! that I am forced to contemplate against my will! O eternal dwelling-place of hell! in which I shall have to remain forever! “The rich man,” says St. John Chrysostom, “immersed in torments, has only his eyes at liberty, that he may see the other’s happiness, and be thus all the more punished.”^[9] And the same can be said of every lost soul.

Again: as hatred and envy toward an enemy is one of the fiercest of passions. From this painful recollection and consideration of the loss of heaven comes another torture for the damned; for they are filled with the most bitter hatred and envy on account of the happiness of the elect, as I have explained on a former occasion. Envy and jealousy, my dear brethren, is one of the lowest passions that fills the heart with gall, and gnaws at it incessantly, especially when one cannot moderate the violence of the passion, nor hinder the happiness that excites it, but is on the contrary obliged to look on with unwilling eyes while his rival enjoys every delight. All other inordinate passions disturb the heart, but they bring with them some consolation and pleasure, while envy that arises from sorrow «t another’s good fortune is a torment without any alleviation, a trouble without any comfort, as St. Cyprian says: “It is an irremediable calamity to hate a man because he is happy.”^[10] We find examples enough of this in Holy Writ. Cain, the first-born of men, could not bear his brother Abel. Why? Because Abel’s sacrifices were pleasing to God, whilst his were rejected. “The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings He had no respect.”^[11] This filled him with such chagrin that his countenance became pallid and haggard: “And Cain was exceeding angry, and his countenance fell.”^[12] He had no rest until he had got rid of his brother by cruelly murdering him. In the same way the sons of Jacob could not bear the sight of their brother Joseph. “Come, let us kill him,”^[13] said they to one another, so great was their hatred of him. And what excited them so vehemently against him? A garment somewhat better than theirs, a more friendly look or caress that he received from their father Jacob; this was the sole cause of their jealousy and bitter malignity. Saul, when he heard the people singing hymns of praise to David, “Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands,”^[14] became so filled with envy and hatred that to his dying day he sought David’s life. Rachel had no rest as long as she saw the son of Lia in her house. Aman fell sick and had to take to his bed, and lost all pleasure in his honors and riches, because Mardochai, whom he could not bear, was favored by the king. The Jews, because Stephen overcame them in argument, “were cut to the heart,” as the Scripture says, “and they gnashed with their teeth at him;”^[15] envy gnaws at the very marrow of the bones; for the most trifling thing it eats out the very life of a man.

The damned shall also be tormented by the thought of the happiness of the elect. Oh, who can then understand the terrible envy, the madness and rage of the damned in hell, when raising the eyes of the mind unceasingly to heaven, they are forced to behold in the enjoyment of eternal happiness and delights the elect, against whom they have the most bitter hatred, and whom they would willingly drag down from heaven into hell with themselves, if they could? What will not be their rage at seeing the bliss of those whom they persecuted during life, or despised as poor, mean, lowly outcasts, or laughed at as ridiculous fools, or treated contemptuously as their servants or slaves? When they, I say, shall be compelled to behold them for eternity enjoying unspeakable glory and happiness, while they themselves are lying in hell mocked at by demons? This sight, St. Peter Chrysologus and Eusebius Emissenus do not hesitate to say, will cause them such envy that it will be one of their most cruel torments.^[16] Thus in this way they shall be worse tormented by the saints than by the demons; the heaven above will be more intolerable to them than hell itself. As Salvianus says: “God will send them a hell from above.”^[17]

Thirdly: they shall be tormented by the fact that God and His saints shall mock at them in their pains. O just, and at the same time merciful God! what is this? Have not those wretches pains enough in the infernal abyss that Thou must torture them even from heaven? But if they are obliged always to behold Thy heaven in that manner, to their own torment, at least do Thou show, or allow Thy elect to show them some pity. No; the accursed ones have not merited even that comfort. “I will laugh,”^[18] is the pitiless answer, at your eternal ruin. “He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them,”^[19] says the Lord by the Prophet David. “And I will clap My hands together,” He says again by the Prophet Ezechiel, when I see them burning in the fire, and hear their howls and lamentations; then shall I rejoice, “and I will clap My hands together, and will satisfy My indignation.”^[20] And My elect in heaven will also exult over and mock at the damned in hell. “And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up forever and ever,”^[21] according to the revelation of St. John in the Apocalypse; that is, the saints in heaven shall always see how the reprobate are tortured in hell. And what will they think and say about it? They will adore the justice of God, and cry out with joy and exultation: Amen! Alleluia! It is right, O Lord! So let it be! Amen! Alleluia! Praise be to God! They have deserved it!

What a fearful torment that is! And that to my mind, my dear brethren, is the most intolerable torment of the damned. When a man is insulted here on earth, or is overwhelmed by some grievous calamity, and that in presence of his opponent and bitter enemy, who laughs and jeers at him, that mockery seems to him more intolerable than the affront or misfortune itself. What bitter pain it must then cause the damned to see in their God and in the blessed in heaven their sworn, eternal enemies, whose happiness makes them burst with envy, and to be forced to bear forever the mockery and ridicule that those enemies shall cast upon them in their misery? And so it will be, my dear brethren. If I, a poor sinner, should go to hell (oh, may God save me from that!), and if you, as I wish from my heart, to heaven, then you will always exult over me in my misfortunes, while I shall always be tortured by your joy. On the other hand, if I go to heaven, and any one of you is lost, then shall I laugh at him for all eternity, although he may have been my best friend, and I shall rejoice at the sight of his sufferings, because thereby the justice of my God is satisfied. What a terrible place hell is! Julian, the apostate emperor, having received a mortal wound from an invisible hand, took a handful of his blood and holding it up to heaven, exclaimed in a very rage of blasphemy: “Satiate Thyself, O Galilean! Thou hast conquered!”^[22] So he called our divine Lord.

Hence come curses and blasphemies against God and His saints. Judge from this what will be the horrible curses and blasphemies of the damned in their despairing wrath and madness, when they cry out like mad dogs against God and all who are in heaven. We are burning, they will howl forth, and God laughs at us! We are in the fire of hell, and God and His saints jeer at us! We are suffering extreme torments, and they rejoice at our sufferings! Cruel heaven! Unmerciful God! Barbarous saints, worse than all the demons! Here you must close your ears, pious Christians, in order not to be shocked at the terrible curses and blasphemies that proceed from despairing rage and madness. In this abyss, they howl forth, I am lying in the midst of fire as a holocaust to implacable anger! Who is it that takes such a revenge on me? God. But is it not God who has created me to His own image and likeness? Who has kept me alive for so many years on earth, and given me so many proofs of His goodness? Is it He who now tortures His miserable creature? Alas! He no longer acknowledges me as His creature! Does He not know me? Does He uot think of me? Yes, He does think of me; but it is only to torment me, and to laugh at me in the midst of my sufferings. O accursed God! (Still, my tongue! ) And who has spoken the sentence of my eternal condemnation? Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ? Does He then act so cruelly towards the souls He ransomed with His blood, souls that He gave up His life on the cross to save from hell? Yes; and that He does because by your sins you have trampled His blood under foot. But is He not my Advocate and Mediator? Yes; He was formerly, but is so no longer; now He mocks and laughs at you. Oh, be He accursed forever! And Mary, the Virgin whom I have so often called by the sweet name of Mother, the Comfort of the afflicted, the Refuge of sinners, the Mother of mercy, has she too abandoned and rejected me? Yes; she too will mock and laugh at you for all eternity. Oh, then accursed be—alas! I cannot utter the name. You are shocked, my dear brethren, as I see clearly, and perhaps displeased with me for daring to utter publicly such dreadful imprecations and blasphemies as the damned howl forth, and you are right. I may not and cannot continue.

Thus increasing the pains of hell. But one thought strikes me. O torment of all torments! O hell of all hells! to hate and curse those whom one must acknowledge to be worthy of all love! to blaspheme Him for whom one sighs with the most ardent desire, to possess whom one is filled with the most eager longing! My God! shall I then hate Thee for all eternity with that heart that Thou gavest me that I might love Thee alone, above all things? Shall I curse and blaspheme Thee with that tongue that Thou gavest me to praise and bless Thee and Thy name? O saints of God! O my clearest guardian angel! O Mary, my sweetest Mother! Ah, I dare not think of it! O Jesus Christ my Saviour! 0 my God, worthy of all love! must I then hate, curse, and blaspheme Thee for all eternity? Is such a thing possible? Yes; and it will infallibly be the case if I die without true repentance, and without sincere amendment of life, and am damned. O torment of all torments! I must again cry out: O hell of all hells!

Hence, wo to those who either do not believe in hell, and there are many such. Let us, my dear brethren, at once shut up hell in our thoughts, and with a deep sigh exclaim in the words of Eusebius Emissenus: “Wo to those who have to experience those things before they believe them!”^[23] Before they believe them, I say; because I am not all sure that most men believe in the existence of such a hell; if they do believe and are afraid of it, I cannot understand how to reconcile the lives they lead with such a faith and fear. No; they do not believe in or fear hell, for we hear many saying in a laughing tone: Oh, the devil is not so black as he is painted; people talk all sorts of things about hell, as if they had been there and knew all about it; up to this no one has come back from it to say what it is like. Let hell be hell; priests must have something to preach about; but it is not half so bad as they make out. See how they fear and believe in hell! And so you wicked ones, you do not believe in hell because no one has come back from there to tell you what it is like? Why then do you believe that there is one God in three Persons? Yet no one has come from the other world to tell you about that. But if yon believe one and not every thing, you are unbelievers, and deny the Holy Scriptures. If you are right, we have reason to think that the Lord is making fools of us, and that He is uttering only an empty threat when He tells sinners that they shall burn forever in hell. Then must the Catholic Church be a false one, and the holy Fathers and interpreters mere deceivers. Then must you deny your religion, which teaches us this article of faith as well as all the others. Wo, I repeat, wo to those who must experience these things before they believe them! Wo to you if you must go to hell before you rightly believe in it!

Or who do not fear it, and they are still more numerous. Ah, Father, others of you say in your own minds, truly I believe in hell, and only too much do I fear it! A cold sweat breaks out on me whenever I think of being damned and burning in that fire forever! Good! so you think and say; but what sort of a life do you lead? Do you show that you really fear hell and dread the idea of suffering forever therein? It is not true; for wherever you go or stay you carry about with you the burden of grievous sin. You eat and drink according to your sensuality, and your sins are seated at table with you; you sleep and idle away your time till late in the day, and your sins are in bed with you; you clothe and adorn yourself, and your sins peep out from your extravagant dress; you go about amongst people, and walk, and joke, and laugh, and play, and amuse yourself at balls and parties, sometimes even during the holy season of Lent, and your sins are with you all the time; you go to church, to the confessional, even to the Table of the Lord to be fed with the immaculate flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, and you bring your sins, and more still than you had before, back with you. What sins? Ah, that you know yourself only too well! Ask your conscience what are the sins that you have not yet properly confessed, or truly repented of, or seriously amended! Ask your coffers in which you hoard up ill-gotten goods! Ask that house, perhaps it is your own, in which you keep the object of an impure love! Ask that room in which men and women meet and spend the whole night, sometimes, in all sorts of dissipation; that you allow, and thus make yourself participator in all the sin committed! Ask your heart, from which you are unwilling to expel that secret hatred and anger against your fellow-man! Your tongue betrays its sinfulness by its abominable cursing and swearing, by impure conversations and songs, by calumny, detraction, and contumely. Your eyes betray themselves by their unchaste glances, your hands by sinful touches, your mouth by gluttony and drunkenness, even if you tried to hide your sins. And you fear hell? No! It is not true; it cannot be true. You rather wish to go to hell, for you love your sins, although faith tells you that for those very sins, if you do not sincerely repent of them, you shall be sent to hell.

The fear of and belief in hell should induce us to amend. But if, O sinner! I see that now after the sermon you go with a contrite and repentant heart into the confessional to lay aside at once the burden of your sins, if I am told that one has restored ill-gotten goods, another been fully reconciled to his enemy, a third sent away the person with whom he was living in sin, that in such and such a man there is a great change, that he is much more modest and reserved, more humble, chaste, and temperate, more patient, meek, and devout, more zealous in the service of God than before, then shall I readily believe and acknowledge: yes! those people are in earnest; that man shows that he fears the eternal fire of hell.

Shown by an example. We read in the Dialogues of St. Gregory of a Spaniard named Peter, who fell into a grievous illness so that he lay there for dead, and meanwhile was rapt in spirit into hell to see the torments suffered there. He witnessed there the most terrible tortures, and saw also those who had to suffer them; amongst them he recognized many rich and noble people whom he had known during life. When he came to himself, he told all he had seen, and said too that, as he was trembling with fear lest he too should be condemned to remain there forever, an angel came to him and told him, to his comfort, that he was to return to life, and added these words: “Go back, but in future be most cautions as to your manner of living.”^[24] After this Peter recovered his health fully, and lost no time in setting hand to the important work; he renounced all his wealth, bade adieu to all the honors and delights of the world, retired into a wilderness, and led such a penitential life that it was evident he had seen hell and was filled with a great dread of it.^[25] O sinner! you have now spent some time in meditating on hell; enter into yourself and see how you have to live in future, if you wish to escape eternal pains. Make a firm resolution to amend your life; repent of and detest your sins from the bottom of your heart; fear sin more than all other earthly evils; throw yourself at the feet of our crucified Lord, and with true contrition of heart and tears of sorrow beg of Him by the merits of His sacred Passion to be merciful and to pardon you. And be sure that the more carefully you avoid all sin, the freer will you be from the pains of hell. Often say to God: “from the pains of hell deliver us, O Lord!” but add also: from mortal sin, deliver us, O Lord! for that is the only thing that can bring you to hell.

Conclusion and resolution. Ah, dear Christians, let us all adhere to this resolution! For God’s sake do not forget what you have heard; we have not been treating of trivial matters, but rather of how we are to escape an eternal hell, where there are everlasting torments for all the senses, in the odious company of the demons and lost souls, and where heaven itself is an eternal hell. Oh, wo to us if we should learn what it is by experience before we use the means of escaping it! O Mary, Mother of mercy! do not allow us ever to become the enemies of thee and thy Son, or to blaspheme thee forever! Take us under thy protection now while there is time; obtain for us a true hatred, sorrow, and detestation of our sins, a true love for thee and thy divine Son, and the grace to persevere therein till death, so that we may continue to love and praise thee and thy Son in a happy eternity, and thus enjoy heaven in heaven. Amen.

Another introduction to the same sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent.

Text.

Videbit omnis caro salutare Dei.—Luke iii. 6.

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Introduction.

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Shall even the damned see it? Yes; and that shall be on the last day of general judgment, when all men, the reprobate as well as the elect, shall behold Jesus Christ in His glory and majesty. All the better, some may think; those unhappy wretches who are burning forever in the flames of hell shall have at least that consolation, and shall see their God and Saviour. Yes, my dear brethren; but what a miserable consolation that will be! for it will last only till they, after having seen and acknowledged the heavenly happiness of God and His saints, shall have to take leave of them forever, accursed, rejected, and swallowed up in the abyss of hell; as we have seen on the first Sunday of Advent. But why do I speak of a consolation that lasts for such a short time? Less unhappy would the damned be if they never for all eternity saw Our Lord and the inhabitants of heaven; or at all events they would be free from a terrible torment if that sight were removed from before their eyes when they take their last miserable farewell, and are hurled down into hell. But no! this sight, etc. Continues as above.

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1. Dixitque Dominus ad eum: hæc est terra pro qua juravi Abraham, Isaac et Jacob, dicens: semini tuo dabo eam. Vidisti eam oculis tuis, et non transibus ad illam.—Deut. xxxiv. 4.
2. Multi de his, qui dormiunt in terra pulvere, evigilabunt: alii in vitam æternam, et alii in opprobrium, ut videant semper.—Dan. xii. 2.
3. Bibet de vino iræ Dei, quod mistum est mero in calice iræ ipsius, et cruciabitur igne et sulphure in conspectu angelorum sanctorum, et ante conspectum Agni.—Apoc. xiv. 10.
4. Qui non obediunt evangelio Domini nostri Jesu Christi, pœnas dabunt in interitu æternas a facie Domini, et a gloria virtutis ejus.—II. Thess. i. 8, 9.
5. Faciebatis malum in oculis meis, et quæ nolui elegistis. Propter hoc hæc dicit Dominus Deus: Ecce servi mei conedent, et vos esurietis: ecce servi mei bibent, et vos sitietis: ecce servi mei lætabuntur, et vos confundemini: ecce servi mei laudabunt pro exultatione cordis, et vos clamabitis pro dolore cordis, et præ tristitia spirltus ululabitis.—Is. lxv. 12–14.
6. Irrugiit clamore magno.—Gen. xxvii. 34.
7. Cumque ejulatu magno fieret, motus Isaac dixit ad eum: in pinquedine terræ et in rore cœli desuper erit benedictio tua.—Ibid. 38–40.
8. Elevans autem oculos suos, cum esset in tormentis, vidit Abraham a longe, et Lazarum in sinu ejus.—Luke xvi. 23.
9. Dives totus in tormentis oculos solos liberos habet, ut alterius lætitiam possit aspicere, qua magis torqueatur.—S. Chrys. Hom. de Dio.
10. Calamitas sine remedio est, odisse felicem.—S. Cypr. L. de Zelo.
11. Respexit Dominus ad Abel, et ad munera ejus. Ad Cain vero et ad munera illius non respexit.—Gen. iv. 4.
12. Iratusqne est Cain vehementer, et concidit vultus ejus.—Gen. iv. 5.
13. Venite, occidamus eum.—Ibid. xxxvii. 20.
14. Percussit Saul mille, et David decem millia.—I. Kings xviii. 7.
15. Dissecabantur cordibus suis, et stridebant dentibus in eum. Putredo ossium invidia.—Acts vii. 54.
16. Prima pœna alienæ beatitudinis conscientia.— Euseb. Emiss. Serm. 3. in Symb.
17. Gehennam misit e cœlo.
18. Ridebo.—Prov. i. 26.
19. Qui habitat in cœlis irridebit eos: et Dominus subsannabit eos.—Ps. ii. 4.
20. Quin et ego plaudam manu ad manum, et implebo indignationem meam.—Ezech. xxi. 17.
21. Fumus tormentorum eorum ascendet in’sæcula’sæculorum.—Apoc. xiv. 11.
22. Saturare! vicisti Galilæe!
23. Væ! væ! væ! quibus hæc prius experienda sunt, quam credenda!
24. Regredere, et qualiter tibi post hac vivendum sit, cautissime attende.
25. Ut eum infernum vidisse, et pertimuisse tormenta, etiamsi taceret lingua, conversatio loqueretur.