fire is threatened, which is felt intolerably; in comparison of which the pains here are so light as if they were no pains at all. Then why shall not I tremble to continue a rebel in sin who deserve that God should punish me with double tribulation, and should break me " with a double destruction," [1] this temporal punishment being but a scratch, and a beginning of the eternal?
Colloquy. — O infinite God, deliver me from this rebellion, that I fall not into so great a misery and affliction!
POINT IV.
1. Lastly, I will consider the utmost that may with truth be said of sin, which is, that though the evils of pain only which are suffered in hell are so terrible, yet it is incomparably a greater evil than all of them. Insomuch, that if one man should suffer the pains of hell without sin, and another should have but one mortal sin only, this last would be more evil and miserable than the other. And if all the pains of hell without sin were put on one side, and on the other one mortal sin only, and that I must of necessity choose one of the two, "I" (says St. Anselm) "would choose rather to throw myself into hell than to commit only one mortal sin. " [2] And with holy Eleazar I would say, "Praemitti velle in infernum" — that I would rather enter into hell itself without sin than remain with sin in the world; [3] for the death of sin (says the Wise man) is most wicked, and the worst that may be, " Et utilis potius inferus quam ilia; [4] the grave, "and even hell" itself, as touching pain, is preferable to it.
Colloquy. — O infinite God, fix this truth in my heart, that I may fear sin much more than hell, seeing in truth there is no worse hell than to be in sin! O
