wrath [1] but protect me with Thy mercy, that I fall not into so dreadful and eternal a misery! Amen.
POINT IV.
Fourthly, descending to particulars, I must consider the dreadfulness of that place which we call hell.
1. For first it is a place under the earth, obscure and full of darkness thicker than that of Egypt, where never enters the light of the sun, moon, nor stars. And the fire, although it burns, gives no light, but smokes and blinds the sight; for " the Lord," on account of the wicked, " divideth the flame of fire," [2] taking from it the good that it has, and leaving it the evil.
2. Moreover, hell is a most narrow place, devoid of the flowery meadows and spacious forests of the earth. For although hell (as Isaiah says) be very " deep and wide," [3] and has its arms far stretched out, yet so many shall descend into it that hardly there will be for every one the space of a very narrow grave, and they will be crowded together like bricks in a fiery furnace, that they will not be able to turn or stir.
3. Besides this, it is a place most distempered with excessive heats, having not so much as a chink where any wind may enter to refresh it And for this cause St John, in his Apocalypse, calls it always the " pool of fire burning with brimstone." [4] For as fishes are in a lake of water overwhelmed, and as it were prisoners without being able to get out, so shall the damned be in that burning "pool" of terrible fire, mingled with melted brimstone of a most abominable smell.
4. And hence also it is that hell is a most stinking place. For the bodies of the damned shall reek forth an insupport-
