Hell. II.
I. Consider the expression of the Wise Man: "By
what things a man sinneth by the same also he is tormented." (Wis. xi. 17.) In each one of the senses by
which the sinful soul has offended God it will be punished. 1. The sight will be tortured with the view of
the most hideous monsters, of devils and reprobate souls.
The representations of past crimes will rise up in horrid
succession before it, and perhaps the guilty associates of
former transgressions will be there to add to the poor
soul's torment. 2. The hearing will be tortured with the
sounds of blasphemy and the shrill accents of agony and
despair. 3. The smell will be assailed by all the filth
of hell. 4. The taste will be punished with intolerable
hunger and thirst. 5. The feeling will be universally
tortured over every part of the poor sinner's body;
"Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of
you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Is. xxxiii.
14.) The will, memory and understanding will also have
their appropriate punishments.
II. The "pain of loss," as divines term it, will be far more severe than all these torments. The grief which we feel when we have experienced any loss is always proportionate to the object lost. The reprobate souls will (for their greater torment), know and feel too, what they have lost by their sins, viz., that happiness which is derived from the vision and enjoyment of the supreme good, the society of angels and Saints, eternal rest, peace, tranquillity and delight. How can we prevail on ourselves to forego all these, and besides to incur eternal pains, for some transitory gratification, some base, idle, short-lived pleasure? Foolish mortals, ungrateful Christians!
