We should be very much asham'd to own our selves or to be thought as ignorant after ten and twenty years study of the sciences, as we were the first half year; and much more asham'd to have it thought that we are contented to be so. And yet how many who make profession of piety, whose great business it is to become perfect, are not asham'd to confess, and to have it believe, that they would think themselves happy if after as many years study in the sublime science of Salvation, they were but as fervent, as mortifyed, and as near being Saints, as when they were but six months converted? they do indeed strive to banish those thoughts by giving themselves up to the insipid pleasures of a careless Life, but sooner or later Death will come, and what will their thoughts be then?
from Christian Reflections by Fr. Jean Croiset
Friday, September 10, 2010
Of the importance of Salvation
What is this Salvation of which we talk so much? this soul? this Eternity? Is it true that I am sent into the world onely to secure it? is it true that I am undone if I do not secure it, though I should gain the whole world? is it true and do I indeed believe that the business of my Salvation is the greatest business I can have? That is is indeed my only business? That nothing else deserves my care? that this requires all my application, and alone depends on it? if I do not believe this I am lost forever; and if I do believe it, do not I deserve to be severely punish'd for my indifference, which degenerates into a downright contempt of Salvation?
Do I apply my selfe to this great business? am I much concern'd about it? And what ground have I to hope for sucess while I take so little pains? should not I conclude a man ruin'd if he minded his temporal business no more than I do this difficult, this important business of Salvation?
from Christian Reflections by Fr. Jean Croiset
Do I apply my selfe to this great business? am I much concern'd about it? And what ground have I to hope for sucess while I take so little pains? should not I conclude a man ruin'd if he minded his temporal business no more than I do this difficult, this important business of Salvation?
from Christian Reflections by Fr. Jean Croiset
Of the Source of our Imperfections
Though the greatest part of Christians pretend to aspire to Perfection yet very few attain it, because they are not really willing to be perfect; they readily believe the Doctrines of the Gospel, and the important maximes upon which all true Piety is grounded, but they are not sincere in the application of them. They do not dispute the necessity of doing violence to our inclinations in order to obtain heaven, but they find out specious Reasons to excuse themselves from that violence in certain occasions which require much pains: they own themselves bound to subdue their passions, and they fight with them, and frequently gain a kind of victory over them, but they do not meddle with their reigning passions, and this is the cause that all their other victory's signify nothing, for they should have begun with this.
We must set a continual watch upon our selves and upon every motion of our hearts that we may suppress all our carnal desires, that many almost imperceptible but continual selfish designs, which make us seek only, though secretly, to advance our interests, and a thousand other insinuations of selfe Love which surprise the most virtuous, and mingling themselves with their best actions take away all their merit, or at least diminish their Perfection.
from Christian Reflections by Fr. Jean Croiset
We must set a continual watch upon our selves and upon every motion of our hearts that we may suppress all our carnal desires, that many almost imperceptible but continual selfish designs, which make us seek only, though secretly, to advance our interests, and a thousand other insinuations of selfe Love which surprise the most virtuous, and mingling themselves with their best actions take away all their merit, or at least diminish their Perfection.
from Christian Reflections by Fr. Jean Croiset
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Of Hell
First Point. The damn'd in Hell suffer all the torments that can possibly be suffer'd
Second Point. The Damn'd suffer to Eternity
First Point.
Consider there is an Hell, that is a place of torments prepar'd for those Souls who dye in their Sins; we are so us'd to hear of Hell that we are very little affected with the thoughts of it; but if we were truly sensible what Hell is, we should never thinki of it without more and more horrour.
Imagine that you see in the center of the Earth a vast and bottomless lake of fire and flames, the damn'd plung'd and rowling in it, all cover'd and transperc'd with fire, which they suck in with their breath, and which enters at their eyes and ears; their mouths and nostrils casting forth dreadful flames, their skin scorch'd, their flesh, blood, humours, and brains boyling and bubling up with the violence of the burning, their bones and marrow all on fire like a piece of iron taken red hott out of the furnace, all the parts of their body on fire and the fire in every part of it.
How glad would these wretches be to suffer only from our fire, notwithstanding the horrour of being thrown into a burning gulph, but alas! there is no comparison between it and the fire of Hell: my God! what tourments! Ours is lightsome, theirs dark; Ours is an effect of the goodness and bounty of God, theirs is the product of his incens'd Omnipotence, and of the infinite hatred he bears to Sin: tis a fire which the Almighty do's all he can to render furious and raging; and alas! it is not their onely torment, this fire makes them feel at the same time all sorts of pains.
Represent to your selfe a man tormented with the gout or a violent colique; what pains do's he feel? how do's he cry out? how willingly would he dye to put an end to his torture? and yet he suffers onely in one part of his body, he hath the Liberty of complaining and the satisfaction of seeing himselfe pityed; what would it be if every member suffer'd the same torment? if instead of helping him the standersby abus'd him without suffering him to complain?
In hell, the damn'd do not onely suffer the pains to which we are subject in this Life, they suffer all these and infinitely more, their torments are universal, violent, complicated, and all excessive in one instant they feel them all, and in the midst of all they cannot receive or so much as hope for any ease, what would one drop of water be against a whole Sea of flames? And yet that poor refreshment, that nothing is deny'd them.
The sick find some ease in rumbling and removing from one place to another, but the damn'd shall be eternally in the fire, unmovable as a rock.
Yet all these dreadful torments are nothing to their despair when they look back on the time that is lost, and the ill use they have made of it. The thoughts of the damn'd will be employ'd to all Eternity in calling to mind the vanity of those objects which made them forget God. I have plung'd my selfe in this abyss of darkness and everlasting flames for the love of a trifling pleasure, of an imaginary honour; which I could possess but a moment, and of which I have scarce any Idea left: where are now all those fantomes of glory, greatness, and reputation, which took up all my Time, and made me forget Eternity? Where is that fortune to which I sacrific'd my all? Where are all those whom I lov'd so well? Where are those of whose vain opinion, censures, and power I stood so much in awe? Yet these I preferr'd to the favour and love of God and for these I have lost my Soul.
The opportunitys of Salvation which he hath abus'd and the reward that he hath lost, will take up the thoughts of a dman'd soul to all Eternity: How easyly might I have confess'd such a Sin? God offer'd me his Love, he gave me warning, he press'd and sollicited me so long, and gave me so many years of health since my fall; I pass'd for a wise man in the world: Oh! how came I to deferr my conversion to the hour of Death? How often have I trembled at teh thought of my danger, at the apprehension of damnation? And yet am damn'd at last: I needed onely have done those good worke which such a friend, such a companion, such a Relation, have done; I began well, it would have cost me little to persevere, and if it had cost me never so much, could I take too much pains to avoid damnation?
And to these inconcevable torments, to these cruel regrets, the irreconciliable loss of the supreme Good; the sence of a God irated to Eternity, of a God lost without recovery, lost for ever, this is the height and perfection of their misery; they never cease to be the Victims of the Divine wrath and vengeance; we must know what God is before we can be able to conceive what it is to loose him without hope: tho we are so little affected with it now, they who have lost him have other thoughts. How insupportable will be the remembrance that I had a Redeemer. but I slighted the price by which I was redeemed? that my Saviour lov'd me to such a degree, and that it is impossible for me to love him, that I am hated by him, and that he will never have any compassion on my misery.
O! my Dear Saviour! who hast suffer'd so much so recall me, who hast bought me with so great a price that I might not be lost; thou will take pleasure to see me plung'd into this fiery gulph: thou will heap everlasting misery on me without mercy, thou wilt be no longer my Father, nor my Saviour: no wonder if Hell be a place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, of despair and woe, since the Almighty who made the world by one act of his will, do's all he can, seems to exert all his power and force to make a wretched Creature suffer.
There is an Hell, and yet there are Sinners; Christians believe there is an Hell, and yet this hell is full of Christians.
There is an Hell; and at this very moment an infinite number of miserable Souls are tormented in it: 'tis certain that many of those who read this, and who meditate on the torments of Hell, will one day be cast into those everlasting flames.
And am not I like to be one of them? Divine Saviour! thou hast not bought me to destroy me: but hast not thou also shed thy blood for those that are lost? This makes me fear and tremble; but what good will this fear do me if I loose my Soul? Oh! my good Master! I will be sav'd what ever it cost me; I humbly beseech thee by thy precious blood suffer me not to be damn'd; what will it advance thy glory to shut me up forever in that abyss of fire and flames? They who do go down to Hell do not praise thy name, they do not love thee there: if thou sufferest me to fall into Hell it will only augment the number of those who hate and blaspheme thee. My God! I will be sav'd, tho all the rest of the world were lost; thou wouldst have me sav'd, I trust in thy mercy, and hope that thou will place me among thy Elect.
What must be the thoughts of a damn'd Soul when after infinite millions of years she casts her eyes from that abyss of Eternity, upon the short moment of her Life and can hardly find it after that vast number of ages which are past since she came there? Life tho consider'd never so near appears but a moment; the time past of it, seems but an instant to us who live, and when we come to dye tho we have liv'd long we can hardly persuade our selves that there hath been any interval between the day of our births, and the present Day: all that is past seems a Dream; what then will it be after Death? when so many millions of years are over, when our descendants for many generations are all forgotten; when time has ruin'd our houses, destroy'd the Citys, and overturn'd the Kingdoms wherein we liv'd: when the end of Ages shall have bury'd the whole Universe in its own ashes, and infinite millions of Ages after?
This is dreadful, but all this is not Eternity; when a damn'd soul shall ahve suffered all theis while, and an hundred thousand tiems as much, 'tis nothing to Eternity.
Were one of the damn'd oblidg'd to fill the hollow of a mans hand with his tears, and to drop but one single tear at the end of each thousand years, what a terrible duration would this be? Cain the first of the damn'd, would have shed but six or seven. Judas but one; but if he were oblidg'd at the same rate to make a brook or a river of his tears, to fill the Sea or the vast extent between heaven and Earth, what a prodigious length of time would this require? Our imagination is lost and confounded in so vast a duration; but all this great and inconcevable extent of time is nothing to Eternity: A time will come when every one of those wretched Souls will be able to say, one tear for every thousand years that I have been in Hell would have drown'd the Universe and fill'd up the immense space between Heaven and Earth, and yet I have an Eternity of unspeakable torments still to suffer; all I have suffered is nothing to this Eternity; after millions of Ages as many times multiplyed, after an extensive duration in which our thoughts are lost, the fire of Hell will be as violent and fierce, the damn'd will be as capable of torment, and as sensible of their pains and God as incens'd and as far from being appeas'd as the first moment.
Oh! dreafull, Oh! incomprehensible Eternity! were we only to burn for every wicked thoguht as many millions of Ages as we have liv'd days, hours, or minutes, our pains would have an end at last; but to know certainly that our torments will never end, always to suffer, and be assured that we shall alwayes suffer, to be allwayes thinking on the happiness we have lost, on the torments we have brought upon our selves, on the means of avoiding them which we have had; to have continually before our eyes the vanity of every thing we have preferr'd to God, and the little while that our pleasures have lasted, the unutterable sweetness we might have tasted in his service, the vast difference between the pains we fear'd in the practise of virtue and those which we are now forc'd to suffer in the flames of Hell; to have the thoughts of this Eternity allwayes present, and to burn, rage, and despair for ever: my God! what misery!
If these reflections do not convert us, if the prospect of those Torments, of this Eternity do's not touch us, if the fear of this everlasting regret do's not wean us from Sin, and from our vain amusements, are we rational creatures? are we Christians?
These terrible veritys have made so many Martyrs, have peopled the deserts and daily fill the Convents; what do we think of these men? did they do wisely? did they do well to neglect nothing, to do all they were able to avoid Hell?
Who would not give all he is worth to be freed from a dungeon? who thinks of any pains too great to prolong his Life? But Oh! what do we do, nay what do we not refuse to do to avoid Hell?
The divine Justice is terrible; God punishes these that offen him with Eternal torments in Hell; yet we offend him in the sight of this Hell; certainly an Eternity of misery is not too severe a punishment for such malice; if ther ewere no hell already, God should make one on purpose for such offenders.
The thoughts of Hell make us tremble; we are unwilling to think of it least it should affright us; and yet we are not afraid to run headlong into it: we are afraid to think of the Eternal duration of those bitter torments, and yet we will not make one step out of the road that leads to them.
There is an Hell and yet we delight in pleasures, and Sin hath still charms for us; we think the practise of virtue difficult, and there are still careless and imperfect Religious, and debauch'd Christians: this seems as incomprehensible as Eternity it selfe.
You object that perfection is not necessary to avoid hell; true it is not necessary, but can you keep to far from a Lake of Fire into which so many fall? Can you take too much care and too many precautions to preserve your selfe from everlasting fire, rage and despair?
How cruel must the thoughts of a damn'd soul be, who knows that he might have been eternall as happy as he is eternally miserable, if he had pleas'd: that he might have been a Saint with ease, and is not because he was not pleas'd to be so: that his Brethren are in heaven, but he is in Hell. He laugh'd at those who being afraid of the condition in which he is now, liv'd otherwise than he did, and now, what would he not do to be what they are? I call'd an holy exactness, melancoly, a Christain modesty and reservedness I call'd Stupidity, and scrupulousness; oh! that I had been so stupid, so scrupulous and melancoly; that exactness, that reserve has made many Saints who are now in heaven absorpt in Joys; what what is become now that I am in flames, of all my mirth and good humour which I affected to shew by rallying everything? If I had imitaed such and such of my acquaintance, if I had made good use of the divine inspirations such a day; if I had been faithful to such a grace, if I had shun'd such an occasion of Sin; if I had practis'd such a virtue, if I had mortifyed my selfe, if I had been truly willing, I should be now in heaven instead of which I am damn'd to Eternity, I am lost, and lost forever. Oh terrible regret! And that which aggravates my misery is the remembrance how often I have thought on the pains I now endure, on that eternal regret I should one day feel if I were damned.
Yet after all this, men damn themselves; Great God! thy vengeance is just: they deserve it all.
My God! if thou art resolved to punish me for my Sins, chastise me in this Life, but do not damn me. I will satisfy thy justice here, I will hope in thy mercy, and will love thee; what satisfaction will it be to thee to see me in Hell, surrounded with flames, transported with rage and despair, hating and cursing thee, and eternally blaspheming thy name?
Second Point. The Damn'd suffer to Eternity
First Point.
Consider there is an Hell, that is a place of torments prepar'd for those Souls who dye in their Sins; we are so us'd to hear of Hell that we are very little affected with the thoughts of it; but if we were truly sensible what Hell is, we should never thinki of it without more and more horrour.
Imagine that you see in the center of the Earth a vast and bottomless lake of fire and flames, the damn'd plung'd and rowling in it, all cover'd and transperc'd with fire, which they suck in with their breath, and which enters at their eyes and ears; their mouths and nostrils casting forth dreadful flames, their skin scorch'd, their flesh, blood, humours, and brains boyling and bubling up with the violence of the burning, their bones and marrow all on fire like a piece of iron taken red hott out of the furnace, all the parts of their body on fire and the fire in every part of it.
How glad would these wretches be to suffer only from our fire, notwithstanding the horrour of being thrown into a burning gulph, but alas! there is no comparison between it and the fire of Hell: my God! what tourments! Ours is lightsome, theirs dark; Ours is an effect of the goodness and bounty of God, theirs is the product of his incens'd Omnipotence, and of the infinite hatred he bears to Sin: tis a fire which the Almighty do's all he can to render furious and raging; and alas! it is not their onely torment, this fire makes them feel at the same time all sorts of pains.
Represent to your selfe a man tormented with the gout or a violent colique; what pains do's he feel? how do's he cry out? how willingly would he dye to put an end to his torture? and yet he suffers onely in one part of his body, he hath the Liberty of complaining and the satisfaction of seeing himselfe pityed; what would it be if every member suffer'd the same torment? if instead of helping him the standersby abus'd him without suffering him to complain?
In hell, the damn'd do not onely suffer the pains to which we are subject in this Life, they suffer all these and infinitely more, their torments are universal, violent, complicated, and all excessive in one instant they feel them all, and in the midst of all they cannot receive or so much as hope for any ease, what would one drop of water be against a whole Sea of flames? And yet that poor refreshment, that nothing is deny'd them.
The sick find some ease in rumbling and removing from one place to another, but the damn'd shall be eternally in the fire, unmovable as a rock.
Yet all these dreadful torments are nothing to their despair when they look back on the time that is lost, and the ill use they have made of it. The thoughts of the damn'd will be employ'd to all Eternity in calling to mind the vanity of those objects which made them forget God. I have plung'd my selfe in this abyss of darkness and everlasting flames for the love of a trifling pleasure, of an imaginary honour; which I could possess but a moment, and of which I have scarce any Idea left: where are now all those fantomes of glory, greatness, and reputation, which took up all my Time, and made me forget Eternity? Where is that fortune to which I sacrific'd my all? Where are all those whom I lov'd so well? Where are those of whose vain opinion, censures, and power I stood so much in awe? Yet these I preferr'd to the favour and love of God and for these I have lost my Soul.
The opportunitys of Salvation which he hath abus'd and the reward that he hath lost, will take up the thoughts of a dman'd soul to all Eternity: How easyly might I have confess'd such a Sin? God offer'd me his Love, he gave me warning, he press'd and sollicited me so long, and gave me so many years of health since my fall; I pass'd for a wise man in the world: Oh! how came I to deferr my conversion to the hour of Death? How often have I trembled at teh thought of my danger, at the apprehension of damnation? And yet am damn'd at last: I needed onely have done those good worke which such a friend, such a companion, such a Relation, have done; I began well, it would have cost me little to persevere, and if it had cost me never so much, could I take too much pains to avoid damnation?
And to these inconcevable torments, to these cruel regrets, the irreconciliable loss of the supreme Good; the sence of a God irated to Eternity, of a God lost without recovery, lost for ever, this is the height and perfection of their misery; they never cease to be the Victims of the Divine wrath and vengeance; we must know what God is before we can be able to conceive what it is to loose him without hope: tho we are so little affected with it now, they who have lost him have other thoughts. How insupportable will be the remembrance that I had a Redeemer. but I slighted the price by which I was redeemed? that my Saviour lov'd me to such a degree, and that it is impossible for me to love him, that I am hated by him, and that he will never have any compassion on my misery.
O! my Dear Saviour! who hast suffer'd so much so recall me, who hast bought me with so great a price that I might not be lost; thou will take pleasure to see me plung'd into this fiery gulph: thou will heap everlasting misery on me without mercy, thou wilt be no longer my Father, nor my Saviour: no wonder if Hell be a place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, of despair and woe, since the Almighty who made the world by one act of his will, do's all he can, seems to exert all his power and force to make a wretched Creature suffer.
There is an Hell, and yet there are Sinners; Christians believe there is an Hell, and yet this hell is full of Christians.
There is an Hell; and at this very moment an infinite number of miserable Souls are tormented in it: 'tis certain that many of those who read this, and who meditate on the torments of Hell, will one day be cast into those everlasting flames.
And am not I like to be one of them? Divine Saviour! thou hast not bought me to destroy me: but hast not thou also shed thy blood for those that are lost? This makes me fear and tremble; but what good will this fear do me if I loose my Soul? Oh! my good Master! I will be sav'd what ever it cost me; I humbly beseech thee by thy precious blood suffer me not to be damn'd; what will it advance thy glory to shut me up forever in that abyss of fire and flames? They who do go down to Hell do not praise thy name, they do not love thee there: if thou sufferest me to fall into Hell it will only augment the number of those who hate and blaspheme thee. My God! I will be sav'd, tho all the rest of the world were lost; thou wouldst have me sav'd, I trust in thy mercy, and hope that thou will place me among thy Elect.
Second Point.
Consider that the torments of Hell are not onely universall, excessive, and dreadfull, they are Eternal too; notwithstanding all their horror, there is no hope that they can either end or diminish.What must be the thoughts of a damn'd Soul when after infinite millions of years she casts her eyes from that abyss of Eternity, upon the short moment of her Life and can hardly find it after that vast number of ages which are past since she came there? Life tho consider'd never so near appears but a moment; the time past of it, seems but an instant to us who live, and when we come to dye tho we have liv'd long we can hardly persuade our selves that there hath been any interval between the day of our births, and the present Day: all that is past seems a Dream; what then will it be after Death? when so many millions of years are over, when our descendants for many generations are all forgotten; when time has ruin'd our houses, destroy'd the Citys, and overturn'd the Kingdoms wherein we liv'd: when the end of Ages shall have bury'd the whole Universe in its own ashes, and infinite millions of Ages after?
This is dreadful, but all this is not Eternity; when a damn'd soul shall ahve suffered all theis while, and an hundred thousand tiems as much, 'tis nothing to Eternity.
Were one of the damn'd oblidg'd to fill the hollow of a mans hand with his tears, and to drop but one single tear at the end of each thousand years, what a terrible duration would this be? Cain the first of the damn'd, would have shed but six or seven. Judas but one; but if he were oblidg'd at the same rate to make a brook or a river of his tears, to fill the Sea or the vast extent between heaven and Earth, what a prodigious length of time would this require? Our imagination is lost and confounded in so vast a duration; but all this great and inconcevable extent of time is nothing to Eternity: A time will come when every one of those wretched Souls will be able to say, one tear for every thousand years that I have been in Hell would have drown'd the Universe and fill'd up the immense space between Heaven and Earth, and yet I have an Eternity of unspeakable torments still to suffer; all I have suffered is nothing to this Eternity; after millions of Ages as many times multiplyed, after an extensive duration in which our thoughts are lost, the fire of Hell will be as violent and fierce, the damn'd will be as capable of torment, and as sensible of their pains and God as incens'd and as far from being appeas'd as the first moment.
Oh! dreafull, Oh! incomprehensible Eternity! were we only to burn for every wicked thoguht as many millions of Ages as we have liv'd days, hours, or minutes, our pains would have an end at last; but to know certainly that our torments will never end, always to suffer, and be assured that we shall alwayes suffer, to be allwayes thinking on the happiness we have lost, on the torments we have brought upon our selves, on the means of avoiding them which we have had; to have continually before our eyes the vanity of every thing we have preferr'd to God, and the little while that our pleasures have lasted, the unutterable sweetness we might have tasted in his service, the vast difference between the pains we fear'd in the practise of virtue and those which we are now forc'd to suffer in the flames of Hell; to have the thoughts of this Eternity allwayes present, and to burn, rage, and despair for ever: my God! what misery!
If these reflections do not convert us, if the prospect of those Torments, of this Eternity do's not touch us, if the fear of this everlasting regret do's not wean us from Sin, and from our vain amusements, are we rational creatures? are we Christians?
These terrible veritys have made so many Martyrs, have peopled the deserts and daily fill the Convents; what do we think of these men? did they do wisely? did they do well to neglect nothing, to do all they were able to avoid Hell?
Who would not give all he is worth to be freed from a dungeon? who thinks of any pains too great to prolong his Life? But Oh! what do we do, nay what do we not refuse to do to avoid Hell?
The divine Justice is terrible; God punishes these that offen him with Eternal torments in Hell; yet we offend him in the sight of this Hell; certainly an Eternity of misery is not too severe a punishment for such malice; if ther ewere no hell already, God should make one on purpose for such offenders.
The thoughts of Hell make us tremble; we are unwilling to think of it least it should affright us; and yet we are not afraid to run headlong into it: we are afraid to think of the Eternal duration of those bitter torments, and yet we will not make one step out of the road that leads to them.
There is an Hell and yet we delight in pleasures, and Sin hath still charms for us; we think the practise of virtue difficult, and there are still careless and imperfect Religious, and debauch'd Christians: this seems as incomprehensible as Eternity it selfe.
You object that perfection is not necessary to avoid hell; true it is not necessary, but can you keep to far from a Lake of Fire into which so many fall? Can you take too much care and too many precautions to preserve your selfe from everlasting fire, rage and despair?
How cruel must the thoughts of a damn'd soul be, who knows that he might have been eternall as happy as he is eternally miserable, if he had pleas'd: that he might have been a Saint with ease, and is not because he was not pleas'd to be so: that his Brethren are in heaven, but he is in Hell. He laugh'd at those who being afraid of the condition in which he is now, liv'd otherwise than he did, and now, what would he not do to be what they are? I call'd an holy exactness, melancoly, a Christain modesty and reservedness I call'd Stupidity, and scrupulousness; oh! that I had been so stupid, so scrupulous and melancoly; that exactness, that reserve has made many Saints who are now in heaven absorpt in Joys; what what is become now that I am in flames, of all my mirth and good humour which I affected to shew by rallying everything? If I had imitaed such and such of my acquaintance, if I had made good use of the divine inspirations such a day; if I had been faithful to such a grace, if I had shun'd such an occasion of Sin; if I had practis'd such a virtue, if I had mortifyed my selfe, if I had been truly willing, I should be now in heaven instead of which I am damn'd to Eternity, I am lost, and lost forever. Oh terrible regret! And that which aggravates my misery is the remembrance how often I have thought on the pains I now endure, on that eternal regret I should one day feel if I were damned.
Yet after all this, men damn themselves; Great God! thy vengeance is just: they deserve it all.
Is it possible that we can avoid thinking on Hell? is it possible that we can think on it and not be converted? Is it possible that we are converted, and do not continue to think on it? we must have it all wayes before our eyes after our conversion to prevent our falling; the greatest Saints, those pure Souls whose hearts were all inflam'd with the Love of God thought it absolutely necessary for them to meditate on Hell, and the apprehensions of it made them tremble; and can any who pretend to virtue, can any Religious man imagine that it is unnecessary to think on Hell? certainly such men dare not think on it; they are conscious to themselves that they do not take pains enough to give them ground to hope that they shall not be condemn'd; but have they less cause to fear because they have a greater account to give? And how can they hope to be less severely punish'd because they are under greater obligations?
Christ had good reason to tell us that Hell is the onely evil we ought to fear; for what is a man the worse for being hated and persecuted; for being reduced to a mean and obscure Life, and for being mortify'd if he escape being damn'd?My God! if thou art resolved to punish me for my Sins, chastise me in this Life, but do not damn me. I will satisfy thy justice here, I will hope in thy mercy, and will love thee; what satisfaction will it be to thee to see me in Hell, surrounded with flames, transported with rage and despair, hating and cursing thee, and eternally blaspheming thy name?
My God! hast thou given me time to think on the pains of Hell, onely to augment my despair one day, for being damn'd after having thought on these pains? Remember I am sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, and 'tis through that blood that I beg and hope for mercy; Thou hast paid too great a price for me to be indifferent whether I be lost or no. I will be sav'd; suffer me not to be lost; if thou wilt punish me, do it in time, but let not my punishment be Eternal.
~from A Spiritual Retreat for One Day Every Month by Fr. Jean Croiset
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