torments, which we can suffer in this world, there is none more terrible than to burn alive: but, alas! there is no comparison between burning here, and in hell. Our fires upon earth are but painted flames, if compared to the fire of hell. The fire of this world was made to serve us, and be our comfort; that of hell was created to be an instru ment of the vengeance of God upon sinners. The fire of this world cannot subsist without being nourished by. some combustible matter, which it quickly consumes; but the fire of hell, enkindled by the breath of an angry God, requires no other fuel than sin, which feeds it without ever decaying or consuming. O! dreadful stain of sin, which suffices to maintain an everlasting fire! The fire of this world can only reach the body: the fire of hell reaches the soul itself, and fills it with most exquisite torments. Ah! sinners, which of you all can dwell with devouring fire? which of you all can endurg eternal burning?

Consider, fourthly, and in order to frame a just notion of hell's torments give ear to a most authentic vision,

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related by Ss. Teresa, chap. xxxii of her Life." As I was one day, "D says the Saint, "in prayer, on a sudden I found myself in hell: I know not how I was carried thither; only F understood, that our Lord was pleased that I should see the place which the devils had prepared for me there, and which I had deserved by my sins. What past here with me lasted "but a very short while; yet if I should live many years, I do not "believe I should ever be able to forget it. The entrance appeared to me to resemble that of an oven, very low, very narrow, and very dark. The ground seemed like mire, "exceeding filthy, stinking, insupportable, and full of a multitude of loathsome vermin. At the end of it there was a certain hollow place, as if it had been a kind of a little press in a wall, into which I found myself thrust, and close pent up." Now, though all this which I have said was far more terrible in itself than I have described it, yet it might pass for a pleasure in comparison' with that which I felt in this press

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66 this

"this torment was so dreadful, that

no words can express the least part "of it. I felt my soul burning in so "dismal a fire, that I am not able to "describe it. I have experienced the "most insupportable pains, in the "judgment of physicians, which can "be corporally endured in this world, " as well by the shrinking up of all my sinews, as by many other tor

ments in several kinds : but all these "were nothing in comparison with "what I suffered there: joined to the "horrid thought, that this was to be "without end or intermission for

ever and even this itself is still "little, if compared to the agony the "soul is in; it seems to her that she "is choaked, that she is stifled, and "her anguish and torture go to a

degree of excess that cannot be ex"pressed. It is too little to say, rhat "it seems to her that she is butchered "" ' and rent to pieces; because this "would express some violence from "without, which tended to her de"struction; whereas, here it is she' "herself that is her own executioner," " and tears herself in pieces. Now as

"to that interior fire and unspeakable "despair, which comes in to com"plete so many horrid torments ; "I own I am not able to describe "them.I saw not who it was that tor❝mented me; but I perceived my"self to burn; and, at the same time, " to be cut as it were and slashed in

pieces. In so frightful a place, there 66 was no room for the least hopes of "comfort; there was no such thing 66 as even sitting or lying down: I ' was thrust into a hole in a wall: " and those horrible walls close in 66 upon the poor prisoners, and press "and stifle them. There is nothing "but thick darkness without any mix

ture of light, and yet I know not "how it is, though there be no light "there, yet one sees there all that may "be most mortifying to the sight "Although it be about six years since "this happened which I here relate, "I am even now in writing of it so "terrified, that my blood chilis in my veins : so that whatsoever evils << or pains I now suffer, if I do but "call to my remembrance what I them " ́endured, all that can be suffered

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"here appears to me just nothing. So far the Saint, whose relation deserves to be pondered at leisure: for if such terrible torments had been prepared for her, whose life from her cradle (a few worldly vanities, which for a short time she had followed, excepted) had been so innocent, what must sinners one day expect?

Consider, fifthly, that there is no man on earth, in his senses, who would be willing, even for the empire of the world, to be broiled on a gridiron like a Laurence, or roasted for a short half hour by a slow fire, though he was sure to come off with his life; nay, where is the man that would even venture to hold his finger in the flame of a candle for half a quarter of an hour, for any reward that this world can give? Where is then the judgment of the far greater part of Christians, who pretend to believe a hell, yet live on with so little apprehension and concern, for years toge ther, in the guilt of mortal sin; in danger every moment of falling into this dreadful and everlasting fire, bav ing no more than a hair's breadth, that