5 - Eternal torments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
Summary
ETERNAL OR TEMPORARY?
For if a man were to have all his sins laid to his charge, and communion with the devils, and as much wrath as the great God of heaven can inflict upon them, I say, if it were but for a time, even ten thousand years, if then it might have an end, there would be ground of comfort, and hopes of deliverance; but here is thy misery, this is thy state for ever, here thou must be for ever … When thou hast been in hell for as many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament or drops in the sea, or sands on the sea shore, yet thou hast to lie there for ever. O this one word ever, how will it torment thy soul!
More than the torments of hell themselves, it was the emphasis on the eternity of them that was intended to provoke horror, effect repentance, and act as an incentive to a good and holy life. Unlike punishments on this side of the grave, the awesome ceremonies of hell went on for ever. ‘The great aggravation of this misery’, declared Richard Baxter, ‘will be its eternity.’ To the Anglican divine Matthew Horbery, it seemed that it was ‘the Eternity of the Punishment, which gives its chief Weight and Edge, and makes it pierce deepest into the Hearts of Sinners’.
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- Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England , pp. 144 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994