AS would naturally be expected, such a condition, filled with inexpressible pains of body, and inconceivable anguish and horror of mind, with the certain knowledge that there is no hope of relief, and that it is to continue through all eternity, must produce absolute despair. It might be wished by the benevolent that such a state would end presently in positive madness, and thus relieve the sufferer in some degree from his torments; but orthodoxy, as we have seen, provides against any such mitigation. Not only are all the faculties of the mind to be maintained, as if by a constant miracle, but if need be a miracle will be wrought to add something to their powers and susceptibilities, in order that their sufferings may be increased! But that the damned will be reduced to absolute despair all preachers and writers agree. If the bitterest ingredient in the torments of hell is the consideration of their eternity, one of the saddest to contemplate is the deep despair into which the soul must inevitably sink. “Do but consider,” says President Edwards, “how dreadful despair will be in such torment. How dismal will it be when you are under such racking torments to know assuredly that you never, never shall be delivered from them; to have no hope; when you shall wish that you might be turned into nothing, but shall have no hope of it; when you shall wish you might be turned into a toad or a serpent, but shall have no hope of it; when you would rejoice; if you might have any relief, after you shall have endured these torments millions of ages, but shall have no hope of it.
“After you shall have worn out the age of the sun, moon, and stars in your dolorous groans and lamentations, without rest day or night, or one minute’s ease, yet you shall have no hope of ever being delivered; after you shall have worn out a thousand more such ages, you shall have no hope, but shall know that you are not one whit nearer to the end of your torments; but still there are the same groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful cries, incessantly to be made by you, and that the smoke of your torment shall still ascend up forever and ever. Your souls, which shall have been agitated with the wrath of God all this while, will still exist to bear more wrath; your bodies, which shall have been burning all this while in these glowing flames, shall not have been consumed, but will remain to roast through eternity, which will not have been at all shortened by what shall have been past. You may, by considering, make yourselves more sensible than you ordinarily are; but it is a little that you can conceive what it is to have no hope in such torments.
“How sinking would it be to you to endure such pain as you have felt in this world, without any hopes, and to know that you never should be delivered from it, nor have one minute’s rest! You can now scarcely conceive how doleful that would be. How much more to endure the vast weight of the wrath of God without hope.” In a similar strain Dr. Trapp bears his testimony upon this point. After speaking of hell and the state of the damned, he says:—
- Damnation, Death, in every dreadful form,
- The gnawing conscience, never-dying worm;
- The inextinguishable fire; no gleam
- Of cheerful light; no sweet, refreshing beam
- Of joy or hope: despair, despair, despair,
- Is still the soun d that breaks the sullen air.
- Forever! Never! Never be released?
- Oh no! ’Tis torment never to be eased.
- All evil there; not good: Death lives, Life dies;
- “Deliver us, good Lord.”—In tears, and sighs
- Here rather pardon let us strive to gain
- Than there, when seas of tears will stream in vain.
- Sometimes, as if such groans cou ld soften hell,
- They throw to heaven, with hideous, frantic yell,
- Expostulating cries—they cannot pray—
- “Is there then left of hope no glimm ’ring ray?
- Can nothing, nothing for our crimes atone?
- Great God, is mercy infinite thus shown?
- Can nothing ever wash away our guilt?
- Was it for this thy precious blood was spilt?
- That millions, who have oft invoked thy name,
- Should, years unnumbered, welter in this flame?”
Dr. Thomas Goodwin tells us that “hope was given to reasonable and intelligent natures, to be as a breathing-hole, in time of misery, to keep up life in such an one to sustain itself.
And the reasonable soul being in its duration eternal, and having an eternity of time to run through and sail over, hath this privilege, denied to beasts, to take a prospect or foresight of time that is yet to come, and if it can spy out any space or spot of time in which it shall have happiness or ease, or outlive its misery, it will not utterly die; yea, it will harden itself against present misery with this thought: that, however, it shall not always be thus with me. But, on the contrary here, by reason of this ability of foresight, it comes to pass that a wretched soul in hell, viewing, turning over all the leaves of time to eternity, both finds that it shall not outlive its misery; nor yet can find one space or moment of time of freedom or intermission, having forever to do with the living God.
And then it dies, and dies again, and sinks into a gulf of despair for the future, as well as it is swallowed up with a sense of present wrath.” “There they shall be tortured,” says Rev. Mr. Swinden, “with an absolute and complete despair of any better condition, or of the least relaxation from their pains, so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues tormented in these flames.” In like manner Mr. Pollock says:—
- And sorrow, and repentance, and despair
- Among them walked, and to their thirsty lips
- Presented frequent cups of burning gall.
And how completely they will be crushed, President Edwards admirably shows: “Some of you have seen buildings on fire; imagine therefore with yourselves what a poor hand you would make at fighting with the flames, if you were in the midst of so great and fierce a fire.
You have often seen a spider, or some noisome insect, when thrown into the midst of a fierce fire, and have observed how immediately it yields to the force of the flames. There is no long struggle, no fighting against the fire, no strength exerted to oppose the heat, or to fly from it; but it immediately stretches forth itself and yields; and the fire takes possession of it, and at once it be comes full of fire. Here is a little image of what you will be in hell, except you repent and fly to Christ. To encourage yourselves that you will set yourselves to bear hell-torments as well as you can, is just as if a worm that is about to be thrown into a glowing furnace should swell and fortify itself, and prepare itself to fight the flames. What can you do with lightnings? What doth it signify to fight with them? What an absurd figure would a poor, weak man make who in a thunder-storm should expect a flash of lightning on his head or breast, and should go forth, sword in hand, to oppose it, when a flash would in an instant drink up all his spirits and melt his sword!”
It ought to be remarked, however, that all do not agree in this representation as to the utter helplessness and “sinking” of the soul in hell. Some, on the contrary, speak of the damned as full of animosity, as rising in resistance, unavailing, indeed, and indulging in a rage that, though impotent, still shows the unconquered will and the eternal hate. “They are filled,” says Rev. Matthew Henry, “with an incurable indignation against God.” “The damned in hell,” says Rev. Christopher Love, “gnash their teeth out of indignation against Jesus Christ.” Dr. Trapp says:—
- They fling
- Tartarean rage towards heaven, against heaven’s King;
- Against the Highest fiercely they blaspheme.
So Mr. Pollock says:—
- And as I listened, I heard these beings curse
- Almighty God, and curse the Lamb, and curse
- The earth, the resurrection morn.
Neither picture is altogether pleasing. A world of patient suffering, without hope, or an effort to ward off the pain, appeals powerfully to our pity. A world filled with curses and execrations can hardly be agreeable to God or good men.