AS I have said before, the place of the punishments of the wicked in the world to come is familiarly known by the name of Hell. Professor Stuart calls it “the world of woe.” Poetically, it has been spoken of as “a universe of death.” Minucius Felix declares that “to its torments there is neither measure nor end;” and Cyprian tells us that “an ever-blazing Gehenna shall burn the damned, and a punishment that shall swallow them up in living flames; nor shall there be any means whence they can ever obtain relief or an end to their torments. Their souls shall, with their bodies, be kept in infinite torments.” Cyril describes hell as “the land of death, wherein is no life; the realm of darkness, wherein is no light; the gulf of sorrow, wherein is no joy; where the reprobates sigh forever, and still find no ear that is moved by pity to hear.” “Woe to those who shall have their mansions with the devil, because the smoke of their torment shall ascend up forever and ever; whose worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.
“Among whom there shall be no noise but groans, no rest but fire, no refreshment but flames, and never any light but darkness.” Augustine contrasts the miseries of hell with the happiness of heaven. As the blessedness of heaven transcends all expression and thought, so “no one can speak or think of the miseries of hell as they are, since they are very far worse than can be conceived.” As heaven is full of light and joy, so “the abyss of hell is full of darkness, discord, and hatred, of burning and thirst and hunger, inextinguishable fire, sadness, perpetual vengeance, and all unspeakable evil, which can neither be expressed nor conceived. As good abounds in heaven, with no evil, so in the prison of the devil all evil abounds, with no good.” Anselm finds fourteen sources of torment in hell, seven of which pertain to the body and seven to the soul. Hugo Victorinus assures us that in hell “there is misery, there is darkness, there is no order, there is eternal horror, there is no hope of good, no expectation of shunning all evil.”
Cardinal Hugo says: “Hell is a boundless and bottomless lake, full of incomparable heat, an intolerable stench, and innumerable pains; there is misery; there is darkness; there is eternal horror; there is no hope, no avoiding evil.” “Hell,” says Erasmus Franciscus, “is the abyss of torment; the scene of racks, and pains of eternal, penal justice; the pit of everlasting death; the hall of mourning; the house of ceaseless lamentation of heaven-lost souls; the glowing cage of spiritual lions. and bears, to wit, of devilish-minded men; the burning furnace of burning tares. Hell is an eternal prison, and at the same time a place of eternal execution to the prisoners; a sty of goats and swine; a carrion pit for all those who go thither like brutes, without repentance; it is a place wherein scorpions, snakes, and dragons, to wit, spirits, creep around and look continually on the damned firebrands of hell! It is a wilderness full of fiery serpents, but in which there is no brazen serpent to be lifted up for the healing of those that are bitten.”
Among the Protestants these representations were not at all softened down, but, on the contrary, one might almost say that they were made more frightful. Calvin says: “As no description can equal the severity of the divine vengeance on the reprobates, their anguish and torment are figuratively represented to us under corporeal images, as darkness and gnashing of teeth, inextinguishable fire, a worm incessantly gnawing the heart. For there can be no doubt that by such modes of expression the Holy Ghost intended to confound all our faculties with horror.” The venerable Christian Stock says that “hell is a place where the damned will be racked and tormented forever.” Watson, in his Body of Divinity, declares hell to be “the very accent and emphasis of misery. There,” he adds, “is judgment without mercy.
Oh, what flames of wrath, what seas of vengeance, what rivers of brimstone, are poured out there upon the heads of the damned!” “The evils of hell are truly evils,” says Jeremy Taylor, “and so purely such that they have no mixture of good in them; in that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint; there is no room for comfort, there shall not be the least good which may give ease; nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction: no good is to be found there, where all goods are wanting; neither can there be want of any evil, where all evils whatsoever are to be found; and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils, every evil is augmented.” “Oh, could we turn aside the veil of the invisible world, and hold the bottomless pit open before you,” says Dr. Watts, “what bitter groans of ghosts would you hear, not only oppressed and agonizing under the wrath of a righteous God, but also under the insults of cruel devils! As there is joy among the angels of heaven when a sinner repents, or when a soul arrives safely at those blessed mansions, so, when a rebellious and obstinate criminal is sent down to hell, you would hear the triumphs of those malicious spirits over him, with the voice of insulting pride and hellish joy.”
“The torments of the damned, they are two,” says the Rev. Christopher Love,—“that faithful servant of Jesus Christ, minister of Laurence-Jury, London,” whose work was printed in that city just two hundred years ago, 1679,—“either privative or positive, either punishments of loss or punishments of sense (as the schoolmen call it); and under these two heads, if a man had the tongues of men and angels, he is not able to unfold the extreme misery of a tormented soul. That I may break out, as the philosopher did, in speaking of hell: If all the land were paper, and all the water in the sea were ink, as many pens as grass upon the ground, and as many writers as sands upon the sea-shore, all would be too little to set forth the torments of hell.” These general conceptions have been incorporated in Confessions and Catechisms, and made an important part in the inculcations of the pulpit; and preached with more or less earnestness and fervor for many centuries. It can hardly be said, however, that the results have equalled the expectations of the advocates of the doctrine in question. It has not deterred so many from sin, nor encouraged so many in the practice of virtue, as was confidently hoped. In fact, the ages that have been distinguished for this kind of teaching have generally been equally distinguished for vice and crime. Perhaps the fault may be found in its not having been preached as faithfully as it ought; and possibly it may yet be discovered that the fear of hell is not the highest motive to virtuous living, and will, with difficulty, serve as a substitute for the love of God and our fellow-men in producing piety and good works, since it has no visible or conceivable tendency in that direction.