Modern day hellfire preachers are softies, listen to some from the past, what a great doctrine of the church!
JONATHAN EDWARDS
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.
["The Eternity of Hell Torments" (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]
Jeremy Taylor of the Church of England"The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings."“Husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their children tormented before their eyes…the bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a wine-press, which press on another till they burst…”“This temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that penetrating and real fire in hell.”
Nieremberg 1658
“We are amazed at the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull; this was joy in respect of the fire of hell, which penetrates the very entrails without consuming them.” Pains of Hell
Francis De Sales 1622
“Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stinking with fire and brimstone. The damned are in the depth of hell within this woful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members. Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all things makes hell intolerable.” Garden of the Soul.
Barrow
“Our bodies will be afflicted continually by the sulphureous flame, piercing the inmost sinews.”
John Bunyan 1688
“Their bodies will be raised from the dead as vessels for the soul—vessels of wrath. The soul will breathe hell-fire, and smoke and coal will seem to hang upon its burning lips, yea the face, eyes, and ears will seem to be chimneys and vents for the flame, and the smoke of the burning , which God, by His breath, hath kindled therein, and upon, them, which will be held one in another, to the great torment and distress of each other.” Works, ii 136.
Baxter 1691
“Is it an intolerable thing to burn part of thy body by holding it in the fire? What then will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever in hell?” Saints Rest
South 1716 “Every lash which God then gives the sinner shall be with a scorpion, every pain which He inflicts shall be more eager than appetite, more cruel than revenge; every faculty both of soul and body shall have its distinct property, and peculiar torment applied to it, and be directly struck there where it has the quickest, the sharpest, and the tenderest sense of any painful impression…But I shall use no other argument to evince the greatness of their torment but only this, that the devil shall be the instrument of their execution. And surely a mortal enemy will be a dreadful executioner; and the punishment which an infinite justice inflicts by the hands of a implacable malice must needs be intolerable.” Sermons, vii. 143
Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732
“God will hold sinners with one hand over the pit of hell, while He torments them with the other.” Fourfold State."God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God's judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever."
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