Davenant - Houston-Packer Collection BT810 .D38 1641

supraldffarians charge God their impiousandvoluptuous courfes, how freely and eagerly ( may we think) would they purfue their carnali and finfull delights, if they could be but once perfvvaded, that after all their pleafures they fliall be in a better cafe thenif they had no being I Secóndly, I oppofe commoncontent. Where (hall vve pick out a manbut will fay ( P ) 'Ube fpeak from his heart) that he were better to vanifh into a thoufand nothings then to be calf intohell ? What is the reafon why men are foafraid of hell when they are touched to thequickwith theconfcience of their ungodly lives and the expo&ationof eternall vengeance, that withJob they curie their birthday, and with an hun- dred times over that they had never been, or might ceafe to be, that fo theymight not come into the place of torments; but becaufe they judge a being there to be incomparably worfe then nobeing anywhere? And why are menwho are fenfible ofhell-fire, fo ftrongly curbed and held-in by the fear offeeling it, even from darling and beloved firmes , but be- caufe they apprehend it tobe the molt terrible of all terribles? Fear ofbeingannihilated can never do that which the fearof hell Both. The third thing which Ioppofe is common fence : which judgeth (Q,) pains when they areextreme to beworfe then death. Hence it is that Job being tormented in his body by the devil, curled his birth-day, magnified the conditionofthe dead, and wifhe dhim felfin thegrave, plainly preferring the Joffeofhis being before that rniferable being which he then had. And hence it is that men even of flouteí} and hardeft fpirits ( as we fee bydaily experience ) would (if they might enjoy their opinion) choofe rather to have no bodies at all, then bodies tormented with the fione, or gout, or any other fharp and fenfible difeafe. It is a knovvn laying grounded on this judgement offenfe,Praftat femel glbámTemper mori, Bet- ter it is todie once then to be alvwayes dying. This the Ty- rant Tiberiusknew very well : and therefore he would not fuffer chafe towards whom he purpofed to exercile his cruelty t© be put to a fpeedie death ,but to lingring torments, as Sue- tonius reporteth of him in that chapter wherehe reckoneth tz Sueton. up his barbarous and cruel pra&ices. u ihofe ( faithhe) who vit.Tib.cap through the extretnitie of their torments wouhl have died,he 61. Mori vo- ufedmeans to keep alive. AT mortem adeò levefupplicium ibita vi- putabat, via Forbe accounted death fo light a punifhment, that stem li. when he heard that one Carnulius, a man appointed to tor- menu,

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