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So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting
punishment of the damned shall come to pass, shall without fail come to
pass, "their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be
quenched." In order to impress this upon us most forcibly, the Lord
Jesus Himself, when ordering us to cut off our members, meaning
thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most useful members of his
body, says, "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than
having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be
quenched; where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched." Similarly of the foot: "It is better for thee to enter
halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the
fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched." So, too, of the eye: "It is better for
thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two
eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched." He did not shrink from using the same words
three times over in one passage. And who is not terrified by this
repetition, and by the threat of that punishment uttered so vehemently
by the lips of the Lord Himself?
Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and
not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from the
kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of a
spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire
is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning torment,
as when the apostle exclaims "Who is offended, and I burn not?"
The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it
is written they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm
the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man." But they who
make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall
suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul
shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view
is more reasonable, for it is absurd to suppose that either body or
soul will escape pain in the future punishment, yet, for my own part,
I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to
suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent
regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not
expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented
the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For we read in
the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly
is fire and worms." It might have been more briefly said, "The
vengeance of the ungodly." Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of
the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the
punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying,
"The vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the
punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the
second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live
after the flesh, ye shall die" , let each one make his own choice,
either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul, the one
figuratively, the other really, or assigning both really to the body.
For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the
fire, in burning without being consumed, in without dying, by a
miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that
this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that
is wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought
all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have
mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has
enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of
all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks
that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual
things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the
soul. But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by
the facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge
as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of
these punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and perfection,
suffice to instruct them in this matter. For "now we know in part,
until that which is perfect is come;" only, this we believe about
those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be
pained by the fire.
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