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But, on the other hand, they who do not belong to this city of God
shall inherit eternal misery, which is also called the second death,
because the soul shall then be separated from God its life, and
therefore cannot be said to live, and the body shall be subjected to
eternal pains. And consequently this second death shall be the more
severe, because no death shall terminate it. But war being contrary
to peace, as misery to happiness, and life to death, it is not
without reason asked what kind of war can be found in the end of the
wicked answering to the peace which is declared to be the end of the
righteous? The person who puts this question has only to observe what
it is in war that is hurtful and destructive, and he shall see that it
is nothing else than the mutual opposition and conflict of things. And
can he conceive a more grievous and bitter war than that in which the
will is so opposed to passion, and passion to the will, that their
hostility can never be terminated by the victory of either, and in
which the violence of Fain so conflicts with the nature of the body,
that neither yields to the other? For in this life, when this
conflict has arisen, either pain conquers and death expels the feeling
of it, or nature conquers and health expels the pain. But in the
world to come the pain continues that it may torment, and the nature
endures that it may be sensible of it; and neither ceases to exist,
test punishment also should cease. Now, as it is through the last
judgment that men pass to these ends, the good to the supreme good,
the evil to the supreme evil, I will treat of this judgment in the
following book.
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