Torment

“ My torment begins because his tortures cease.
Never will any freshness of thine, O sea,
Allay this endless fever alight in me.
He could assuage with his cruel, tender hands,
But alas, he neither heeds nor understands. ”

“ In their dread hands lay the punishment of murder, of inhospitality, of ingratitude, and of all the cruellest and basest of crimes. Theirs was the duty of hurrying the doomed spirits entrusted to their merciless care over the Phlegethon, the river of fire that flows round Hades, and through the brazen gates that led to Torment, and their robes were robes worn
“With all the pomp of horror, dy’d in gore.” ”

“ What malignity and baleful passions would actuate such minds, when themselves tormented by others around, bereft of all hope, and with nothing to interest them but plans of torment and revenge! What refined systems of cruelty would be devised in such a world! what terrific combinations of the elements to terrify and distress! If such objects as "the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and the worm that never dies," could be found, no Almighty hand would need to interfere, while the "smoke of their torment" would arise from flames of their own kindling. ”

“ Dissolve my life, Let not my sence unsettle
Least I should drown, or stab or hang my self.
O state of Nature, fail together in me,
Since thy best props are warpt: So which way now?
The best way is, the next way to a grave:
Each errant step beside is torment. ”

“ Yes, a thousand years, and a thousand in horror, if it be most for the honor of God, the torment of my body being so great, awful, and overwhelming that none could bear to live in the country where the spectacle was seen, and the torment of my mind being vastly greater. ”

“ Here is a little image of what you will be in hell, except you repent and fly to Christ.—Sermon X. Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment for ever and ever; to suffer it night and day, from one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to another; in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking and gnashing your teeth; with your bodies and every member full of racking torture ”

“ A most violent passion it is where it taketh place, an unspeakable torment, a hellish torture, an infernal plague, as Ariosto calls it, “a fury, a continual fever, full of suspicion, fear, and sorrow, a martyrdom, a mirth-marring monster. ”

“ The methods of torment are graduated by processes leading on through intensified trials of endurance and sensibility to a result which, while stilling the tide of life, shall dismiss the spirit in a quiver of agony. ”

“ As much as she has wished to exalt and fulfil her desires, so much give ye to her torment and anguish. And even as one that falls into the hands of his enemies is tormented and afflicted, even so is the soul tormented and afflicted that is led away by its desires. ”

“ But in hell the torments cannot be overcome by habit, for while they are of terrible intensity they are at the same time of continual variety, each pain, so to speak, taking fire from another and re-endowing that which has enkindled it with a still fiercer flame. Nor can nature escape from these intense and various tortures by succumbing to them for the soul is sustained and maintained in evil so that its suffering may be the greater. Boundless extension of torment, incredible intensity of suffering, unceasing variety of torture—this is what the divine majesty, so outraged by sinners, demands ”

“ When I have wept a thousand lives away,
When torment is grown weary of its prey,
When I have rav'd ten thousand years in fire,
Ten thousand thousand, let me then expire."
Deep anguish! but too late; the hopeless soul,
Bound to the bottom of the burning pool,
Though loth, and ever loud blaspheming, owns
He's justly doom'd to pour eternal groans;
Enclos'd with horrors, and transfix'd with pain,
Rolling in vengeance, struggling with his chain:
To talk to fiery tempests; to implore
The raging flame to give its burnings o'er ”

“ And their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man.
6. And in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it: and they shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them. ”

“ Art thou come hither to torment us—to cast us out from these men, and to restrain us from doing the hurt we would do?" Note, To be turned out, and tied up, from doing mischief, is a torment to the devil, all whose comfort and satisfaction are man's misery and destruction. Should not we then count it our heaven to be doing well, and reckon that our torment, whether within or without, that hinders us from well-doing? Now must we be tormented by thee before the time; Note, First, There is a time in which devils will be more tormented than they are, and they know it. ”

“ Sixthly, I am to consider the terribleness of those hellish tormentors and executioners.
1. First, generally in hell, every one of the damned is a tormentor of all, and all are tormentors of one, saying and doing things (as is mentioned above) to torment them.
2. Moreover, the devils are terrible tormentors of men, revenging themselves upon them, for the rage they have against Almighty God and against Jesus Christ; and therefore they torment them with affrighting visions, with horrible imaginations, and with all other means that their fierce cruelty can invent. ”

“ More blood, more heads on stakes, more adoration, rapine, and murder. I remembered his abject pleading, his abject threats, the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul. And later on his collected languid manner, when he said one day, ‘This lot of ivory now is really mine. ”

“ And in their ears tell them my dreadful name,
Revenge, which makes the foul offenders quake. 40
Tit. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me,
To be a torment to mine enemies?
Tam. I am; therefore come down, and welcome me. ”

“ TORMENTED FOREVER AND EVER. The only remaining texts to be urged in favor of the eternal torment of the wicked, are two passages which are found in the book of Revelation. The first is Rev. 14:11: “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” ”

“ He looked at his hands, at his thin neck, at the hollows in his cheeks and the emotional quiver at the corner of his mouth, and he knew the man was a fanatic, a civilized fanatic, but desperately and even horribly in earnest. A believer in torment, a man who held the vigorous faith that makes for martyrdom and can also pile wood for the fires that burn the bodies of others for the eventual welfare of their souls. ”

“ CONSIDER how, the scourging being over, one torment succeeds another in racking our suffering Lord. The executioners, with unheard of cruelty, take a bundle of sharp thorns, and plaiting them together in the shape of a crown, they place them on his sacred head. They then pitilessly press them down with repeated blows, the points enter in, and, piercing the flesh and the nerves, cause spasms of pain to our blessed Jesus. Oh, what a horrible garland is this, my heart, and what intense pains must it cause the adorable head of our Redeemer! ”

“ Why, I've seen men in my time living from day to day in the very atmosphere of perpetual torment, and actually arguing that there was no hell. It is a strange sight, I assure you, and one that will trouble you afterwards. From what I know of hell, it is a place of very loose boundaries. ”

“ TWO KINDS OF TORMENT Know that there are two kinds of torment: subtile and gross. For example, ignorance itself is a torment, but it is a subtile torment; indifference to God is itself a torment; so also are falsehood, cruelty and treachery. All the imperfections are torments, but they are subtile torments. Certainly for an intelligent man death is better than sin, and a cut tongue is better than lying or calumny.
The other kind of torment is gross—such as penalties, imprisonment, beating, expulsion and banishment. But for the people of God separation from God is the greatest torment of all. ”

“ It is enough to us that this Torment of the Devil is represented to us by Fire, it being impossible for our confin’d Thoughts to conceive of Torment by any Thing in the World more exquisite; whence I conclude, that Devils shall at last receive a Punishment suitable to their Spirituous Nature, and as exquisitely Tormenting as a burning Fire would be to our Bodies. ”

“ The fire of the torment is the operation of the holy law of righteousness which they have broken, and the brimstone by the offensiveness of its smoke represents the self-condemnation and reproach of conscience with which they are tormented when their sins are laid bare in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb, who by reason of their sins was slain. ”

“ Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell,
Though thither doomed! Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt
And boldly venture to whatever place
Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change
Torment with ease, and soonest recompense
Dole with delight, which in this place I sought; ”

“ Do you know what that torture is, which is imposed upon you for long nights by your burning arteries, your bursting heart, your breaking head, your teeth-knawed hands; mad tormentors which turn you incessantly, as upon a red-hot gridiron, to a thought of love, of jealousy, and of despair! ”

“ For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge, will I again behold the sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me. ”

“ Torture at the end of life relieved them of torment in the next world, and suicide by voluntary starvation, by swallowing pounded glass or poisonous potions, or opening the veins in a bath, was not uncommon — and, failing this, it was a kind office for the next of kin to extinguish life when death was near. ”

“ If he saw hell, he will retain traces of despondency, sadness, heaviness of spirit, suspicion and melancholy. If in the treasury of his imagination he has preserved these traces, it is lawful for him to communicate them to others....
The torments of the grave, O seeker after the divine mysteries, are of two kinds: one kind is spiritual and the other is material torment, and they have been repeatedly explained.
The spiritual torment cannot be understood, until a person is acquainted with his own soul and spirit. ”

“ The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. At the last day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the wicked shall be cast into eternal torment and punished with everlasting destruction. The wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torment, both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever. ”

“ The torment is caused by the flames of a supernatural fire, kindled by the anger of God. There is, therefore, no relief, no hope for the lost soul. It is separated from the abode of the just by a great chaos; it can never get to them, but must remain for ever and without hope in the torment of hell. ”

“ As sin binds men over to punishment, so misery and torment hold men under punishment. The darkness which is their misery keeps them so that they cannot get away from their torment. 7. The last degree of torment is not till the day of judgment. The sinning angels, though in hell already, are yet reserved to the judgment of the great day. ”

“ If anger remains but in the heart the punishment shall be the lesser; if it issue out, giving open signs, with scorn or exterior gestures, upon further deliberation, the punishment shall be the greater; but if it comes to the uttering of grievous and injurious words, and much more if it mounts to an actual revenge, the sentence of eternal fire is already given against it, with which in hell is joined the fire of wrath itself, to be a most cruel tormentor of the soul, for that which there most torments is anger, impatience and rage. ”

“ Fear of death, infamy, torments, are those furies and vultures that vex and disquiet tyrants, and torture them day and night, with perpetual terrors and affrights, envy, suspicion, fear, desire of revenge, and a thousand such disagreeing perturbations, turn and affright the soul out of the hinges of health, and more grievously wound and pierce, than those cruel masters can exasperate and vex their apprentices or servants, with clubs, whips, chains, and tortures. ”

“ May all the members of my body be tortured with inconceivable agony, and all the powers of my soul tormented with horror and despair, inexpressible and eternal! Let my dwelling be in the blackness of darkness, and my companions accursed men and accursed devils! ”

“ How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then—when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. ”

“ Last of all consider the frightful torment to those damned souls, tempters and tempted alike, of the company of the devils. These devils will afflict the damned in two ways, by their presence and by their reproaches. ”

“ Alas! I fear vengeance like thine will not be thus appeased! and that thy never-dying fire will still gnaw my vitals. Oh! these mortals think they suffer: but what are their torments when compared to mine? ”

“ They kept the sufferer standing, and relieved each other in their cruel work of pinching, pricking, twitching, pulling with ropes, burning, suffocating with offensive fumes, until after successive days and nights of torture the victim was driven to madness, and to promise any thing to escape from his tormentors. ”