THE DOCTRINE OF THE DAMNATION OF THE WICKED IS ONE BEFITTING CHRISTIANITY.
As the just deserve the glory of Heaven, the wicked, who have gone
aside from God, deserve the lowest place on earth, wherein they and
their sins may be punished. There is no injustice in the eternity of
punishment inflicted for temporal guilt. Even human law (as in the
case of death or lifelong exile), avenges certain crimes by unending
punishment. The wicked are justly deprived for all eternity of glory,
and punished for ever in hell—not for their passing sins so much as for
the malice of their will, which remained obstinately inclined to sin
until death. Surely, is it not most reasonable to believe, that they who
have preferred temporal pleasure to eternal glory, and would, (had it
been possible), have persevered in this choice, should be punished with
eternal suffering; the more so as, after this life, they are no longer
capable of meriting eternal life? Again, as we have already remarked,
it is not the soul alone, but the whole man who acts, and if it be
reasonable that the just should be glorified in soul and body, the wicked
equally deserve twofold punishment.
There are in hell other torments besides that of fire. But because fire
is the most active it is always spoken of as the chief punishment. The
bodies of the damned are not consumed by this fire, for the Divine Power
enables their souls to preserve these bodies from destruction. But as,
by malice, these souls have turned away from their Creator, their
bodies are not perfectly subject to them; they are therefore capable of
suffering excruciating torments in the fire of hell, though not of being
consumed by it.