The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2.…The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2.…

Sleep cannot make his conscience sleep: perhaps the very dreams are fearful. It will not leave thee, till it hath showed thee thy Hell, no nor when it hath showed thee it, will it leave thee quiet. The more thou offerest to dam up this current, the more ragingly it swells, and gusheth over the resisting banks. This wounded Conscience runs like the stricken Dear, ⟨p. 188⟩with the arrow of death in the ribs, from thicket to thicket, from shelter to shelter, but cannot change her pain with her place. The wound rankles in the soul, and the longer it goes on, the worse still it festers. Thus sin that spake thee so fair at her inviting to the Banquet, now presents to thy waked soul her true form; and plays the make-bate betwixt God and thee, betwixt thee and thy self. So long as security hath kept thee sleeping in thy delighted impieties, this quarrel is not commenced. The mortallest enemies are not always in pitched fields one against another.

Sleepe cannot make his conscience sleepe: perhaps the very dreames are fearefull. It will not leaue thee, till it hath shewed thee thy Hell, no nor when it hath shewed thee it, will it leaue thee quiet. The more thou offerest to damme vp this current, the more ragingly it swels, and gusheth ouer the resisting banckes. This wounded Conscience runnes like the stricken Deare, ⟨p. 188⟩with the arrow of death in the ribbes, from thicket to thicket, from shelter to shelter, but cannot change her paine with her place. The wound ranckles in the soule, and the longer it goes on, the worse still it festers. Thus sinne that spake thee so faire at her inuiting to the Banket, now presents to thy waked soule her true forme; and playes the make-bate betwixt God and thee, betwixt thee and thy selfe. So long as securitie hath kept thee sleeping in thy delighted impieties, this quarrell is not commenced. The mortallest enemies are not alwayes in pitched fields one against another.

This truce holds some till their death-beds; neither do they ever complain, till their complaints can do them no good. For then at once, the sick carcass, after many tossings and turnings to find the easiest side, moans his unabated anguish: and the sicker conscience, after trial of many shifts, too late feeleth and confesseth her unappeased torment. So Cain, Judas, Nero, in vain seek for foreign helps, when their executioner is within them. The wicked man cannot want furies, so long as he hath himself. Indeed the soul may fly from the body, not sin from the soul. An impatient Judas may leap out of the private hell in himself, into the common pit below; as the boiling fishes out of the Caldron into the flame. But the gain hath been, the addition of a new hell without them, not the loss of the old hell within them. The worm of Conscience doth not then cease her office of gnawing, when the fends begin their office of torturing. Both join their forces to make the dissolutely wicked, desolately wretched. If this man be not in the depth of Hell, deeply miserable, there is none.