A25250:392
Ultima, = the last things in reference to the first and middle things
Ultima, = the last things in reference to the first and middle things: or certain meditations on life, death, judgement, hell, right purgatory, and heaven: delivered by Isaac Ambrose, minister of the Gospel at Preston in Amoundernes in Lancashire.
London: printed for J.A., 1650
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Hells horror. › To burn them.]Hels horrour. › To burn them.]
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Nay, here we are silenced, no Limner can set it forth, no Orator can express it; if all times that ever were, and ever shall be should be put together, they would infinitely come short of this fiery eternity; the latitude thereof ⟨p. 151⟩is not to be measured, neither by hours, nor days, nor weeks, nor months, nor years, nor Lustra's, nor Olympiads, nor Indictions, no Jubilees, nor ages, nor Plato's years, nor by the most slow motions of the eighth sphere, though all these were multiplied by thousands, or millions, or the greatest multiplier, or number numbering that can be imagined. Plainly in a word, count if you please, ten hundred thousand millions of years, and add a thousand myriads of ages to them, and when all is done, multiply all again by a thousand, thousand, thousand of thousands, and being yet too short, count all the thoughts, motions, mutations of men and Angels, add to them all the sands of the sea, piles on the earth, stars in the Heavens, and when all this is done, multiply all again by all the numbers, squares, cubics of Arithmetic, and yet all these are so far short of eternity, that they neither touch end nor middle, nor the least part or parcel of it: what then is this which the damned suffer? eternal fire? we had need to cry out Fire, fire, fire: Alas, to what end? there is no help to extinguish fire that must burn for ever: your Buckets may quench other fires, not this; no milk nor vinegar can extinguish that wild-fire: it is a fire which no means can moderate, no patience can endure, no time can for ever change, but in it whosoever woefully lies, their flesh shall fry, their blood shall boil, their hearts consume; yet they shall never die, but dying live, and living die; death in life, life in death, miserable ever. This is that consideration, which shall bring all the damned Reprobates to shriek and howl everlastingly: were they persuaded that after millions of years they should have one year of pleasure, or after thousands of millions they should have some end of torment, here would be a little hope; but this word Ever] breaks their hearts asunder: this ever, ever, gives new life again to those insufferable sorrows; and hence it is, that when all those millions of years are done and gone, then (God knows) must the wheels of their torment whirl about and about: Alas?
Nay, here we are silenced, no Limner can set it forth, no Oratour can expresse it; if all times that ever were, and ever shall be should be put together, they would infinitely come short of this fiery eternitie; the latitude thereof