len, when there
were seven devils, for every devil is an hell unto himself; he holds
enough of torture in his own _ubi_, and needs not the misery of
circumference to afflict him; and thus a distracted conscience here is a
shadow or introduction unto hell hereafter. Who can but pity the
merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? the Devil,
were it in his power, would do the like; which being impossible, his
miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he
is impassible, his immortality.

I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of hell, nor
never grew pale at the description of that place; I have so fixed my
contemplations on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of hell,
and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one than endure the misery
of the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs,
methinks, no addition to complete our afflictions. That terrible term
hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the
name thereof. I fear God, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me
ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof; these are the
forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the
last remedy, and upon provocation: a course rather to deter the wicked
than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can hardly think there was
ever any scared into heaven; they go the fairest way to heaven that
would serve God without a hell; other mercenaries, that crouch unto him
in fear of hell, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed
but the slaves of the Almighty.

That which is the cause of my election I hold to be the cause of my
salvation, which was the mercy and _beneplacit_ of God, before I was, or
the foundation of the world. "Before Abraham was, I am," is the saying
of Christ; yet is it true in some sense, if I say it of myself; for I
was not only before myself, but Adam--that is, in the idea of God, and
the decree of that synod held from all eternity: and in this sense, I
say, the world was before the creation, and at an end before it had a
beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive; though my grave be
England, my dying place was Paradise; and Eve miscarried of me before
she conceived of Cain.

* * * * *

Now for that other virtue of charity, without which faith is a mere
notion and of no existence, I have ever endeavored to nourish the
mercifu