noble faculties, that he shall neither feel, nor hear, nor see
anything but specters and illusions, devils and frightful dreams, and
hear noises, and shriek fearfully, and look pale and distracted, like
a hopeless man from the horrors and confusions of a lost battle, upon
which all his hopes did stand--then the wicked must at the day of
judgment expect strange things and fearful, and such which now no
language can express, and then no patience can endure. Then only it
can truly be said that he is inflexible and inexorable. No prayers
then can move Him, no groans can cause Him to pity thee; therefore
pity thyself in time, that when the Judge comes thou mayest be one of
the sons of everlasting mercy, to whom pity belongs as part of thine
inheritance, for all else shall without any remorse (except His own)
be condemned by the horrible sentence.

That all may think themselves concerned in this consideration, let us
remember that even the righteous and most innocent shall pass through
a severe trial. Many of the ancients explicated this severity by the
fire of conflagration, which say they shall purify those souls at the
day of judgment, which in this life have built upon the foundation
(hay and stubble) works of folly and false opinions, states of
imperfection. So St. Augustine's doctrine was: "The great fire at
doomsday shall throw some into the portion of the left hand, and
others shall be purified and represented on the right." And the
same is affirmed by Origen and Lactantius; and St. Hilary thus
expostulates: "Since we are to give account for every idle word, shall
we long for the day of judgment, wherein we must, every one of us,
pass that unwearied fire in which those grievous punishments for
expiating the soul from sins must be endured; for to such as have been
baptized with the Holy Ghost it remaineth that they be consummated
with the fire of judgment." And St. Ambrose adds: "That if any be as