Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/154

 as various as their characters, but admirably adapted to their states and needs. Thus he speaks of "the hells of those who have spent their lives in hatred, revenge, and cruelty;" of "the hells of those who have lived in adultery and lasciviousness;" of "the hells of the deceitful;" of "the hells of the covetous and of robbers;" of "the hells of those who have lived in merely carnal pleasures," etc. And while the ruling spirit and general features of them all are the same, each has its peculiarities. Without attempting any detail of these, I will quote one or two passages from his account of "the hells of those who have passed their lives in adulteries and lasciviousness," and leave the reader to form his own judgment.

"Those who find their chief delight in the spoils of virginity, having no regard to marriage or issue, and who, after compassing their lustful ends, conceive an aversion for their victims, and then leave them to prostitution, suffer the most grievous punishment in the other world. For their life is contrary to all order, natural, spiritual, and celestial. Not only is it contrary to conjugial love, which in heaven is accounted most holy, but also to innocence, which they wound and destroy by seducing innocent beings into a course of prostitution, who might have been initiated into conjugial love; for the first delights of love, as is well known, introduce virgins to chaste conjugial love, and conjoin the minds of married partners. And since the sanctity of heaven is