To these professed atheists, we may well add that impious and carnal crew of worldly-minded men, impenitent sinners, that go to hell in a lethargy, or in a dream; who though they be professed Christians, yet they will nulla pallescere culpa (not grow pale at the imputation of guilt), make a conscience of nothing they do, they have cauterised consciences, and are indeed in a reprobate sense, past all feeling, have given themselves over to wantonness, to work all manner of uncleanness even with greediness, Ephes. iv. 19. They do know there is a God, a day of judgement to come, and yet for all that, as Hugo saith, ita comedunt ac dormiunt, ac si diem judicii evasissent; ita ludunt ac rident, ac si in coelis cum Deo regnarent: they are as merry for all the sorrow, as if they had escaped all dangers, and were in heaven already:
Metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.
(Vergil in The Georgics
(knowing) ... The causes of things and able to trample underfoot
All terrors and inexorable fate and the clamour of devouring Acheron)
The principal agent and procurer of this mischief is the devil; those whom God forsakes, the devil by his permission lays hold on. Sometimes he persecutes them with that worm of conscience, as he did Judas, Saul, and others. The poets call it Nemesis, but it is indeed God's just judgement, sero sed serio, he strikes home at last, and setteth upon them as a thief in the night, 1 Thes. ii.ii.
A good conscience is a continual feast, but a galled conscience is as great a torment as can possibly happen, a still baking oven, (so Pierius in his Hieroglyph, compares it) another hell. Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offences, a register to lay them up, (which those Egyptians in their hieroglyphics expressed by a mill, as well for the continuance, as for the torture of it) grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn our own selves. Sin lies at door, &c. I know there be many other causes assigned by Zanchius, Musculus, and the rest; as incredulity, infidelity, presumption, ignorance, blindness, ingratitude, discontent, those five grand miseries in Aristotle, ignominy, need, sickness, enmity, death, &c.; but this of conscience is the greatest, Instar ulceris corpus jugiter percellens: The scrupulous conscience (as Peter Forestus calls it) which tortures so many, that either out of a deep apprehension of their unworthiness, and consideration of their own dissolute life, accuse themselves and aggravate every small offence, when there is no such cause, misdoubting in the meantime God's mercies, they fall into these inconveniences. The poet calls them furies dire, but it is the conscience alone which is a thousand witnesses to accuse us, Nocte dieque suum gestant in pectore testem. A continual tester to give in evidence, to empanel a jury to examine us, to cry guilty, a persecutor with hue and cry to follow, an apparitor to summon us, a bailiff to carry us, a serjeant to arrest, an attorney to plead against us, a gaoler to torment, a judge to condemn, still accusing, denouncing, torturing and molesting. And as the statue of Juno in that holy city near Euphrates in Assyria will look still towards you, sit where you will in her temple, she stares full upon you, if you go by, she follows with her eye, in all sites, places, conventicles, actions, our conscience will be still ready to accuse us. After many pleasant days, and fortunate adventures, merry tides, this conscience at last doth arrest us.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
A good conscience is a continual feast, but a galled conscience is as great a torment as can possibly happen, a still baking oven, (so Pierius in his Hieroglyph, compares it) another hell. Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offences, a register to lay them up, (which those Egyptians in their hieroglyphics expressed by a mill, as well for the continuance, as for the torture of it) grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn our own selves. Sin lies at door, &c. I know there be many other causes assigned by Zanchius, Musculus, and the rest; as incredulity, infidelity, presumption, ignorance, blindness, ingratitude, discontent, those five grand miseries in Aristotle, ignominy, need, sickness, enmity, death, &c.; but this of conscience is the greatest, Instar ulceris corpus jugiter percellens: The scrupulous conscience (as Peter Forestus calls it) which tortures so many, that either out of a deep apprehension of their unworthiness, and consideration of their own dissolute life, accuse themselves and aggravate every small offence, when there is no such cause, misdoubting in the meantime God's mercies, they fall into these inconveniences. The poet calls them furies dire, but it is the conscience alone which is a thousand witnesses to accuse us, Nocte dieque suum gestant in pectore testem. A continual tester to give in evidence, to empanel a jury to examine us, to cry guilty, a persecutor with hue and cry to follow, an apparitor to summon us, a bailiff to carry us, a serjeant to arrest, an attorney to plead against us, a gaoler to torment, a judge to condemn, still accusing, denouncing, torturing and molesting. And as the statue of Juno in that holy city near Euphrates in Assyria will look still towards you, sit where you will in her temple, she stares full upon you, if you go by, she follows with her eye, in all sites, places, conventicles, actions, our conscience will be still ready to accuse us. After many pleasant days, and fortunate adventures, merry tides, this conscience at last doth arrest us.
The Anatomy of Melancholy