Speculum amatorum mundi

which will remain into eternity, which will always endure and will never have an end. Which will always be renewed and will never be heard. These are the words of the damned. Our miserable eyes will see nothing else but misery. Our ears will hear nothing but woe, woe, and sadness, groans, and the gnashing of teeth. O pious hearts, look upon this interminable and cruel, eternal and intolerable punishment of damnation, and here in the time of grace, lament and weep, and doing penance, deplore your sins. Alas, alas, why do we not, miserable and more miserable than all creatures, foresee and prevent the future evils while strength was present, while the opportune time was at hand? Would that, of all that time spent uselessly, one little hour were granted to us as a remedy for such punishment! But alas, the divine justice pronouncing sentence, the way of salvation is closed to us, mercy denied, all hope taken away. What more? We, miserable and wretched, are only afflicted and grieve over that eternal woe, which, whatever term might be imagined, would be consoling to us if it were one day finished, even above all worldly solaces and joys. Whence, if it were placed by possibility that there were some millstone so great that it would touch the circumference of the heavens everywhere, and that some little bird of the least quantity, coming after a hundred thousand years, would take away from the aforesaid stone only so much as is the tenth part of a grain of millet, and again after a hundred thousand years the little bird would take away one particle of ten just as before, and thus by individual parts, so that in ten times a hundred thousand years it would not diminish the quantity of the stone more than what it has in the magnitude of a grain of millet. Behold, for the pain, we, miserable, would be much grateful and consoled that after such a long and full consumption of the stone, our sentence of eternal damnation would have an end. But alas, this same consolation is denied to us miserable ones by divine justice. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear and put to heart these horrible things and, amending his life, let him do penance here in the time of grace; because they will be lashed in such a way in eternal tortures who here in the time of grace exempt themselves from the lashes of the children. For thus says Blessed Gregory: "The prosperous success of temporal things is a most certain sign of eternal damnation." What, therefore, is to be done so that we may avoid hell? I say, God, who according to the Apostle wishes all men to be saved and to arrive at the recognition of His name, has proposed two words to us in the Gospel. One of which He said remaining in the flesh, the other He is to say in the final judgment. In which words He proposes to us good and evil, life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose, therefore, O man, one of these, because whether you wish it or not, it behooves you to follow one of them. Choose, therefore, what you will; it behooves you to choose one of these divine things. The first is written in Matthew 3: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will approach." Such penance, truly said, can be called a religious life virtuously conducted. The second He will say in the strict judgment, in the last day, namely. And it is written in Matthew 25: "Go, you cursed, into eternal fire." For if you will accept the first by doing penance, you will securely escape the second. But if, however, you will contemn the first, without doubt you will fall into the second. Concerning these words joined together, Saint Bernard says: "The lovers of the world answer us when we persuade them to penance, and they say, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?' Is it not seeming to you, when it is said, 'Do penance,' that you are erring? But you will hear another word, a harsh speech, a hard saying, a bad hearing, namely: 'Go, you cursed, into eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels,' where you will finally sustain intolerable tortures eternally." Which God avert by inspiring penance. And what if all these horrible and terrible things