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Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682

"Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend"

Surely, though we place
hell under earth, the devil's walk and purlieu is about
it. Men speak too popularly who place it in those
flaming mountains, which to grosser apprehensions re-
present hell. The heart of man is the place the devils
dwell in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself;
Lucifer keeps his court in my breast; Legion is revived
in me. There are as many hells as Anaxagoras<68>
conceited worlds. There was more than one hell
in Magdalene, when there were seven devils; for every
devil is an hell unto himself,<69> he holds enough of
torture in his own ubi; and needs not the misery of cir-
cumference to afflict him: and thus, a distracted con-
science here is a shadow or introduction unto hell here-
after. 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 im-
possible, his miseries are endless, and he suffers most
in that attribute wherein he is impassible, his im-
mortality.


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