1. what is teeth chattering.
According to and from God's word, one can certainly judge who is damned.
3. from the eternal hellish torment.
4. four degrees of punishment after this life.
5 From the saying of Isa. 7:9: If ye believe not, ye shall not abide.
1. what tooth chatter is. 1) (Cordatus No. 811.)
We can understand the fire and the gnashing of teeth as an external punishment that will follow an evil conscience. And the despair that one is divorced from God is a [not] less terrible punishment, for such a conscience fears all creatures, which we also see now. For a falling leaf has not yet killed anyone, and yet it is feared, and it terrifies a fearful heart. When the heart is despondent, it is terrified of every creature, even the good ones.
According to and from God's word, one can certainly judge who is damned.
(Contained in Cap. 9, § 19.)
3. from the eternal hellish torment.
(Lauterbach, Aug. 16, 1538, p. 113.)
On August 16, when Luther considered the misery and misfortune of this life, with how innumerable diseases this mortal body would be plagued in this life, he said: "If the pains of the life to come are to be greater and constant, then these bodies of ours, as they are now, cannot bear it. They can hardly bear the sufferings of this life, which last only for a moment, and it seems to me that they will be other bodies. And soon he added this improvement: Let us break off from this matter, it is only my thoughts. God forbid that we should not know. Let us be here in the number of those of whom it is said (Matth. 5, 4.): "Blessed are they that mourn." For even here on earth there are various and
1) Cf. cap. 49, § 2.
unequal temptations according to the difference of the persons. If another should have endured the temptations that I have endured], he would have been dead for a long time. So I could not have endured the angel of Satan beating with fists, just as Paul could not have endured the exceedingly severe temptations of Christ. In short, sadness is death in the greatest proximity and in a moment. But we are not to dispute about it, but to put it in God's courts and look at what is revealed.
4. of the four degrees of punishment after this life.
The ancients made four kinds of distinctions and degrees of hell; first, the outer castle, in which the archfathers were said to have dwelt until Christ went to hell. Secondly, the feeling of torment, but only temporally, as purgatory. The third, where the unbaptized infants are to be inside, but feel no pain. The fourth, where the damned are, so they feel eternal pain and torture, that is the real hell. With the other three it is only a human poem. But it has been sung badly in the papacy in the chant: Cum Rex gloriae etc.. Te nostra vocabant suspiria, Te larga requirebant lamenta,: Our sighs called to you, our miserable laments sought you 2c. This is not right nor Christian. For the gospel says: They are in Abraham's bosom. Thus saith Isaias Cap. 57:2, "They go into their chambers." And Jesus Sirach: "The righteous is in the hand of the Lord" (Weish. 3, 1.), he dies as he wants, since he would be immediately overtaken with death; therefore there was no sighing nor complaining. The wretched
People have drawn the heartfelt sighing and longing of the prophets, which they had in this life after Christ the Messiah, that they waited for the dead. But what hell is, we do not know, except that it is a certain place, as Luc. 16, 26. is written of the rich man, when Abraham said to him, "There is a great gulf between you and us." For if it were known, and the Scriptures had indicated something about this place, there would be no end nor measure to the disputing. Therefore let us remain simple in the child's faith.
Is. 7, 9: If you do not believe, you will not remain.
That is, if you do not believe, you will not remain. All things are incomprehensible to our Lord God, but there, in that life, he said he would show us everything and give us an account of why he had done it that way. We Christians have, thanks be to God, a great advantage that our faith is so powerfully founded in the Holy Scriptures, and is always in agreement. Nevertheless, the Turk or the Jew do not have this.