Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Ver. 48. Where the worm never dies] This is three different times repeated, that it may the better be observed. Utinam de Gehenna ubique dissereretur, saith a father. Oh that word never (said a poor despairing creature on his death bed) breaks my heart. This worm of conscience is worse than the fire, if worse may be: it is the very hell of hell, as being the furious reflection of the soul upon itself for all its neglected opportunities and flagitious practices. This will be a bodkin at thy heart one day (saith a reverend man), I might have been delivered.