even when it will be accepted by the holy angels, and under their protection will flit through the aerial spaces and rise to the height, it will encounter various torments, as it were barriers or toll-gates where taxes are collected, which will bar its way to the kingdom and will stop and arrest its striving toward it. At each of these torments an account of some special sins will be demanded: at the first torment, of the sins committed by means of the lips and mouth; at the second torment, of the sins of vision; at the third, of the sins of hearing; at the fourth, of the sins of smell; at the fifth, of all lawlessness and abominable deeds done by means of the hands. To the other torments belong the other sins, such as anger, hatred, envy, vanity, and pride. . . . In short, every passion, every passion of the soul, every sin will similarly have its tormentors and inquisitors.” (p. 529.)
252. Retribution to the righteous: (a) their glorification in heaven, in the church triumphant.
“Retribution for the righteous, by the will of the heavenly Judge, also has two forms: (a) their glorification, though not yet complete, in heaven, in the church triumphant, and (b) their glorification upon earth, in the church militant.” (p. 534.)
It is hard to understand how the word “glorification” occupies such an important place in the teaching of the church, especially when one thinks of Christ's teaching, which is constantly directed against glory, and one feels with his heart that the love of glory, of glorification, is one of the most petty of human feelings. I can understand as a reward the contemplation of God, peace, Paradise, Eden, even Mohammed's Paradise, Nirvana; but in order to understand the reward in glorification, I have to imagine myself in the place of the crudest of men or when I was only fifteen years old. But the Theology regards glorification as a great reward. This glorification is represented to consist in this, that wreaths will be put on them and
