of it. It has been said, that the advocates for endless punishment do not contend that sin deserves an infinite degree of endless punishment, that they do not pretend to determine the degree of punishment it deserves, and that it becomes all to leave that to God, who alone can determine it; but the truth is, that the doctrine of endless misery does determine the degree of misery which sin deserves; at least to the extent of deciding that it deserves an infinite degree of misery: for the amount of misery ultimately endured, if it be without end, whatever be the degree of suffering experienced at any given period, must be infinite. And the representations which the advocates of the doctrine of endless misery uniformly give of the sufferings of the wicked in the future state, decidedly prove, that, in their con. ception, future punishment will be infinite in degree as well as in duration. What words can show this more strongly than the passage which has already been cited from the Discourse on the Eternity of Hell Torments? In that passage the author represents the wicked as spending thousands and thousands of ages in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking and gnashing their teeth, with their souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with their bodies, and

* Salvation of all Men strictly examined, &c., chap. iv. p. 107.

every member of them, full of racking torture, without any possibility of getting ease, without any possibility of moving God to pity by their cries, without any possibility of hiding themselves from him, without any possibility of diverting their thoughts from their pain, without any possibility of obtaining any manner of mitigation or help, or change for the better; and, under the influence of these racking torments, wishing that they might be turned into nothing, but without any hope of it; or that they might be turned into a toad or a serpent, but without any hope of it; and, as if this intolerable misery were not sufficient to satiate the vengeance of Almighty God, it is added, that in the future state the capacity of the wicked will probably be enlarged, and their understandings will be quicker and stronger, and that God can give them as great a sense and as strong an impression of eternity as he pleases, to increase their grief and torment! Let, then, the mind conceive, if it can conceive, what the amount of such misery, endured through all the ages of eternity, must be, and determine whether its infliction for the sins of seventy years be consistent with justice.

But it is farther argued, that though it were not just to inflict an endless punishment for the sins committed in this life only, yet there would be no injustice in suffering the sinner to go on in sin, and to punish him continually, and without

end, as he sins: that if God may, without injustice, permit a creature to fall into sin to-day, and punish him for it, he may do the same to-morrow, and through any period of his existence: that, if it be just to leave a sinner to endless sin, it is just to inflict on him endless punishment for that endless sin: that, therefore, the endless sin and punishment of a creature is no more inconsistent with the Divine justice, than the existence of sin and punishment in any instance, and for ever so short a duration : that, since it it is con ceded that the sinner may be justly punished until he repents, it follows that if he never repents, he may be justly punished without end: that, therefore, in order to establish the position that endless punishment is not reconcileable with Divine justice, it must be shown that it is not consistent with Divine justice to leave a sinner to proceed without end in his own chosen course of sin, and to punish him daily for his daily sins ; and that, until this shall have been done, it will be in vain to plead, that those who die in impenitence will all finally be saved, because endless punishment is not reconcileable with the justice of God.*

This argument is opposed to the plain and uniform doctrine of Scripture, and to the univer

• Salvation of all Men strictly examined, &c., chap. vi. p. 146.

sally-received opinion among Christians, that the punishment of the future state will be inflicted for the sins of the present life. It is never said in Scripture, that in the place of punishment to which he will be doomed, the sinner will

go.on in sin, and be punished continually and without end as he sins; that he will be left to endless sin, and, that endless punishment will be inflicted upon him for that endless sin. No language of this kind, no language conveying any thing like such ideas is ever used: but the punishment is always said to be inflicted for the deeds done in the body; and the sorrow of the sinner is uniformly represented as excited by recollections of the sins of the present life, and this is the uniform opinion of Christians of all denominations. It is not allowable, therefore, for the advocate of endless misery, when, in the argument on the justice of God, he is pressed with the difficulty of explaining how, in consistency with that justice, the sins of seventy years can be visited with an eternity of misery, to have recourse to the supposition that that misery may be inflicted, not for the sins of the present life only, but also for the sins of the future state, which may be committed in endless succession.

But though this supposition cannot be admitted, even granting that it were just, the great difficulty with which the doctrine of endless misery is encumbered, is not in the least removed. In

order to prove that endless punishment is not reconcileable with Divine justice, it must be shown, it is said, that it is not consistent with Divine justice to leave a sinner to proceed without end in his own chosen course of sin, and to punish him daily for his daily sins. It is replied, that to leave the sinner in this manner, and then to punish him for so sinning, is not only not consistent with justice, but is so utterly opposed to it, that it is not in the power of the human imagination to conceive of a more flagrant and enormous violation of it. For God made man what he is: God ordained the circumstances in which man is placed: God knew that such circumstances operating on such a creature, would inevitably involve him in sin and misery through all eternity. With this clear foresight, to alter nothing in the nature of the creature, to alter nothing in the arrangement of the circumstances, but to persist in giving him that very nature, and in placing him in those very circumstances, the inevitable result of which he knew would secure the production of this endless sin and misery-is malignant in the highest possible degree; and, were the Deity malignity itself, he could not act To speak of justice in connexion with such a transaction, is an insult to the human understanding it would be inconceivably less absurd to speak of the excellence and beauty of the worst act of the worst tyrant that ever disgraced

worse.