DISC. xur.l THE P,UNISHbIÈNTS IN HELL. 611 Inand of God, and bound there with everlasting chains; what hope can he ever have of deliverance ? And if Christ, and his apostles, who were taught by him and by his blessed Spirit, assert this punishment shall be eternal, who shall dare to contradict them ? Who is there so rash and confident as to say, " This torment shall not be everlasting, this worm one day shall die, and this fire shall be quenched ? Does it not approach to the crime of contradicting the Almighty, and the true God ? Argument II. There is a sort of infinite evil in sin, aris- ing from the consideration of the person against whom it is committed, that is, the great and blessed God ; for every crime, according to the law of nature, and the common sense of mankind, takes its aggravation from the dignity of the person offended, as well as from the heinousness of the act; so reproaches or assaults against a king, or a father, are much more criminal and heinous than the same assaults or reproaches cast on an equal or an infe- rior ; but all sin being an offence against God, an infi- nite object, and a violation of his law, is a dishonour of infinite majesty, an affront to the divine authority, and therefore its aggravations arise in that proportion to a sort of infinity, and require an equal punishrrient. But because the nature of a creature cannot suffer infinite punishment in the intenseness of the pain, therefore he must bear it to an infinite duration, that is, to all ever- lasting. When divine justice pronounces a sentence against the sinner equal to the demerit of sin, it must be infinite, that is, eternal; and the sinner shall never be released from the prison and the punishment " till he has paid the utmostfarthing;" Mat. v. 26. and till he has made sa- tisfaction to God equal to his demands, and the demerit of the offence. I know this argument is treated with much contempt and derision among those of the moderns, who would diminish the evil of sin, and shorten the pu- nishment of it : But it is much easier to ridicule it than to answer it: A jest is no refutation. And after my survey of it, I think, without prejudice or partiality, the 'force of it seems to me unanswerable as to the desert of sin ; and I am not ashamed to employ it in the support of this truth. It is but a very feeble opposition can be ,made to it by,those who say, that " if sin be counted an infinite evil, and must have infinite punishment, then all
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