...r.---T- D,I9C. klIï. THE PUNISHMENTS IN HELL. 6:3 ment the offender shall be exposed to, and shall be obliged to bear when it is inflicted ; but these expres- sions in a law do not oblige the government to inflict that sentence with all its terrors. It is granted, that in the case of promises, truth and veracity oblige the promisee to fulfil them punctually, because the right of the thing promised passes over to that other person to whom the promise was made, and he bath such a right to' require it, that it is injustice to withhold it from him ; and there- fore everlasting felicity must be given to the righteous But in threatenings the case is otherwise ; for though the full punishment is due to sinners, yet they will never require the execution ; and the goodness of God ,will incline ,him to relieve the sufferer, and to release him from the severity of such punishment, where his veracity or truth does not forbid it. To this I answer two ways : Answer I. I will not debate this point of law now, how far a. governor of sovereign and absolute authority can dispense with his own threatenings, can omit the execution of them, relax the degree of threatened punishment, or shorten the duration of it : But let it be considered, that here is 'not only the threaten- ing of a God, the universal governor, but the pre- dietion of this eternal punishment, by a God who can- riot lie. God's own truthand veracity are concerned in this case, since his Son Jesus, who is the greatest of his messengers, together with the prophets and apostles, have in the name of God often foretold, that these pu- nishments shall be eternal : And therefore whatsoever an absolute governor might do, as to shortening the punish- ,ment .threatened, in away of mercy and relaxation ; yet I cannot see how the truth and veracity of God himself, or the veracity of his Son Jesus Christ, who is the great prophet, or the truth of the rest of his prophets and mes- sengers can be maintained, if this punishment bnot executed according to the many express predictions of it. These all agree to tell us, . by inspiration from heaven, in (various forms ofspeech, that the torments of hell shall he everlasting ; and as .I hinted, the man Jesus, who pro- nounced this eternal sentence as aLord and Judge, fore- tels it also as a prophet, that the execution of it shall be to all everlasting.' Answer II. Obstinate and impenitent sinners have no reason to .expect, that the.goodness of. Godshod release
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=