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iorse.
xIi
i
THE NATURE
OF
THE
PUNISHMENTS
1N
HELL. 589
eye
of
the world
could hardly distinguish
from good
men,
and
who
were
very far from
the
character
of
wicked
?
I
answer,
.
Answer
I.
That
however
there
may seem to be
three
sorts
of
persons
in
our
esteem,
viz,
the
good,
the bad,
and
the
indifferent,.
yet the
word
of
God
seems to
acknowledge
but
two sorts, viz.
"
Those
who
fear
God
and serve
him,
and
those
who
fear
him
not
;"
Mal.
iii.
18..
Those
who
have
acted
from
principles
of
inward religion, or the
love
of
God, and
those who
had no such principle within
them
:
And therefore the scripture
reveals
and declares
but
two
sorts
.of
states
in
the
future
world, viz.
that of
re-
wards and punishments, or
that of
happiness and misery
:
And
as
God,
the.
righteous Judge,
is
intimately
acquainted
with
all
the
secret principles and
workings
of
every
heart,
he alone
knows,
who
have
practised
virtue sincerely from
pious
principles, and
who,
have had no such
principles
within them.
He
well
distinguishes
who
they
are
that
have
complied
with
the
rules
of
the dispensation
_under
which
they
have lived, or
who
have
not
complied
with
it:
And
such
as
may have the
good esteem
of
men may be
highly
offensive
to God,
who knows all things, and
may
be worthy
of
his final
punishment;
"
the
judge of
the
whole
earth
will
do
right`
;
Gen.
xviii.
25.
And since
he
has
declared it
to be his
rule of
judg-
ment,
that
"
he will
reward
every one
according to
their
works
;"
Mat.
xvi. 27.
and
it
shall
be
much more
tole-
rable
for
some
of
these
creatures
than
it
shall be
for
others,
by
reason
of
their
lesser
crimes,
or their
nearer
approaches
to virtue and
piety;
so
it
is
certain
he
will
act
in
perfect
justice
and equity towards every criminal,
and none shall
be
punished above
their
demerits, though
no
impenitent sinner
shall go
unpunished.
'
We do not therefore imagine
that
every condemned cri-
minal shall
have the same
degree
of
inward raging
passions,
*
It
has been
the
opinion
of
some
writers in
elder
and
in
later
.
times,
that
the
vast numbers
of
indifferent persons,
wile.
have
neither
been
eri
-,
dently
holy or evidently wicked, shall be sent to
a
new
state of
trial in
the other
world
;
but I can
find
nothing of this doctrine
in
the bible,
nor
any hint of it,
unless,
in
that
obscure
text
of
St.
Peter,
I
Pet.
iii.
19.
where
Christ
is
said
"
to
go
and preach
to the
spirits" ofthose sinners
who
were
drowned
in
the
flood
of Noah, which may be construed
to
another
Sena,
with
truth and justice.
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