621 / 674
bISC.
xII.]
THE
NATURE
OF
THÉ
PUNISHMENTS IN
HELL. 401
fancy
he
is
all
made up of gentleness
and forbearance,
and
without
holiness
and
justice
!
1
Gor.
xv.
34.
Alas,
Sirs,
these
attributes are
as
necessary in
a God
as
grace
and-
compassion
:
He
is
and must
be a
wise,
a
righteous
Governor of
the world
;
and
his
wisdom
requires
that
impenitent
sinners should
be
punished, to
secure the ho-
nour
of
the
law,
and
to
guard
his
gospel from
contempt*.
These
awful
perfections
of
the
blessed
God
are
as
neces-
sary to
vindicate
his
authority
and
his
government front
insult and rebellion,
as his
goodness
is
needful to
encou-
rage
sinful
creatures
to
repent
and
return
to
their duty.
The
word
of God expressly
tells
us,
he
is
"
a
God
of
.holiness
and consuming fire;
".Heb.
xii.
2,9.
but there
is
many
a
sinner
that
will
never learn
this lesson till
the
torments
of
hell
teach
it
him
by
dismal
experience.
They
have trifled with
his
majesty,
and
mocked
at
his
threatenings
all
their
life, till
at
the
moment
of
death
he
awakes
like
a
lion,
and.
tears their spirits
with
everlasting
anguish.
I
might take notice also
in this
place,
that there
is
another
mistaken notion
of God, into
which some
per-
sons have unhappily
fallen, as
"
though
God
were
the
cause and
author of
sin,"
and
have
spoken unadvisedly
with
their
lips,
in such language
as
borders too
near upon
blasphemy. But it
is
evident,
that
a
God,
who
will
pu-
nish
the
sins
of
men with
such intense pain and
torment,
can
never
be so
inconsistent
with himself
as to be
the
author
or cause
of
those
sins.
It
is
granted,
that
his
universal
providence has
a concern
in
every thing
that
is
,transacted among
men
;
but
since he has
informed
us
in
what
a
dreadful manner
he
will
execute
his
vengéance
against
sinners
in the world to come,
it
is
insolence
and
indignity
against
the blessed
God
to
represent
him as
introducing
sin
into
our world.
"
Let
God
be
true,
* A governor
made up of mere
goodness
and mercy
could be
no
gover-
nor at
all;
for
it
is
absurd
to
call
that
a
government; where every subject
may
do
what
iniquity and mischief
he pleases
with
impurity. The
laws
of
such
a
government
would cease to
be
laws,
and become mere rules
and
directions
for
living, which every
one
might
observe or not,
just
accord-
ing
to his
inclination.
To
say
that
it
became
the
wisdom
of God to
threaten
offenders,
but
that
his
goodness will interpose in
the
end and
hinder the
punishment,
is
to
say,
that
God
is
not
wise,
for
if he were
he would
cer-
tainly
have
taken care not
to
let
those Inea
into the secret.
Bishop
l
torts'$
sermons,
page
315.