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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