644 / 674
624
THE ETERNAL DURATION
OF
[DISC.
XIrr.
them
from
their
miseries,
since
the
justice
and the holi-
ness,
the righteous government
and
authority of God
in
his
law
require and
demand their due honour,
as
well
as
his
goodness.
Do
we
not
see
these
honours
of
divine
justice,
and
of
God's hatred
of
sin,
have
been
continu-
ally
demanded and executed
in the infinite
and
innume-
rable
evils,
sorrows, miseries, diseases
and
deaths,
that
have been spread over
this world
almost
six
thousand
years because of
sin
?
Nor
does
his
goodness forbid or
hinder
it.
And
let
it
be remembered
too,
that
all
this immense
variety and
long succession
of
plagues
and terrors
arose
originally
from the
just
indignation and
resentment
of
God
against
one sin,
even
that of
the
first
-man.
Who
was
it that
burned
Sodom
and Gomorrah
with
fire
from
heaven
?
Who
was
it that
chained fallen angels
in
dark-
ness to
a more terrible
judgment?
Was it not
a
God
of
supreme goodness? Who sent
famines
and pestilencies,
and
slaughters
all
over
the
earth
in many
distinct
genera-
tions, whereby
mankind
have
been
made
abundantly
wretched and plunged into
millions
of
distresses?
And
yet
the goodness
of
God
abides for
ever.
And
while the
great God
is
acting according
to
the
glories
of
his
nature
and government
in
punishing rebellious creatures,
his
goodness
will feel
no soft
and
sensible impressions from
all
their groans and outcries
;
but if
I
may
so
express it,
will
be
changed into
just
indignation without
end. And
the language
of
it
to
those
impenitent
wretches
will be
this
:
"
Because
I
have called
and
ye
refused,
ye
have
set
at
nought all
my
counsel
and
would none
of
my
re-
proof
:
I
will
laugh
at
your
calamity,
I
will
mock when
your
fear cometh
;
when
your fear
cometh
as
desolation,
and your destruction
as
a
whirlwind, when distress and
anguish cometh upon you.
Then
shall ye
.call
upon
me
but I
will
not
answer;
ye shall seek me early,
but
ye
shall
riot
find me
:
for
ye
hated
knowledge,
and
did
not
chuse
the fear
of
the
Lord:
Ye
would none
of
my counsels,
ye
despised
all my
rebukes
;
therefore
shall ye
eat of
the
fruit
of
your
own
way,
and
be
filled
with
your
own.
/devices
;"
Prov.
i.
24
-31.
Take
them,,
angels,
"
bind
them
hand and
foot,
and cast them
into
everlasting
fire
and
utter darkness;
there shall
be weeping, and
wailing,
and
gnashing.of teeth
f' Mat.
xxii.
13.
Let
us
cease then to
murmur against
the threatenings