-DISCOURSE XID. 277 blessed 'Spirit, assert this punishment shall `be eternal, who shall dare to contradict them ? Who is there -so rash and con- fident as to say, "'Phis torment shall not be everlasting, this worm one day shall die, and this fire shall be quenched ? floes it not approach to the crime of contradicting the Almighty, and the true God ? II. There is a sort of infinite evil in "sin, arising 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 weM as from the heinousness or the so reproaches or assaults against a king, or a father, are much more criminal aud'heinous than the sartre assaults or reproaches cast on an equal or an inferior ; but all sin being an offence against 'God, an infinite 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 punishment. But because the nature of a crea- ture cannot suffer infinite punishment in the intenseness of the pain, therefore lie must bear it to an infinite duration, that is, to all everlasting. 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 utmost farthing ; Mat. . ix. 15. and till he has made satisfaction to God equal to his de- mands, 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 punishment of it : But it is much easier to ridicule it than to an- swer 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 sins are equal, and will require equal punishment," for there are no different degrees of infinity, or in things which are in- finite. But our Saviour has taught us, that there are certainly various degrees of punishment as well as of sin : He assures us, that it shall be More tolerable for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha, in the day of judgment, than it shall be fiir Caper- naum and Betltsaida, where he had preached and wrought his wonders ; Luke x. 12 -15. and the reason is plain, viz. because the sins of Sodom were less than theirs. And it is very easy to answer this pretence or objection about s 3
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