294 THE WORLD TO COME. offenders, ¡whether they return to him by repentance or no. What ! may the criminal rebel creature with impudence and spite affront the Creator infinitely, and must not the Creator have a right to demand equal vengeance? No, he must not, according to these writers : For if the essential goodness of God do certainly forbid eternal punishments, these absurdities, as gross as they appear, will be the necessary consequents of it And though the creature be not restrained from sinning, yet the blessed God will be utterly restrained from punishing: And is this a doctrine fit to be believed by christians, or to be taught by those who have no commission for it from their bible ? Or indeed, will the light of nature and reason ever justify and support this sort of pleading ? Objection the sixth is drawn from the wisdom of God in his government of the world. Surely, will the sinner say, it was for some valuable end that Gòd at first pronounced punishment to attend the sins of his creatures, for he does not afflict willingly nor delight to grieve the children of men ; Lain. iii. 23. His design must be therefore one of these two things ; either to cor- rect and reform the sinners whom he punishes, and reduce them to their duty, in order to partake of his mercy ; or else it must be to maintain a public monument and demonstration of his jus- tice, and to support the authority of his law, and honour of his government, that he might deter other creatures from sinning against him : But when this world is come to its period, and his governing providence over it is finished, and all the means of grace are ended, the first end, viz. correction, and refor- mation ceases : 'There is no more hope of reforming such sinners as these. And what further need can there be of the secondary design of punishment, viz. the demonstration of his justice in so terrible a manner to restrain others from sinning, when the state of our trial is ended, and all mankind are sent either to heaven or hell Answer I. I might here reply, by way of concession, that if there were no other intelligent creatures to be witnesses of these eternal demonstrations of God's holiness, his justice, and his hatred of sin and if God himself was the only being who knew of these eternal punishments, I acknowledge I cannot see sufficient reason for this endless duration of them ; I cannot give any probable account why creatures who are never to be corrected and reformed, should be tormented for ever in secret; God per - fectly knows his holiness and justice without such monuments of it ; and since he has asserted this punishment, I think there must be some creatures to receive a moral influence from the knowledge of it. II. When there is a representation made of the punishment of the worshippers of the beast in Rev. xiv. 10, 11. that they
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