Sixthly, I answer, It is no injustice in God, to punish temporal §6offences with perpetual torments. God measureth the punishment, by the greatness of the offence, and not by the time wherein the sin was acted. Murder, Adultery, Sacrilege, Treason, and the like capital crimes, are doomed in the Judicatories of men, to death without mercy, and sometimes to perpetual imprisonment, or to perpetual banishment; and yet these high offences were committed and done in a short time. Now this bears a proportion with eternal torments. O Sirs, if the offences committed against God, be infinitely heinous, why may not the punishment be infinitely lasting. Sinners offences, as ⟨p. 130⟩Austin well observes, are not to be measured temporis longitudine, 1by the length of time wherein they were done: but iniquitatis magnitudine, by the foulness of the crime: and if so, then God is just in binding the sinner in everlasting chains. We must remember, that God is a great and a glorious God, and that he is an omniscient and an omnipotent God, and that he is a mighty, yea, an almighty God, and that he is a •oly and a just God, and that he is (out of Christ) an incomprehensible, incommunicable, and very terrible God, and that he is an infinite, eternal, and independent God. And 2we must remember, that man is a shadow, a bubble, a vapour, a dream, a base, vile, sinful, worthless Worm. Now these things being considered, must we not confess, that eternity it self, is too short a space, for God to revenge himself on sinners in. But,
Sixthly, I answer, It is no injustice in God, to punish temporal §6offences with perpetual torments. God measureth the punishment, by the greatness of the offence, and not by the time wherein the sin was acted. Murder, Adultery, Sacriledge, Treason, and the like capital crimes, are doomed in the Judicatories of men, to death without mercy, and sometimes to perpetual imprisonment, or to perpetual banishment; and yet these high offences were committed and done in a short time. Now this bears a proportion with eternal torments. O Sirs, if the offences committed against God, be infinitely heinous, why may not the punishment be infinitely lasting. Sinners offences, as ⟨p. 130⟩Austin well observes, are not to be measured temporis longitudine, 1by the length of time wherein they were done: but iniquitatis magnitudine, by the foulness of the crime: and if so, then God is just in binding the sinner in everlasting chains. We must remember, that God is a great and a glorious God, and that he is an omniscient and an omnipotent God, and that he is a mighty, yea, an almighty God, and that he is a •oly and a just God, and that he is (out of Christ) an incomprehensible, incommunicable, and very terrible God, and that he is an infinite, eternal, and independent God. And 2we must remember, that man is a shaddow, a bubble, a vapour, a dream, a base, vile, sinful, worthless Worm. Now these things being considered, must we not confess, that eternity it self, is too short a space, for God to revenge himself on sinners in. But,
- 1Aug. de C•v•t. D••, l. 1. c. 11.
- 2Heb. 12. 29. 30.
