ruled by any possible consideration of interest; and, so to speak, infinite. And in the conscience the pure reason can impart infinity to punishment, no less than to sin. One can feel infinite ill-desert just as much as one can be infinitely ill-deserving; and when such a feeling takes the form of remorse, it is infinite punishment, if any infinity is possible within the human mind. Eternity is no more requisite for punishment than for guilt. God has not, in the constitution of the rational creature, given power to commit a sin which He can not also punish.

In judging of character, as before remarked, the will is good for the deed. The sinner is to be condemned, not for the evil he has accomplished, but for what he has wished.to do, and would have been glad to do if he could. As he is not to be thanked, so neither is he to be acquitted, on the ground that God has prevented the evil he intended, or has overruled it for good.

Hence a theodicy similar to the last, and yet distinct from it. It is commonly stated so as to embrace the tendencies of sin toward infinite evil. We give it in the words of Hopkins: "The sinner does all he can to dethrone his Maker and render Him infinitely miserable, and ruin his kingdom for ever. Every sin has a strong and mighty tendency to this, and no thanks to the sinner that this infinite evil has not been effected by his rebellion; and is his crime not so great because the evil is prevented by the infinite power and wisdom of God? He who will assert this must renounce all reason and common sense. David, inspired to imprecate punishment on the wicked, says: Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness. of their endeavors; give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.' (Psalms xxviii. 4.) . . . And God, in punishing the wicked for ever, will do no more to them than they would have done to Him, had it been in their power; surely this is a just and equitable punishment, which they fully deserve if they deserve any at all.” 1

1 Works, II. 433, 434. Compare Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 1.7. c. 15;-Witsius, 8*

All that has been said in our examination of the previous theodicy, will apply to this. Whatever is peculiar here, is built upon an IF. Infinite evil lies in the direction of the sinner's thoughts; it is his aim, the tendency of his doings; he would accomplish it, if he could. But his very conceptions fall infinitely short of his aim. The infinity with which he has to do is a name and not a thing. The suum infinitum is altogether sui generis, a mere fragment and figment of infinity. The fallacy lies in the illusion of the name.

The argument, we said, is built on a supposition; and this is apparent when it is stated in another equivalent form, thus: The sinner would abuse infinite power, IF he possessed it. In this form the argument may be answered either by a doubt, or by an extension of it. Are we sure that the sinner would abuse infinite power, and infinite sagacity, without which the power would be a brute nothing? Might he not be also wiser? Could he be so much of God without a divine goodness? Is a monster Deity conceivable? For argument's sake, grant it. Then we have only to make all the wildest possible suppositions to prove the sinner actually guilty of the four-fold infinity of evil we deduced from the last theodicy. If he were an eternal god, filling all the spheres he would not leave a point of space without its curse; therefore he is guilty of this. For, by the argument, he tends that way, power alone is wanting, and weakness is not innocence.

To measure the world's guilt now, we should need new factors of infinite arithmetic; which we trust the actual limitation of man's moral capacity will dispense with. The theodicy has a single element of truth. It expresses a just abhorrence of evil, and a corresponding horror of it as a mad fatuity that knows no law and brooks no restraint. But this only indicates its destiny. It is an old saying, "Whom the gods design to destroy, they first infatuate."

Economy of the Covenants, 1. 1, c. 5, § 40; Poole, Annotations, Matt. xxv. 46: "Every sinner hath sinned in suo infinito, for he had a will to have

sinned infinitely;" Charnock, On the Eternity of God.

§ 8. THE IMPERATIVE NATURE OF DUTY.

We have found, we think, a common measure of guilt and punishment in the conscience, as a faculty of remorse. It thus becomes possible that sin should be punished strictly according to its ill-desert; or that there should be a final retribution according to the things done in the body. But this statement gives us only half of the truth. If it were the whole, it would follow that when equal punishment has been inflicted, the sinner is released from further claim of justice; his debt is paid; punishment is atonement and expiation; he is virtually innocent, and should be acquitted accordingly. But this we know is not true; and the error is corrected by a consideration which may be wrought into a theodicy.

Duty is imperative. Its language is not that of mere counsel and advice, but of command. Man is not told simply that it is for his interest to do right, but he ought to do right. His obligation is not to himself alone; if he has any right to forego his own pleasure or interest, he has no right to omit a single duty; and no amount of enjoyment to be secured, or of pain to be avoided, can give him such right. No possible consideration of expediency can make wrong right. No compromise is possible between duty and the neglect of it. Moral law holds no parley, makes no bargain, forms no treaty stipulations, with him who refuses to obey. It sets no price on transgression. Obedience is better than any sacrifice, however great. Though one should offer thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil, or ten thousand worlds,-of wealth or of suffering, -the claim of duty would not be done away. No finite measure of penance can abrogate it. Above all bartering calculation of reward and penalty, conscience sits infinitely supreme, as the voice of God himself, telling us we have no right to lose the one, or to incur the other. Still less have we right to complain, if an undutiful curiosity respecting the measure of penalty has not been gratified, and we find it, at the last, greater than we can bear. What if it should be infinite?1

1 This was for a time the writer's own theodicy. It is perhaps implied in the

Such is the theodicy. In reply it is granted that if moral law proposed so much suffering for so much guilt, and nothing more, the penalty would not be a sanction; law would be no longer binding; the very words "law" and "duty," would lose their meaning. But this would be equally true, if the penalty were infinite. Thus, if man could be made into an infinite being, so that he could endure an infinite penalty in a moment of time, that would not restore him to innocence, or meet the demand of the law. Infinite penalty is no more a satisfaction than finite penalty. Hence we observe that the doctrine which makes Christ's sufferings an infinite satisfaction paid to God for the sins of men, does not meet the difficulty which it proposes. It is still demanded that the hearts of men should be changed; otherwise they must themselves pay the penalty of God's law over again. The reason is, penalty is not satisfaction in kind; and it can not be made so by being increased in degree, even infinitely. Penalty is sanction. Measured suffering is the mulct or fine which law imposes, which may also be warning and admonition; but it is not of the nature of payment, so that it should be any better infinite than finite. Nor does its character as a restraint of sin, constitute its proper nature; for neither the fear of eternal suffering, nor eternal suffering itself, are supposed always to restrain sin. And since suffering does not meet the ends of sanction, either as payment or as restraint, we can regard penal suffering only as an adjunct of something else which is the true penalty of law, and which, as a sanction, makes it strictly imperative. Suffering may be the interest of a debt; accruing with the long forbearance of an indulgent Creditor.

The fallacy of the theodicy lies in the confusion of the absolute with the infinite. Duty is absolute; once determined, it can be annulled by no other consideration, for it belongs to another sphere. But it is not infinite; hence it is no more girded and supported by infinite penalty, than by finite.

This is not all. As an argument for eternal suffering, the

expressions of Crousaz, Examen du Pyrrhonisme, Part II. c. 13, § 5; and of Müller, Chr. Doc. of Sin, II. 455.

theodicy involves the very difficulty which it seeks to avoid. For duty is not imperative, if in a state of punishment it may be eternally violated. Its language then is: "Obey and be happy, or disobey and suffer." Penalty is thus reduced to a tax upon sin, and is no longer a prohibition of it. It is so measured, too, according to the degree of guilt, that it does not exhaust endurance. Hence it may be, and often is, thought of, as consisting with a measure of happiness. By some it is doubted whether the "eternal punishment" is not a mere diminution of eternal joy, in a state of salvation. And with this agrees the "ethical theology" now so prevalent, of which hereafter. Whereas, the real mandate of Duty,-" Obey and live,”-in making death the penalty of sin, finds a sanction agreeing with its proper nature, cuts off the power of persistent transgression, and secures itself from eternal outrage.

$ 9. HISTORICAL ETERNITY OF SIN.

The unchangeable nature of right has been wrought into various forms of theodicy. The divine Law is eternal. Human guilt is eternal, historically, at least, if not in the evil effects of it. Hence we are told: "The criminality and the guilt of a crime must continue as long as the crime continues, or till it ceases to be a crime, or becomes an innocent action. But can murder, for instance, which is a crime in the very nature of things, ever become a virtue? Can time, or obedience, or sufferings, or even a divine declaration, alter its nature, and render it an innocent action? Virtue and vice, sin and holiness, are founded in the nature of things, and so must remain for ever immutable. Hence that which was once virtuous will for ever be virtuous; that which was once vicious will for ever be vicious; and that which once deserved punishment will for ever deserve punishment. Now if neither the nature of sin can be changed, nor the guilt of it be taken away, then the damned, who have once deserved punishment, will for ever deserve it, and consequently God may, in point of justice, punish them to