If suffering was of a limited duration and conduced
to our final perfection, we could understand it, and adore the Author of
it. But who can see any beneficent design in everlasting torment?
If strict justice demands punishment of eternal duration, we would ask
why the punishment is not as a matter of necessity inflicted at once.
But we see that justice does not demand its prompt infliction. God can
wait long years before inflicting it. But if He can wait ten years, why
not a hundred? And if a hundred, why not forever?
Along the same line, we would say that an infinite penalty can never be
rendered. For infinitude has no end; and so, no matter how long the
penalty might be drawn out, there would still be an eternity to come. So
we would never come to the end of eternity; and the penalty could never
be rendered. This seems to me a strong argument against everlasting
punishment.
In the same connection I would venture the idea that sin is not an
infinite evil, and does not call for an infinite punishment. I do not
think that a finite creature like man can commit an infinite crime. The
fact that an infinite punishment cannot be rendered, seems to show that
the crime is not infinite. If not, then in justice there is no
everlasting punishment.
Coming back to matters more strictly within our grasp, I would ask what
has been so often asked: What will become of the heathen? Many of them
never had a chance to be much better than they are.
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