It has always been a
mystery how the good can be happy when conscious that those whom they
loved are in everlasting torment. Some have even tried to believe that
they would rise to God's own point of view, and survey with complacency
the utmost torments of the dammed!
When I was a child I often heard the dictum from the pulpit that "the
nature that sinned must suffer." Therefore, it was said that our Lord
took our humanity in order that He might suffer in our nature. I have
believed since that if He had suffered in any other nature, His
suffering would be no less efficacious. I believe that the merit of His
suffering could be transferred to any other world that needs it, be the
inhabitants human or otherwise, and be their sin what it may. I think it
is not for us to limit that merit to our own race. But we need not
follow that point farther now.
I often heard another dictum, and one of more importance, that I feel
inclined to question. It was said that sin committed against God is an
infinite evil, because God is infinitely holy. Therefore, it was argued,
that sin deserves infinite punishment; but that as finite beings we
cannot render an infinite penalty in point of quality, we must render it
in point of duration; hence the justice of everlasting punishment.
I confess that to me all this show of logic items act much more than a
play upon words.
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