nto the world was born under
the law, and as such was bound, under pain of eternal damnation, to
fulfil completely and continually every one of the Ten Commandments.
The Bible said plainly, 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in
all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' 'The
soul that sinneth it shall die.' The Ten Commandments extended into
many more, and to fail in a single one was as fatal as to break them
all. A man might go on for a long time, for sixty years perhaps,
without falling. Bunyan does not mean that anyone really could do all
this, but he assumes the possibility; yet he says if the man slipped
once before he died, he would eternally perish. The law does not refer
to words and actions only, but to thoughts and feelings. It followed
a man in his prayers, and detected a wandering thought. It allowed no
repentance to those who lived and died under it. If it was asked
whether God could not pardon, as earthly judges pardon criminals, the
answer was, that it is not the law which is merciful to the earthly
offender but the magistrate. The law is an eternal principle. The
magistrate may forgive a man without exacting satisfaction. The law
knows no forgiveness. It can be as little changed as an axiom of
mathematics. Repentance cannot undo the past. Let a man leave his sins
and live as purely as an angel all the rest of his life, his old
faults remain in the account against him, and his state is as bad as
ever it was. God's justice once offended knows not pity or compassion,
but runs on the offender like a lion and throws him into prison, there
to lie to all eternity unless infinite satisfaction be given to it.
And that satisfaction no son of Adam could possibly make.

This conception of Divine justice, not as a sentence of a judge, but
as the action of an eternal law, is identical with Spinoza's. That
every act involves consequences which cannot be separated from it, and
may continue operative to eternity, is a philosophical position which
is now generally admitted. Combined with the traditionary notions of a
future judgment and punishment in hell, the recognition that there was
a law in the case and that the law could not be broken, led to the
frightful inference that each individual was liable to be kept alive
and tortured through all eternity. And this, in fact, was the fate
really in store for every human creature unless some extraordinary
remedy could be found. Bunyan would allow n