h great severity; but by his extremely contracted and feeble
faculties, as the lowest in the scale of strictly rational and accountable
creatures in the whole creation, he is _infinitely incapable_ of any
adequate conception of the greatness of the Being offended against. He is
then, according to the argument, obnoxious to a punishment not in any
proportion to his own nature, but alone to that infinity of the supreme
nature, which is to him infinitely inconceivable and unknown."(198)

This answer alone, though perhaps not the best which might be made, we
deem amply sufficient. Indeed, does not the position, that a man, a poor,
weak, fallible creature, deserves an infinite punishment, an eternity of
torments, for each evil thought or word, carry its own refutation along
with it? And if not, what are we to think of that attribute of justice,
which demands an eternity to inflict the infinite pangs due to a single
sin? Is it a quality to inspire the soul with a rational worship, or to
fill it with a horror which casteth out love?

Another argument to show the infinite ill-desert of some men, is drawn
from the _scientia media Dei_. It is said, that if God foresaw that if
they had been placed in various other circumstances, and surrounded by
other temptations, their dispositions and character would have induced
them to commit other sins; for which they are, therefore, as really
responsible as if they had actually committed them. If this be a correct
principle, it is easy, we must admit, to render each individual of the
human race responsible for a greater number of sins than have ever been
committed, or than could ever have been committed by all the actual
dwellers upon the face of the earth. Nay, by such a process of
multiplication, it would be easy to spread the guilt of a single soul over
every point of infinite space, and every moment of eternal duration. But
such a principle is more than questionable. To say nothing of its
intrinsic deformity, it is refuted by the consequences to which it leads.
We want arguments on this subject, that will give the mind, not horrid
caricatures of the divine justice, but such views of that sublime
attribute as will inspire us with sentiments of admiration and love, as
well as with a godly fear and wholesome awe.

Section II.

The unsound principles from which, if true, the fallacy of the eternity of
future punishments may be clearly inferred.

It