a single
day a government; especially if that government were vast in extent and
involved stupendous interests. But if suffering for a single day may be
justified on such a ground, then the exigencies of such a government for
two days would justify a punishment for two days; and so on _ad
infinitum_. Hence, the doctrine of eternal punishments in common with the
eternal moral government of God, is not a greater anomaly than temporal
punishments in relation to temporal governments. If we reject the one, we
must also reject the other. Indeed, when we consider not only the eternal
duration, _but also the universal extent_, of the divine government, the
argument in question, if good for anything, presses with greater force
against the little, insignificant governments of men, than against the
moral government of God. One reason why Foster was "repelled into doubt by
the infinite horrors of the tenet" is, that he merely contemplated the
sufferings of the guilty, and saw not how those sufferings were connected
with the majesty and glory of God's universal and eternal empire. It is as
if an insect should undertake to set bounds to the punishments which human
beings have found necessary to meet the exigencies and uphold the
interests of human society.

We are told by writers on jurisprudence, that penalties should be
proportioned to offences; but, as has been truly said, how this proportion
is to be ascertained, or on what principles it is to be adjusted, we are
seldom informed. We are usually left to vague generalities, which convey
no definite information, and furnish no satisfactory guidance to our
minds. If we can ascertain the precise conditions according to which this
principle should be adjusted, even by goodness itself, we shall then be
the better able to determine whether the eternal suffering of the guilty
and impenitent is not a manifestation of the love of God,--of that _tender
mercy which is over all his works_.

It is a maxim that punishment should be sufficient to accomplish the great
end for which it is imposed, namely, the prevention of offences.
Otherwise, if it failed to accomplish this object, "it would be so much
suffering in waste."(205) Now, who can say that the penalty of eternal
death is not necessary to this end in the moral government of the
universe, or that it is greater than is necessary for its accomplishment?
Who can say that a punishment for a limited period would have answered
that end in a gr