2. If it be inconsistent with the justice of God that men should perish for their sins, then redemption is not a matter of grace, or undeserved mercy. Deliverance from an unjust penalty, is a matter of justice. Nothing, however, is plainer from the teach- ing of Scripture, and nothing is more universally and joyfully acknowledged by all Christians, than that the whole plan of re- demption, the mission, the incarnation, and the sufferings and death of the Son of God for the salvation of sinners, is a wonder- ful exhibition of the love of God which passes knowledge. But if justice demand that all men should be saved, then salvation is a matter of justice ; and then all the songs of gratitude and praise from the redeemed, whether in heaven or on earth, must at once cease.
3. It is often said that sin is an infinite evil because committed against a person of infinite dignity, and therefore deserves .an infinite penalty. To this it is answered, that as sin is an act or state of a finite subject, it must of necessity be itself finite. Men are apt to involve themselves in contradictions when they attempt to reason about the infinite. The word is so vague and so com- prehensive, and our ideas of what it is intended to express are so inadequate, that we are soon lost when we seek to make it a guide in forming our judgments. If the evil of a single sin, and that the smallest, lasts forever, it is in one sense an infinite evil, al- though in comparison with other sins, or with the whole mass of sin ever committed, it may appear a mere trifle. The guilt of sin is infinite in the sense that we can set no limits to its turpi- tude or to the evil which it is adapted to produce.
4. Relief on this subject is sought from the consideration that as the lost continue to sin forever they may justly be punished forever. To this, however, it is answered that the retributions of