When we say the justice of God is exhibited in punishment, it is as much as to say that he causes unhappiness to follow upon moral evil, in order to convince men that he disapproves of disobedience to his commands. Nectit commoda bono, sive recte factis; incommodo malo, sive male factis.

1. The ends of God in punishing.

God punishes, (a) in order to prevent or diminish moral evil, with reference therefore to the good of the whole, and of particular individuals. 1 Cor. xi. 32, Kpevóμɛvoi vяò Kvpíov παιδευόμεθα, ἵνα μὴ σὺν τῷ κόσμῳ κατακριθώμεν i. e., the divine punishments suspended over us are intended for our improvement, and unless, warned by them, we really become better, we shall fail of eternal blessedness, and share the fate of the unbelieving world. Isaiah, xxvi. 9, When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabit- | ants will learn righteousness. Ps. cxix. 67, Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy law, lest I should draw upon myself additional afflictions. Ver. 71, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. God punishes (b) in order to shew that sin is displeasing to him, and that only the truly obedient can count upon his approbation; in order, therefore, to preserve inviolate among men the authority of his benevolent laws, intended for their best good. And since nothing can be more important or desirable to men than the approbation of God, he is actuated by the same benevolence in punishing with this intent as with the former. The Bible teaches us that God has this end in view in the punishments which he inflicts, by saying, he will be sanctified by means of his judgments, Lev. x. 3. This is the same as to say that by punishing men he designs to be seen and acknowledged by them as a holy God, or as one who disapproves of wickedness. The same thing is taught in Rom. i. 18, ̓Αποκαλύπτεται ὀργὴ Θεοῦ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων. But the justice of God also requires that as he rewards the good which others do to us (s. 30), he should also punish the evil which they bring upon us, (2 Thess. i. 6, 7; Ps. ix. 5, seq.; and this is

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Thus it appears that the true final cause of the divine judgments upon men is their moral improvement; and in this respect it may be said, with entire truth, that the penal justice of God is his goodness, wisely proportioned to the capacity of its objects. But it is not the improvement of those only whom he punishes which God intends in the judgments which he inflicts, but that of others also, who may take warning from these examples. So that even should God fail of his object in reforming the offender himself, he would still benefit others who might witness the punishments inflicted upon him. Vide Ps. 1. 16, seq.; lii. 6, seq.; Rom. ii. 4-6; 2 Pet. ii. iii.; 1 Cor. x. 11, Now all these punishments were inflicted upon the Israelites as examples (runo, see ver. 6) to us, who live in the latest period of the world, (in New-Testament times.) Some think, with Michaelis, (Gedanken über die Lehre der heiligen Schrift von der Sünde, u. s. w. Göttingen, 1779, 8vo,) that the final cause of the divine judgments is not so much to benefit and reform the offender, as to terrify and deter others from the commission of crime. Michaelis does not indeed deny that punishment might be made to promote the reformation of those who are the subjects of it; but he still thinks that the great end which is contemplated by all judicatories in the punishments which they inflict is to terrify and deter from crime, sometimes the malefactor himself, as well as others, but more frequently others only, who may witness his punishment. And this is indeed true with regard to human judicatories, which have no such means of punishment within their power as are calculated for the reformation of the culprit, and can therefore only hold him forth as an example for the warning of others; but this is an imperfection which is inevitable to these judicatories as human, and ought not therefore to be transferred to the divine government. It is in consequence of this imperfection incident to human judicatories, by which they are driven to consult for the good of the whole, exclusive of that of the criminal, that they must often inflict upon him severer penalties than his own benefit would require, merely for the sake of the salutary influence of his punishment on the minds of others. That they are thus compelled to sacrifice an individual to the general good is certainly an evidence of imperfection. Just at that point where punishment ceases to be salutary to the person who endures it, however salutary it may be to others as an examplejust at that point does it become an evidence of the ignorance and imperfection of those by whom it is inflicted. But how can we suppose

sure in what is morally evil. This necessary love to what is morally perfect is, then, the last ground of the divine justice. But in order to be consistent, he must act according to this love, and exhibit to the view of his moral creatures his approbation of good and disapprobation of evil; and this is the last end of the retribution which he awards. And if there were no reformation of the individual offender, no warning of others, or any objective ground for the exercise of retributive justice, there would be sufficient ground for all that God does either to punish or reward, in his own absolute love of moral good and hatred of moral evil. The representations of the Bible would certainly lead us to think that the feelings which prompt him in the punishment of the wicked are, his holy disapprobation of their conduct-his necessary hatred of their moral character. And when we enter into the feelings of the guilty subject of the divine judgments, does he not find reason enough in his own ill-desert for all which God inflicts upon him; and would not all which he endures be sufficiently understood by him, if no advantage to himself or others occurred to his mind? The justice of God is an absolute attribute, and demands itself to be satisfied; and moral evil has a real, intrinsic ill-desert, and ought to be punished. That God has sometimes the reformation of the offender in view in the punishment which he inflicts, and that he seeks the moral perfection of men in the displays of his attributes, is perfectly true; these ends, however, so far from being the only or the highest reasons of retribution, are subordinate to the satisfaction of divine justice.-TR.]

theory on this subject, with which the Bible agrees, such positive divine judgments are inflicted by God, on account of the inadequacy of natural judgments alone to effect the moral improvement of men, and to deter them from sin. In order, therefore, to preserve inviolate the authority of his law, he connected positive judgments with the natural consequences of sin, which alone were insufficient for this purpose. In the infliction of these arbitrary sufferings, he is governed by the rules of infinite wisdom and love, and not by blind caprice.

Positive punishments are divided into present and future. The present are those which take place in this life; and in proof of them we may refer to the passages of the Old Testament where they are threatened to the disobedient Israelites-e. g., 2 Sam. xii. 10, 11, 14; Acts, v. 5, 9; 1 Cor. vi. 3-5.

Future positive punishments are those which are threatened in the next world. From many expressions of the New Testament we are undoubtedly led to expect positive punishments in the future world. Cf. Art. xv. It must certainly be considered inconsistent for any one to object to positive punishments in another world who expects positive rewards. Such an one has certainly very much the appearance of conforming his belief to his wishes, and of admitting positive rewards because he desires them, and denying positive punishments because he fears them.

It was with reference to the positive punishments of sin that the atonement of Christ was principally made; for the natural consequences of sin are not wholly removed by virtue of his

(a) Natural-i. e., such unhappy consequences as flow from the internal nature of sinful actions; incommoda necessaria malo, sive male factis, nexa, as Morus describes them. These, like natural rewards, have their ground in the wise constitution which God himself has given to the natural world. That natural punishments are really inflicted is shewn by daily experience. Sin everywhere draws upon itself remorse, disgrace, bodily disease, &c. And these natural consequences of sin, like the natural consequences of virtue, are greater than is commonly supposed, and often unlimited in their extent, as will be hereafter shewn in connexion with the doctrine of endless future punishment. "Sin punishes itself."

(b) Positive, arbitrary-i. e., such as stand in no natural and necessary connexion with the sinful actions of men, or which do not flow from the internal nature of such actions, but are connected with them by the mere will of the legislator, and are additional to the natural consequences of sin. According to the common

sinner in consequence of his vices do not wholly cease, though they may indeed be abated and alleviated by his becoming a sincere believer in Christ as the Saviour of the world. Those who deny the existence of positive punishments hereafter consider that Christ by his atonement has freed us merely from the fear of punishment a notion which is inconsistent with the declarations of the New Testament, as will be shewn in the Article respecting Christ.

In speaking of the positive divine judgments which take place in this life, the teacher of religion is liable to do injury, and should therefore wisely consider his words. It is true, doubtless, that positive punishments do take place in the present world; but it is also true that we are unable, in given cases, to determine decisively whether the sufferings which we witness are, or are not, positive judgments from the hand of God. To consider plague, famine, and physical evils of every sort befalling an individual or nation as in every case the consequence of moral evil, is an error to which the multitude is much inclined. They frequently refer in these cases

to the very sins which have occasioned these divine judgments, as they denominate the calamities which befall their fellow men. And this injurious prejudice has been not a little strengthened by the incautious manner in which the teachers of religion have sometimes spoken on this subject. It is perfectly right to consider pestilence in general as a divine judgment, and for the religious teacher, during such visitations from God, to remind men of their sins; but it is not right to pronounce, as it were, a definite judicial sentence upon the guilt of a particular person or country visited in such a manner. Experience and scripture both disapprove of this; for we often see that these calamities cease before the alleged cause of them is removed; and they befall the good and bad equally, and without distinction. As God causes the sun to shine and the rain to descend upon the evil and the good, so he sends tempest, flood, and conflagration, upon one as well as the other. Indeed, the best men often suffer, while the worst prosper; from which the fair conclusion is, that nothing can be determined concerning the moral character of men from the allotment of their external circumstances. Vide No. I. of this section. The sacred writers concur entirely in these views. The friends of Job concluded from his bodily ills that he must have committed great sins; but Job shews (v. 10, 12) that God often visits persons with sufferings which are not occasioned by their sins. Christ says, Luke, xiii. 2, 4, that the Galileans whom Pilate had caused to be executed at Jerusalem, and the eighteen men upon whom a tower had fallen, were not sinners more than others because they had suffered these things. He corrected his disciples when they ascribed the misfortune of the man born blind to the sin of his parents, and taught them that they ought not to conclude that particular misfortunes were the sure consequence of particular crimes, John, ix. 3. Those who advocate the practice to which allusion has been made cannot justly plead in their defence the passages in the Old Testament, where pest, famine, failure of the harvest, destruction by enemies, and various other positive punishments in this life are frequently threatened for certain definite transgressions of the divine commands; for we have now no prophets to come forth among us, as among the Israelites, as the messengers and authorized ambassadors of God. The civil government of the Israelites was theocratic-i. e., God was acknowledged by the Israelites to be their civil ruler; and the leaders of their armies, their earthly kings, their priests and prophets, were considered by them as his authorized servants. Hence all their laws were published in the name of God-i. e., at the divine command, and under the divine authority. And in the same manner the temporal rewards connected

with obedience, and the temporal punishments connected with disobedience, were announced as coming from him. From what has been said, we draw the conclusion, that external blessings or calamities are not to be considered in particular cases as the reward of good actions, or the punishment of bad, except where God has expressly declared that these very blessings, or these very calamities, are allotted to this individual person, on account of the good or bad action specified; as Lev. xxvi., Deut. xxviii., Revelation, ii. 22, 23. Additional remarks concerning natural and positive punishments will be made in the Article on Sin, s. 86, 87.

APPENDIX.

SECT. XXXII.

OF THE DECREES OF GOD.

THE doctrine of the divine decrees depends upon the freedom of the will of God, and upon his wisdom, goodness, and justice. It may therefore properly succeed the discussion of these subjects in the foregoing sections.

I. General Statement, and Scholastic Divisions.

1. Definition of the decrees of God. By these we mean, the will of God that anything should come into existence, or be accomplished, (Morus, p. 51,) or, the free determinations of God respecting the existence of any object extrinsic to himself.

2. The nature and attributes of the divine decrees. These are the same as were ascribed to the divine will, because the decrees of God are only expressions of his will. The decrees of God are, properly speaking, (a) only one single decree. They were all made at one and the same time. Before we can come to a determination of the will, it is often necessary for us to institute laborious investigations and inquiries, since we cannot survey all the reasons on both sides of a subject at a single glance. And it is on account of this limitation of our understandings that all our determinations are successive. But no such succession takes place in the mind of God; he knows all things at once. Vide s. 22. And so, properly speaking, the decree to make the world, and every single decree respecting everything which exists, or has been done in it from the beginning, are only one entire decree. But we represent to our minds as many different decrees as there are particulars comprehended in this one universal decree. (b) The divine decrees are free. Nothing can compel God to decree what is contrary to his will or understanding. His decrees, however, though free, are never blind and groundless.