Divine punishment

“ PUNISHMENT, like a shadow, follows all sin, whether mortal or venial, and it is not usually remitted to the full when forgiveness is obtained. Eternal punishment, incurred by mortal sin, is always remitted with the guilt, but some temporal punishment generally remains due to the justice of GOD. This temporal punishment is inflicted by GOD either in this life or in Purgatory; but a man may anticipate the divine justice by works of penance, or by means of Indulgences. ”

“ The eternity of the reward and punishment is not only an expression of the sanctity of the law, but of the divine respect for it, and leads its subjects to reverence it that they may enjoy its benefits and escape its condemnations forever. So that eternal punishment is adapted to awaken pleasure and gratitude rather than shame and horror, and needs no sentimental theodicy of human contrivance to justify it or to reconcile it with divine or human nature. ”

“ The immediate connection of sin and punishment is the teaching intended by this close juxtaposition of these two halves of our narrative. However long the chastisement may be in bursting, the divine resolve to send it is instantaneously consequent on the crime. The chain that binds departure from God with loss of blessing may be of many or few links, but it is riveted on when the evil is done. ”

“ May it not hence be argued that, as among men the punishment of the guilty has not for its purpose the infliction of pain and penalty, but rather is the means employed to the end that laws may be obeyed, so the end of divine punishment is for correction, and for {72} giving effect to and establishing the law of universal righteousness. ”

“ Convinced as he is that all punishment, as we see it wrought out in the order of nature, is but a disguised beneficence, there will perhaps escape from him an angry condemnation of the belief that punishment is a divine vengeance, and that divine vengeance is eternal. ”

“ I say there is no punishment of sin in the sense in which the word "punishment" is usually employed. We are accustomed to think of punishment as a sentence imposed by some authority from without and containing within itself some element of vengeance for wrong-doing. But in the divine dealings with men such punishment has never existed and never will. What has already been said in a previous chapter on the subject of pain should help to make this statement plain. ”

“ Punishment is the constitutional reaction of God's being against moral evil—the self-assertion of infinite holiness against its antagonist and would-be destroyer. In God this demand is devoid of all passion, and is consistent with infinite benevolence. It is a demand that cannot be evaded, since the holiness from which it springs is unchanging. The atonement is therefore a satisfaction of the ethical demand of the divine nature, by the substitution of Christ's penal sufferings for the punishment of the guilty. ”

“ Punishment for Sin.—As rewards for righteous deeds are proportionate to deserving acts, so the punishment prescribed for sin is made adequate to the offence. [148] Punishment is inflicted upon the sinner, for disciplinary and reformatory purposes, and in support of justice. There is nothing of vindictiveness or of desire to cause suffering in the Divine nature ”

“ Since they do these things, it is certain that they will be destroyed. This is to know the punishment in the cause, and it is as though she had said: It is certain that such sins must be the cause of such punishments, at the hand of God Who is most just. And as the Divine Wisdom says: Per quae quis peccat, per haec et torquetur. [10] With respect to that and for that wherein a man sins, therein is he punished.
10. The devil may have knowledge of this, not only naturally, but also by the experience which he has of having seen God do similar things, and he can foretell it and do so correctly. ”

“ The most weighty arguments deducible from the divine nature have been already offered, to wit, ultimate end of God, in creation and providence, to do the greatest possible good and benignity to beings in general, and consequently, that the great end and design of punishment, in the divine government, must be to reclaim, restore, and bring revolters from original rectitude back to embrace it and to be ultimately happy; as also, that an eternal punishment, would defeat the very end and design of punishment itself ”

“ That by sin we contract a heavy debt of punishment, both temporal and eternal, due to the Divine justice. (3.) That our repentance for sin is not sincere, neither will it obtain the remission of the guilt of sin, nor of the eternal punishment due to it, unless it be accompanied with a sincere will and resolution to discharge the debt of temporal punishment by doing penance. ”

“ But the other error of making God, or God’s ministers in his behalf, through vengeance of past sins, and not merely for the correction of the offence, insist upon penal satisfactions from those who, with true repentance, and with faith in Christ, have forsaken their sins, as though the vicarial punishment inflicted upon the Son of God were not sufficient to satisfy the Divine vengeance, is left, and must needs be left, untouched. ”

“ Further, a sin does not deserve greater punishment through being united to another sin; for Divine justice has allotted its punishment to each sin. Now a venial sin deserves eternal punishment if it be united to a mortal sin in a lost soul, because in hell there is no remission of sins. ”

“ Because God teaches His people and seeks by means of chastisements to bring them back to the good way when they fail to keep His commandments, He must forgive when they recognise the punishment as a divine chastisement and come to Him with penitential prayer. ”

“ Let us consider the proportion of the punishment to the guilt, before we inflict the sentence. Acting as Christians, let us consider how great is our crime, if as the English law directs, we send men unshrived by repentance of their sins into another world in despair. For how must these criminals think of their crimes? If man, they will say, if man, weak, frail, and mortal as he is, punishes with the greatest severity he can inflict, these crimes; if man, sinful man, acts thus, they will say, how will God, who knows not human weakness, who is justice itself, how will he look upon our sins? ”

“ Thou knowest the punishment awarded to those guilty of sin such as this of which thou art accused—it is death, death of torture—to be burned at the stake, and the body to be scattered to the winds of heaven. ”

“ Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure, swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment. Not "Forgive us our sins," but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the prayer of a man to a most just God. ”

“ Chapter XL. Such is our doctrine of punishment; and the inculcation of this doctrine turns many from their sins. But let us see, on the other hand, what is the response given on this subject by the priest of Jupiter or Apollo of whom Celsus speaks. It is this: “The mills of God grind slowly.” [1637] Another describes punishment as reaching “to children’s children, and to those who came after them.” [1638] How much better are those words of Scripture: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” ”

“ I can understand temporary punishment, but not everlasting punishment; that would resolve itself simply into revenge, a feeling that the Creator is incapable of harboring. No, sir, I believe there is a punishment for sin, but not an everlasting one. I believe in the harmony of Nature, and that its laws are inexorable. They cannot be infringed without suffering. I do not believe in the forgiveness of sins."
"Do not believe in the forgiveness of sins! Have you no faith, doctor?" ”

“ But why did He show them the wounds in His hands and side? To make it plain that He bore all the penalty of sin. Some speak about sin as if it were only a mistake, but God says sin is guilt, and that all are guilty, for all have sinned. We have offended against God's holy law, and if any one breaks the law he brings upon himself the penalty. God says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" [Footnote: Ezek. xviii. 20.] so the penalty we deserve is death, everlasting punishment. The penalty must be paid by some one. God's justice demands it. ”

“ But Christians, mistaking the name of the punishment for the sign of its duration, taught that men were punished eternally for the sins committed in this life. Then again God's punishment is eternal; that is, it always exists; it is eternal as God is, but the transgressor receives only so much of it, endures it only so long as may be necessary to satisfy the reasonable claims of justice, tempered with mercy. Then, when the insulted law is vindicated, the offender is released from the punishment. ”

“ Suffering is first of all deserved, and this justifies its infliction. But it is at the beginning accompanied with all manner of alleviating influences which tend to draw men back to God. As these gracious influences are resisted, the punitive element becomes preponderating, and penalty reflects God's holiness rather than his love. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 1-25—“Pain is not the immediate object of punishment. It must be a means to an end, a moral end, namely, penitence. But where the depraved man becomes a human tiger, there punishment must reach its culmination. ”

“ Now men were held fast by the debt of punishment in two ways: first of all for actual sin which each had committed personally: secondly, for the sin of the whole human race, which each one in his origin contracts from our first parent, as stated in Rom. 5 of which sin the penalty is the death of the body as well as exclusion from glory, as is evident from Gen. 2 and 3: because God cast out man from paradise after sin, having beforehand threatened him with death should he sin. ”

“ But if we are punished for voluntary sins, we are punished not that the sins which are done may be undone, but because they were done. But punishment does not avail to him who has sinned, to undo his sin, but that he may sin no more, and that no one else fall into the like. ”

“ Thus Clement: “As children at the hands of their teacher or father, so also are we punished by Providence. God does not avenge Himself, for vengeance is to repay evil by evil, but His punishment aims at our good.” “Although a punishment, it is an emendation of the soul.” “The training which men call punishments.” [256] And Origen: “The fury of God’s vengeance profits unto the purification of souls; the punishment is unto purgation. ”

“ Thus her ordinary teaching is: “Those who are found, at the moment of death, with a will determined to sin, have with them an infinite degree of guilt, and the punishment is without end”; “the sweet goodness of God sheds the rays of His mercy even into Hell: since He might most justly have given to the souls there a far greater punishment than He has.” “At death God exercises His justice, yet not without mercy; since even in Hell the soul does not suffer as much as it deserves.” ”

“ But as we cannot think that God will punish everlastingly a person who dies burdened with the guilt of venial sin only, it may be an "idle word," it is reasonable to infer that the punishment rendered to that person in the next world will be only temporary. ”

“ Is punishment a degradation to a nature which, is so self-degraded as to be incapable of being moved by anything better? For this is the real degradation which we should avoid; not the fear of punishment, which is not at all degrading, but the being insensible to the love of Christ and of goodness; and so being capable of receiving no other motive than the fear of punishment alone. With such natures, to withhold punishment, would be indeed to make Christ the minister of sin; to make mercy, that is, lead to evil, and not to good. For them, the law never is dead, and never will be. ”

“ The arguments advanced for purgatory by the papists are these: Every sin, how slight soever, though no more than an idle word, as it is an offence to God, deserves punishment from him, and will be punished by him hereafter, if not cancelled by repentance here. 2. Such small sins do not deserve eternal punishment. ”

“ When the stain is removed, the wound of sin is healed as regards the will. But punishment is still requisite in order that the other powers of the soul be healed, since they were so disordered by the sin committed, so that, to wit, the disorder may be remedied by the contrary of that which caused it. Moreover punishment is requisite in order to restore the equality of justice, and to remove the scandal given to others, so that those who were scandalized at the sin many be edified by the punishment, as may be seen in the example of David quoted above. ”

“ It’s an inevitable law also that punishment follows sin—not in the next world only, if there be one, but here. I should be wanting in something, failing to carry out what I have so often preached and written, if I did not recognise that punishment must follow your sin, and that you—poor frail mortal that you are—have inevitably and unconsciously rushed upon your own punishment. ”

“ Original sin incurs everlasting punishment, not on account of its gravity, but by reason of the condition of the subject, viz. a human being deprived of grace, without which there is no remission of sin. ”

“ However, whatever we may say of the fire that torments the separated souls, we must admit that the fire which will torment the bodies of the damned after the resurrection is corporeal, since one cannot fittingly apply a punishment to a body unless that punishment itself be bodily. ”