Look at the question of proportion from another point. Here is a man who has sustained an unspotted reputation for half a century. He has been regarded as a pattern of benevolence, and his credit is unquestioned. But he is proved guilty of crime. The criminal had no idea that his crime was known, but it is made public. How does society treat that splendid reputation, which was fifty years in building? Does it deduct but one day from the fifty years of reputation, and regard the crime as but a spot on the disk of a brilliant life? Does it not rather raze the very foundations of the structure that was fifty years in building, and forgets half a century of unchallenged life in one day's discovered villainy? All actions are influential. What is done in an hour may affect society through many generations.
Punishment is not regenerative. A felon who has undergone a term of imprisonment may leave the prison as great a criminal as when he entered it. The fact of his imprisonment does not make him an honest man. Hell itself, if intermediate instead of final, would not convert men to Christianity.
2. It has been urged that, as virtue is its own reward, and vice its own punishment, the criminal is sufficiently punished while upon earth, and need not, therefore, have hell superadded. If the argument is valid in relation to hell, it is equally valid in relation to heaven. The logic which closes hell annihilates heaven. If vice is its own punishment, why should the thief be imprisoned, or the murderer executed? Why not leave the criminal simply to his own remorse of conscience? The fact is, by the repetition of crime conscience becomes hardened, and the old criminal suffers less compunction for murder than the young offender does for some petty theft.
3. It is urged that God should issue a universal amnesty; that he should open every prison-door in the universe; that he should say to lost men, "You are forgiven;" and to devils, "You are free." It is contended that this would be magnanimity worthy of a God. But it must be remembered that amnesty, in itself, would work no moral change. Would the thief and the murderer become virtuous members of society by being simply liberated from jail? Does their moral character depend upon which side of the prison-door they are? Would a devil be any less a devil on one side of a prison-door than on another? It is not the door that makes the devil. Forgiveness requires the consent of two parties. An enemy can not by any so-called act of forgiveness be turned into a friend. A man may excuse an offense against himself, but he has no power to excuse an offense against righteousness. He may rise superior to mere personal considerations, but if he trifle with the demands of morality, which alone can make personal considerations of any consequence, his so-called forgiveness is a sin. Hence it appears that even God himself can not forgive a sinner, apart from certain conditions which the sinner himself must supply.
4. It is suggested that a second probation might meet the case. A second probation is an impossibility. But if possible, where would be the equity? Give men to know that there would he a second probation, and how many of them would care for the first? If they neglected the first they would be necessarily weaker to encounter the discipline of the second. And if a second probation, why not a third and a fourth? If temporary punishment in hell would bring man to God, why send Christ into the world to die for sinners? Hell is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as exerting a remedial influence upon criminals. But Christ is "the only name given, under heaven, amongst men, whereby we must be saved."
Isaiah XXX, 33. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
Matt. XXIII, 33. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Luke XVI, 24. And he cried and said, father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
2 Thess. I, 7. And to you, who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: