the whole world
is meant all the worldly-minded;—no matter in how direct opposition to half a score other texts! "One text at a time!" sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!—and in this way they go on pulling out hair by hair from the horse's tail, (say rather, dreaming that they do so,) and then conclude with a shout that the horse never had a tail! For why? This hair is not a tail, nor that, nor the third, and so on to the very last; and how can all do what none of all does?—Ridiculous as this is, it is a fair image of Socinian logic. Thank God, their plucking out is a mere fancy;—and the sole miserable reality is the bare rump which they call their religion;— but that is the ape's own growth.
Ib. p. 77.
First, that all punishments are designed for the good of the whole, and less or corrective punishments for the good of the offender, is admitted. * * God never inflicts punishment for the sake of punishing.
This is not,
sufficiently guarded. That all punishments work for the good of the whole, and that the good of the whole is included in God's design, I admit: but that this is the sole cause, and the sole justification of divine punishment, I cannot, I dare not, concede;— because I should thus deny the essential evil of guilt, and its inherent incompatibility with the presence of a Being of infinite holiness. Now, exclusion from God implies the sum and utmost of punishment; and this would follow from the very essence of guilt and holiness, independently of example, consequence, or circumstance.
Letter VI. p. 90.