03.02.04 - Section 4
Section IV. The eternity of future punishment consistent with the goodness of God. The genuine Calvinist, if he reason consecutively from some of the principles of his system, can never escape the conclusion that all men will be saved: for so long as he denies the ability of men to obey without the efficacious grace of God, and affirms that this grace is not given to such as shall finally perish, it must follow that their punishment is unjust, and that their eternal punishment were an act of cruelty and oppression greater than it is possible for the imagination of man to conceive.
It was precisely from such premises, as we have seen, that John Foster denied the eternal duration of future punishment. His logic is good; but even an illogical escape from such a conclusion were better than the rejection of one of the great fundamental doctrines of revealed religion. By having shown his premises to be false, we demolished the very foundation of his arguments. But, not satisfied with this, we pursued those arguments into all their branches and ramifications, and exposed their futility. By these means we have removed the objections and solved the difficulties pertaining to this doctrine of revealed religion. In one word, we have shown that it is not inconsistent with the dictates of reason, or with the principle of the divine goodness.
We have shown that the eternal punishment of the wicked is deserved, and therefore demanded by the divine justice; that they serve to promote the highest moral interests of the universe, and are consequently imposed by the divine goodness itself. We have shown, that in the administration of his eternal government, the infliction of an endless punishment is even more consistent with goodness than the use of temporal punishment in the management of a temporal government; for the first, besides being eternal in duration, is unbounded in extent. Thus reason itself, when disenchanted of its strong Calvinistic prejudices and its weak Socinian sentimentalities, utters no other voice than that which proceeds from revelation; and this it echoes rather than utters. In plainer words, though reason does not prove or establish the eternity of future punishment, it has not one syllable to say against its wisdom, its justice, or its goodness.