This sectarian doctrine which does so much violence to the justice of God--since it closes the door of salvation against so many millions of God's children through no other circumstance than that they never so much as heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and therefore could not either believe or obey it--arose, first, through a misconception of the doctrine of eternal punishment with which the wicked are threatened in the scriptures; and, second, through a very narrow conception of the sure mercies of God. Christians believed that to receive eternal punishment was to be punished eternally. This popular error was corrected in a revelation to Martin Harris through Joseph Smith, even before the church was organized. [5] In that revelation it is explained that God is "Endless," that is one of his names; as also is "Eternal," one of his names. "Wherefore eternal punishment is God's punishment." In other words the punishment that will overtake the wicked is Eternal's punishment; Endless' punishment. 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. 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. But as "the bars survive the captive they enthrall," as the prison remains after the transgressor has served his time in it; so in God's government, the punishment eternally remains after transgressors have satisfied the claims of justice, and are relieved from its pains and penalties. It remains to vindicate the law of God whenever it shall be broken.