Just so in relation to the sufferings and death of Christ. If God had exhausted the fearful penalty of the law upon poor, suffering, and degraded humanity, this would have been well calculated to inspire his creatures with a servile and trembling awe of him. From their limited and imperfect views of the evil of sin, and of the reasons why it should be punished, they would not have been prepared to acquiesce in such tremendous severity. Thus, one of the great ends of God’s moral government would have been subverted: the affections of his creatures would have been estranged from him, through a distrust of his goodness and a dread of his power, instead of having been drawn to him by the sweet and sacred ties of confidence and love. But how different is the case now! Having given for us his beloved Son, who is greater than all things, while we were yet _enemies_, now that we are _reconciled_ to him, we are most firmly persuaded that he will freely give us all things that can possibly conduce to our good. Surely, after such a display of his love, it were highly criminal in us, to permit the least shadow of suspicion or distrust to intercept the sweet, and cheering, and purifying beams of his reconciled countenance. Whatever may be his severity against sin, and whatever terror it may strike into the conscience of evil-doers, we can most cordially acquiesce in its justness: for we most clearly perceive, that the penalty of the law was not established to gratify any private appetite for revenge, but to uphold and secure the highest happiness of the moral universe. Chapter IV. The Eternal Punishment Of The Wicked Reconciled With The Goodness Of God. And thus, Transfigured, with a meek and dreadless awe, A solemn hush of spirit, he beholds All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved Views e’en the immitigable ministers, That shower down vengeance on these latter days. For even these on wings of healing come, Yea, kindling with intenser Deity; From the celestial mercy-seat they speed, And at the renovating wells of love, Have fill’d their vials with salutary wrath.—COLERIDGE.