On this high and impregnable ground the moral argument of Foster loses all its irresistible force, and “the stupendous idea of eternity” presses with all its weight in favour of endless punishment. If temporal punishments are justified on the ground that they are necessary to meet the exigencies and uphold the interests of temporal governments, surely eternal punishments may be justified on the same ground in relation to an eternal government. The “stupendous idea of eternity” attaches to the whole, as well as to the part; and hence nothing can be gained to the cause of Universalism by the introduction of this idea, except in the minds of those who take only a one-sided and partial view of the subject. The spectacle of punishment for a single day, it will be admitted, would be justified on the ground that it was necessary to support for a single day a government; especially if that government were vast in extent and involved stupendous interests. But if suffering for a single day may be justified on such a ground, then the exigencies of such a government for two days would justify a punishment for two days; and so on _ad infinitum_. Hence, the doctrine of eternal punishments in common with the eternal moral government of God, is not a greater anomaly than temporal punishments in relation to temporal governments. If we reject the one, we must also reject the other. Indeed, when we consider not only the eternal duration, _but also the universal extent_, of the divine government, the argument in question, if good for anything, presses with greater force against the little, insignificant governments of men, than against the moral government of God. One reason why Foster was “repelled into doubt by the infinite horrors of the tenet” is, that he merely contemplated the sufferings of the guilty, and saw not how those sufferings were connected with the majesty and glory of God’s universal and eternal empire. It is as if an insect should undertake to set bounds to the punishments which human beings have found necessary to meet the exigencies and uphold the interests of human society. We are told by writers on jurisprudence, that penalties should be proportioned to offences; but, as has been truly said, how this proportion is to be ascertained, or on what principles it is to be adjusted, we are seldom informed. We are usually left to vague generalities, which convey no definite information, and furnish no satisfactory guidance to our minds. If we can ascertain the precise conditions according to which this principle should be adjusted, even by goodness itself, we shall then be the better able to determine whether the eternal suffering of the guilty and impenitent is not a manifestation of the love of God,—of that _tender mercy which is over all his works_.