How simple! How forcible! How unanswerable! This is the divine method of meeting all the hows and whys of infidel reason. If the potter has power over the lump of clay which he holds in his hand--a fact which none would think of disputing--how much more has the Creator of all things power over the creatures which His hand has formed! Men may reason and argue interminably as to why God permitted sin to enter; why He did not at once annihilate Satan and his angels; why He allowed the serpent to tempt Eve; why He did not keep her back from eating the forbidden fruit. In short, the hows and whys are endless; but the answer is one--"Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" How monstrous for a poor worm of the earth to attempt to sit in judgment upon the unsearchable judgments and ways of the Eternal God! What blind and presumptuous folly for a creature, whose understanding is darkened by sin, and who is thus wholly incapable of forming a right judgment about any thing divine, heavenly, or eternal, to attempt to decide how God should act in any given case! Alas! alas! it is to be feared that thousands who now argue with great apparent cleverness against the truth of God, will find out their fatal mistake when it will be too late to correct it. And as to all those who, though very far from taking common ground with the infidel, are nevertheless troubled with doubts and misgivings as to some of God's ways in government, and as to the awful question of eternal punishment,[5] we would earnestly recommend them to study and drink in the spirit of that lovely little psalm, cxxxi.--"Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child." [5] With regard to the solemn subject of eternal punishment, we here offer a few remarks, seeing that so very many, both in England and America, are troubled with difficulties respecting it. There are three considerations, which, if duly weighed, will, we think, settle every Christian on the doctrine. I. The first is this: There are seventy passages in the New Testament where the word "everlasting," or "eternal," (αἰωνιος) occurs. It is applied to the "life" which believers possess, to the "mansions" into which they are to be received, to the "glory" which they are to enjoy; it is applied to God (Rom. xvi. 26.), to the "salvation" of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the Author, to the "redemption" which He has obtained for us, and to the "Spirit." Then, out of the seventy passages referred to above, which the reader can verify in a few moments by a glance at a Greek Concordance, there are seven in which the self-same word is applied to the "punishment" of the wicked, to the "judgment" which is to overtake them, to the "fire" which is to consume them.