ingly have had with^ Himself in heaven. Hence the man cannot complain of being unjustly treated, or say that his punishment is too great, for he himself has wilfully chosen that punishment. “It belongs to the justice of the strict Judge,” says St. Gregory, “that they should never be without punishment whose minds during life were never without sin, and that there should never be an end of punishing that wicked man who, when he could have done so, was unwilling to desist from crime.”[1]
Because the malice of sin is much greater than this eternal punishment. Besides, on account of His infinite majesty God has full power and authority to compel man under pain of eternal punishment to obey His law. And we see in earthly tribunals and in the affairs of common life that the length and severity of the punishment is not always according to the duration of the crime, or the damage done by it. The thief who has injured another man in his property, an injury that is easily repaired, must lose his life and everything else with it, a loss that is an eternal one for him, for life cannot be again restored to him; he is hung up on a gallows and remains there until his carcass rots away, although the theft did not take more than a minute to accomplish. A poor soldier is often sentenced to death by court-martial for a fault that he may not have looked on as even a venial sin, for going a few steps away from his post, or as often happens, for taking a few apples or turnips out of another person’s garden. Now if those punishments are looked on as right and just under the circumstances, what are we to think of the gravity of a crime that is committed against the sovereign God? Oh, truly in this case we must look, not at the crime committed, but at the Person who is thereby insulted and offended. The gravity and malice of a mortal sin is, according to St. Thomas, in a certain sense infinite, because it is an offence against the infinite majesty of God, who is worthy of infinite honor, fear, and love. Now if the punishment is to equal the guilt, mortal sin deserves infinite punishment, because its guilt is in a sense infinite, and if the sinner departs this life uurepentant and without being reconciled to God and atoning for his sins, he is justly condemned to suffer never-ending pains and torments. Therefore no wrong is done him, nor is he treated cruelly in being sentenced to eternal fire, which, although it will never come to an end, could still be infinitely worse than it is. Hence it is the general teaching of
- ↑ Ad districti Judicis justitiam pertinet ut nunquam careant supplicio, quorum mens ni hac vita nunquam voluit carere peccato; et nullus detur iniquo terminus ultionis, quia, quam diu valuit, habere noluit terminum criminia.—S. Greg. in Moral. Id. L. 4. Dial.
