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Certainly such punishments were hardly as severe as being beheaded or burned or buried alive, as would have been the lot of tinkers and printers and brokers who opposed the established church in the days of Alva, but the demon of intolerance, although its fangs were drawn, still survived, and had taken possession of both parties in the Reformed Church.
New instances however had occurred, where these wretched men had resolved on death to terminate their woes. Some had destroyed themselves by refusing sustenance, in spite of threats and punishments. Yet these and similar things, when viewed through the African medium he had mentioned, took a different shape and colour.
On coming out of the churchyard and looking for her companion, she had the mortification to find her "without a mouthful of breath in her body"; for, on hearing the dispute between her friend and the guardian of the grave, and suspecting much that she was likely to share the unpleasant punishments with which he threatened her friend, at the bare recital of them she fell down in a faint, from which it was no easy matter to recover her.
My assurances are not the marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophesies; but, 1. the plain truth of God's word, 2. the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and 3. the ordinary course of his punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my assurance and grounds. This was early in his career.
'Bid the fellow wait, cried our guest, 'till I shall have leisure to receive him; and then turning to my son, 'I again find, Sir, proceeded he, 'that you are guilty of the same offence for which you once had my reproof, and for which the law is now preparing its justest punishments.
As long ago as that, I knew my questions hadn't any answers. "Now if the boy begins to ask himself questions about Jesus Christ, whether He is the son of God, and whether He could take on Himself the sins of the world, I want to tell him that I am sure it is not so. I want the boy to remember that nobody can take away his sins: nobody but himself. He must accept his punishments.
That all punishments work for the good of the whole, and that the good of the whole is included in God's design, I admit: but that this is the sole cause, and the sole justification of divine punishment, I cannot, I dare not, concede; because I should thus deny the essential evil of guilt, and its inherent incompatibility with the presence of a Being of infinite holiness.
Punishments in those far-off times, judicial or otherwise, were usually severe; and the Records show that even a civil servant of junior rank who gave trouble was liable to be awarded some such penalty as to sit for an hour or more on a sharp-backed 'wooden horse, with or without weights attached to the delinquent's feet.
Methods of expiating crime were recognized, but, as was the universal custom in remote times, very cruel punishments were employed against evil-doers and enemies. Death was inflicted for comparatively trivial offences, and such tortures were resorted to as cutting the sinews, extracting the nails and the hair, burying alive, roasting, etc.
For the same reason, also, people get punished from time to time; such punishments being the consequence of the misuse I speak of. If people who call to see your mamma were, instead of going straight up stairs to her, to establish themselves at the lodge with the porter, and stay there chatting with him, do you think she would be much flattered by their visits?
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