e has
given them over as altogether _incurable_, then the third and most severe
of all Adrastia's ministers, [Greek: 'Erinys] or _Fury_, takes them in
hand, and after she has chased and coursed them from one place to
another, flying yet not knowing where to fly for shelter and relief,
plagued and tormented with a thousand miseries, she plunges them headlong
into an invisible abyss, the hideousness of which no tongue can express."
PLUTARCH: Morals, Vol. IV. p. 210. Ed. 1694. PLATO (Gorgias 525. c.d. Ed.
Bip. IV. 169) represents Socrates as teaching that those who "have
committed the most extreme wickedness, and have become incurable through
such crimes, are made an example to others, and suffer _forever_ ([Greek:
paschontas ton aei chronon]) the greatest, most agonizing, and most
dreadful punishment." And Socrates adds that "Homer (Odyssey xi. 575)
also bears witness to this; for he represents kings and potentates,
Tantalus, Sysiphus, and Tityus, as being tormented _forever_ in Hades"
([Greek: en adon ton aei chronon timoronmenos]).-In the Aztec or Mexican
theology, "the wicked, comprehending the greater part of mankind, were to
expiate their sin in a place of everlasting darkness." PRESCOTT: Conquest
of Mexico, Vol. I. p. 62.]

[Footnote 4: It may be objected, at this point, that mercy also is a
necessary attribute in God, like justice itself,--that it necessarily
belongs to the nature of a perfect Being, and therefore might be inferred
_a priori_ by the pagan, like other attributes. This is true; but the
objection overlooks the distinction between the _existence_ of an
attribute and its _exercise_. Omnipotence necessarily belongs to the idea
of the Supreme Being, but it does not follow that it must necessarily be
_exerted_ in act. Because God is able to create the universe of matter
and mind, it does not follow that he _must_ create it. The doctrine of
the necessity of creation, though held in a few instances by theists who
seem not to have discerned its logical consequences, is virtually
pantheistic. Had God been pleased to dwell forever in the
self-sufficiency of His Trinity, and never called the Finite into
existence from nothing, He might have done so, and He would still have
been omnipotent and "blessed forever." In like manner, the attribute of
mercy might exist in God, and yet not be exerted. Had He been pleased to
treat the human race as He did the fallen angels, He was perfectly at
liberty to do so, and the nu