Excerpt from the book Sermons for the Sundays and Some Festivals of the Year - The awful attribute of justice, so terrible to the offending creature, is, however, essential to the all-perfect Creator. In vain would the impious man and the conscious sinner strip him of it; in vain do they force their own reason, and strive to frame to themselves a Deity according to their own guilty minds; one who should be all bounty; benevolent, but not avenging; his justice absorbed in his goodness. The latter, indeed, in this life, is often seen, according to the repeated expressions of Scripture, to surpass the other; still this is absolutely indispensable to him, and must, in its proper place, vindicate its rights, and establish its equality.