It is infinitely benevolent of God, I will venture to say, to cast evil men into hell. If that be thought to be a hard and strange statement, I reply that inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is no benevolence to tolerate so great an evil; it is the highest benevolence to do all that can be done to restrain the horrible pest. It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the doors of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished; instead of mercy it would be cruelty; it might be mercy to the offending, but it would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive. God’s very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin against His supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and yet go unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must be punished. The effeminate and sentimental talkers of this boastful age represent God as though He had no attribute but that of gentleness, no virtue but that of indifference to evil; but the God of the Bible is glorious in holiness, He will by no means spare the guilty at His bar every transgression is meted out its just recompense of reward. Even in the New Testament, wherein stands that golden sentence, “God is love,” His other attributes are by no means cast into the shade. Read the burning words of Peter, or James, or Jude, and see how the God of Sabbath abhorreth evil! As the God who must do right, the Lord cannot shut His eyes to the iniquities of man; He must visit, transgression with its punishment. He had done it, has done it terribly, and He wills do it; even to all eternity He will show Himself the God that hateth iniquity and sin.

- C.H. Spurgeon, Individual Sin Laid on Jesus, a sermon delivered on April 10, 1870.