Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/16

16 laid down—"The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." This is the sum of the teaching of the whole of the 18th chapter of the prophecy through Ezekiel.

The fall did not at all affect God's attitude of loving mercy towards man, though it altered man's attitude of obedience towards God. Our fallen parents transmitted to their posterity not the curse of God, but the curse of man—not the curse of an angry Deity, but the curse of a sinful and depraved humanity. There is a law of God impressed upon all living things, animal and vegetable, that we call the law of natural heritage. The formula of this law is "like begets like." Man in his purity was endowed with the faculty of reproduction, by virtue of which he might aid in calling into existence other beings like himself. But when this pristine purity was corrupted, the children of men began to inherit tendencies towards evil. This is the curse of the fall. We are born into the world full of tendencies towards evil and sin. But we are not punished simply for inheriting these tendencies—punishment only overtakes us when we ultimate these tendencies in life, and voluntarily choose them and adopt them as our own. We "die in Adam" when we follow his example, and deliberately transgress the known commandments of God. The