Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/31

Rh the sentence in the prophecy serves to shew us that the punishment allotted to Adam comes upon us when we copy Adam's disobedience. It will not be necessary that we should multiply quotations from the Scriptures in proof of the position that suffering or punishment follows sin; the idea is constantly being enunciated in the Word from the language addressed to Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door," to the declaration of the Apocalypse, "Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every man according as his works shall be."

Indeed, this is the one great lesson of the Bible, leading men to the contemplation of pleasure and happiness as the reward of a life of virtue, and of pain and misery as the reward of vice. "They shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation."

Whence then comes the suffering that follows sin? We answer, it does not proceed from the passing of an arbitrary penalty by the Lord—it is contained in the sin itself. It is not God who inflicts punishment—man punishes himself. We may perhaps see this best by means of an illustration. A man deliberately takes hold of a bar of red hot iron, as a consequence he gets burnt and experiences pain. The punishment is self-inflicted; and it would be unreasonable for him to charge the natural