Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/33

Rh And here it may be well to notice one great difference between natural and spiritual laws; man may break natural laws unintentionally, but he can only break spiritual laws, or sin, deliberately. Sin is the breaking of a known law. That it is the breaking of the law, and not an arbitrary decree, that punishes man, may be evident from the declaration of the Psalmist, "evil shall slay the wicked," and from the words of Moses, "be sure your sin will find you out." It is the evil that slays, the sin that finds man out; and "the wages of sin is death." Compare for instance the laws of man's spiritual nature with the laws of bodily health. Attention to the matters of diet, exercise, ventilation, and similar subjects, will ensure to man the largest amount of health of which his constitution is capable; but if he neglects these things he inevitably suffers. But the suffering is owing to his own carelessness and folly. The rules of health were given to man that he might observe them, and derive benefit as the result; and if he violates them, he punishes himself. It is the same in regard to the laws governing man's spiritual existence; they were given as a guide to happiness and pleasure; violated, they produce misery and pain. The punishments of sin we therefore see cannot justly be accounted of divine origin, they are permitted by the Lord as means for the restraining of our vices and to prevent our indulging in them.