Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/502

490 infinite blessings. Trustworthiness is the foundation of enlightened faith. Without a fitness for holiness we cannot receive it, nor adhere faithfully thereto.

“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look; farther we cannot go. To suppose that he forgives or punishes sin, accordingly as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love, and make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing.

Do we ask Wisdom to be merciful to sin? Then “we ask amiss,” to consume the blessing “on our lusts.” Do we expect God to forgive sin without punishment, thus allowing sin to multiply? Such forgiveness would be neither merciful nor wise.

A magistrate sometimes remits the penalty, but this may be no moral benefit to the criminal; and at best it only saves him from one form of punishment. The moral law, which alone has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution before mortals can “go up higher.” Broken law brings penalty, in order to compel this progress.

Personal pardon — and there is no other, for Principle never pardons either sins or mistakes — leaves the offender free to repeat the offence; if, indeed, he has not already suffered sufficiently from vice to make him turn from it with loathing. Truth bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner. Jesus suffered for our sins, not to annul the divine sentence against wrong, but to stop the sin, and show that it must bring inevitable suffering.

Asking God to be God is a “vain repetition.” Habitual goodness is unceasing prayer. Its motives are