Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/22

6 We cannot escape the penalty due for sin. The Scriptures say, that if we deny Christ, “he also will deny us.”

Divine Love corrects and governs man. Men may pardon, but this divine Principle alone reforms the

sinner. God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows. The talents He gives we must improve. Calling on Him to forgive our work badly done or left undone, implies the vain supposition that we have nothing to do but to ask pardon, and that afterwards we shall be free to repeat the offence.

To cause suffering as the result of sin, is the means of destroying sin. Every supposed pleasure in sin will furnish more than its equivalent of pain, until belief in material life and sin is destroyed. To reach heaven, the harmony of being, we must understand the divine Principle of being.

“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask, is higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go. To

suppose that God forgives or punishes sin according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love and to make prayer the safety-valve for wrong-doing.

Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before he cast it out. Of a sick woman he said that Satan had bound

her, and to Peter he said, “Thou art an offence unto me.” He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin, sickness, and death. He said of the fruitless tree, “[It] is hewn down.”

It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the time of Jesus, left this record: “His rebuke is fearful.” The strong language of our Master confirms this description.