Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/133

 The severity of the penalty was not a display of hatred and malice on God's part, but the necessary and inevitable, final result of evil, which God thus allowed man to see and feel. God can sustain life as long as he sees fit, even against the destructive power of actual evil; but it would be as im- possible for God to sustain such a life everlastingly, as it is for God to lie. That is, it is morally impossible. Such a life could only become more and more a source of unhap- piness to itself and others; therefore, God is too good to sustain an existence so useless and injurious to itself and others, and, his sustaining power being withdrawn, destruc- tion, the natural result of evil, would ensue. Life is a fa- vor, a gift of God, and it will be continued everlastingly only to the obedient.

No injustice has been done to Adam's posterity in not affording them each an individual trial. Jehovah was in no sense bound to bring us into existence; and, having brought us into being, no law of equity or justice binds him to perpetuate our being everlastingly, nor even to grant us a trial under promise of everlasting life if obedient. Mark this point well. The present life, which from the cradle to the tornb is but a process of dying, is, notwithstanding all its evils and disappointments, a boon, a favor, even if there were no hereafter. The large majority so esteem it, the exceptions (suicides) being comparatively few; and these our courts of justice have repeatedly decided to be mentally unbalanced, as otherwise they would not thus cut them* selves off from present blessings. Besides, the conduct of the perfect man, Adam, shows us what the conduct of his children would have been tinder similar circumstances.

Many have imbibed the erroneous idea that God placed our race on trial for life with the alternative of eternal tor* true) whereas nothing of the kind is even hinted at in the penalty. The favor or blessim* of God to his obedient chik

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