Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/132

 possessor, and the possibility, therefore, of a spiritual lapse. And this must have been foreseen by the great Giver of these faculties. And now comes the question:

What shall be done with a man when he fails to discharge the obligations which the gift bestowed on him imposes?—when he abuses his properly human faculties, and yields to the promptings of his lower, carnal, animal nature, regardless of his obligations as a morally accountable being? What provision should infinite Love and Wisdom make for those who violate, and persist in violating, the laws of their spiritual or properly human nature? To say that their condition will be the same and their happiness the same in the Hereafter, as if they had faithfully obeyed these laws, is to utter what every enlightened mind sees to be absurd. As reasonably might one maintain that no penalty ought to be attached to the violation of physical laws; that men ought to be permitted to eat arsenic without being poisoned; to handle red hot iron without being burned; to leap from the top of Bunker Hill monument without being bruised; or to stick their bodies full of pins without suffering pain. There is everywhere and always a penalty attached to the violation of law. This is both wise and right. Otherwise laws would be without meaning and without force.

But infinite Love must make the best possible provision which infinite Wisdom can suggest, for those who abuse their human faculties, and obstinately persist in violating the laws of their spiritual being. It is bound by its very