30 



ness, and that the degree of punishment will be proportionate to 

 the amount of sin committed. (There is a lowest hell as well as a 

 highest heaven.) This state, as we have already shown, is the 

 consequence of an aberation from the progressive laws of sci- 

 ence, and admits not of extensive explanation. 



Let us now pass from this lowest state to the next in order, the 

 probationary state. Here the laws of science teach us that the 

 true course is that of progression from a less to a more perfect 

 state ; and if we continue in such a course, we shall pass on to 

 the divine state ; nothing is necessary but a strict compliance 

 with these laws. The animal just mentioned obeys the laws of 

 his physical nature by impulse by mere instinct; and so did 

 man, in the primeval state of innocence, obey the moral law of 

 his spiritual existence by impulse ; he knew not even that diso- 

 bedience was possible; he knew not evil ; he, therefore, had no 

 knowledge of the difference between good and evil, until the 

 falsehood was uttered by the evil one, " In the day ye eat thereof 

 ye shall not die." Here all the difficulty arises. The error here 

 promulgated has been in the world ever since. Man ignorantly 

 thinks he can evade the laws of science. 



God has implanted the great principles of moral and religious 

 science in the constitution of our minds so firmly that the ordi- 

 nary exercise of reason clearly developes them, giving a standard 

 of right which no circumstances of education can destroy. It is 

 intuitive and invariable as any law of nature. Thus man is not 

 excusable for any sinful act. It is no excuse for him that he is 

 ignorant of truths which are so completely within the reach of the 

 most ordinary capacity. Let it be every where understood, 

 then, that the laws of science are the laws of God, and that every 

 attempt to evade them must prove unsuccessful, that it is a sin 

 and that the connection between sin and punishment, as cause 

 and effect, is as certain as that between fire and heat, for that 

 vfcry law which requires compliance, makes punishment the ne- 

 cessary consequence of all attempts to evade it. He that sins 

 with the hope of escaping punishment is no wiser than he who 

 throws himself into a glowing furnace with the expectation of 

 escaping uninjured. It has been above stated that true knowl- 



