XIII. WHERE SIN OCCURS GOD CANNOT WISELY PREVENT IT.
"It is impossible but
that offences come; but woe unto him through whom they come!"-Luke xvii.
1.
AN "offence" as used in this passage, is an occasion
of falling into sin. It is anything which causes another to sin and fall.
It is plain that the author of the offence is in this passage
conceived of as voluntary and as sinful in his act; else the woe
of God would not be denounced upon him.
Consequently the passage assumes that this sin is in some sense
necessary and unavoidable. What is true of this sin in this respect is
true of all other sin. Indeed any sin may become an offence in the sense
of a temptation to others to sin, and therefore its necessity and
unavoidableness would then be affirmed by this text.
The doctrine of this text, therefore, is that sin, under
the government of God, can not be prevented. I purpose to examine this
doctrine; to show that, nevertheless, sin is utterly inexcusable as to the
sinner; then answer some objections, and conclude with remarks.
1. When we say it is impossible to prevent sin under the
government of God, the statement still calls for another inquiry, viz.: Where
does this impossibility lie? Is it on the part of the sinner, or on the part of
God? Which is true; that the sinner can not possibly forbear to sin, or that
God can not prevent his sinning?
The first supposition answers itself, for it could not be sin if
it were utterly unavoidable. It might be his misfortune; but nothing could be
more unjust than to impute it to him as his crime.
But we shall better understand where this impossibility does and
must lie, if we first recall to mind some of the elementary principles of God's
government.
Let us, then, consider that God's government over men is moral,
and known to be such by every intelligent being. By the term moral, I
mean that it governs by motives, and does not move by physical force. It adapts
itself to mind, not to matter. It contemplates mind as having intellect to
understand truth, sensibility to appreciate its bearing upon happiness,
conscience to judge of the right, and a will to determine a course of voluntary
action in view of God's claims, So God governs mind. Not so does He govern
matter. The planetary worlds are controlled by quite a different sort of
agency. God does not move them in their orbits by motives, but by a physical
agency.
I said, all men know this government to be moral by their own
consciousness. When its precepts and its penalties come before their minds,
they are conscious that an appeal is made to their voluntary powers. They are
never conscious of any physical agency coercing obedience.
God's government implies in man the power to will, or not to
will; to will right, or to will wrong: to choose or to refuse the great good
which Jehovah promises. It also implies intelligence. The beings to whom law is
addressed are capable of understanding it. They have also, as I have said, a
conscience, by which they can appreciate and must affirm its obligations.
You need to distinguish broadly between the influence of motive
on mind and of mechanical force upon matter. The former implies voluntariness;
the latter does not. The former is adapted to mind and has no adaptation to
matter the latter equally is adapted to matter, but has no possible application
to mind. In God's government over the human mind, all is voluntary; nothing is
coerced as by physical force. Indeed, it is impossible that physical force
should directly influence mind. Compulsion is precluded by the very nature of
moral agency. Where compulsion begins, moral agency ends. If it were possible
for God to force the will as He forces the moon along in her orbit, to do so
would subvert the very idea of a moral government. Neither praise nor blame
could attach to any actions of beings, so moved. Persuasion, brought to bear
upon mind, is always such in its nature that it can be resisted. By the
very nature of the case, God's creatures must have power to resist any amount
of even His persuasion. There can be no power in heaven or earth to coerce the
will, as matter is coerced. The nature of mind forbids its possibility. And if it
were possible, it would still be true that in just so far as God should coerce
the human will, He would cease to govern morally.
God is infinitely wise. Men can no more doubt this than they can
doubt their own existence. He has infinite knowledge. He knows everything i.e.,
all objects of knowledge; and knows them all perfectly. He is also infinitely
good, If is will being always conformed to His perfect knowledge and always
controlled by infinite benevolence.
His infinite goodness implies that He does the best He can,
always, and everywhere. In no instance does He ever fail to do the very best He
can do, so that He can appeal to every creature and say -- What more can I do
to prevent sin than I am doing! Indeed, He does so appeal to every intelligent
mind. He made this appeal through Isaiah to the ancient Jews, "And now, O
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and
my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not
done in it?"
Every moral agent in the universe knows that God has done the
best He could do in regard to sin. Do not you know this, each one of you?
Certainly you do. He Himself, in all His infinite wisdom, could not suggest a
better course than that which He has taken. Men know this truth so well, they
never can know it better. You may at some future day realize it more fully when
you shall come to see its millions of illustrations drawn out before your eyes;
but no demonstration can make its proof more perfect than it is to your own
minds today.
Now sin does, in fact, exist under God's government. For this
sin, God either is or is not to blame. Every man knows that God is not to
blame for this sin, for man's own nature affirms that He would prevent it if He
wisely could. Certainly if He was able wisely to prevent sin in any case where
it actually occurs, then not to do so nullifies all our conceptions of His
goodness and wisdom. He would be the greatest sinner in the universe if, with
power and wisdom adequate to the prevention of sin, He had failed to prevent
it.
Let me here note, also, that what God can not do wisely, He can
not (speaking morally) do at all. For He can not act unwisely. He can not do
things which wisdom forbids. To do so would be to undeify Himself. The
supposition would make Him cease to be perfect, and this were equivalent to
ceasing to be God.
Or thus: If He were to interpose unwisely to prevent a sinner
from sinning, He would sin Himself. I speak now of each instance in which God
does not, in fact, interpose to prevent sin. In any of these cases, if He were
to interpose unwisely to prevent sin, He would prevent a man from sinning at
the expense of sinning Himself. Here, then, is the case. A sinner is about to
fall before temptation, or in more correct language, is about to rush into some
new sin. God cannot wisely prevent his doing so. Now what shall be done? Shall
He let that sinner rush on to his chosen sin and self-wrought ruin; or shall He
step forward, unwisely, sin Himself, and incur all the frightful consequences
of such a step? He lets the sinner bear his own responsibility. Why should not
He? Who would wish to have God sin?
This is a full explanation of every case in which man does in
fact sin and God does not prevent it.
And this is not conjecture, but is logical certainly. No truth
can be more irresistibly and necessarily certain than this. I once heard a
minister say in a sermon, "It is not irrational to suppose that in each
case of sin, it occurs as it does because God can not prevent it." After
he retired from the pulpit, I said to him -- Why did you leave the matter so?
You left your hearers to infer that perhaps it might be in some other way; that
this was only a possible theory, yet that some other theory was perhaps even
more probable. Why did you not say, This theory is certain and must necessarily
be true?
Thus the impossibility of preventing sin lies not in the sinner,
but wholly with God. Sin, it should be remembered, is nothing else than an act
of free will, always committed against one's conviction of right. Indeed, if a
man did not know that selfishness is sin, it would not be sin in his case.
Once more, sin is always committed against and in despite of
motives of infinitely greater weight than those which induce to sin. The very
fact that his conscience condemns the sin is his own judgment on the question,
proving that in his own view the motives to sin are infinitely contemptible
when put in the scale to measure those against the sin in question. Every
sinner knows that sin is a willful abuse of his own powers as a moral agent-of
those noblest powers of his being in view of which he is especially said to be
made in the image of God. Made like God with these exalted attributes, capable
of determining his own voluntary activities intelligently if he will; in
accordance with his reason and his conscience if he will; he yet in every act
of sin abuses and degrades these powers, tramples down in the very dust the
image of God enstamped on his being, and with the capacities of becoming an
angel, makes himself a fool. Clothed with a dignity of nature akin to that of
his Maker, he chooses to debase himself to the level of brutes and of devils.
With a face naturally looking upwards; with an intelligence that grasps the
great truths of God; with a reason that postulates and affirms the great
necessary principles involved in his moral duties and relations; with
capacities which fit him to sit on a nation's throne; he yet says -- Let me
take this glorious image of God and debase it in the dust! Let me cast myself
down, till there shall be no lower depth of degradation to which I can sink!
Sin is in every instance a dishonoring of God. This every sinner
must know. It casts off His authority, spurns His advice, maltreats His love.
Truly does God Himself say, "A son honoreth his father and a servant his
master; if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where
is my fear?"
What sinner ever supposed that God neglects to do anything He
wisely can do to prevent sin? If this be not true, what is conscience but a lie
and a delusion? Conscience always affirms that God is clear of all guilt in
reference to sin, In every instance in which conscience condemns the sinner, it
necessarily must, and actually does, fully acquit God.
These remarks will suffice to show that sin in every instance of
its commission is utterly inexcusable.
We are next to notice some objections.
1. "If God is infinitely wise and good, why need we pray at
all? If He will surely do the best possible thing always and all the good He
can do, why need we pray?"
I answer. Because His infinite goodness and wisdom enjoin it
upon us. Who could ask a better reason than this? If you believe in His
infinite wisdom and goodness, and make this belief the basis of your objection,
you will certainly, if honest, be satisfied with this answer.
But again I answer. It might be wise and good for Him to do many
things if sought unto in prayer, which He could not wisely do, unasked. You can
not, therefore, infer that prayer never changes the course which God
voluntarily pursues.
2. Objecting again, you ask why we should pray to God to prevent
sin, if He can not prevent it? If under the circumstances in which sin exists,
God can not, as you hold, prevent sin, why go to Him and pray Him to prevent
it?
I answer. We pray for the very purpose of changing the
circumstances. This is our object. And prayer does change the circumstances. If
we step forward and offer fervent, effectual prayer, this quite changes the
state of the case. Look at Moses pleading with God to spare the nation after
their great sin in the matter of the golden calf. God said to him, "Let me
alone that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation."
Nay, said Moses, for what will the Egyptians say? And what will all the nations
say? They have long time said, The God of that people will not be able to get
them through that vast wilderness; now therefore, what will thou do for Thy
great name? "Yet now, if Thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot
me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written."
This prayer, coming up before God, greatly changed the
circumstances of the case. For this prayer, God could honorably spare the
nation -- it was so honorable for Him to answer this prayer.
3. Yet further objecting, you ask, "Why did God create
moral agents at all if He foresaw that He could not prevent their
sinning?"
I answer. Because He saw that on the whole it was better to do
so. He could prevent some sin in this race of moral agents; could overrule what
He could not wisely prevent, to as to bring out from it a great deal of good,
and so that in the long run, He saw it better, with all the results before Him,
to create than to forbear; therefore, wisdom and love made it necessary that He
should create. Having the power to create a race of moral beings -- having also
power to convert and save a vast multitude of them, and power also to overrule
the sin He should not prevent so that it should evolve immense good, how could
He forbear to create as He did?
4. But if God can not prevent sin, will He not be unhappy?
No; He is entirely satisfied to do the best He can, and accept
the results.
5. But some will say -- Is not this "limiting the Holy One
of Israel?" No. It is no proper limitation of God's power to say that He
can not do anything that is unwise. Nor do we limit His power when we say -- He
can not move mind just as He moves a planet. That is no proper subject of power
which is in its own nature absurd and impossible.
Yet these are the only directions in which we have spoken of any
limitations to His power.
But you say, Could not God prevent sin by annihilating each
moral agent the instant before he would sin? Doubtless He could; but we say if
this were wise He would have done it. He has not done it, certainly not in all
cases, and therefore it is not always wise.
But you say, Let Him give more of His Holy Spirit. I answer, He
does give all He can wisely, under existing circumstances. To suppose He might
give more than He does, circumstances being the same, is to impeach His wisdom
or His goodness.
Some people seem greatly horrified at the idea of setting limits
to God's power. Yet they make assumptions which inevitably impeach His wisdom
and His goodness. Such persons need to consider that if we must choose between
limiting His power on the one hand, or His wisdom and His love on the other, it
is infinitely more honorable to Him to adopt the former alternative than the
latter. To strike a blow at His moral attributes, is to annihilate His throne.
And further, let it be also considered, as we have already suggested, that you
do not in any offensive sense limit His power when you assume that He can not
do things naturally impossible, and can not act unwisely.
Let these remarks suffice in the line of answer to objections I
know that you who are students will say that this must be true. You are
accustomed to notice the action of your own moral powers. You have a moral
sense, and it has been in some good degree developed. You know it is utterly
impossible that God should act unwisely. You know He must act benevolently,
always doing the best thing He can do. He has given you a nature which affirms,
postulates, intuits these truths. Else there could be no conscience. The
presence and action of a conscience implies that these great truths respecting
the moral nature of God are indisputably affirmed in your soul by your own
moral nature.
I address you, therefore, as those who have a conscience.
Suppose it were otherwise. Suppose all that we call conscience -- the entire
moral side of your nature -- should suddenly drop out, and I should find myself
speaking to a shoal of moral idiots -- beings utterly void of a conscience! How
desolate the scene! But I am not speaking to such an audience. Therefore I am
sure that you will understand and appreciate what I say.
REMARKS.
1. We may see the only sense in which God could have purposed
the existence of sin. It is simply negative. He purposed not to prevent it in
any case where it does actually occur. He does not purpose to make moral
agents sin; not, for example, Adam and Eve in the garden, or Judas in the
matter of betraying Christ. All He purposed to do Himself was to leave them
with only a certain amount of restraint -- as much as He could wisely impose;
and then if they would sin, let them bear the responsibility. He left them to
act freely and did not positively prevent their sinning. He never uses means to
make men sin. He only forbears to use unwise means to prevent their sinning.
Thus His agency in the existence of sin is only negative.
2. The existence of sin does not prove that it is the necessary
means of the greatest good. Some of you are aware that this point has been
often mooted in theological discussions.
I do not purpose now to go into it at length, but will only say
that in all cases wherein men sin, they might obey God instead of
sinning. Now the question here is -- If they were to obey rather than sin,
would not a greater good accrue? We have these two reasons for the affirmative:
(1), that by natural tendency, obedience promotes good and disobedience evil:
and (2), that in all those cases, God earnestly and positively enjoins
obedience. It is fair to presume that He would enjoin that which would secure
the greatest good.
3. The human conscience always justifies God. This is an
undeniable fact -- a fact of universal consciousness. The proof of it can never
be made stronger, for it stands recorded in each man's bosom.
Yet a very remarkable book has recently appeared, "The
Conflict of Ages" -- which is obviously built upon the opposite assumption,
viz., that the human conscience does not unqualifiedly condemn man; but
except under the light of this peculiar theory, does in fact condemn God. This
theory, adopted professedly to vindicate God as against the human conscience,
holds that there was a pre-existent state in which we all lived and sinned, and
there forfeited our title to a moral nature, unbiased toward sinning. There
we had a fair probation. Here, if we suppose this to be the
commencement of our moral agency, we do not have a fair probation, and
conscience therefore does not, and in truth can not, justify God except on the
supposition of a pre-existent state.
The entire book, therefore, is built on the assumption of a
conflict between the human conscience and God. A shocking assumption! A brother
remarked to me of this that it seemed to him to be the most outrageous and
blasphemous indictment against God that could be drawn. Yet the author intended
no such thing. He is undoubtedly a good man, but, in this particular,
egregiously mistaken.
The fact is, conscience does always condemn the sinner and
justify God. It could not affirm obligation without justifying God. The real
controversy, therefore, is not between God and the conscience, but between God
and the heart. In every instance in which sin exists, conscience
condemns the sinner and justifies God. This of itself is a perfect and
sufficient answer to the whole doctrine of that book. It knocks out the only
and whole foundation on which it is built. If that book be true, men never should
have had a conscience until that book was published, read, understood, and
believed. No man should ever have been convicted of sin until he came to see
that he had existed in a previous state and began his sinning there.
Yet the facts arc right over against this. Everywhere in all
ages, with no deference to this book, and no disposition to wait for its tardy
developments -- everywhere and through all time the human conscience has stood
up to condemn each sinner and compel him to sign his own death-warrant; and
acquit his Maker of all blame. These are the facts of human nature and life.
4. Conversion consists precisely in this: the heart's consent to
these decisions of the conscience. It is for the heart to come over to the
ground occupied by the conscience, and thoroughly acquiesce in it as right and
true. Conscience has a long time been speaking; it has always held one
doctrine, and has long been resisted by the heart. Now, in conversion, the
heart comes over, and gives in its full assent to the decisions of conscience;
that God is right, and that sin and himself a sinner are utterly wrong.
And now do any of you
want to know how you may become a Christian? This is it. Let your heart justify
God and condemn sin, even as your conscience does. Let your voluntary
powers yield to the necessary affirmations of your reason and conscience. Then
all will be peaceful within because all will be right.
But you say, I am trying to do this! Ah, I know it to be the
case with some of you that you are trying to resist to your utmost. You
settle down, as it were, with your whole weight while God would fain draw you
by His truth and Spirit. Yet you fancy you are really trying to yield your
heart to God. A most unaccountable delusion!
5. In the light of this subject we can see the reason for a
general judgment. God intends to clear Himself from all imputation of wrong in
the matter of sin before the entire moral universe. Strange facts have
transpired in His universe, and strange insinuations have been made against His
course. These matters must all be set right. For this He will take time enough.
He will wait till all things are ready. Obviously He could not bring out His
great trial-day till the deeds of earth have all been wrought -- till all the
events of this wondrous drama have had their full development. Until then He
will not be ready to make a full exposé of all His doings. Then He can
and will do it most triumphantly and gloriously.
The revelations of that day will doubtless show why God did not
interpose to prevent every sin in the universe. Then He will satisfy us as to
the reasons He had for suffering Adam and Eve to sin and for leaving Judas to
betray his Master. We know now that He is wise and good, although we do not
know all the particular reasons for His conduct in the permission of sin. Then
He will reveal those particular reasons, as far as it may be best and possible.
No doubt He will then show that His reasons were so wise and good that He could
not have done better.
6. Sin will then appear
infinitely inexcusable and odious. It will then be seen in its true relations
toward God and His intelligent creatures, inexpressibly blameworthy and guilty.
Take a case. Suppose a son has gone far away from the paths of
obedience and virtue. He has had one of the best of fathers, but be would not
hear his counsels. He had a wise and affectionate mother, but he sternly
resisted all the appeals of her tenderness and tears. Despite of the most
watchful care of parents and friends, he would go astray. As one madly
bent on self-ruin, he pushed on, reckless of the sorrow and grief he brought
upon those he should have honored and loved. At last the issues of such a
course stand revealed. The guilty youth finds himself ruined in constitution,
in fortune, and in good name. He has sunk far too low to retain even
self-respect. Nothing remains for him but agonizing reflections on past folly
and guilt. Hear him bewail his own infatuation. "Alas," he cries,
"I have almost killed my venerable father, and long ago I had quite broken
my mother's heart. All that folly and crime in a son could do, I have done to
bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. No wonder that having
done so much to ruin my best friends, I have plucked down a double ruin on my
own head. No sinner ever more richly deserved to be doubly damned than
myself"
Thus truth flashes upon his soul and thus his heart quails and
his conscience thunders condemnation. So it must be with every sinner when all
his sins against God shall stand revealed before his eyes, and there shall be
nothing left for him but intense and unqualified self-condemnation.
7. God's omnipotence is no guaranty to any man that either
himself or any other sinner will be saved. I know the Universalist affirms it
to be. He will ask -- Does not the fact of God's omnipotence, taken in
connection with His infinite love, prove that all men will be saved? I answer, No!
It does not prove that God will save one soul. With ever so much proof of
God's perfect wisdom, love, and power we could not infer that He would save
even one sinner. We might just as reasonably infer that He would send the whole
race to hell. How could we know what His wisdom would determine? How could we
infer what the exigencies of His government might demand? In fact, the only
ground we have for the belief that He will save any sinner is not at all our
inference from His wisdom, love, and power; but is wholly and only His own
declarations as to this matter. Our knowledge is wholly from revelation. God
has said so; and this is all we know about it.
Yet further I reply to the Universalist, that God's omnipotence
saves nobody. Salvation is not wrought by physical omnipotence. It is only by
moral power that God saves, and this can save no man unless he consents to be
saved.
8. How bitter the reflections which sinners must have on their
death-bed, and how fearfully agonizing when they pass behind the veil and see
things in their true light. Did you ever think when you have seen a sinner
dying in his sins what an awful thing it is for a sinner to die? You mark the
lines of anguish on his countenance; you see the look of despair; you observe
he can not bear to hear the word of the awful future. There be lies, and death
pushes on his stem assault. The poor victim struggles in vain against his
dreaded foe. He sinks, and sinks, his pulse runs lower, and yet lower; look in
his glassy eye; mark that haggard brow; there, he breathes not; but all
suddenly he stares as one affrighted; throws up his hands wildly, screams
frightfully; sinks down and is gone to return no more! And where is he now? Not
beyond the scope of thought and reflection. He can see back into the world he
has left. Still he can think. Alas, his misery is that he can do nothing
but think! As said the prisoner in his solitary cell: I could bear torture or I
could endure toil; but O, to have nothing to do but to think! To hear
the voice of friend no more -- to say not a word -- to do nothing from day to
day and from year to year but to think! that is awful. So of the lost
sinner. Who can measure the misery of incessant self-agonizing thought? Now,
when at any time your reflections press uncomfortably and you feel that you
shall almost go deranged, you can find some drop of comfort for your fevered
lips; you can for a few moments, at least, fall asleep, and so forget your
sorrows and find a transient rest; but oh! when you shall reach the world where
the wicked find no rest -- where there can be no sleep -- where not one drop of
water can reach you to cool your tongue. Alas, how can your heart endure or
your hands be strong in that dread hour! God tried in vain to bless and save
you. You fought Him back and plucked down on your guilty head a fearful damnation!
9. What infinite consolation will remain to God after He shall
have closed up the entire scenes of earth! He has banished the wicked and taken
home the righteous to His bosom of love and peace. I have done, says He, all I
wisely could to save the race of man. I made sacrifices cheerfully; sent my
well-beloved Son gladly; waited as long as it seemed wise to wait, and now it
only remains to overrule all this pain and woe for the utmost good, and rejoice
in the bliss of the redeemed forevermore.
There are the guilty lost. Their groans swell out and echo up
the walls of their pit of woe; it is to so much evidence that God is good and
wise and will surely sustain His throne in equity and righteousness forever. It
teaches most impressive lessons upon the awful doom of sin, There let it stand
and bear its testimony, to warn other beings against a course so guilty and a
doom so dreadful!
There, in that world of woe, may be some of our pupils possibly
some of our own children. But God is just and His throne stainless of their
blood. It shall not mar the eternal joy of His kingdom, that they would pull
down such damnation on their heads. They insisted they would take the
responsibility, and now they have it.
Sinner, do you not care for this today? Will you come to the
inquiry meeting this evening to trifle about your salvation? I can tell you
where you will not trifle. When the great bell of time shall toll the
death-knell of earth and call her millions of sons and daughters to the final
judgment, you will not be in a mood to trifle! You will surely be there! It
will be a time for serious thought -- an awful time of dread. Are you ready to
face its revelations and decisions?
Or do you say, Enough, ENOUGH! I have long enough
withstood His grace and spurned His love; I will now give, my heart to God, to
be His only, forevermore?