iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die." So the prophet gives us the second quotation at the head of this article, "Shall not die." It would be just as proper to make this last scrap of the law inexorable as its opposite. Such teachings do violence to the truth by overlooking the merciful provisions that are found in the laws of God, by holding inexorable law before us as a streak of justice clothed with black vengeance.

The gospel of Jesus Christ knows no law in connection with Christians, or any others, except, first, the laws of nature. Secondly, the laws of the state or government in which we reside. Third, the law of Christ. We are under law to Christ in common with all men, for the Father had put all things under Him. We were never under the law given to Adam. We were not in the garden of Eden. We believe with Paul that the first offense in the history of mankind was the "offense of one," that it was "one that sinned," that "by one man's offense death reigned," that it was "one man's disobedience." When men talk to me as an individual, and of my relations to law, sin and death, I wish them to recollect that I was never in the garden of Eden. So I claim an alibi. Adam sinned thousands of years before I, as a man, had my existence; and as it is true that, where there is no law there is no transgression, so it is equally true that, where the man is not, he does not transgress. I was not in the garden of Eden, so there I did not sin.

But we are told that the Father of mercies, by a decree of law, imputed Adam's offense to all his children, and that he, by the vicarious punishment endured by the Savior, took Adam's offense off from Adam's children.

Admit it, and three things follow: First, we did not sin in fact when Adam sinned. Second, from Adam to Christ all the innocents upon earth were sinners by the arbitrary decree of Jehovah. Third, the Father put this decree-load of guilt upon an innocent one, and executed the real penalty upon him. How is this? Suppose a legislative body legislates a man a murderer because his great great grand-father killed a man, should it not also legislate him free from the penalty of murder and never in cruel injustice inflict it upon him or any other innocent one simply as a satisfaction to justice? Law ought to always place us where we are in fact, otherwise it is detestably unjust. Why should any sensible man attribute such dealings to the Father of Spirits? The fallacy of such teaching is seen in the fact that the penalty of the Adamic law was executed in the day of the transgression, and not nine hundred nor thousands of years afterwards. The phrase, "Dying thou shalt die" does not help the case, for the phrase "In the day" limits the penalty as respects the time of its fulfillment.

Adam lost citizen life in the Garden of Eden in the very day of his offense. The full penalty was executed when he was driven out. Physical death was an after result, growing out of the fact that Adam's posterity was unborn when he was driven from his Eden home. The Lord did not say to Adam, in the day thou eatest thereof you shall die and not live again, if he had the way of redemption would have been forever closed against him. Adam's first sons appear before us with a law of faith, embracing typical and sacrificial duties, through which they were brought into the way of life with reference to an ultimate arrival at the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God.

This law of faith was given to Adam's family outside of the Garden; and the law of Sinai was not given to Adam, nor to his immediate posterity, for in that case Cain would have been put to death for killing his brother Abel. It was given to Abraham's family after the exodus from Egypt. It was a political law, because it pertained to a community.

Next in order follows the law of Christ. Beside these we know of no revealed law, excepting those of which we have spoken. So this vicarious punishment system of things, with all its consequences, rests upon a something that men call the inexorable law of God, which a man can not find in the annals of creation, providence or redemption. The prophet, in the language of our quotation, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," is grappling with the system of things which we are endeavoring to overthrow. The children of Israel fell into the sentiments of our modern Calvinists, and claimed that "The fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge." By this proverb they understood that the son was to bear the iniquity of the father. The Lord rebuked them in the language of our topic, and more severely in the context. [See Ezekiel, eighteenth chapter.]

The Lord said to them, "Behold, all souls are mine. * * * The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son."

The prophet also describes a righteous man, and then adds, "If he begets a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doth the like to any one of these things, and doth none of the duties of a righteous life, he shall surely die." We would naturally conclude that this vile person would transmit moral depravity, if such was possible, but how can moral corruption be transmitted through physical generation? Let some of the wise crack this shell! If I was passing around through the little city of Kokomo to-morrow, and was talking upon this theme, I would hear some one accuse some poor soul of being a natural born thief, without the ability to refrain from it. There is neither morality nor immorality, vice nor virtue in an involuntary act. Are the rushings of the Wild Cat river moral or immoral? If a man could be a natural thief, and therefore could not help but steal, he would be no more a sinner in the sight of God, nor responsible, nor morally corrupt than the horse that breaks into your cornfield and fills himself.

In the saying, "If the wicked will turn," etc., "he shall surely live, he shall not die," we discover two important things: First, the death spoken of is not physical, for all die, regardless of character; second, it is not moral, for the poor fellow is already morally dead—dead in trespasses and in sin.

The term die being used in the divine law with reference to the government of God, and under such circumstances as already mentioned, must indicate simply the forfeiture of citizen life in the paradise of God, in the world to come, for it is said of the wicked, "They have no inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ." But if Christ took their law-place, and was punished in their stead, satisfied justice, of course it was done, and then universal salvation, regardless of character, and upon simple legal merits, must obtain, because this theory rests upon the hypothesis that sinners could do nothing for themselves. But is it true that the atonement was completed upon the cross or by the death of Christ only? I answer, he was victim upon the cross and high priest by the power of an endless life. Priest by the word of the oath which was subsequent to the law. He was not a priest while he was a victim in death. In ancient times the victim was slain and its blood was taken into the holy place, then the high priest officiated in the holy place. But the priest never entered without blood. So Christ, by his own blood, entered into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. But all this releases us not in the least from our own obligations to God and our humanity.

The Savior came to our earth to give us, first, his life, in order that we might make it our own; second, his divine mind concerning us and our expectations; third to ratify the same by his death; fourth to give us an assurance of a resurrection from the dead, and of