enalty by dying; for if, as our friends say, the inexorable quality of
the law will forever hold the guilty to its claims, it will forever keep
the innocent from its penalty. But I aver that the inexorable quality
_that is claimed_ for the law of God never belonged to it. No, not even
to the simple sentence, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." The Lord
authorizes us to supply the condition in every instance where it is not
expressed, thus: "When I shall say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely
die; if he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right; if
the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in
the statutes of life, without committing 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 si