2. Theories of circumstance are ready to affirm that we are what we are by evolution, and cannot help ourselves any more than we can help the shape of our limbs or the strength of our arms. But what human creature — in whom there is any higher life at all — does not know that the soul is mightier than circum- stance, and that there is a fear of judgment which penetrates all excuses we can ever make for ourselves ? There is in all of us an imperishable sense of individuality which is capable of stemming any stream of influence, and which asserts itself against our lower selves, and makes us responsible for all we say and think and do. And it is out of this that all true sense of religion springs. Be- cause we are souls, and because our souls are God's, this feeling of responsibility lives ; it springs conscious within us, even when we try to kill it. The greatest evil-doer pales at times before the spectre of his own evil-doing, and the most ingenious sophist who tries to call darkness light and evil good knows in his inmost
(heart that he is deceiving himself. As surely as the soul sinneth it shall die. No excuse will avail. In our hearts we know that no circumstances compelled us to sin. It is no mere denunciation of Scripture. It is the voice of our own hearts. It is the utterance of our own living consciousness. It is a true psychology, the voice of philosophy as well as of Scripture, which tells us we are with- out excuse. Even when we try to excuse ourselves we are ashamed. We have lost our excuse; our plea of circumstances cannot stand examination. The more our heart is true, the more our spiritual sight is clear, the more does our sin make itself our own, and accuse and condemn us. And if this is not to verify the fact of responsibility, one knows not what verification means.
^| We are beginning to interpret the world in which man as an individual and apparently separate personality maintains his life, not as a hindrance to his freedom or as the enemy of his private good, but as the means whereby these may be attained. The world is an enemy only when it is misunderstood and misused. It obstructs the ignorant mind and frustrates and reproves the perverse will ; but for the mind that is awake and alive, and the heart that is made wise unto goodness, it is a vast, rich inherit- ance waiting to be entered upon and possessed. Man has but to learn the true proportion of things, distinguishing great things and lasting things from the small, and he will find the truth declared by the Man of Sorrows, who was the greatest optimist the world
EZEKIEL xvm. 4, 27 185
ever knew, to be valid for all thought and all practice — " Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you." The natural world is the instrument of moral issues, and the universe a place for the making of souls. If man's environment baffles, hinders, frustrates and ultimately defeats him, so that his whole career looks an empty thing of less than no account and ends in darkness, it is because that environment has been misinterpreted and misemployed by him and his fellows.1
3. There is a strict balance of justice in all God's ways. He will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear ; but He will require of us that which He has committed to us. Let us stand in awe and sin not, and let us take heed that the gift of eternal life, of life in Himself, which He has given in the Son, be not lost through unbelief. If we were merely the creatures of circumstance, did the law of heredity bind us in an iron embrace, it would be hard indeed that we should suffer, not from anything in ourselves, but from the inevitable consequences of others' sins. The doctrine of the Fall has sometimes been preached as if this were its meaning. We may be sure, whatever its meaning may be, that this is not its meaning. The reach of retribution is proportioned to the egoism of sin, as even the story of the Fall might have told any intelligent reader. As the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is Mine. It has its own indi- vidual relation to Me, its own powers and responsibilities; and only when it violates this of its own free act shall it incur the penalty of violation. Only the soul that sinneth shall die, shall receive the heart of death into itself. The principle which the prophet insists upon is not the strict retributive righteousness of God, but the moral freedom and independence of the individual person. The individual is not involved in the destiny of his fathers or of his people; neither does he lie under an irrevocable doom pro- nounced over him by his past life. The immediate relation of every spirit to God and its moral freedom to break with its own past raises it above both these dooms. What Ezekiel says of man is that each stands in immediate relation to God and shall live or die accord- ing as he repents or continues in his sin. Let us never forget that all well-being depends upon well-doing, and that well-doing