questions his will. He could, if he chose, it tacitly says, put an end to all the miseries of hell, release the wretched inmates, forgive their sins, illumine their minds, purify their hearts and elevate them to heaven. Why does He not do so? Oh, they have sinned away their day of grace, and must endure for ever the fearful punishment of sin. Their sentence is just, their sufferings are merited, the justice of God is vindicated, and his glory is as clearly manifested in the eternal misery of the sinner as in the eternal felicity of the saint.
The New Church, repudiating these doctrines as irrational and unscriptural, would rescue theology from their baleful influence. It affirms that God has no justice which can be outraged and insulted by a violation of his laws, and which demands a retribution in shape of punishment for sin. Spiritual laws are organic. They are expressions or modes of life and are not created. They exist in the nature of things, by primal necessity, coincidently with God himself. God is law. He creates and governs man by the laws of his own being. There is not one law for God and another for man, but the same for both.
When man violates the divine commandments which are the laws of God's life, he does not incur
