we cannot look; beyond this we may not go. To regard God a person that forgives or punishes sin, according as His mercy is sought, or unsought, is to misunderstand Love, and institute prayer as the safety-valve for wrong-doing. Do we ask Wisdom to be merciful to sin, then “We ask amiss to consume it on our lusts;” and to forgive sin without punishment, allows the sin to multiply, and this is neither mercy nor Wisdom. A magistrate may remit a criminal sentence; but this is no benefit morally to the criminal, and has only saved him from one form of punishment. The moral law that alone is capable of justifying or condemning, still demands man to go up higher, or meet the penalty of a broken law that punishes to compel this progress. Personal pardon of sin — and there is none other — for Principle, never pardons sin, leaves man free to commit anew the offence; if indeed he has not suffered sufficiently from sin, to turn from it with loathing. Truth entertains no pardon for error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner.
Asking God to pardon sin, is a “vain repetition such as heathen use.” Habitual goodness, is praying without ceasing, in which motives are made manifest by the blessings we bestow, whether these are, or are not acknowledged, and attest our worthiness to be made partakers of Love. We cannot pray aright, and believe that God, who is the same yesterday and forever, is changeable or influenced in the least by a mortal sense of what man needs. He who is immutably right, will do right, without being reminded of it; and the wisdom of man is insufficient to select from God. We would not stand before a blackboard, and pray the Principle
