Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875 / 2008-08-02 00:00:00

But how the
sinner will shrink from this message--and shrink the more, the more
feeling he is, the less he is wrapped up in selfishness. Yes, that
message gives us such a view of the sinfulness of sin as none other
can. It tells us why God hates sin with so unextinguishable a
hatred, just because He is a God of Love. It is not that man's sin
injures God, insults God, as the heathen fancy. Who is God, that man
can stir Him up to pride, or wound or disturb His everlasting calm,
His self-sufficient perfectness? 'God is tempted of no man,' says
St. James. No. God hates sin. He loves all, and sin harms all; and
the sinner may be a torment and a curse, not only to himself, not
only to those around him, but to children yet unborn.
This is bad news; and yet sinners must hear it. They must hear it
not only put into words by Moses, or by St. Paul, or by any other
inspired writer; but they must hear it, likewise, in that perpetual
voice of God which we call facts.
Let the sinner who wishes to know what original sin means, and how
actual sin in one man breeds original sin in his descendants, look at
the world around him, and see. Let him see how St. Paul's doctrine
and the doctrine of the Ten Commandments are proved true by
experience and by fact: how the past, and how the present likewise,
show us whole families, whole tribes, whole aristocracies, whole
nations, dwindling down to imbecility, misery, and destruction,
because the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.
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