That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon "for Christ's sake" is not moral. God acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive. If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It would not be just for you to say: "He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but I forgive him." Nor would it be just for you to forgive him because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his injured sister, "Father, forgive him for my sake." He who wrongs a fellow-creature wrongs himself as well, and wrongs both for all eternity. Let this awful thought keep us just. It is more moral and more corrective than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a Saviour. Christ's Atonement, or any other person's atonement, cannot _justly_ be accepted. For the fact that Christ is willing to suffer for another man's sin only counts to the merit of Christ, and does not in any way diminish the offence of the sinner. If I am bad, does it make my offence the less that another man is so much better? If a just man had two servants, and one of them did wrong, and if the other offered to endure a flogging in expiation of his fault, what would the just man do? To flog John for the fault of James would be to punish John for being better than James. To forgive James because John had been unjustly flogged would be to assert that because John was good, and because the master had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be forgiven. This is not only contrary to reason and to justice: it is also a very false sentiment. DETERMINISM CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? I have said several times that Man could not and cannot sin against God. This is the theory of Determinism, and I will now explain it. _If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's acts._ The Christian says God is our Maker. God _made_ Man. Who is responsible for the quality or powers of a thing that is made? The thing that is made cannot be responsible, for it did not make itself. But the maker is responsible, for he _made_ it. As Man did not make himself, and had neither act, nor voice, nor suggestion, nor choice in the creation of his own nature, Man cannot be held answerable for the qualities or powers of his nature, and therefore cannot be held responsible for his acts. If God made Man, God is responsible for the qualities and powers of Man's nature, and therefore God is responsible for Man's acts. Christian theology is built upon the sandy foundation of the doctrine of Free Will. The Christian theory may be thus expressed: God gave Man a will to choose. Man chose evil, therefore Man is wicked, and deserves punishment.