It is unjust, secondly, because it is excessive. Sin, say theologians, is to be punished infinitely, because sin is an offence committed against an infinite being. Of course, then, good must logically be rewarded infinitely, because it is duty offered to an infinite being. There is no man who has never done a single good act, so every man deserves an infinite reward. There is no man who has never done a single bad act, so every man deserves an infinite punishment. Therefore every man deserves both an infinite reward and an infinite punishment, "which," as Euclid says, "is absurd." And this is quite enough answer to the proposition. But I must protest, in passing, against this notion of "sin against God" as properly understood. If by this expression is only meant that every sin committed is a sin against God, because every sin is done against man's higher nature, which is God in man, then indeed there is no objection to be made to it. But this is not what is generally meant by the phrase. It usually means that we are able, as it were, to injure God in some way, to dishonour him, to affront him, to trouble him. By sin we make him "angry," we "provoke him to wrath;" because of this feeling on his own part he punishes us, and demands "satisfaction." Surely a moment's reflection must prove to any reasonable being that sin against God in this sense is perfectly impossible. What can the littleness of man do against the greatness of the Eternal! Imagine a speck of dust troubling the depths of the ocean, an aphis burdening an oak-tree with its weight: each is far more probable than that a man could ruffle the perfect serenity of God. Suppose I stand on a lawn watching an ant-heap, an ant twinkles his feelers at me scornfully; do I fly into a passion and rush on the insect to destroy it, or seize it and slowly torture it? Yet I am far less above the level of the ant than God is above mine.