Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice. And He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto you." Many persons who claim that the import of the term die, in the sentence "The soul that sinneth it shall die," was experienced by the Savior upon the cross dying as a substitute in the law-place of sinners, overlook several things of first importance. First, infants were not included in the provisions of a vicarious punishment and atonement unless it can be shown that they sinned--were sinners. Second, no innocent person can justly suffer in the law-place of the guilty. In all such cases justice is dishonored and law violated, for just law limits its penalties to the guilty. Our salvation "is not of the law," but "by grace" or favor. Law had nothing to do with the death of Christ. He, "BY THE GRACE OF GOD, tasted death for every man." "If it be of the law it is not of grace." Again, the simple sentence, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," never was _the law_ of God in any age, but simply a fraction of the law. Did Christ ever sin? No! Then He never honored this law, or satisfied its penalty by dying; for if, as our friends say, the inexorable quality of the law will forever hold the guilty to its claims, it will forever keep the innocent from its penalty. But I aver that the inexorable quality _that is claimed_ for the law of God never belonged to it. No, not even to the simple sentence, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." The Lord authorizes us to supply the condition in every instance where it is not expressed, thus: "When I shall say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, _he shall not die_." So the prophet gives us the second quotation at the head of this article, "_Shall not die._" It would be just as proper to make this last scrap of the law inexorable as its opposite. Such teachings do violence to the truth by overlooking the merciful provisions that are found in the laws of God, by holding inexorable law before us as a streak of justice clothed with _black vengeance_.