"Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil" (Rom. ii. 9). Punishment necessarily accompanies sin. Sin and punishment are, outside human laws, only different aspects of the same thing. The physical law of nature is law only because its observance has good effects and its transgression evil ones. The same is the case with the moral law and also with the higher supernatural law. The divine law is not a set of arbitrary commands with arbitrary and heterogeneous penalties attached, as in human legislation; but it arises from the nature of things, it is grounded on nature the divine nature and human nature and it is given because it makes for our perfection and happiness, and is a preservative against evils. God, like the maker of a machine, knows the purpose of each creature, and its capabilities, and the conditions of its well-being. That knowledge of God communicated to us becomes the natural law, the moral law, the supernatural law, as the case may be. It cannot be other than it is. If we set aside the law, we necessarily lose the advantages inherent in the law; so the law itself avenges its violation. There is no greater folly than for man to think that he can know, better than God, the law of his construction and the right means of working out his destiny, and that he can be a law to himself. No advantage, except something utterly unreal, can follow the breaking of those rules which God declares necessary for our well-being. "Who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?" (Job ix. 4). The one secret of prosperity and remedy for all evils is the observance of the law of God. "This do and thou shalt live" (Luke x. 28).
