To-day, after six thousand years of degradation, so much of the original likeness has been erased by sin that we are not free, being bound, to a greater or less extent, by sin and its entailments, so that sin is now more easy and therefore more agreeable to the fallen race than is righteousness.
That God could have given Adam such a vivid impres- sion of the many evil results of sin as would have de- terred him from it, we need not question, but we believe that God foresaw that an a&ual experience of the evil would be the surest and most lasting lesson to serve man eternally j and for that reason God did not prevent but permitted man to take his choice, and to feel the consequences of eviL Had opportunity to sin never been permitted, man could not have resisted it, consequently there would have been neither virtue nor merit in his right-doing. God seeketh such to wor- ship him as worship in spirit and in truth. He desires intelli- gent and willing obedience, rather than ignorant, mechan- ical service. He already had in operation inanimate me- chanical agencies accomplishing his will, but his design was to make a nobler thing, an intelligent creature in his own likeness, a lord for earth, whose loyalty and righteous- ness would be based upon an appreciation of right and wrong, of good and evil.
The principles of right and wrong, as principles^ have always existed, and must always exist j and all perfedt, intel- ligent creatures in God's likeness must be free to choose either, though the right principle only will forever continue to be a<5ttve. The Scriptures inform us that when the ac- tivity of the evil principle has been permitted long enough to accomplish God's purpose, it will forever cease to be aftive, and that all who continue to submit to its control shall forever cease to exist, (i Cor. 15 : 25, 26$ Heb. 2: 14.) Right-doing and right-doers, only, shall continue forever.
But the question recurs in another form ; Could not max*.
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