Around the Year with Emmet Fox - 29 September 2010
IMMUTABLE LAW
I once came across an old sermon that was delivered in London during the French REvolution. The author said, referring to the Sermon on the Mount: "Surely it is justifiable to hate the Arch-butcher, Robespierre, and to execrate the ******* murderer." This pronouncement perfectly illustrates the fallacy that we have been considering.
You might just as well swalow a dose of prussic acid in two gulps, and think to protect yourself by saying, "This one is for Robespierre; and this one for the ******* murderer." You will hardly have any doubt as to who will receive the benefit of the poison.
A woman said: "I have the right to be angry." meaning that she had been the victim of very shabby treatment. This, of course, is absurd. There is no one to give such a permit, and if general laws could be set aside in special instances, we should have, not a universe, but a chaos. If you drank a deadly poison inadvertently, you would die because such is the law. For the same reason, to entertain negative emotions is to order trouble--quite independently of any seeming justification that you may suppose yourself to have.
Keep thy heard with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23)