First, a famous lady giving a classic example of the problem of this post’s title.
�Dear Lord, if you spare this town from becoming a smoking hole in the ground, I’ll try to be a better Christian. I don’t know what I can do … umm … ooh! The next time there’s a canned food drive I’ll give the poor something they’d actually like instead of old lima beans and pumpkin mix.�
(Marge Simpson, The Simpsons, Vol 1. of The Complete Third Season, Collectors Edition, �Homer Defined� 07:51-8:10)
Second, John Dryden explaining that God will not be satisfied with your absurd offers to make up for sin.
From John Dryden’s Religio Laici
[Of the moral inadequacy of Deism in the light of man’s sin]
Dar’st thou, poor Worm, offend Infinity?
And must the Terms of Peace be given by Thee?
Then Thou art Justice in the last Appeal;
Thy easy God instructs thee to rebell:
And, like a King remote, and weak, must take
What Satisfaction Thou art pleas’d to make.
But if there be a Pow’r too Just, and strong
To wink at Crimes, and bear unpunish’d Wrong;
Look humbly upward, see his Will disclose
The Forfeit first, and then the Fine impose:
A Mulct thy Poverty could never pay
Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way:
And with C�lestial Wealth supply’d thy Store:
His Justice makes the Fine, his Mercy quits the Score.
See God descending in thy Humane Frame;
Th’ offended, suff’ring in th’ Offenders Name:
All thy Misdeed to him imputed see;
And all his Righteousness devolv’d on thee.
For granting we have Sin’d, and that th’ offence
Of Man, is made against Omnipotence,
Some Price, that bears proportion, must be paid;
And Infinite with Infinite be weigh’d.
See then the Deist lost: Remorse for Vice,
Not paid, or paid, inadequate in price:
What farther means can Reason now direct,
Or what Relief from human Wit expect?
That shews us sick; and sadly are we sure
Still to be Sick, till Heav’n reveal the Cure:
If then Heaven’s Will must needs be understood.
(Which must, if we want Cure, and Heaven, be Good)
Let all Records of Will reveal’d be shown;
With Scripture, all in equal balance thrown,
And our one Sacred Book will be That one.