BV 4655 .L42 1882 
 
 Leathes, Stanley, 1830-1900 
 
 The foundations of morality 
 
THE 
 
 Foundations of Morality 
 
 DISCOURSES ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEIR 
 
 ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY, 
 
 BY TKE REV. 
 
 STANLEY LEATHES, D.D., 
 
 PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL's, PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, KING'S COLLEGE, 
 LONDON, AND RECTOR OF CLIFFE-AT-HOO, KENT. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII. 
 
 [All rights reserved. '\ 
 
Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T HAVE tried In these discourses to estimate 
 the kind of natural and inherent testimony 
 that is borne by the Mosaic Decalogue to its 
 own authority and origin. We find the Ten 
 Commandments accepted as the basis of moral 
 and social life, in the most civilised nations 
 of the world. Why is this ? Why do their 
 enactments and prohibitions receive the com- 
 mon consent and acquiescence of mankind ? 
 Is there any reason why they should continue 
 to do so ? Is there any reason why they 
 should not be repealed ? Can we be sure 
 that this common consent and acquiescence 
 will not be withheld from them after a time ? 
 And if it will not, why will it not? 
 
 Now, the answer to these questions will 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 either be, Because there is so much in the 
 Ten Commandments that is in accordance with 
 the obvious constitution and requirements of 
 society, that the attempt to reject them will 
 be fatal to society itself ; or else, Because these 
 Ten Commandments have a Divine sanction 
 and authority which raises them entirely above 
 the apprehension of any such rejection. And 
 the first answer will, in point of fact, be very 
 nearly equivalent to the second. Because if 
 it can be shown that the actual constitution 
 of society is arranged on anything like the 
 moral basis of the Decalogue, that will be a 
 very significant indication that its moral pre- 
 cepts have the binding force which they could 
 not have if they did not proceed from the 
 same origin as society itself. 
 
 For instance, it is impossible to suppose that 
 the seventh commandment, if it can be shown 
 to be in accordance with the greatest welfare 
 and perfection of society, can have no more 
 than the kind of casual significance derived 
 
Preface, v 
 
 from accidental correspondence. If society is 
 constituted to move in accordance with the 
 requirements of the seventh commandment, 
 it is too much to suppose that such constitu- 
 tion is accidental on the one hand, or that 
 the expression of the seventh commandment is 
 merely the self-originated utterance of society 
 in contemplation of its own requirements on 
 the other. In fact, even if we could imagine 
 such an origin as this for the seventh com- 
 mandment, it would indeed show, not that 
 that precept was Divine, but that the will 
 revealed was the will not of society itself, but 
 of some One who was responsible for the con- 
 stitution of society, and consequently that the 
 seventh commandment was the accurate reflec- 
 tion of His will. To suppose that the real 
 constitution of society is moral in its basis 
 and yet does not point to a moral will and 
 Governor is absurd. Hence the enunciation 
 of the moral law is itself a witness to a mind 
 and will enunciating it, and also a rigid and 
 emphatic protest against the idea that the 
 
vi Preface, 
 
 constitution of society is an accidental thing 
 having no significance or authority. 
 
 If, however, the enunciation of the moral law, 
 when rightly understood, is a witness to the 
 authority and the will of One in whose name 
 it is enunciated, so that the law which forbids 
 certain acts cannot be severed from the utter- 
 ance of a Person who has a right to say 
 Thou shall not, it is likewise a witness to 
 something more. Because, as a matter of fact, 
 the oldest and most authoritative expression 
 of the moral law is based upon the self- 
 revelation of a Person who claims to be respon- 
 sible for this law. And, indeed, it is not 
 conceivable that there should be any personal 
 utterance of the moral law without, at all 
 events, sufficient self-revelation to command 
 our allegiance. We must know something 
 of the Person whose will we are to obey in 
 proportion to the willingness and zeal with 
 which we are to obey it. Thus the moral 
 law is not only based upon self-revelation. 
 
Preface, vii 
 
 but also preceded with the enunciation of 
 precepts which have exclusive reference to 
 Him. It is indeed this self-revelation and 
 these precepts which form the necessary basis 
 and foundation of the moral precepts, and not 
 the moral precepts upon which the others rest 
 We cannot separate the one from the other 
 for we cannot separate the moral law from a 
 certain degree of self-revelation ; and the self- 
 revelation which says "I am the Lord" says 
 also "Thou shalt have none other gods but 
 me." 
 
 But herein is involved the essential principle 
 of Religion, that is, the manifestation of the 
 object of worship to the heart of the wor- 
 shipper ; and thus we begin to see the common 
 origin of Morality and Religion. The moral 
 law, if a reality, involves so much self-revela- 
 tion as is contained in " I am the LORD." As 
 a matter of fact, our knowledge of the moral 
 law runs up into this formula of self-revelation, 
 and can by no means be severed from it. He 
 
viii Preface* 
 
 who makes known the law as His law makes 
 known Himself. He does not make known 
 the law except in making known Himself. 
 Take away the personal authority of the law, 
 and you take away the law itself; for it be- 
 comes no longer a law, but at the most an 
 induction, a creation of the mind and subject 
 to the mind creating it. Thus morality and 
 religion are seen to be coordinate, and religion 
 is not dependent upon morality but morality 
 upon religion. Destroy the foundations of 
 morality, and you do indeed destroy religion, 
 for there can be no true religion without 
 morality; but destroy the foundations of 
 religion, and you have destroyed that which 
 is the basis also of morality, and it will be 
 impossible for morality to last, as it will be 
 for a tree to live of which the tap-root has 
 been cut. The practical testing of these prin- 
 ciples is virtually the problem of the day, 
 which will have to be practically worked out; 
 but we have no hesitation as to the principles 
 themselves, and are perfectly clear as to their 
 
Preface, ix 
 
 soundness. Whether or not our statement of 
 them is logically accurate, the reader must 
 decide, but we have tried to make it so and 
 must abide the decision. 
 
 If the Law can be shown to be lacking in 
 authority in proportion as it is cut off from 
 the self-revelation of a Person, then is the 
 just enforcement of the claims of the moral 
 law identical with and dependent upon the 
 enforcement of the reality of this self-revela- 
 tion ; and thus not only is morality shown to 
 be dependent upon the reality of a revelation, 
 but we discover in the true realisation of 
 the claims of morality a valid basis for the 
 ultimate foundation of the evidences of re- 
 ligion. Unquestionably the phenomena which 
 attended the delivery, the preservation and 
 the subsequent history of the moral law are 
 such as cannot fairly be dealt with without 
 shutting us up to the acknowledgment of 
 the presence and the operation of the super- 
 natural ; and this is what the Evidences of 
 
X Preface, 
 
 Revelation must mean — namely, that a certain 
 definite religion has traces of Divine authority 
 and sanction which distinguish it sufficiently 
 from all other religions, and are in themselves 
 satisfactory because bearing traces of super- 
 natural action which, if genuine, can have no 
 other object than this authentication and proof. 
 
 I am well aware that in. the present day 
 the word supernatural has a very ominous 
 sound ; but for all that I am convinced that 
 if we have no supernatural religion we have 
 no religion worthy of the name, and if our 
 religion has no evidence of being rooted in 
 and derived from a supernatural revelation, 
 so neither can we have any permanent basis 
 for morality. 
 
 The question Why is right right t is one 
 which points us to the very foundation of 
 morals. If there is a God, and if God has 
 not left Himself without witness, then the 
 answer to this question will be, Because it is 
 
Preface, xi 
 
 declared to us as that which is in accordance 
 with His will, and that which is in accord- 
 ance with His will must be right. Right 
 is right because it is in accordance with the 
 standard of right, and what God has declared 
 as His will must be the standard of right. 
 It is not right because He has arbitrarily 
 declared it, but He has declared and revealed 
 it as His will because it is right; and right 
 is that which corresponds with His nature. 
 If we have no means of ascertaining what 
 His nature is, we have no means of ascer- 
 taining what is right, but as far as He has 
 revealed His nature and His will to us, that 
 which is in accordance therewith must be 
 right. The revelation of the one is the revela- 
 tion of the other : but take away the being 
 of God and the revelation of God, and there 
 is and can be no other standard of right 
 than that which for the moment, and under 
 all the circumstances, happens to be the most 
 useful, the most advantageous, and the most 
 expedient, and this of necessity must vary as 
 
XI i Preface. 
 
 the occasion varies. Thus destroy the reality 
 of Revelation, and you sap the foundations 
 of Morality, — but reveal the foundations of 
 Morality as permanent and unalterable, and 
 they are seen to be identical with those of 
 Revelation itself. 
 
 Stanley Leathes. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of 
 the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" . 
 
 II. 
 
 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of 
 the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" . 14 
 
 III. 
 
 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire : 
 ye heard the voice of His words, but saw no similitude ; 
 only ye heard a voice. And He declared unto you His 
 covenant which he commanded you to perform, even 
 ten commandments ; and He wrote them upon two 
 tables of stone" 27 
 
 IV. 
 
 •' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
 first and great commandment. And the second is like 
 unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On 
 these two commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets" 4° 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Thou shalt have no other gods before me" . , .53 
 
 VI. 
 
 *' Thou shalt have no other gods before me " . . .66 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any 
 likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that 
 is in the earth beneath, or that is in the vi^ater under 
 the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them 
 nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
 God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
 that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thousands of 
 them that love me, and keep my commandments " . 79 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any 
 likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that 
 is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under 
 the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, 
 nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
 God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
 that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of 
 them that love me and keep my commandments " . 92 
 
 IX. 
 
 "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that 
 taketh His name in vain " . . . . . .104 
 
Contents. xv 
 
 X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days 
 shalt thou labour, and do all thy work : But the 
 seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it 
 thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
 daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy 
 cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates : For 
 in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 
 and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : 
 wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and 
 hallowed it" ii5 
 
 XL 
 
 'Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy 
 God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou 
 labour, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is 
 the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not 
 do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor 
 thy manservant, nor thy maidser\-ant, nor thine ox, 
 nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger 
 that is within thy gates : that thy manservant and thy 
 maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember 
 that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that 
 the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a 
 mighty hand and by a stretched out arm : therefore the 
 Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath 
 day." 
 
 XII. 
 
 *' Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may 
 be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee" HI 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "Thou shalt not kill" i54 
 
 128 
 
xvi Contents, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 *' Thou shalt not commit adultery " 167 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Thou Shalt not steal " 179 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh- 
 bour " . . 191 
 
 XVII. 
 
 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt 
 not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, 
 nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any- 
 thing that is thy neighbour's " . . . . . 205 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly com- 
 prehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law " 218 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ' ' Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one 
 
 that believeth " 232 
 
I. 
 
 " I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out 
 of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." — 
 Exodus xx. 2. 
 
 " T HAVE many times assayed," said Luther, 
 -L " thoroughly to investigate the Ten Com- 
 mandments, but at the very outset, ' I am the 
 Lord thy God,' I stuck fast ; that very one word, 
 I, put me to a nonplits. He that has but one 
 word of God before him, and out of that word 
 cannot make a sermon, can never be a preacher." 
 It may seem a rash and even an audacious thing 
 to attempt to do that which the great reformer 
 declared had oftentimes baffled him ; but the 
 statement he makes in the same breath, that 
 one word of God is enough for any preacher, 
 encourages me to make the attempt, inasmuch 
 as even when my words fail, I shall know that 
 they are God's words which I endeavour to 
 unfold, and that they will survive my failure. 
 At the present day, moreover, it is of special 
 importance to uphold and enforce morality, to 
 understand what we mean by morality, to 
 understand why it is that morality has any 
 
 I 
 
2 Foimdations of Morality, 
 
 claim upon us, if we acknowledge such a claim, 
 and what is the foundation upon which morality 
 rests, and which is so essential, that, if it is 
 .destroyed, morality is destroyed too. There 
 are possibly those to whom morality has some- 
 what of an ominous and fatal sound. It re- 
 minds them of the deep sleep that had fallen 
 on the Church in this land some eighty or a 
 hundred years ago, from which it was aroused 
 by the trumpet tones of men who came from 
 God, and told their fellow-men that morality 
 without religion was nothing worth, and, so 
 saying, told them truly. But times are greatly 
 changed now, and the whole aspect of thought 
 is altered. It is not, God forbid, as a substi- 
 tute for religion that we uphold the claims of 
 morality : far from it. On the contrary, we want 
 to inquire what morality itself is, and whether 
 there is not something else beneath it which 
 virtually implies all that religion affirms, and 
 whether it is not itself dependent for its very 
 existence upon that which religion affirms. 
 
 But more than this, in the present day it is 
 too often morality in which many are fain to 
 take refuge from the breaking up of the founda- 
 tions of faith on every side, and the loosening of 
 their hold upon religion. They reason thus : 
 "Amid the prevailing strife of tongues, it is 
 
Foundations of Morality, 3 
 
 impossible for us, as simple laymen, to come to 
 any satisfactory decision as to the respective 
 merits of this and that belief, but meanwhile we 
 must do something, and must have something to 
 guide us in what we do: we must have something 
 to live by ; and if we cannot resolve ourselves as 
 to the particular phase of our religion, we can 
 at least lead moral lives, and we know that we 
 are right and must be right in doing so ; then 
 this we will do : we will be just, and act justly; 
 we will be honest and upright, diligent, truthful, 
 and pure ; and all the rest we will leave alone ; 
 we will not be bothered by it, but will let 
 it go." A very wise and excellent conclusion, 
 and one, thank God, vastly to be preferred 
 before that conclusion which in other times men 
 too readily adopted, of making their uncertainty 
 about religion an excuse for the immorality of 
 their lives. But it will be my endeavour to show 
 that if the one course was to be condemned, the 
 other likewise is to be deplored, and for the 
 selfsame reasons that we do condemn the one. 
 I shall endeavour therefore to discover why it is 
 right to be moral, and whether, if we have any 
 ground to be sure of this, we have not sufficient 
 and equal cause to go still further, and not to 
 rest satisfied with morality as morality, but to 
 embrace the essential truths and principles of 
 
4 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 religion also. It is a high and important theme, 
 and with all sincerity and earnestness do I invoke, 
 at the outset, the assistance and the illumination 
 of that gracious Spirit who it was promised should 
 guide us into all the truth. 
 
 At the very commencement, then, it is to be 
 noted that the words before us are declared to 
 be the very words of God : " And God spake 
 all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God," 
 and so forth. We all know where this was — 
 namely, at the giving of the Law from Sinai. 
 
 L But the question is, and we must ask it, 
 whether the words were spoken at all, or, if 
 spoken, were spoken by God, and how it is that 
 we know or have reason to believe that God 
 spoke them. It is this primary and funda- 
 mental question that I wish to consider, because 
 I believe that in the present day it is not 
 enough to rest satisfied with the very facile 
 answer, " The Bible says it, and the Church 
 has always believed the Bible." If the Church 
 has made the Bible, then of course the Church 
 will believe the Bible, but we shall still have 
 to ask, Why should we believe the Church.? 
 But if the Bible has made the Church, then, 
 unless we are Churchmen, we shall have to ask. 
 Why should we accept the Bible } and even if 
 we are, it may be as well to try to find some 
 
Foicndations of Morality, 5 
 
 intelligible and independent answer to that 
 question. 
 
 The question then is, How do we know that 
 'God spake these words ? and it is a very mo- 
 mentous question ; nor can the answer be given 
 in brief, but must be unfolded in many dis- 
 courses, which shall gradually lead us up to the 
 answer and prepare the way for it ; not that to 
 find this answer is the direct object of these 
 discourses, but rather to investigate the way in 
 which it may be found, or at all events one 
 portion of the way by which we may find it. 
 
 The answer, however, is briefly twofold, — first, 
 because of the various circumstances attending 
 the promulgation of the words thus given, of the 
 nature of the documents in which they are found, 
 of the way in which those documents have 
 been preserved, and a variety of facts conse- 
 quent upon and subsequent to all these things, 
 which taken together combine to confirm the 
 truth of them ; and, secondly, because of the 
 character and essential nature of the words 
 themselves. With the first of these answers we 
 shall have, except incidentally, but little to do, 
 for it would embrace the very wide field of 
 evidences. Christian and Jewish; but with the 
 latter we shall have very much. Indeed, it is 
 by the investigation of this part of the field of 
 
6 Foundations of Moratity, 
 
 inquiry thus marked out that we may hope to 
 arrive at some indications of the answer. 
 
 We may start, then, with the axiom that if 
 God speaks it /is probable that what He says 
 will be worthy of Him. As Luther says, one 
 of His words must contain matter for a dis- 
 course. In like manner, we are told of Him 
 who lived and died as the Son of God, that He 
 spake — it was the confession of His enemies — 
 as never man spake. And so here we are told 
 that God said, " I am the Lord," — that is, *' I am 
 Jehovah," which means, as far as we can tell, " I 
 am He who is and causes to be," or " I am He 
 who is, and was, and shall be," — very much as 
 Jesus says in the Revelation, " I am He that 
 liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for 
 evermore." * Now, I am proceeding on the as- 
 sumption that we have here a true revelation of 
 God, because so only can we determine whether 
 the words are worthy of Him. If they were not 
 spoken by Him, they cannot be worthy of Him. 
 
 Milton, whose genius as a poet is second to 
 none, has put many speeches into the mouth of 
 God, — some of them, or parts of them, doubtless 
 of great sublimity ; but who shall dare to say 
 that the speeches thus assigned to God are 
 worthy of Him } Nay, does not the greatest 
 
 * Rev. i. 1 8. 
 
Fou7idations of Morality, 7 
 
 of Milton's admirers, if a sincere and devout 
 believer, read these speeches with somewhat of 
 a sensation allied to shuddering ? Do they not 
 seem like a very dangerous tampering with 
 revelation ? and do they not therefore serve to 
 show that if Moses spake as Milton spake, — if 
 revelation is of the nature of what we find in 
 Milton, — we have no revelation at all ? We 
 either have a word of God, or we have not : if 
 we have not, then there is an end of the whole 
 matter — we need trouble ourselves no further 
 about it; but if we have, then the word of God 
 which we so have must differ generically, and 
 toto ccelo, from that word assigned to God which 
 we find, for example, in Milton. 
 
 Now, it is my contention that we have a word 
 of God of this kind, and, for the present, I am 
 willing to content myself with pointing out the 
 inevitable issue if we have not — namely, that 
 that ends the matter ; not however using that 
 issue for the purpose of proving that this of 
 which we are now speaking is a word of God, 
 which would of course be arguing in a circle, 
 but merely as a reason for assuming for the 
 while that it is such a word, and as furnishing 
 the basis for the inquiry whether the alleged 
 word is worthy of Him ; for if it is not His, 
 or cannot be, we are under no obligation to 
 
8 Foiuidatioiis of Morality. 
 
 ask the question. If, therefore, God says, " I 
 am the Lord," or, " I am the I AM," what is 
 it that He says ? Does He not introduce 
 Himself by name — as, for example, " I am 
 Jehovah" ? Is that the point of His revelation ? 
 I think not. It does not concern us to know 
 the name of God so much as it does concern us 
 to know Him, Thus when Manoah asked the 
 angel who appeared to him (I am obliged now to 
 assume the truth of these narratives, which I for 
 my part heartily and entirely believe), "What 
 is thy name ? " the angel replied, " Why askest 
 thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret ? " * 
 or a wonder {j)ele) ; and so when God says here, 
 " I am the I AM," the revelation is, if we may 
 so say, not one of nominahty, but of personality. 
 The revelation is not nominal, but real. It is 
 the unveiling of the self, the coming out of the 
 darkness into the light, out of the stillness and 
 silence of nature into the speech of the word of 
 God, or revelation. 
 
 Now, of course, it is a truism to say that we 
 have here a revelation because we have a reve- 
 lation ; nor do I say it : but I do venture to say 
 that the revelation is worthy of God, for the very 
 reason that it does not reveal Him as a name, 
 but it reveals Him as a personal essence. No 
 * Judges xiii. i8. Cf. Isaiah ix. 6. 
 
Foundations of Morality. g 
 
 doubt many persons do mistake the revelation, 
 and think that the name Jehovah was the revela- 
 tion ; but I contend that the revelation consisted 
 not in the name of the Person, but in the Person 
 who uttered the name. It was the /that was the 
 revelation, and not the name Jehovah ; and thus, 
 from the necessities of the language expressing 
 or containing this revelation, there is no sub- 
 stantive verb or logical copula, but simply the 
 subject and the predicate, or two subjects in 
 apposition — -" I — the Lord." No wonder, there- 
 fore, that when Luther came to this word, I, he 
 stuck fast, and was put to a nonpliiSy for it was 
 the I, Himself, and not some name or conception 
 of Him, that stood before him. 
 
 And this is what I want you, brethren, to feel — 
 that when God speaks these words it is He who 
 speaks them. The revelation consists in the 
 manifestation of Him, in the presentation of His 
 essential personality to your innermost being, 
 to your heart and conscience; and the word thus 
 spoken must infallibly be worthy of Him, for is 
 He not worthy of Himself as nothing else can 
 be } and if He reveals Himself, the revelation is 
 one that cannot fail to justify Him. We may 
 go on repeating for ever, " He is the great I AM," 
 " He is the Lord Jehovah," and the like, but that 
 is no revelation of Him. The revelation is when 
 
lO Foundatmis of Morality, 
 
 He Himself says to us, "I AM : " " I AM the I 
 AM;" "I AM who AM."* Here, then, we have 
 the very surface of simplicity, and the very depth 
 of profundity, for what can be more simple than 
 " I AM," and what can be more profound than " I 
 AM," when it is God who says it ? 
 
 But, again, you observe, the whole merit and 
 force of this revelation depends upon its being 
 made — that is, upon its reality. If God has not 
 spoken, then we have, and can have, no know- 
 ledge of Him ; but if He has, then is not this the 
 very essence of all revelation ? Is not this what it 
 must come to ? Is it or can it be anything at all 
 if it does not come to this ? " And God spake 
 all these words, saying, I am the I AM."t If God 
 speaks, is not that, must it not be, what He 
 says ? 
 
 II. But this is not all, for it is not all He 
 said ; He said also, " I am the Lord thy God." 
 Now, it must be borne in mind that this purports 
 to be a revelation made to a whole people, not 
 
 * This last appears to be the exact meaning of the 
 Hebrew words 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh, for it may be doubted 
 whether the verb haydh would be used merely as a logical 
 copula. It is remarkable that there seems, at all events, 
 to be an allusion to these words, if not to 'ehyeh as an 
 appellative, in Psalm 1. 2 1 : Thou thoiightest wickedly that 
 'ehyeh was like thyself. 
 
 t Exodus XX. I, 2. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 1 
 
 merely to the lawgiver and the high priest, but to 
 the nation. Behold, then, its majesty : " I — thy 
 God." God has a message for every separate ^^ ps 
 person in the nation. He stands in a definite, 
 clear, intelligible relation to each : " I am thy y 
 God." He who is the God of each, reveals /\ ^ 
 Himself to each. It may well draw forth our 
 admiration and wonder that the Bible never 
 attempts to define God, or to tell us what He 
 is, or to prove His existence, which it begins 
 with assuming : " In the beginning God created 
 the heaven and the earth." Certain primary 
 ideas are predicated of God, — as that He is 
 light, is love, is a Spirit, is a Father, and the 
 like ; but the question of all. What is God.? is left 
 unsolved. And why is this t Because the Bible 
 assumes, and rightly assumes, that man as man 
 knows or can with scarcely an effort rise to the 
 knowledge of what God is. 
 
 If there is no language without a word for 
 God, is not that conclusive evidence that man 
 knows what God is even if he cannot tell what 
 he means by God } And certainly there is no 
 one of us who does not know what is meant by 
 God, or what God means when He says, I am thy 
 God. If we probe our nature to the very quick, 
 we there find God. Yea, we cannot escape from 
 Him, do what we will. David spoke the Ian- 
 
1 2 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 guage of universal humanity when he said, 
 
 . » '* Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither 
 
 : ; shall I flee from Thy presence ? " "'' There is no 
 
 ';,' mistake about it, philosophise as we will, and 
 
 \ I lose ourselves in endless mazes about the nature 
 
 i of the unconditioned, the absolute, and all the 
 
 ' rest of it, the little child and the hardened sinner 
 
 ' alike know what God is; they are alike conscious 
 
 ^' I of a being who sees into their being, who goes 
 
 with them where they go, who is privy to their 
 
 innermost thoughts and actions, who arraigns 
 
 them before the bar of their own conscience 
 
 because of their responsibility to Him. We 
 
 may deny it, we may forget it, we may perplex 
 
 ourselves when we ask how can these things be ; 
 
 but for all that, so they are, and we know that 
 
 they are so ; and the Bible knows that we know 
 
 it, and proceeds from the first page to the last 
 
 on the assumption that we do. Now, since this 
 
 is so, imagine what the word of that Being must 
 
 be who not only can say, but has said and does 
 
 say, " I am the Lord thy God. I, even I, am thy 
 
 God." We are not dealing with an abstraction, 
 
 we are dealing with an entity. We are not 
 
 dealing with some figment of our own brain, 
 
 some imagination of our own mind ; we are 
 
 dealing with a living Person who speaks, and 
 
 * Ps. cxxxix. 7. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 3 
 
 who speaks to us ; and not only so, but who has 
 a right to speak to us, who has something to 
 say to us, and desires to enter into communica- 
 tion with us touching His relation to us and our 
 duty to Him. 
 
 Now, if there is any revelation from God, it 
 must surely, as far as our faculties can enable 
 us to judge, involve all this, and can imply 
 nothing less than this. And, therefore, the 
 revelation which enlightens us on these points 
 must be so far worthy of Him. We either stand 
 in some relation to God, or we do not ; if we do, 
 it must be all-important that we should know 
 what that relation is ; but from the nature of 
 the case it is impossible for us to discover what 
 it is unless He tells us. We may form conjec- 
 tures, but cannot arrive at certainty ; this must 
 depend entirely upon His vouchsafing to make 
 us an authoritative communication on the 
 matter. But this is what He did, and this is 
 what He still does, when He says to each of 
 us, as He once said to every individual Israelite 
 in the wilderness, " I am the Lord thy God." 
 
1 4 Founolaimzs of Morality. 
 
 II. 
 
 " I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out 
 of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." — 
 Exodus xx. 2. 
 
 BEFORE we can obey any command, it is 
 needful to understand the authority upon 
 which it is given. The child unhesitatingly 
 obeys his parent, because he knows that his 
 parent has a natural right to his obedience. 
 The servant obeys his master, because he knows 
 that such is the condition of the relation which 
 subsists between them. The citizen obeys the 
 law of the land he lives in, because he knows 
 that it expresses the will of the community to 
 which he belongs. But when we travel beyond 
 these familiar and obvious instances to the 
 origin and source of law itself, we have to 
 inquire, What is the authority of law } — How do 
 we know the law to be one that we are bound 
 to obey 1 — Why are we bound to obey it } 
 These are all of them questions that we cannot 
 avoid asking, if we trouble ourselves to think 
 at all, and it may not be very easy to find an 
 answer to them. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 5 
 
 We may reasonably suppose, however, that if 
 the Almighty comes forth out of the darkness 
 which ever surrounds His throne, to give His 
 people a law, He will somehow make it clear to 
 them that the law is one which they are bound 
 to obey. Indeed, it stands to reason that if God 
 vouchsafes to give man a law, it must be man's 
 duty to obey it. There can be no a priori ques- 
 tion as to whether man owes obedience to God. 
 The proposition is an axiom that man must 
 obey God, if God lays any command upon man. 
 The only question can be whether God really 
 does this — whether the law given in His name 
 is really His law. This is the question with 
 which we have now to deal. 
 
 No feature is more striking about the Ten 
 Commandments than this, that they do clearly 
 proceed upon the basis of assumption that God 
 declares Himself and makes Himself known. 
 " I am the Lord thy God ; and it is because I 
 am the Lord thy God that thou art under 
 authority to these commandments, for they are 
 the commandments that I give thee." They 
 are not propounded as merely arbitrary com- 
 mandments which might have been replaced by 
 any others, but as commandments which in the 
 nature of things man is bound to obey. It is 
 because they are commonly felt to be so that 
 
1 6 Foundations of Moi ality. 
 
 their sway over the allegiance of mankind is so 
 universal and so permanent. 
 
 But what do we mean by the nature of things? 
 If man, in the nature of things, is bound to obey 
 any precept, what does that show but that such 
 precept is part of the broad and general plan 
 which governs his own existence and that of 
 the world around him ? If it is in the nature 
 of things that he should obey a certain precept, 
 it is much better for him that he should obey 
 than disobey it. This is what we mean — that 
 confusion, distraction, interruption will ensue if 
 he does not obey it. There is no possibility of 
 question that this is the case in many instances. 
 Every one knows that it is so in the matter of 
 health. If a man takes poison, he knows that 
 it will kill him ; if he is guilty of excess, he 
 knows that he will suffer for it, — his excess will 
 avenge itself upon him. May it not be so in 
 other matters besides health ? It undoubtedly 
 often is. Then this is an indication that there 
 is a principle upon which man is constituted ; 
 a principle which may be complied, with or 
 departed from by man himself, but not with the 
 same results. It is a great point clearly to 
 recognise and grasp the fact that there is such 
 a principle, for to do so is the foundation of 
 everything. It is not a matter of indifference 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 7 
 
 to the well-being of man how man acts. One 
 method of action is In accordance with his true 
 nature, another is opposed to it. One moves 
 freely in relation to it, another does it violence. 
 
 But after having grasped this fact another 
 question arises, — namely, how far is any such 
 principle a matter of design, how far is it a 
 matter of chance .'' how far is it a matter of 
 ordinance, how far is it arbitrary } This, it will 
 be observed, is the question of questions, for it 
 involves the difference between atheism and 
 theism. If the nature or constitution of things 
 is a matter of plan and forethought, then there 
 must be a mind to think and plan it. Nothing 
 can be the result of ordinance proper unless it 
 has so been determined and ordained. Even 
 if we adopt the old heathen notion of Fate, it 
 is difficult not to adopt also the other part of 
 it, that Fate is what is decreed or spoken by 
 the gods. But it is not necessary to discuss 
 this question. It is very difficult, I venture 
 to think, to contemplate the undoubted fact 
 that certain things are morally good for man, 
 and certain things do violence to his nature, 
 and not acknowledge that this is the highest 
 evidence we can have, even if it is not con- 
 clusive evidence, that the plan or principle 
 thus indicated is the plan or principle of a 
 
 2 
 
1 8 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 mind ordaining it. Once admit this, however, 
 and the revelation of the plan is only the next 
 step below the revelation of its author. And 
 if we could conceive of a being making known 
 the plan as His plan, the revelation of the 
 plan would be in some sense the revelation of 
 Himself, and the authoritative promulgation of 
 the principle or precept would virtually be the 
 revelation of Himself, for it would be in fact 
 the revelation of His will, and we could not 
 be made acquainted with His will without 
 being made acquainted with Him whose will 
 it was. For to be made acquainted with His 
 will would be to be made acquainted with Him 
 in His will. The revelation of His will would 
 be the revelation of Himself This at least 
 would be the case so far as the revelation of 
 the principle or precept was the revelation of 
 His will, or indeed of anything properly called 
 a will. If the law of God does not express the 
 will of God, then we may know His law without 
 knowing His will ; but if otherwise, then all 
 knowledge of the law of God, and all study 
 of His law, must lead to the knowledge of His 
 will, must lead to the knowledge of Him. 
 
 But the point I wish to enforce is that if God 
 makes known His law or His will. He makes 
 known Himself in so doing. The revelation 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 9 
 
 of the law as His law is the revelation of Him. 
 If, therefore, we can by any process of reasoning 
 arrive at the conclusion that certain laws and 
 principles are in accordance with our con- 
 stitution, if we can see that there is evidence 
 that such and such precepts correspond closely 
 with our nature, as it appears to be intended 
 to exist, this will be a very strong presumptive 
 proof that the principle so indicated is God's 
 own principle ; that in being the principle of 
 our nature it is the Divine principle ; that if we 
 violate it, we shall not only transgress a law 
 of nature, but shall also sin against God. On 
 the first point we may indeed be certain, we 
 shall find no room for doubt that we have 
 transgressed a natural law ; we cannot arrive 
 at the conclusion that we have sinned against 
 God unless somehow or other God vouchsafes 
 to tell us so, unless He once for all identifies 
 Himself with the natural law which we trans- 
 gress. 
 
 It must of course be understood here that 
 I am using the word nature in a very high 
 and sacred sense, as the very root or founda- 
 tion principle upon which our moral being is 
 constituted. I take, for instance, the law of 
 truth as that very root and foundation principle 
 that we are naturally intended to obey, in 
 
20 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 harmony with which our nature is designed to 
 move, and in concert with which it will alone 
 be satisfied. 
 
 II. The question, however, next arises. How is 
 God to make known His will to man, supposing 
 Him to do so in any other way than by awakening 
 his conscience to a knowledge of His law } All 
 such awakening of the conscience must ever be 
 the highest teaching of which man is capable, 
 and all such awakening of the conscience to the 
 majesty of the law, as indeed God's law, is a true 
 revelation of God, and possibly the highest ; but 
 it appeals, after all, to one part only of man's 
 nature, namely, to his moral sense : it appeals 
 to his reason only so far as his reason is under 
 the control and guidance of his moral sense. 
 Is there any other way in which God can appeal 
 directly to the mind and reason of man, and 
 that through the experience of his natural 
 senses } Now, there can be no doubt whatever 
 but that such an appeal would be made, and made 
 directly, through the facts of history. The revela- 
 tion in the conscience is God's immediate appeal, 
 but that appeal is never made without its being 
 strictly an historical appeal, for it is made to 
 one human subject after another in turn — that 
 is, in history; and the record of its being so 
 made becomes matter of history. 
 
Foundatio7is of Morality, 2 1 
 
 For instance, there is a definite point or period 
 of time when God reveals Himself to my con- 
 science, and I become conscious of His revela- 
 tion ; and there was a definite point or period of 
 time when He revealed Himself to Abraham, to 
 David, to St. Paul. In this sense the moral revela- v 
 tion is necessarily also an historical revelation, but 
 more properly the historical revelation may be 
 regarded as set over against the moral revelation, ■ 
 and as embracing the wide field of prophecy, 
 miracle, and historic fact. It is in this sense 
 that God speaks, and speaks conclusively, for 
 the voice of history is the voice of God. The 
 long result of history is, I conceive, God's direct [ 
 appeal to the verdict of mankind, through the ' 
 experience of man. When the long record of 
 the ages shall be read out at the last, then it shall ' 
 be said, This hath God wrought. Thus we point 
 to the broad facts of Christianity at the present 
 time in proof of the conviction that He hath not 
 dealt thus with any other people, neither have the 
 heathen knowledge of His laws. But these are 
 but parts of His ways, though we are careful 
 to maintain that parts, and inseparable parts, 
 they are. For instance, we are told that when 
 the Decalogue was first propounded it was given 
 in direct connection with an historical crisis. 
 The revelation of God was made through and by 
 
22 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 and in connection with an historical event : " I 
 am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of 
 bondage." Then was laid the foundation prin- 
 ciple of obligation on the people. Man as the 
 creature of God must owe allegiance to God, his 
 Creator. This is his natural, inevitable bond of 
 obligation. But man has lost sight of this, does 
 not naturally or spontaneously acknowledge it. 
 In order that he may acknowledge it, a special 
 dispensation of Providence is needed. Man 
 must be shown that he is under special obliga- 
 tion ; he must be made aware that the Person to 
 whom he is under special obligation is He to 
 / whom he already lies under a natural and prior 
 obligation as his Creator, his God : " I am the 
 Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of 
 the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." 
 J The appeal here was to an historic fact. Every 
 ^ Israelite who heard the words spoken knew in 
 his own bitter experience the bondage referred 
 to : he had lien among the pots, he had laboured 
 in the brick-kiln, making bricks without straw. 
 The redemption, the deliverance, was a fact : 
 none could doubt it, for every man was a witness 
 to it. The sentiment of gratitude was rife within ; 
 4 it was gratitude for release, but gratitude to 
 whom i* — It was gratitude to God, to the God 
 
Foundations of Morality, 23 
 
 who had wrought the dehverance, who said, " I 
 am the Lord thy God." The Person speaking" 
 thus was revealed in two ways ; He was revealed 
 by what He said, and revealed by an historic act : 
 the one was the witness to the other. Was it 
 merely the echo of a voice that was heard in 
 the conscience, " I am the Lord thy God".'' No, 
 for the Person speaking had wrought in history. 
 He had brought the nation out of Egypt. He 
 had ransomed every individual from a state of 
 bondage. Was it merely a fortuitous succession 
 of events by which this deliverance had been 
 brought about t Was there no moral signifi- 
 cance in, no moral obligation arising out of it, 
 indissolubly bound up with it t Yea, most as- 
 suredly, for out of it there came the utterance of 
 a voice which said, '* I am the Lord thy God ; " 
 hand in hand with it there came the knowledge 
 of One revealing Himself, asserting Himself, — 
 I AM, — " I am the Lord thy God." 
 
 Now, these two points must be borne in mind. 
 First, that the exodus, though it occurred more 
 than three thousand years ago, is an indubitable 
 and undoubted historic fact. It would be as 
 preposterous and absurd to question the occur- 
 rence of the exodus as to doubt that of the 
 siege of Jerusalem by Titus. There are doubt- 
 less many points about the exodus of great 
 
24 Foimdations of Morality, 
 
 obscurity — as, for instance, notably its date, the 
 track of the Israelites, and the like ; but as to 
 its fact, that admits not of the possibility of 
 doubt. The Israelites were bondmen in Egypt ; 
 they were emancipated from that bondage- 
 Considering the position and strength of Egypt, 
 the position and weakness of Israel, the great- 
 ness of the deliverance, and the like, it must 
 have been a most remarkable event, that exodus 
 from Egypt. The memory of it lasted all 
 through their history ; it is stamped on all their 
 literature; it is not forgotten now — it is cele- 
 brated at the present day. If there was nothing 
 miraculous in it, assuredly it was itself Httle short 
 of a miracle. But, as a matter of fact, being 
 necessarily so marvellous as it was, in all pro- 
 bability it was also full of the marvellous, the 
 appropriate framework of the miraculous, the 
 natural home of the supernatural. We can well 
 believe it was God, and God alone, who brought 
 Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 But, secondly, it is no less certain that the 
 earliest promulgation which we have of the 
 moral law is this which is preserved to us in the 
 twentieth chapter of the book of Exodus, — is this 
 which is inseparably connected with the historic 
 fact of the exodus. It is in vain to search all 
 human literature for an older or more authorita- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 25 
 
 tive utterance of the moral law. It comes to 
 us here on the authority of Him who brought 
 Israel out of Egypt. What follows then ? The 
 law, if it bears witness to Him, as we shall see 
 it does, must be His law. The redemption, upon 
 a fair and adequate survey of all the circum- 
 stances before and after, cannot reasonably be 
 ascribed to any other than Him. Both the record 
 of the fact and the knowledge of the law come 
 to us by one and the same channel, and in that 
 channel they are one. Do they both belong 
 to Him, or do they not } That is to say, is it 
 His voice, or is it not, which says to us, which 
 said to Israel, " I am the Lord thy God, which 
 brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of 
 the house of bondage " } If it is really His 
 voice, we need inquire no further for the autho- 
 rity on which we are summoned to obey the 
 moral law. It is the highest authority in the 
 universe, for it is the authority which is at the 
 foundation of nature and of the very constitu- 
 tion of our being. We cannot violate this law 
 without violating the very plan and principle 
 of our being, without forcing the moral mechan- 
 ism of our nature. And if this mechanism is 
 the result of design, is not casual or arbitrary, 
 but is the expression of a predetermined will, 
 then every violation of the law is an act of 
 
26 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 injury to the will imposing it. And thus it 
 becomes at least intelligible that the progressive 
 revelation of that will which began with the 
 declaration, " I am the Lord thy God," and was 
 made through and upon the redemption from 
 Egypt, would not cease till it found expression, 
 in the midst of a yet greater redemptive act, in 
 the loving words of intercession, " Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do." We 
 cannot obey a command till we know whose 
 command it is we obey. Certainly is that 
 statement pre-eminently true with reference to 
 the commands of God ; for the whole essence of 
 obedience consists in the due acknowledgment 
 of Him whom we obey, and we cannot know 
 Him till we behold Him in His form and fashion 
 of transcendent love, and confess that we love 
 Him because He first loved us. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 27 
 
 III. 
 
 " And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the 
 fire : ye heard the voice of His words, but saw no simili- 
 tude ; only ye heard a voice. And He declared unto you 
 His covenant which He commanded you to perform, even 
 ten commandments ; and He wrote them upon two tables 
 of stone." — Deut. iv. 12, 13. 
 
 HITHERTO we have seen that the Person 
 speaking from Sinai revealed Himself in 
 two ways, first by what he said, and secondly by 
 an historic act,—" I am the Lord thy God, who 
 brought thee out of the land of Egypt." * It 
 will be the object of the following lectures, in 
 considering the Ten Commandments, to develop 
 the former method of revelation; but I shall 
 endeavour also to show, not only the revelation 
 of the Person speaking in the thing spoken, 
 but, moreover, that our inevitable recognition 
 of the wisdom, truth, and justice of the thing 
 spoken receives its only full explanation and 
 justification in the existence of a Person speak- 
 ing. I shall endeavour, therefore, to work 
 towards demonstrating the existence of a living 
 * Psalm Ixxxi. 10. 
 
2S Foundations of Morality, 
 
 personal God from the traces of His will, which 
 we cannot but find and acknowledge in our own 
 nature and sense of right. 
 
 It may be as well, however, before proceeding 
 further in our inquiry at present, to note more 
 particularly some of the features which charac- 
 terised the historic giving of the law from Sinai ; 
 such, for example, as those which are here men- 
 tioned in the narrative of Deuteronomy. 
 
 It is very certain that the first promulgation 
 of the law was accompanied by great natural 
 convulsions, thunderings and lightnings, and 
 thick cloud resting upon Sinai, and the voice 
 of a trumpet and the shaking of an earthquake. 
 These natural phenomena were the birth-throes 
 which ushered in the advent of a law that was 
 to show all mankind guilty before God. There 
 was, however, one remarkable feature that was 
 absent, which the writer thus expresses : " Ye 
 saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice." It 
 seems impossible to exaggerate the importance 
 of this distinguishing mark of the Jewish dis- 
 pensation, — its abhorrence, if we may so say, of 
 everything like sensuous worship, — its absolute 
 repudiation of the worship of the visible. And 
 of course, if we were at liberty to assume the 
 actual historic veracity of the narrative in ques- 
 tion, there would well-nigh be an end to the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 29 
 
 argument, which as it is we must endeavour to 
 bring to a conclusion by other means. No one 
 could conceive of a whole nation, to be counted 
 by thousands and hundreds of thousands, en- 
 camped on the plains of Sinai, and witnessing 
 the extraordinary natural phenomena which 
 the book of Exodus describes, and audibly 
 sensible of a voice out of the midst of the fire, 
 and louder than the blast of the trumpet or the 
 shock of the earthquake, declaring in tones of 
 thunder the precepts of the moral law, and not 
 confess that heaven and earth were bearing 
 record to the declared will of the Maker and the 
 Judge of all. Given the circumstances, and it 
 would be simply beyond the nature and ability 
 of man to withhold assent to the obvious con- 
 clusion. Theoretically, any other course might 
 be eligible, but practically none other could be 
 taken. And yet I am not aware that there is 
 a single syllable here that is not warranted by 
 the letter of the narrative, or indeed that the 
 literal requirements of it can be satisfied in any 
 other way. If the law was given at all from 
 Sinai, this is how it was given ; and it is more- 
 over plain that this is how the writer of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews understood it to have 
 been given.* 
 
 * Heb. xii. 18 — 21. 
 
30 Fomidations of Morality, 
 
 What, then, are the independent considerations 
 that lead us to think that the narrative in ques- 
 tion is historically true, and that these were the 
 attendant circumstances of the giving of the 
 law? 
 
 First, we may mention the clear evidence 
 throughout the sacred literature that the giving 
 of the law was a national memory that could not 
 be obliterated. These two instances need alone 
 be specified now. The words in the final blessing 
 of Moses, " The Lord came from Sinai ; ... He 
 shined forth from mount Paran, . . . from His 
 right hand went a fiery law for them;"* and 
 then in the seventy-eighth Psalm, ''He gave Israel 
 a law which He commanded our forefathers to 
 teach their children,"! referring, apparently, to 
 the command in this very chapter, " Take heed 
 to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou 
 forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and 
 lest they depart from thine heart all the days of 
 thy life : but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' 
 sons ; "J for we may well suppose that a refer- 
 ence to one part of a given narrative implies the 
 knowledge of other parts in the same narrative, 
 even if not expressly quoted. 
 
 But, again, it is not for a moment to be 
 
 * Deut. xxxiii. 2. t Psalm Ixxviii. 5. 
 
 + Deut. iv. 9. 
 
\ 
 
 1/^ 
 
 Foundations of Morality, 3 1 
 
 supposed that the obligations of the moral law 
 were now for the first time incurred. No one 
 can imagine that murder, which was forbidden 
 in the Decalogue, was lawful before the sixth \ v- 
 commandment was proclaimed, for, if so, by what 
 law was Cain condemned when he killed his 
 brother Abel ? or that theft and violence were 
 permissible before the eighth commandment was 
 enunciated, for, if so, by what precept were the 
 brethren of Joseph condemned when they sold 
 him to the Midianites ? All this serves to show 
 that there must have been some special and 
 additional proclamation and inauguration of the 
 law in the infancy of the nation of Israel, which 
 somehow or other put them as a nation into a 
 new and fresh relation to it, and which served 
 throughout their national existence to make them 
 feel proud of the knowledge and possession of the 
 law. Moreover, it v/as this particular code, and 
 not any other, nor any other form of this, that was 
 Israel's peculiar boast ; and the only two versions 
 of this that we possess are alike in the details 
 of natural phenomena that accompany them. 
 
 And then, again, we are led onwards to a 
 further point, which is the extraordinary lan- 
 guage used by the lawgiver when he says, " And 
 He declared unto you His covenant which He 
 commanded you to perform, even ten com- 
 
32 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 mandments." * Now, here is the introduction of 
 an entirely new idea. The law is spoken of as a 
 covenant — that is to say, an agreement between 
 two parties. But who were these ? One, it is 
 manifest, was the nation ; but who was the 
 other } Was it, or could it have been, Moses '^. 
 He is spoken of in the New Testament as the 
 mediator of this covenant, which at least repre- 
 sents the way in which he was regarded in 
 St. Paul's days ; that is to sa}^, he stood between 
 the people and the Person with whom the 
 covenant was made ; but the Person with whom 
 the covenant was made was the Lord. Moses 
 was careful to impress upon the people the 
 fact that the covenant was with God. There 
 is not a trace anywhere that he wished them to 
 think, or that they thought, that the covenant 
 was with him, or that they owed him the obliga- 
 tion of their obedience. Once, indeed, in the 
 course of the history, at the smiting of the rock, 
 the dark vision of self rose up before his mind, 
 and obscured the God in whose name he acted ; 
 and the result was that he was for ever pre- 
 cluded from all hope of entering the land of 
 promise, or bringing to a successful issue the 
 labours and aspirations of his life. Is there any 
 one who can dare to say that there is any 
 * Deut. iv. 13. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 33 
 
 evidence that Moses was acting in the power of 
 his own personal influence and for his own per- 
 sonal ends in doing what he did ? If so, the 
 inevitable question, which cannot be answered, 
 arises, How was Moses personally to be advan- 
 taged if every individual in the congregation of 
 Israel should rigidly and minutely perform every 
 injunction of the Decalogue ? We are con- 
 strained, therefore, to consider more patiently 
 the full significance of this word covenant. The 
 laws of the Decalogue were a covenant between 
 the Lord and His people. What did that imply.-* 
 It seemed to imply that the people's knowledge 
 of the law was a witness, token, and evidence that 
 there was and had been One who was dealing with 
 them, One who was invisible, but One who had 
 made His voice heard, and that amid the thunders 
 of Sinai. We have seen, however, that the mere 
 knowledge of the law which forbad murder and 
 theft was not enough to do all this, because the 
 conception itself was new, or at all events new 
 as it regarded the nation. They were taught, 
 indeed, that God would establish His covenant 
 with their forefather Abraham and his seed 
 after him for ever ; but here they were them- 
 selves witnesses of that which made them in- 
 heritors of Abraham's covenant. Why should 
 they regard themselves in this new relation } 
 
 3 
 
34 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 why should they as a people suddenly have 
 become alive to the new position in which they 
 stood ? and why should they regard the moral 
 law as the witness of this relation, unless there 
 had been something peculiar and highly excep- 
 tional in their new relation to this moral law ? 
 Now, the circumstances attending its promul- 
 gation on Sinai, if they actually occurred, would, 
 every one must admit, completely account for 
 this. We find, then, in the fact that Israel 
 was taught to regard the possession of the law 
 as the token of a covenant between them and 
 the Lord their God an independent indication 
 that there had been something special and em- 
 phatic to bring about this novel conception of 
 their relation to it and its bearing upon them. 
 
 Let us put the case that Moses had success- 
 fully brought his people out of Egypt, of which 
 there is and can be no doubt, as we saw in the 
 last lecture ; that, having led them safely through 
 the Red Sea to the wilderness of Sinai, he had 
 begun to inculcate upon them the supreme 
 importance of the moral law. Would this be 
 sufficient to induce them to make their boast in 
 that law, or to elevate their minds to the con- 
 ception of it as the mark of a covenant with 
 God } Surely it is no such easy matter to 
 instruct a whole nation. Let any one who has 
 
Foundations of Morality, 3 5 
 
 had practical experience in teaching say whether 
 it IS an easy matter to infuse into the minds 
 of any body of men the knowledge of primary 
 and elemental truths. Does not every one 
 know that whatever may be done with indi- 
 viduals, the moral discipline of a body is no 
 easy task. We have heard of one in our own 
 times who performed the unexampled feat 
 of educating his political party to the accom- 
 plishment of great and briUiant achievements ; 
 but what is this, or anything that can be named 
 beside it, compared with the task of making an 
 impression on the heart of a nation so deep and 
 abiding as that which undeniably was made when 
 Israel received the knowledge of the Ten Com- 
 mandments at the hands of the mediator Moses ? 
 That one act alone is sufficient to place him in 
 the very front rank of the world's greatest men, 
 and of those who have most influenced mankind ; 
 — if, indeed, it does not place him second only to 
 the adorable name of Jesus Christ. But when we 
 consider the character of the materials on which 
 Moses had to work, — that the people were but 
 recently emancipated from the hard bondage of 
 Egypt, — that they were a people that had but 
 recently emerged from a condition of slavery, 
 and had but newly acquired the consciousness 
 of national existence, — that whatever national 
 
36 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 characteristics they possessed must to a large 
 extent have been coloured and influenced by 
 their surroundings in Egypt, — when, I say, we 
 consider all this, and even more than this, is it 
 not patent than an impression so deep and 
 abiding as that which was wrought by Moses 
 on Israel with regard to the law could only 
 have been produced under circumstances which 
 would have been naturally favourable in the very 
 highest degree to producing it ? Every man can 
 at once see that the circumstances narrated 
 would have been of all others the most favour- 
 able ; and may it not well be questioned whether 
 any others would have been adequate ? But 
 if so, is not the Law itself, and its known 
 acceptance by the nation, the best and fullest 
 proof and confirmation of the conditions under 
 which it was given ? Can we not well believe, 
 if we had any difficulty before in the abstract, 
 that the Lord spake unto Israel out of the 
 midst of the fire? — for the mountain burned 
 with fire, they heard the voice of the words, but 
 saw no similitude, only they heard a voice. And 
 that which He declared unto them was the token 
 of a covenant which was made between them 
 and the living and true God ; and the law 
 which they heard and received was a witness 
 to Him who made it. 
 
X 
 
 Foundations of Morality, 3 7 
 
 Two principal objections may seem to arise 
 here, with the answer to which we may 
 conclude. The first is, that if the giving 
 of the Law was actually as a matter of 
 fact accompanied by these tremendous con- 
 vulsions of nature and miraculous phenomena, 
 how is it that the nation of Israel was invariably 
 so regardless of the Law ? Can we suppose 
 that any one who had witnessed such terrific 
 manifestations of Divine and supernatural power 
 would ever lose the effect of them ? Surely 
 the question itself manifests profound ignorance 
 of the human heart. Is there no one who 
 ever passed through the terrors of shipwreck, 
 or the perils of a forlorn hope in the imminent 
 deadly breach, or the horrors of an earthquake, 
 whose life did not at all times afterwards move in 
 strict conformity with the moral law ? Is there 
 no one who has made pious resolutions when ^^^ 
 lying on what was to all appearance his death- 
 bed, who has afterwards been found forgetful of 
 them ? But if so, why may not the majority 
 of the Israelitish nation have been as stiff- 
 necked and hard-hearted as their lawgiver says 
 they were, even though he could also say, " The 
 Lord our God made a covenant with us in 
 Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with 
 our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of 
 
38 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 us here alive this day. The Lord talked with 
 you face to face in the mount out of the midst 
 of the fire ! " * 
 
 But, secondly, even supposing that all these 
 marvellous physical phenomena accompanied 
 the giving of the Law from Sinai, according to 
 the narrative, yet, after all, what guarantee have 
 we that they really were supernatural, and how 
 does it affect us if they were, seeing that they 
 are contrary to all our experience? Now, it 
 must always be borne in mind that, granting the 
 actual occurrence of the truly supernatural in 
 history, the evidence of it, though sensible at 
 the time it occurs, can never afterwards be other 
 than matter of testimony. Granting hypotheti- 
 cally the actual occurrence of a true miracle, its 
 evidence is necessarily limited to those who 
 were its immediate witnesses. Unless the super- 
 natural act is continuously prolonged, it cannot 
 be continuously witnessed, so that we ourselves 
 may be immediate recipients of its evidence. 
 Its weight in our case must be experienced, 
 so to say, at second hand. Unless a miracle is 
 wrought for our special benefit, if we are to have 
 the benefit of it at all, it can only be through 
 the testimony of others. But it can hardly be 
 denied that, in the circumstances supposed, the 
 * Deut. V. 2, 3, 4. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 39 
 
 testimony of the supernatural would be valid 
 and confirmatory. Nor are we consistent in 
 objecting to the temporary character of the 
 evidence derived from the supernatural if we 
 depreciate the value of it in the abstract. It 
 either has a value, or it has none. If it has 
 none at all, then we should demand conclusive 
 evidence that it has at no time been a con- 
 comitant element in the revelation of God ; but 
 as we have seen, for instance, in the matter of 
 the giving of the Law, there is evidence that it 
 was then such an element, in which case it 1 
 must be an integral part in His method of T\ 
 dealing with His creatures who made use of 
 it as the agency whereby He spake these words, 
 and said, '' I am the Lord thy God, who brought 
 thee out of the land of Egypt." 
 
 f 
 
40 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
 first and great commandment. And the second is like 
 unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On 
 these two commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets." — Matt. xxii. 37 — 40. 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to consider in detail 
 the separate precepts of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, it may be as well to bear in mind 
 the way in which they were summed up by our 
 Lord, and the importance which He attached to 
 them. Their original division into two tables 
 very plainly indicated the appropriateness of 
 arranging them under two heads; and there were 
 not wanting special injunctions in the old law 
 which showed that their ultimate purpose was 
 only fulfilled by love. But this latter was the 
 great revelation of Jesus Christ, who lived and 
 died to show that only by love was the fulfiUing 
 of the law, and that the very end of the com- 
 mandment was love. 
 
 We have then, now to mention, first, the 
 naturally two-ioXd. division of the Law, that 
 
Foundations of Morality. 4 1 
 
 though the commandments are ten in number, 
 they are only two in object, and only one in 
 principle. The first four commandments direct 
 the course of love towards one object, which is 
 God; the last six towards another, which is 
 man. Speaking generally, the first four com- 
 mandments inculcate religion, and the last six 
 morality. It is part of our object to show the 
 inseparable connection of these two — that one 
 is based upon the other, and that one involves 
 the other. Nor is it unimportant to observe the 
 order in which they are arranged. Our Lord 
 tells us distinctly, speaking of His summary of 
 the first four, that this is the^^rj^and great com- 
 mandment; while of the last six He says, "And 
 the secojtd'is like unto it." But there can be little 
 doubt that, in so doing. He not only implied 
 and asserted the fact of a revelation, but also 
 that His statement was in direct opposition to 
 much of the thought of the present day. As a 
 rule, no one nowadays denies the authority of 
 the moral law — that is, of the obligation we are 
 under to the precepts of the second table ; but 
 many persons are staggered at the requirements 
 of the first, and with good reason, for it is 
 obvious that if we are under any obligation to 
 the Lord our God, there not only must be a 
 Lord our God to be under obligation to, but 
 
42 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 also He Himself must have given us some 
 knowledge on the subject. But this is exactly 
 what we mean by revelation, namely, that we 
 have some knowledge in these matters which 
 we did not discover for ourselves, that was not 
 the result of invention, or reflexion, or logical 
 conclusion, or the like, but was actually im- 
 parted to us by revelation, by the deliberate 
 act of God condescending to teach, inform, in- 
 struct, and educate us by a method of special 
 intervention. 
 
 It is certainly of a piece with all our Lord's 
 teaching that He declared this, and it must 
 never be overlooked that in estimating the 
 relative importance of the precepts of the two 
 tables He distinctly gave precedence to those 
 of the first. 
 
 How is it, then, that in the present day there 
 is an undeniable tendency to reverse His esti- 
 mate, and to lay the greater stress on the 
 requirements of the second t The answer is not 
 far to seek. Because men have ceased, so far as 
 this is the case, to believe in religion, and have 
 determined, in despair, to make morality a sub- 
 stitute for it. But if our Lord's teaching is 
 correct, morality is, and can be, no substitute 
 for religion, though it must be an indispensable 
 supplement to it. Love to the Lord our God 
 
Foundations of Morality. 43 
 
 is the first requirement ; love to our neighbour 
 the second. One is like the other, but one is 
 subordinate to the other. 
 
 We cannot, moreover, fail to observe that the 
 very terms of the requirement are not without 
 their bearing on the subject: "Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thine heart." But 
 how is it possible to comply with any such 
 precept t Is not love in its very nature the 
 freest of all impulses } We cannot love upon 
 command. If I am told that I must love such 
 and such a person, I may try to do so, but it 
 is quite possible I may find it very hard indeed ; 
 and if I am told to love him with all my heart, 
 mind, soul, and strength, it is only too evident 
 that it will become absolutely impossible. But 
 if I am told thus to love a person whom I do 
 not know, the command will become little less 
 than absurd and preposterous. Wherein, then, 
 lies the difference when the Person whom we 
 are bidden to love is the Lord our God } Is 
 it not clear that the dift^erence is a primary and 
 essential one, inasmuch as He is a Person whom 
 it is supposed we do know t But how do we 
 know Him } — only because He has made Himself 
 known to us. He had made Himself known 
 to Israel by the acts that He had wrought for 
 Israel. He has made Himself known to us even 
 
44 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 more conspicuously and definitely by sending 
 His Son among us, to live as we live, and to 
 die as we die. 
 
 The teaching of revelation, then, uniformly, 
 is, "We know Him because He hath known us ; " 
 so we find Moses saying, "He is thy praise, and 
 He is thy God, that hath done for thee these 
 great and terrible things which thine eyes have 
 seen ; " * and in like manner Samuel, " Only fear 
 the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your 
 heart, for consider how great things He hath 
 done for you ; " t and in the later volume of 
 revelation, " How after that ye have known 
 God, or rather are known of God ; "J and again, 
 " If any man love God, the same is known of 
 Him ; " § and, lastly, " We love Him because 
 He first loved us." || All this shows that the 
 act of knowledge on our part is preceded by 
 an act of knowledge on His ; and this shows, 
 further, that the act of knowledge on our part 
 mainly resolves itself into that of acknowledging 
 the act of knowledge on His. There is, there- 
 fore, an organ in us which is capable of per- 
 ceiving the act and operation, the presence and 
 the power of God. The action of God may be 
 the same towards two persons : one of them 
 
 * Deut. X. 21. t I Sam. xii. 24. % Gal. iv. 9. 
 
 § I Cor. viii. 3. I| i John iv. 19. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 45 
 
 will acknowledge His action, the other will not. 
 The one of them truly learns to know God ; the 
 other denies that there is any God to know, 
 or that the action of God affords sufficient 
 ground for knowing Him. Now, in point of 
 fact, in sending His Son Jesus Christ, God has 
 acted in the same way towards all mankind, 
 but there are those who acknowledge His 
 action, and there are those who do not ac- 
 knowledge it. Those who do, know Him; those 
 who do not, declare that they know Him not, 
 or declare that they have no means of knowing 
 Him. 
 
 It is farther to be observed, then, that the Law 
 was never proposed as an end in itself, but as 
 something which witnessed to a further end, 
 and which would not in its intention be carried 
 out so long as that further end was unattained. 
 This was the radical error of the ancient Jews, 
 that they lost sight of this further end in 
 jealousy for the precept as a precept. They 
 regarded the Law as an end in itself, and 
 entirely overlooked the fact that its object was 
 a further end, and that this end was love. 
 
 But if this is the case (that the end of the 
 Law is love), what a sublime vision it calls up 
 of the ultimate purpose and destiny of man ! 
 If it can be shown that the Law is in strict 
 
46 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 accordance with the voice of nature, then what 
 follows but that the very constitution of man 
 and the purpose of his existence is with a view 
 to love ? Man was constituted to love his 
 fellow-man, and man was created to love God. 
 The happiness of the race will never be com- 
 plete till this constitutional principle is univer- 
 sally carried out ; and the ultimate destiny of 
 man will never be achieved till he is completely 
 absorbed in the love of God. All experience 
 bears witness to the truth of these statements. 
 The one solitary bane of man's intercourse with 
 his fellow-man is the violation of the law of love, 
 and the observance of this law would at once 
 turn the earth into a paradise ; and the only 
 object which man can set before himself in 
 idea with the slightest promise or prospect of 
 satisfaction, and with the certainty of its never 
 failing or falling short, is the eternal realisation 
 and fruition of the love of God. 
 
 Thus the Law in its principle provides for the 
 entire satisfaction of the heart of man. The Law 
 deals with man as a being with a heart. It 
 does honour to this characteristic of his nature. 
 It does not make provision for his intellect, 
 knowing that the world itself contains ample 
 provision for that. The works of God in nature 
 furnish an inexhaustible treasury and storehouse 
 
Foundations of Morality, 47 
 
 for the exercise and development of the intellect ; 
 but what of that if the heart is left unsatisfied ? 
 All man's discoveries in that case will but 
 reveal the greater vastness and profundity of 
 his unsatisfied and insatiable longings. If God 
 left man but the works of His hands, and 
 withdrew Himself, He would give him a stone 
 when he asked for bread ; but this is exactly 
 what He has not done. He has said, with all 
 the distinctness of the old Law : It is not the 
 shadow, but the substance, that you want ; it is 
 not the husk, but the kernel, that will satisfy 
 you ; it is not the robe, but the majesty behind 
 it, which it hides and symbolises, that is worth 
 your adoration. And so the voice of the Law 
 is, " I am the Lord thy God, and thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart." 
 
 And this law needs but to be propounded, 
 for the whole nature and reason and heart 
 of man to acknowledge its wisdom and to 
 confess its truth. What is nature at her best 
 and fairest unless there is a living God be- 
 hind her } She is but a shrine forsaken of 
 its God ; the beauty of a perfect form with- 
 out the breath of life to animate it. What 
 man really wants is a worthy object on which 
 to lavish his affections. His Maker alone is 
 sudh an object. Hence the wisdom of the 
 
48 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thine heart." 
 
 In this way alone can we justify to ourselves 
 the act of God in the creation of man. If 
 God made man as a creature of infinite capa- 
 cities for pain and bliss, and placed him in a 
 mixed condition Hke ours with the knowledge 
 that in the large majority of cases he would 
 inherit the pain and lose the bliss, how are 
 we to reconcile this with the character of a 
 merciful Being } But if God made man with 
 the purpose that he should love Him to all 
 eternity, and find his happiness in loving 
 Him, we want no other proof of His mercy 
 and loving-kindness. God created man out 
 of love, that man might be blessed in loving 
 Him. He made known to him His love, and 
 set it before him as his highest aim and 
 worthiest object : " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thine heart" Verily to do 
 this is to live with the life of God, for it is to 
 live in the love of God, and God is Love. 
 
 And the Lord tells us, further, that on this 
 double law of love, on these two command- 
 ments of love to God and love to man, hang 
 all the law and the prophets. Now, what does 
 this imply 1 It implies that these two com- 
 mandments are the fixed nail or peg which 
 
Foundations of Morality, 49 
 
 supports all the law and the prophets. The 
 authority of the law of love does not depend 
 upon the writings of the law and the prophets, 
 but their writings depend on it. There is no 
 doubt a very important and profound principle 
 involved here. It is not the authority of the 
 man that lends authority to his message, but 
 his message that gives authority to him. All 
 the world is prone to think otherwise ; the world 
 is ever for calling men Rabbi, Rabbi. Christ 
 told His disciples not to suffer themselves to 
 be called Rabbi, Rabbi. He who was despised 
 and rejected of men said of His own teaching, 
 " If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me } "* 
 There is no authority that is higher than the 
 authority of truth, for the authority of truth 
 is the authority of God. If a thing is true, it 
 matters not who has said it, for if it is true 
 God says it. Now, the command to love God 
 with all the heart, and our neighbour as our- 
 selves, is a primary truth of this nature. It 
 is true, not because Moses said it, nor even 
 because God said it ; though if God said it, that 
 would show it to be true, because God cannot 
 lie ; but it is mainly true because it is the truth, 
 and it is made known to us because it is the 
 truth, and because it is the truth all the law 
 ■*" John viii. 46. 
 
 4 
 
50 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 and the prophets bear witness to it; they declare 
 and confirm its truth, but they do not make it 
 to be true, — God makes it to be true, for it is 
 in accordance with that fundamental principle 
 on which He has created and constituted man, 
 and on its truth depends the truth of all the 
 law and the prophets ; so that if it is not true 
 they are not true; but if it is true, then is 
 their truth established, for all that they have 
 said is in accordance with this truth. 
 
 And surely every time the truth of this 
 twofold precept is brought home to the indivi- 
 dual heart and the conscience it comes with 
 the force of a revelation : the light that accom- 
 panies it disperses the darkness on every side 
 and reveals to us God. The Law is not a lifeless 
 commandment ; as such it has no power but 
 to kill : it is the voice of a living Person. He 
 comes forth out of the darkness to tell us that 
 He lives, and to tell us tkat He loves, and that 
 He desires our love. The Law cannot be known 
 in this its life-giving capacity without a revela- 
 tion — a true revelation. If it thus comes home 
 to your heart, appealing to your affections, 
 winning your love, speaking to you of One 
 who loves you, who is Himself worthy of love, 
 then that is a revelation to you. The revelation 
 on Sinai was not more real ; for of this reve- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 5 1 
 
 lation it may be said, " Flesh and blood hath 
 not revealed it unto you, but your Father which 
 is in heaven." Now, the function of all the law 
 and the prophets was neither more nor less 
 than this — to minister to and to bring about this 
 revelation. The revelation did not hang upon 
 them, but they hung on the revelation. They 
 did not make the revelation, but the revelation 
 made them. Similarly, I have always thought 
 Lessing's maxim profoundly important to be 
 borne in mind, though it may not perhaps 
 express the whole truth, as indeed it does not 
 profess to do, that "the Gospel is not true 
 because evangelists and apostles preached it, 
 but apostles preached it because it is true." 
 The Gospel rests upon its own truth, and not 
 upon the truth of even inspired men. It was 
 the truth which inspired them, and they were 
 inspired with the truth ; but if we would be the 
 better for their inspiration, we must share it. 
 We also must be inspired with the truth. 
 There must be a revelation of the truth to us, 
 and the revelation of the truth will be the 
 revelation of God ; and God cannot be appre- 
 hended as a living God, as a God who lives 
 and loves, who lives and loves us, and manifests 
 His life in loving us, without a revelation, 
 whether it be the silent revelation which mani- 
 
52 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 fests His hidden glory to the secret believing 
 soul, or the revelation of fire and earthquake, 
 storm and tempest upon Sinai, or the revelation 
 of expiring love stronger than death upon the 
 accursed tree of Calvary. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 53 
 
 V. 
 
 " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 
 Exodus xx. 3. 
 
 WHO is the person addressed ? and who is 
 the person speaking ? There can be no 
 adequate treatment of this first precept of the 
 ten which does not endeavour to find an answer 
 to these two questions ; and the answer to the 
 first must depend upon the answer to the 
 second, which we must therefore deal with first 
 The principle affirmed in this commandment 
 is that which was utterly opposed to all the 
 religious notions of the ancient world. Fifteen 
 hundred years before our era, turn where we 
 will, with one exception, the only idea of religion 
 was the worship of gods many, and lords many. 
 In Egypt, the country from which the children 
 of Israel had just been emancipated, the worship 
 of many gods prevailed to an enormous extent ; 
 and as far as we can tell from the traces which 
 survive to us of the religion of other nations, 
 the belief in one God only was a thing utterly 
 unknown. 
 
54 Foundations of Mo7^altty. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, the enuncia- 
 tion of a contradictory principle is plainly 
 stated here ; for the opinion which might perhaps 
 be advanced, that the existence of other gods was 
 not denied, but the supremacy of one God was 
 enforced, is nothing to the point, inasmuch as 
 it is not their abstract existence which is dealt 
 with, but their existence in the mind of the 
 worshipper, and their influence over him. Just 
 as when we ourselves repeat this commandment 
 nowadays, no one for a moment thinks of the 
 actual entity of other gods, but only of a con- 
 dition of mind in which it would be as thoug-h 
 they had an entity : or as when St. Paul says, 
 speaking of the enemies of the cross of Christ, 
 whose end is destruction, that their god is their 
 belly, or their belly is their god, he does not 
 imply that their lower nature had any existence 
 as a god, but only that their subjection to it 
 was as if it had been to them a god. 
 
 It is needful to enter this caution because 
 otherwise there will not be wanting those who 
 will affirm of this command, that it does not 
 explicitly deny the existence of more gods 
 than one. 
 
 On the contrary, we believe that a principle 
 is declared here which is fatal to the existence 
 of any gods but one. From the first page of 
 
Foundations of Morality, 55 
 
 the Bible to the last, this is the doctrine that it 
 teaches, that there is but one living and true 
 God. Throughout the history of Israel from 
 first to last, sunk as the people were from time 
 to time in the degradation of idolatry and the 
 worship of false gods, this was the fact from 
 which they could not escape — that there was one 
 God, the God of their fathers, who claimed their 
 allegiance, and was the strenuous and determined 
 foe of every rival god, who could have no re- 
 cognition, and therefore no existence, before His 
 face. 
 
 And if we ask ourselves what is the meaning 
 of this belief in one God only, and how is it to 
 be accounted for, as arising out of, or existing 
 among, many beliefs which acknowledged many 
 gods, we shall find it very difficult to answer the 
 question. Take the case of Abraham, who was 
 born and bred in the faith of other gods. At 
 a definite period of his life, we find him the 
 faithful servant of the one God. Who had taught 
 him this faith ? What had brought him to the 
 knowledge of it } No religious change we can 
 conceive can be greater than that from the 
 belief in many gods to the belief in one. But 
 this was the change experienced by Abraham 
 in the infancy of the world. This was the faith 
 inculcated by Moses in the first commandment. 
 
56 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 Historically, we do not find any independent 
 instances of the belief in many gods developing 
 into the beHef in one. The tendency is rather 
 the other way ; so that at Athens, the eye of 
 Greece, there were gods in every street, and 
 altars to every god. What we do find is simple 
 forms of worship and belief, degenerating into 
 highly complex forms, and these, again, crum- 
 bling to pieces, and leaving behind them no faith 
 in any god. But we do not find the belief in 
 one only God arising spontaneously out of the 
 decay of the worship of many gods. The case 
 of Mohammedanism, which may occur to some, is 
 nothing to the point, because that was distinctly 
 not an original, but a derived religion, standing 
 on the old historic foundations of Judaism and 
 Christianity. 
 
 And yet, after the experience of well-nigh 
 four thousand years, what is the verdict of 
 mankind in this matter t Among the most 
 cultivated, the most thoughtful, and the most 
 enlightened, the question is no longer between 
 many gods and one God, but only between one 
 God and none. As far, therefore, as it is possible 
 for man to be the judge of his own belief, the 
 decision of mankind is unmistakably in favour 
 of the old faith of the Hebrews as inculcated by 
 the first commandment. And we are told by 
 
Foundations- of Morality, 57 
 
 the students of physical science that the same 
 is undeniably the teaching of nature: everything 
 leads up to unity of principle in the operations 
 of nature, to the predominance of one mind, if 
 any mind is recognised, but at all events not of 
 many. Nature emphatically declares that, vast 
 and illimitable as her domain is, there is no 
 room in it for more gods than one. The power 
 which holds the planets in their course is the 
 same as that which brings forth the flowers in 
 their season and restrains the raging of the sea. 
 The laws of gravitation and attraction are uni- 
 versal in their sovereignty, and the principle that 
 holds sway is one, and therefore the mind which 
 the principle expresses is one. If, therefore, 
 there is any primary truth of which we can be 
 absolutely certain, it must be this, that God 
 is one, so that, as St. Paul expresses it " to us, 
 there is but one God."* And if we proceed from 
 experience and from nature to the investigation 
 of our own hearts, we shall still find the result 
 the same. That the nature of man is one 
 under every variety of circumstance is an indis- 
 putable fact; and that our personal consciousness, 
 if it acknowledges any God, can acknowledge 
 only one, is an assertion that can hardly be 
 called in question. The reason, then, the 
 , * I Cor. viii 6. 
 
5 8 Foimdations of Morality. 
 
 wisdom and the truth of this first and great 
 commandment is confirmed to us on every 
 hand. 
 
 But if this is so, as it manifestly is, another 
 question arises — namely, this : How was it that 
 between three and four thousand years ago 
 Moses was enabled to anticipate the ultimate 
 decision of nineteenth-century science and philo- 
 sophy, and that, too, at a time when all the 
 world was against him, and every one thought 
 otherwise ? Surely this obvious fact suggests 
 a very strong presumption that the discovery 
 was not his own, or even that of his forefather 
 Abraham ; but that, as he said, and as the nation 
 believed, he had it from God, so it was verily 
 and indeed God who gave it him. 
 
 But then I thoroughly believe we do the first 
 commandment great injustice when we regard 
 it as simply inculcating the worship of one God, 
 or as formulating the proposition that there is 
 but one living and true God. I believe the 
 first commandment is something vastly more 
 than this, and that until we apprehend it in its 
 higher and further significance we shall entirely 
 fail to understand it. 
 
 What, then, is the first commandment ? In 
 its literal form it runs thus : " There shall not 
 be to thee other gods before my face." It is 
 
Foundations of Morality, 59 
 
 the revelation to the personal consciousness of 
 the absolute claims of an ultimate Personal 
 Being — of a supreme I, God says, " I am," and 
 in saying that He says virtually, " There is none 
 beside me." Now, we know perfectly well, our 
 own reason assures us, that if this is the case it 
 must be so. If God is, then no one else is, in the 
 sense in which He is, for the being of every one 
 else must depend upon His being. But is not this 
 what nature says to us, what science says to us, 
 what experience says to us, what history says 
 to us, — what, in point of fact, the scribe said to 
 Jesus, "There is one God, and there is none 
 other but He ; and to love Him with all the 
 heart, and with all the understanding, and with 
 all the soul, and with all the strength, is more 
 than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices " ? * 
 I repeat that if it is so we instinctively feel, and 
 cannot but feel, that this must be the case. If 
 God is, then no one else is, except in dependence 
 upon Him. The notion, then, of other gods 
 besides God the Lord, is an impossibility, — it is 
 a contradiction in terms. Nor did we need a 
 revelation to tell us this ; at least, so it would 
 seem, for we can see it for ourselves, unless 
 indeed it be one of those primary truths, obvious 
 enough when once pointed out, but by no means 
 * Mark xii. 32, 33. 
 
6o Fou7idatio7is of Morality, 
 
 obvious to discover, and if so, our sense of its 
 truth would tend to show that we had it by- 
 revelation, not that, because we see it to be true, 
 we needed no revelation to make us at the first 
 aware of its truth. But be this as it may, I 
 contend that the true revelation lies further 
 back, albeit it may lie also nearer at hand, 
 for the true revelation lies here : " There shall 
 be to thee no other gods before my face'' It 
 is the personal assertion of the Personal God, 
 — the assertion that He is at once present and 
 personal, conscious and seeing, living and the 
 source of life, cognisant and judging. Now, 
 this is knowledge, which, reach us how it may, 
 we cannot have without a revelation. It just 
 transcends the point to which reason and ex- 
 perience and nature all alike bring us, but at 
 which they leave us. It goes further, it rises 
 higher, it is independent of all, although, per- 
 chance, it may be confirmed by all. It is the 
 conclusion at the verge of which science and 
 philosophy alike stumble, — not, however, be- 
 cause it is so far ofT, but because those faculties 
 and methods overreach themselves in endeavour- 
 ing to attain it. 
 
 And therefore, as I said, though the revela- 
 tion lies further off, it also lies nearer at hand. 
 It is near to the heart of a child. Speak to a 
 
Foundations of Morality. 6 1 
 
 child of God, and the quick perceptions of the 
 child anticipate you, for he apprehends instinc- 
 tively the Being of whom you speak ; the idea is 
 no more inconceivable than the idea of father- 
 hood, pure and simple, is inconceivable, and He 
 is the ultimate Father. Speak to a child of 
 heaven, and it is like speaking to him of home ; 
 for it is whence he came from, and he knows it, 
 although manifestly and naturally he cannot, 
 with his feeble powers, compass the illimitable 
 thought. 
 
 This revelation, then, is one of the things that 
 are hidden from the wise and prudent and re- 
 vealed unto babes. But when we become as 
 little children, it is revealed unto us, and the 
 acceptance of the revelation makes us little 
 children, for there can be no father except in 
 relation to a child ; and when God is acknow- 
 ledged as our Father, we become His children. 
 
 It is simply impossible, then, that the majesty 
 of the law can be apprehended till the Person 
 giving it is apprehended. The recognition of 
 the law is the recognition of the Person. There 
 is no obedience due if there is not one to whom it 
 is due. He says to us, " It is due to me ; " and 
 when we are conscious of Him, we are conscious 
 that the obedience is due to Him, for our whole 
 nature rises up and proclaims it with one consent. 
 
62 Foimdatio7is of Morality, 
 
 We have arrived, then, at something like an 
 answer to the question with which we first 
 started. The Person speaking is God. He 
 speaks when He makes us conscious of Himself; 
 and when He makes us conscious of Himself, it 
 is His voice that we hear, it is His face that we 
 see. But the voice is not one that we create 
 for ourselves, nor is the face one that we imagine 
 for ourselves, any more than the child who 
 acknowledges his father creates his father, or 
 makes him to be his father by acknowledging 
 him. The eye sees the light and sees the sun, 
 but the sun and the light are not creations of 
 the eye — the eye is simply the organ created for 
 apprehending them ; it witnesses to their exist- 
 ence, it does not cause them to exist. So faith 
 is the organ or faculty which apprehends reve- 
 lation. It is revelation that appeals to faith, 
 and catls faith into operation, but is not created 
 by it. 
 
 We see, then, that it is God, and God only, 
 who makes us conscious of Himself; and when 
 He does this. He reveals Himself to us. It 
 matters not how He does it, for the result in all 
 cases is identical, and it is the result that is 
 important. If we had no witness in ourselves 
 to the revelation, it would be nothing to us if 
 God revealed Himself to Israel on Sinai, or if 
 
FoM7idations of Morality, 63 
 
 we believed that He so revealed Himself. The 
 revelation must be repeated in our own case. 
 The commandment must come with power to 
 our own hearts, as the voice of the living God, 
 as deriving all its authority from its being the 
 voice of the living God, and as alone to be 
 accounted for in all its influence over us by- 
 being in very truth His voice. 
 
 But no sooner is it thus apprehended, than the 
 universality of its authority is immediately ap- 
 parent. " Thou shalt have no other gods before 
 me " must be addressed to every living creature 
 of the living God ; for if He is one in His being, 
 they also must be one in their allegiance. 
 There can be no districts in His universe not 
 subject to His law. Thus the very first germ 
 of the kingdom of heaven is to be discerned in 
 the very first precept of the ten : " Thou, wiioso- 
 ever thou art, and wheresoever thou art, shalt 
 have none other gods before me. I have made 
 thee for myself, and it is lalone who can fill thy 
 heart."* And so man may make to himself 
 other gods of gold and silver, wood and stone, 
 of lands or houses, lusts or passions, honaur or 
 gain, success or ambition, pomp or ease, taste 
 or intellect, or what not, but sooner or later 
 they will prove themselves to be verily no gods. 
 ■-• "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it" (Ps. Ixxxi. 10). 
 
64 Foundations of Mo7^ality. 
 
 It will not be a question of their entity, but 
 of their ability to help. Whatever entity or 
 existence the very best of them may have, 
 will be but the faint coruscation of His glory, 
 and will fall away like sparks from a burning- 
 mass to be quenched in perpetual night. 
 
 This, [then, is the ultimate principle of all re- 
 ligion, and the foundation of all morality, — the 
 recognition of the being of God as the only 
 living and true One. He is the first and the last. 
 If we know Him, we know all that we can know, 
 for we know the origin of all life and the end 
 of all existence, the fountain and source of all 
 law, and the reward and recompense of all 
 obedience. But if we know Him, it is because, 
 and only because. He has made Himself known 
 to us. We have not discovered Him, but He 
 has called us to the knowledge of Himself ; but 
 it is a knowledge that is commensurate with 
 faith. We can only know Him in proportion 
 as we believe in Him. Faith is the organ by 
 which we perceive Him, even as the eye is the 
 organ by which we perceive the light or behold 
 the sun. Thus His revelation may be never so 
 real, it may be accompanied with cloud and 
 tempest, as at Sinai, and attested to us by the 
 submission and allegiance of a whole nation ; 
 but unless we bow our own hearts before it 
 
Foundations of Morality, 65 
 
 with all the abandonment of self-surrender, it 
 will be an unmeaning spectacle or possibly a 
 delusive voice to us. And for this reason, that 
 we shall not duly recognise its majesty until 
 we implicitly believe its love. We shall be in 
 no condition or temper to comply with the 
 absolute and all-absorbing command, " Thou 
 shalt have none other gods before my face',' till 
 we have learnt to believe that the God who 
 thundered upon Sinai and caused the light to 
 shine out of darkness, is He who hath shined 
 in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge 
 of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
66 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." 
 Exodus xx. 3. 
 
 '^ I ^HE questions we considered in the last 
 -^ lecture were, Who was the person here 
 speaking? and Who were the persons addressed? 
 The question we must now consider will be of 
 a more directly practical nature — namely, the 
 subject-matter of the first commandment itself, 
 the essential meaning and force of the sub- 
 stantive prohibition. 
 
 The Lord forbids the recognition of any other 
 gods before Him, the acknowledgment of their 
 existence, and the fact of their worship. If 
 we wish however to understand the command- 
 ment, we must beware especially of regarding 
 it merely as a commandment, an arbitrary 
 imposition or bare law. The commandment 
 must be taken as expressing a will. It is not 
 the will of the Lord our God that we should 
 have any other gods before Him. He has 
 not merely issued this prohibition for the sake 
 of issuing it, or of having it observed, but He 
 
Foundations of Morality, 67 
 
 has made it known to us as the expression of 
 His will — of what, as regards ourselves, is His 
 personal desire. It will make all the difference 
 to us in our estimate of the law, if we duly 
 apprehend this truth. It is not a barren pre- 
 cept, but it is the reflex of a mind, and the 
 expression of a will. God makes Himself 
 known to us by this declaration of His will. 
 It is the first result of the assertion of His 
 personality, of the revelation of His being. " I 
 am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have none 
 other gods but me. This is my desire, this is 
 my will." So much, I think, we may safely 
 affirm of the Law and its promulgation. 
 
 But then comes another point, not one whit 
 less important. For is it not self-evident that 
 the only motive God can have in giving or 
 making known a law is the well-being of 
 man } But as He does not impose any law 
 for the mere sake of imposing it, so He does 
 not impose or make known any law for His 
 own sake. It is of no benefit or advantage to 
 the Most High whether His law is known or 
 not. Many of His laws are unknown at the 
 present day ; they will supply material for our 
 investigation throughout eternity. It is of no 
 benefit or advantage to the Most High whether 
 His law is observed or not. He is independent 
 
68 Foicndations of Morality, 
 
 of His own law, except so far as it reflects the 
 character of His own mind ; and most assuredly 
 He is absolutely independent of the observance 
 of His own law by His creatures. His glory 
 is alike undiminished and unimpaired, whether 
 His law is obeyed or violated. Manifestly, 
 therefore, He cannot make known His law for 
 the purpose of securing any advantage to Him- 
 self. It follows, consequently, that God's only 
 object in giving or making known His law 
 must be the benefit and advantage of man. 
 It is not because God is jealous of His own 
 honour that He has given us this law, but 
 because He is jealous of our worship being 
 misdirected, and because He is jealous of it for 
 our sakes. A moment's reflection will assuredly 
 serve to convince us of this. 
 
 When once God has enlightened our con- 
 science with regard to His own being and 
 character, there are certain points relating to 
 His character that we can perceive and 
 determine for ourselves ; and this is one of 
 them, although it may lie outside the explicit 
 utterance of the mere word of Scripture, just 
 as outside the substance of a luminous body or 
 a ball of fire there is a space or district of light 
 or heat which is not the body, but which owes 
 its existence to the body. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 69 
 
 But if these positions are valid — and can any 
 one venture to doubt them ? — what a flood of light 
 is thrown thereby on God's relation to us, and 
 on our relation to God ! The very sole object 
 and purpose that God has in giving us this 
 law, and making it known to us, is because 
 the observance of it will tend directly to 
 our advantage. It is for our good, and for our / 
 good alone, that the Lord has given us this 
 law. There is no undue prying into the Divine 
 motives implied in judging thus, because if we 
 duly ponder the matter the law itself reveals 
 the motive. The law is not given to crush 
 man, but to show him the path of life. "I 
 gave them my statutes, which if a man do he (y^ 
 shall even live in them." * " Wherefore the law 
 is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, 
 and good." t 
 
 What, then, is the general bearing of this 
 holy and just and good law t We saw in the 
 last lecture that as God is the only existence, 
 so all things else have no existence except 
 only as they exist in Him. All this fair 
 universe of which our senses are cognisant is 
 His creation : it owes its being to His being : 
 its being is not essential and necessary, like 
 His, but is derived from His, and dependent 
 * Ezek. XX. II. t Rom. vii. 12. 
 
70 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 on His. It may cease to exist, but He cannot. 
 "They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and 
 they all shall wax old like a garment," says 
 the Psalmist, speaking of the visible heavens 
 and the earth, " and as a vesture shalt Thou fold 
 them up, and they shall be changed, but Thou 
 art the same, and Thy years shall not fail."* It 
 is surely conceivable, and it follows necessarily 
 from our beHef in God as the only "I AM," 
 that the whole universe might be blotted out 
 from existence, and leave Him abiding and 
 unchanged, for the obvious reason that such 
 existence as it has is simply dependent on His 
 will. But it is equally manifest that the 
 motion of our desires is constantly limited to 
 the area of this universe. It is therefore a 
 matter of choice whether we will allow them 
 to be so limited, or whether we will transcend 
 the limitations of the creation or the creature, 
 and fix them on the Creator, as their natural 
 home and their ultimate goal. This is the 
 alternative of having no other gods but the 
 Lord, or of worshipping and serving the 
 creature more than the Creator. 
 
 It is nothing less than this, then, which is the 
 scope of the first commandment. It is calcu- 
 lated to draw men away from the worship of 
 * Ps. cii. 26, 27. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 7 1 
 
 the visible to the worship of the unseen ; so 
 that in some sense the first commandment is 
 the most spiritual of all, inasmuch as it is the 
 inculcation of the principle of faith, the encou- 
 ragement and education of the faculty of behef. 
 There is a natural tendency in us all to _. 
 make gods of the creature. This command- 
 ment reveals the existence of one who is not a 
 creature, but the Creator, who is therefore the 
 true God, the " I AM." It is faith alone which/^ 
 can apprehend this Being. Sense cannot dis- 
 cover or discern Him; reason cannot wholly find 
 Him out, but only behold Him dimly from afar; 
 but faith can come into contact with Him, can 
 throw herself upon Him, can feel Him in spite 
 of numbness, and see Him in spite of bhndness, 
 and hear His voice notwithstanding her natural 
 deafness. Our natural senses are the faculties 
 by which we become aware of the existence of 
 the outer world; but we have other faculties, 
 the spiritual counterpart of those, which bring us 
 no message from the outer world, though they 
 reveal to us an illimitable world within. It is 
 to these faculties that the spiritual law appeals 
 as the expression of the will of God, and there- 
 fore the conclusive proof of the being of God. 
 Nothing can deprive us of these faculties, 
 because they are part of our natural constitu- 
 
72 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 tion. We may dull and deaden them, as we 
 may stop an ear or put out an eye ; but utterly 
 quench them we cannot, so as to make them to 
 be no longer any part of the inheritance of man. 
 For if that were possible, then, indeed, the voice 
 of God would sound in vain, and the revelation 
 of God be made in vain ; but as it is, the pro- 
 mulgation of the law in its majesty, and in the 
 infinitude of its requirements, will always serve 
 to quicken the spiritual sense to which it 
 appeals. The declaration, *' Thou shalt have 
 none other gods but me," will arouse the con- 
 science, and stimulate the reason, and quicken 
 the imagination, and appeal to the highest 
 faculties of the whole man, with the force of 
 a presence which is not to be put by, and 
 the authority of a person who is not to be 
 denied. 
 
 There is, consequently, this wonderful cha- 
 racteristic about the law, that it asserts itself; 
 because it awakens a response in our spiritual 
 nature which affirms that it is at once holy and 
 just and good ; and because it does this, it bears 
 its own witness to the God who gave it. We 
 are constituted to hear its voice, for we cannot 
 belie it without belying our own nature; and 
 when we hear its voice, we recognise it as the 
 voice of God, for we know well that it can be 
 
Foundations of Morality, 73 
 
 the voice of no one else, for no one else can 
 speak in tones of such absolute authority. 
 
 The requirements of the law, however, as the 
 precept of a God who desires our welfare and 
 has no other motive in inculcating it, mainly 
 resolve themselves into two kinds — namely those 
 of love, and those of fear. God desires our 
 love, which implies our worship, because it is 
 not good for us to love, and therefore to worship, 
 anything else instead of Him, or more than 
 Him. The law virtually says, " He that loveth 
 father or mother more than me, is not worthy 
 of me ; He that loveth son or daughter more 
 than me, is not worthy of me." * The creature 
 has a great tendency to come between us and 
 the Creator, and to hide the Creator from us ; 
 indeed, it always does this unless the Creator 
 asserts Himself as He does in His law, and so 
 reveals Himself. 
 
 We are compassed about with mercies ; but 
 while we acknowledge the mercies as blessings 
 in themselves, we forget the All-merciful from 
 whom they come, and to whom they are de- 
 signed to witness. We admire and value the 
 gift, and cry bitterly when it is taken from us ; 
 but we overlook the Giver, and utterly forget 
 that He is better — oh, how much better ! — than 
 * Matt. X. 37. 
 
74 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 His gift, and infinitely more worthy of our 
 regard. But this is nothing more than He long 
 ago told us in the first commandment. When- 
 ever the gifts of God cease to testify to us of 
 Him, cease to assure us of a living though 
 unseen Giver, then they are beginning to usurp 
 His place, and we are in danger of making them 
 to be to ourselves other gods beside Him. 
 
 And this accounts for the apparent harshness 
 in the accents of the law. We do not like to be 
 reminded of One whom we have unjustly for- 
 gotten; it arouses our animosity, and we feel 
 inclined to resent it, more particularly when 
 our mistake involves the substitution of a thing 
 for a pej'son ; and this, as we have seen, is vir- 
 tually what every person is, whether son or 
 daughter, wife or friend, who is not God. Our 
 hearts are prone to twine themselves around 
 the relationships of life, the duties of life, the 
 occupations of life, the pleasures of life, and 
 its delusive promises. All these things are 
 the palpable, the visible, the tangible ; the 
 Being of whom they speak, to whom, if they 
 mean anything, they surely witness, and in 
 whom alone they find their real value and 
 significance, is the invisible; He is the " L 
 AM ; " while their name, if it rightly charac- 
 terised them, would be only this, " We seem 
 
Fou7idations of Morality, 75 
 
 to be." And yet it is first to these semblances 
 that we give our hearts. We love them more 
 than Him who is, and we dislike to be re- 
 minded that we do. Is it not, therefore, in love 
 and tender mercy that the Lord calls us from 
 the love and adoration of these outward things 
 to the love and worship of Himself.'* If we were 
 content to receive His gifts only in Him — to 
 accept Him when we receive tJiein — then we 
 should find that, even when His gifts were taken 
 from us, they were still ours in Him, for nought 
 can separate us from His love, and His gifts 
 were only precious as they were the reflex and 
 expression of His love, which He never with- 
 draws from us, but invites us more and more to 
 rest in and to share. 
 
 We see, then, how to worship and serve the 
 creature more than the Creator infringes the 
 love and service of the Creator, and brings 
 about, at all events in principle, the violation 
 of the primary command. But no sooner is it 
 stated thus than it forthwith becomes apparent 
 that the law has not only an authoritative but 
 also a condemning voice. We are one and all 
 verily guilty under this head. There is no 
 denying it. Hence while the law wins us to 
 righteousness with the accents of love, it too 
 surely convicts us of unrighteousness with a 
 
 U^ 
 
76 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 voice of thunder, which itself would be intoler- 
 able if it were not for the God of love whose 
 voice it is. But this reminds us that we must 
 not forget the second great requirement of the 
 law, which is that of fear. For the prerogative 
 of the true God is fear no less than love, even 
 though love may contend with fear and cast 
 it out ; and thus the commandment which says 
 "Thou shalt have none other gods but me" 
 requires not only that we give to God our 
 hearts, but also that we concentrate in Him our 
 fear. 
 
 And I for one feel that herein is one of the 
 strongholds of the Divine revelation. How 
 many things there are in life that we sorely 
 dread ! Arduous duty, bitter trials, cruel part- 
 ings, the animosity of foes, the official cold- 
 ness and apathy of superiors, the failure or 
 defection of friends, the unkindness of circum- 
 stance, the ruthless caprice of accident. God 
 only knows, assuredly, how many times our 
 heart sinks within us at the many difficulties 
 with which we have to contend here, and which 
 even now, it may be, threaten to increase rather 
 than diminish ; and doubtless we all have our 
 own spectres of the mind which alarm and 
 threaten us. Now, it is well that we should 
 face these spectres, if so be that we may lay 
 
Foundations of Morality. 77 
 
 them ; for rest assured that spectres they verily 
 are, and nothing else ; and we cannot fear them 
 if we truly and honestly fear the Lord. For 
 " who is he that shall harm you if ye be followers 
 of that which is good ? " * There was great cause 
 for that interrogation when the apostle wrote it ; 
 but the experience of many generations has 
 amply confirmed the wisdom of the answer it 
 implies, and that answer is "No one;" and the 
 reason which is the basis of the answer is 
 because there is only one who is the " I AM," 
 and we dare not make or imagine to ourselves 
 any other gods or objects of fear before His 
 face. What follows then } — 
 
 " Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take ; 
 The clouds ye so much dread 
 Are big with mercy, and shall break 
 In blessings on your head." 
 
 If it is not an incipient and insidious form of 
 idolatry to yield unduly to the fear of the present 
 or the future, it is at all events a want of faith. 
 The God whom we cannot see is greater and more 
 terrible than the present or future evils which 
 we feel or fear ; but if we fear Him as we surely 
 ought, we certainly need not, may not, fear 
 anything else. The presence of fear is a subtle 
 and mysterious power ; it is one of those facts 
 * I Pet. ill. 13. 
 
78 Poundations of Morality, 
 
 which can only be explained by the fact of 
 our own spiritual existence. But if we have a 
 spiritual existence, it is only because we are the 
 children of the great Father of spirits ; and if we 
 are His children, is He not our Father ? And if 
 He is our Father, does He not love us as His 
 children with a love which is the pattern of all 
 love, but which knows no pattern or comparison 
 but itself? And shall we not cheerfully, trustfully, 
 manfully, hold ourselves in entire subjection to 
 the Father of spirits, that we may live and not 
 die, that we may walk and not faint, — for He 
 has said, " I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt 
 have no other gods before my face." 
 
Foundations of Morality, 79 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 
 or any Hkeness of any thing that is in heaven above, 
 or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water 
 under the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
 them nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a 
 jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon 
 the children unto the third and fourth generation ot 
 them that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thousands 
 of them that love me, and keep my commandments." 
 
 Exodus xx. 4—6. 
 
 THE second commandment is distinct and 
 different from the first, notwithstanding 
 that certain formularies of the Roman Church 
 merge the two commandments in one. The 
 first commandment contains a general pro- 
 hibition ; the second, a particular and special 
 application of it. The first commandment 
 forbids the worship or recognition of any other 
 gods than one, and of any but the true God. 
 The second commandment forbids the worship 
 even of the true God in a false or unlawful \vay. 
 It is, therefore, essentially a narrowing in even 
 of the limitations of the first. It consists, more- 
 
8o Foundations of Morality, 
 
 over, of two parts, inasmuch as it contains a 
 definite prohibition, and also couples with it 
 a definite and additional revelation of the 
 character of God, and His method of provi- 
 dential government. 
 
 Let us then endeavour to pursue these several 
 lines of thought. We cannot fail to notice at 
 the outset the very great historic importance 
 of the second commandment in the history of 
 Israel and of the world. Just as the first com- 
 mandment at once placed the nation on a 
 higher moral and spiritual level than all the 
 other nations of the world, so did the second 
 commandment mark them out as distinct and 
 separate from all other nations. The concep- 
 tion of a purely monotheistic creed was a vast 
 national inheritance. It was not less so to 
 be the one nation of antiquity that rejected all 
 visible objects of worship. The mere possession, 
 then, of these two commandments, as lying at 
 the foundation of their national law, while the 
 whole world on every side of them was sunk 
 in the worship of the outward and the visible, is 
 a remarkable and significant fact in the history 
 of Israel that irresistibly demands an explana- 
 tion. How is the fact, as a mere fact, to be 
 accounted for } For some period between a 
 thousand and fifteen hundred years before 
 
Foundations of Morality. 8 1 
 
 Christ, this was the recognised law of Israel. 
 Was it the invention of Israel ? Was it the im- 
 position of Moses ? How then was the contrast 
 so strong that it offered to the national religion 
 and practice of Egypt ? For it would not be 
 possible to find a stronger contrast than that 
 supplied by the religion of Egypt and Israel 
 in this respect. Is there not a very strong 
 presumption that the conception of what every 
 one must feel to be a purer faith was itself a 
 ray of light streaming down from Him who 
 is Himself the light that His creatures have 
 conceived } Is not the proof of the revelation 
 in the thing revealed ? Does not the revelation 
 vindicate and justify itself? Does not the 
 revelation witness powerfully that there is One 
 who has revealed Himself? 
 
 Again, it was almost a thousand years before 
 the nation itself in whose bosom this revelation 
 reposed fully imbibed the influence of it. 
 The history of Israel throughout the period 
 of the wanderings, the Judges, and the Kings, 
 was the history of a perpetual conflict with 
 the prohibition embodied in this precept. No 
 sooner was it given with the accompaniments 
 of thunder and earthquake, than the nation 
 fell down before the golden calf that Aaron, 
 the brother of the lawgiver, had himself made. 
 
 6 
 
82 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 When Joshua, the great captain of the Lord's 
 host, had brought His people into Canaan, he 
 had to rebuke them severely for the strange 
 gods which were among them. And the time 
 would fail to tell of the various instances of 
 defection during the rule of the Judges and 
 under the monarchy ; insomuch that, following 
 the example of some unscrupulous modern 
 critics, we might rashly, and yet not without 
 some show of reason, conclude that a law could 
 not have been known to Israel which was so 
 continually and so grossly violated. This, how- 
 ever, we are thankful to say, is a paradox that 
 would be too paradoxical to be maintained. 
 Rather is one disposed to observe that the 
 innate and almost insuperable propensity of 
 Israel to worship the outward and the visible 
 showed plainly the wisdom of the Divine 
 mind in anticipating the tendency by the 
 promulgation of this precept. 
 
 And one fact is obvious which is undoubtedly 
 to be traced to the influence of the second 
 commandment — namely, that the Jewish nation 
 was altogether barren of anything like artistic 
 skill or taste. Compared in this respect with 
 Egypt, Assyria, and above all with Greece, 
 Israel is simply nowhere in the estimation of 
 the world. However great the world's debt 
 
Foundations of Morality, 83 
 
 may be to Israel in other respects, it is under 
 no obligations of an artistic nature. The god- 
 like beauty of the human form had attractions 
 for the chisel of a Phidias and Praxiteles which 
 resulted in the realisation of immortal con- 
 ceptions ; but.no marbles from the hand of a 
 Jewish sculptor are to be found in the corridors 
 of the British Museum, for the command was 
 imperative, '' Thou shalt not make to thyself any 
 graven image, or any likeness of anything that 
 is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or 
 in the waters under the earth." 
 
 This, however, is with reference to the past ; 
 but with regard to the present, I suppose there 
 is hardly any commandment that we think 
 ourselves more secure from breaking than this 
 second commandment. And yet is it so.? I 
 fear the history of the Christian Church, no less 
 than the history of Israel, has borne witness 
 to the contrary. Whatever may be the origin 
 of idolatry in the case of savage nations, are 
 we quite so sure that it is an impossible sin 
 among the cultivated and the civilised I If in 
 their case it is explained on other principles, 
 is it not notorious that the practical result in 
 both cases is narrowly to be distinguished, if 
 indeed it virtually differs. Is it not a very easy, 
 a very natural, an entirely pardonable thing. 
 
84 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 to adopt the crucifix or the cross as an emblem 
 of a truth, a serviceable aid to devotion, and 
 yet practically to find that some part of the 
 devotion, as a matter of fact, does attach to the 
 emblem itself, whether cross or crucifix ? It 
 is impossible to visit the high altars and side 
 chapels of Roman Catholic cathedrals, and not 
 feel and see that the border line between the 
 worship of the outward and visible, and the 
 use of it merely as a reminder of something 
 inward and invisible, is perilously narrow, and 
 almost imperceptibly small. Possibly most 
 persons, when straitly interrogated as to the 
 exact place that outward symbols hold in their 
 devotional use of them, would repudiate utterly 
 the idolatrous association ; but may not the 
 question naturally arise, How much of this 
 vehement repudiation is due to the interrogation 
 itself? 
 
 And I for one am free to confess that I view 
 with the greatest possible distrust the too 
 prominent position that is given in the present 
 day to the sensuous and florid in rehgious wor- 
 ship ; and for this reason, that it is essentially 
 and inherently opposed to the spiritual. There 
 is a very grave misconception abroad as to what 
 is meant by spiritual. The spiritual is not 
 another name for the imaginative, the artistic, 
 
Foundations of Morality, 85 
 
 the aesthetic, or even the intellectual. It belongs 
 altogether to a separate category ; it belongs to 
 the domain of the spirit, which is distinct from 
 the mind, as the mind is distinct from the flesh. 
 And here the axiom holds good, " It is the spirit 
 that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing."^ 
 The spirit is not quickened by the flesh, but the 
 flesh is quickened by the spirit The spirit is 
 not aided by the flesh, but much rather is over- 
 laid by it. Every one feels the need of some- 
 thing to assist him in devotion, to aid him in 
 grasping the invisible. Now, the visible is the 
 vail of the invisible, which serves to hide from 
 us the invisible, if it does not raise us above 
 itself. The only way in which we can appre- 
 hend the spiritual is by the organ of the spiri- 
 tual, which is faith — ^just as sight and touch are 
 the faculties of the body by which it becomes 
 conscious of the external world. And that which 
 operates on the spirit is the Divine word. So 
 David says, '* My soul cleaveth unto the dust : 
 quicken thou me according to Thy word." f This 
 was a condition of spiritual sluggishness. He 
 felt the need of something to revive his spirit, 
 but what he knew would revive it was the word 
 of God. But that which thus lays hold of the 
 Divine word is faith. It is not the province of 
 * John vi. 63. t Ps. cxix. 25. 
 
86 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 the senses to quicken faith, but only the province 
 of the word and Spirit of God. The crucifix, 
 therefore, is ineffectual to quicken faith ; for what 
 does the crucifix do ? It witnesses to a past 
 act ; it reminds us of the momentous truth that 
 Christ died ; nay, more, it reminds us of Christ 
 dead. But Christ, as a matter of fact, is not dead ; 
 Christ is risen from the dead ; Christ is alive, 
 and iiveth for evermore. If therefore by the 
 use of any symbols we are brought as far as 
 Christ dead, we are not brought far enough, 
 because what we want is union with a Christ 
 who now Iiveth, which is a reality, and not with 
 a Christ who is now dead, which is a fiction. 
 If faith wants quickening, it is because it needs 
 to apprehend the living, but the only thing that 
 can lead us to apprehend the living is participa- 
 tion in the life. Now, pictures and music can- 
 not give us participation in the life. Pictures 
 enable us vividly to realise historic events ; they 
 represent the past as actually present ; they can- 
 not transport us to the living present. A picture 
 of Christ in His glory might enable us partly 
 to see Him as He is; but where shall we find 
 such a picture } and clearly no picture of Christ 
 on the cross can enable us to see Him as He 
 now is. And as for music, that may bring 
 before us fresh worlds of the imagination, may 
 
Foundations of Morality, 87 
 
 bring to us tears of sadness or of joy, but 
 we delude ourselves if we expect it to give us 
 participation in the life. 
 
 One can see, therefore, somewhat of the reason- 
 ableness of the law in its strenuous prohibition 
 of worshipping even the true God falsely. 
 
 And strange it is, but yet most significant 
 and appropriate, that in relation to this pro- 
 hibition we have the revelation of God as a 
 jealous God. That is to say, He is jealous, as 
 was observed in the last lecture, not for His 
 own sake, but for ours. He is jealous for our 
 spiritual welfare, lest we should bow down to 
 objects no matter how aesthetically beautiful, 
 how artistically perfect, how symbolically appro- 
 priate, that are unworthy of our high spiritual 
 nature and spiritual destiny. We degrade our- 
 selves, under pretence of elevating ourselves, 
 when we rest in the outward symbol, and do not 
 press on to the inward and living reality. As 
 by a kind of instinct, then, the Church of Rome 
 has fitly obscured and concealed the prominence 
 of this commandment, for with her the symbol 
 has undoubtedly usurped upon the living and 
 the real. Even in the highest act of Christian 
 worship and fellowship, there is danger lest the 
 spirit of the second commandment should be 
 violated by resting too exclusively and tena- 
 
88 Fou7idations of Morality, 
 
 ciously In the memorials of the Lord's Body 
 and Blood, instead of rising through them to 
 living communion with the risen Lamb, and so 
 discerning the Lord's Body. 
 
 It would appear, then, that the second com- 
 mandment strikes at the root of a subtle sin, 
 and one to which we in the present day are by 
 no means free from exposure. All worship that 
 does not answer to the Lord's requirement of 
 worship in spirit and in truth, is a practical 
 violation of the second commandment, for it is 
 the attempt to worship Him on a lower basis 
 who, for our sakes, is jealous of being worshipped 
 otherwise than in spirit and in truth. It cannot 
 be out of place to warn the people of this land 
 against any such possible infringements of this 
 well-known precept. But there is likewise 
 another way in which it may be broken. The 
 great poet of Germany has told us that "as 
 a man is, so is his God ; " ''' and the Psalmist 
 said, with withering rebuke, " Thou thoughtest 
 wickedly that I am even such a one as thyself." f 
 All conceptions, therefore, and thoughts of God 
 which are unworthy of Him, because not in- 
 spired with His spirit, are violations of the 
 second commandment. And thus we see that 
 though after the captivity the house of Israel 
 * Goethe. t Ps. 1. 21. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 89 
 
 was purged for ever from the grosser and more 
 idolatrous violations of it, they were by no 
 means delivered from a base and sordid idolatry 
 of the mind which dragged God down from His 
 throne in heaven to the mean and despicable 
 standard of those who made broad their phy- 
 lacteries, and enlarged the borders of their gar- 
 ments, and paid tithes of mint and anise and 
 cummin, and worshipped the letter of Scripture 
 while altogether ignorant of its spirit. It is 
 hard to say whether Israel, bowing down to 
 the golden calves of Jeroboam, or the Pharisees, 
 falsely and censoriously accusing Christ, and 
 seeking to catch something out of His mouth, 
 were more conspicuous transgressors of the 
 second commandment in the fulness of its 
 Divine and spiritual scope. 
 
 The revelation of the second commandment 
 is not only that of God as a jealous God, but 
 also as a retributive Judge. I suppose there is 
 no thoughtful person who has not stood in awe 
 of the terrible words, "visiting the sins of the 
 fathers upon the children unto the third and 
 fourth generation." But however this may be, 
 none can doubt their truth. They are to the 
 letter as true now as when they were first 
 uttered three thousand years ago. They ex- 
 press in solemn language the revelation of 
 
90 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 Himself which God has stamped updn human 
 society. We see the brand before our own 
 eyes, and know that it is the mark of God. 
 How is the tremendous, undeniable, irreversible 
 sentence of the all-righteous Judge written 
 broadly on nature and on human nature at 
 the present day ! It stares us in the face, and 
 we cannot escape from it. This is the terrific 
 revelation of the God of nature ; it is the natural 
 testimony to His being a jealous God. He will 
 not suffer His laws to be broken with impunity : 
 therefore He punishes. It seems to me that 
 in the natural punishment of the violation of 
 the moral law, which it is impossible to deny 
 and not regard as a punishment, we are brought 
 to the very confines of One who has revealed 
 Himself, who is a Lawgiver, because He is so 
 conspicuously a Judge. We stand in awe of 
 His judgments ; we can see that they are judg- 
 ments on a broken law. We cannot be guilty 
 of a violated law unless the law has been made 
 known. He has made known the law in making 
 known the punishment of the law. But He who 
 has made known the punishment of the law is 
 identical with the God of nature, and therefore 
 He who has made known the law is likewise 
 identical with the God of nature, because it is 
 in and by nature that the infringement of His 
 
Foundations of Morality, g i 
 
 law Is punished ; and therefore the assertion of 
 Himself in nature is the echo of His assertion 
 of Himself in the law. But we recognise the 
 natural voice, and bow before its solemnity and 
 majesty, and therefore can we hesitate to bow 
 before Him of whose personal voice it is the 
 echo ? Shall we turn away from Him when 
 He says, " I am the Lord thy God," when we 
 cannot turn away from the truth of what He 
 says about visiting the iniquity of the fathers 
 upon the children unto the third and fourth 
 generation ? 
 
9 2 Foundatmis of Morality, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or 
 any Hkeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that 
 is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the 
 earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor 
 serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, 
 visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
 the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, 
 and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, 
 and keep my commandments." — Exodus xx. 4 — 6. 
 
 TWO points are directly suggested by the 
 terms of this commandment that I was not 
 able to touch upon in the last lecture. These 
 are connected with the threat and the promise 
 which immediately follow upon the prohibition, 
 the revelation of the character of God which 
 accompanies this commandment. We not un- 
 naturally ask, Why is it that the terrific an- 
 nouncement of God as a jealous God visiting the 
 iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
 the third and fourth generation of them that 
 hate Him is attached to the particular precept 
 which forbids the making of any image or like- 
 ness to represent Him } This is one thought 
 which claims attention, and the other is the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 93 
 
 counter-revelation that Is given of God as show- 
 ing mercy unto thousands of them that love 
 Him and keep His commandments. These 
 two thoughts, then, may well demand our notice 
 to-day. The second commandment more than 
 any other seems to have, if I may so say, some- 
 thing of an historic setting. It is that com- 
 mandment which is especially concerned with 
 the worship of God. The first deals with the 
 person and being of God, asserting that the 
 true God is the Lord Jehovah, the only exist- 
 ing one, the life of life, the I AM. The second 
 passes on to prescribe the true method in which 
 He desires to be worshipped ; but this it does 
 not positively, but negatively, — not saying in 
 what manner He is to be adored, but in what 
 manner He will not be worshipped : " Thou shalt 
 not make to thyself," and the like. 
 
 Now, when we bear in mind the peculiar 
 position of the children of Israel, that they were 
 but just emancipated from the bondage of 
 Egypt, that historically they had left behind 
 them a people and a land sunk and benighted 
 in idolatry, it is impossible not to see that this 
 commandment in its form fits into the historical 
 position of the nation to whom it was addressed ; 
 and not only so, for the nation was then espe- 
 cially in a transition state. It was on the way. 
 
94 Foundatio7is of Mortality, 
 
 not only out of Egypt, but to the conquest of 
 Canaan ; and the people it was about to dis- 
 possess was to be dispossessed, not for the 
 righteousness of Israel, but for the iniquity of 
 Canaan. It was expressly said that the 
 righteous judgment of the God of the universe 
 was hanging in suspense over the devoted 
 nation, — that long arrears of indignation were 
 accumulating to be poured upon them because 
 of their sins. 
 
 Now, we know little or nothing of the re- 
 ligion and religious rites of Canaan before the 
 conquest by Israel, but we do know very much 
 of its moral condition and its abominable vices. 
 And, as was ever the case, the moral degrada- 
 tion of the people was closely connected with 
 its religious worship. The second command- 
 ment, therefore, in its form had a special refer- 
 ence to the historic position of Israel in view 
 of the promised and approaching possession 
 of Canaan. The commandment which pre- 
 scribed the limits of the worship of God, and 
 defined its method, could not but refer to the 
 religious position of Israel, as standing between 
 the redemption from idolatrous Egypt and the 
 conquest and possession of idolatrous Canaan. 
 
 The calling of Israel was a holy calling ; the 
 destiny of Israel was to teach religion to the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 95 
 
 world ; and this being so, the one characteristic 
 feature of its own rehgion was to be prescribed 
 with special reference to the religion of the 
 nations to which it stood opposed. It is thus 
 plain that the religious position of Israel, from 
 the first, was what may be called a protestant 
 position. In the present day one of the keenest 
 reproaches w^hich are thrown against the name 
 of Protestant, and the cause of Protestantism, 
 is derived from its negative character. Pro- 
 testantism, it is said, does not affirm ; it simply 
 denies or protests. Now, it is plain that iden- 
 tically the same reproach might be brought not 
 only against the second, but against nearly all 
 the ten commandments. They do not affirm ; 
 for the most part they prohibit, — that is, they 
 deny. Israel was forbidden to worship God 
 as the heathen worshipped Him. Israel was to 
 protest against such worship : his very position 
 and existence was a protest. The history of 
 his redemption and deliverance was such a 
 protest : " And against all the gods of Egypt 
 I will execute judgment. I am the Lord." * 
 
 It seems, then, that the form of the second 
 
 commandment has a singularly appropriate 
 
 fitness to the historical position of Israel at 
 
 the time it was given. But more than this, it 
 
 * Exodus xii. 12. 
 
96 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 is impossible not to associate the revelation of 
 God as an avenging God with the particular 
 precept to which that revelation is attached ; 
 and this is the first of the two points I want 
 you to notice. God declares that He visits the 
 iniquities of the fathers upon the children to 
 the third and fourth generation. As I showed 
 before, it is impossible to doubt this ; we see 
 that it is so with our own eyes. The law which 
 declares it is not abrogated ; the precept is 
 unrepealed. Its transgression is thus avenged 
 at the present day, and will be so to the end 
 of time. The sins of the parents avenge them- 
 selves upon the children. You may protest 
 against the equity of it if you please ; you may 
 say it is not just, as Israel did in the time of 
 Ezekiel * ; but now, as then, it is true, whether 
 or not it is just, and we think it so. But what 
 sins are those which especially avenge them- 
 selves on the children .-* They are the vices of 
 the blood, the sins and excesses of the flesh ; 
 they are the violations of what is emphatically 
 recognised as the moral law. Other sins, no 
 doubt, are reproduced in the offspring, and are 
 thus punished in the offspring, — defects of 
 temper, defects of character, indolence, sloth, 
 self-indulgence, and the like ; but it is pre- 
 ■^ Ezekiel xviii. 25, 29 ; xxxiii. 17, 20. 
 
Foundatio7is of Morality, 97 
 
 eminently the sins of intemperance and excess 
 in its widest sense, that not only reproduce 
 themselves, but that avenge themselves in the 
 offspring, — those sins, that is, that are of a gross, 
 sensual, and carnal nature. But then it is 
 exactly those sins — and here is the point — that 
 as a matter of fact are encouraged, stimulated, 
 and fostered by a gross and sensual religion, — a 
 religion that is largely concerned with the out- 
 ward and visible expression of invisible and 
 intangible ideas. It is very evident that when 
 the religion itself was devoid of an elevating 
 and purifying principle, as was the case with 
 the religion of Egypt and Canaan, the tendency 
 to embody these forms would react upon the 
 character of the worshippers, and tend to their 
 degradation and debasement. But this is not 
 the only point, for the wisdom of God foresaw 
 that even when the religion itself was possessed 
 of a naturally elevating and purifying principle, 
 a like tendency would be followed by a like 
 result, and it was against this tendency that 
 the second commandment was intended to 
 guard. And therefore the revelation of the 
 avenging character of God was fitly joined to 
 that precept which dealt directly with the mode 
 of His worship. God desired His people to 
 offer unto Him a pure and spiritual worship. 
 
 7 
 
98 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 He uttered His fulminations against those sins 
 which would be the natural result of the 
 opposite mode of worship, and attached them 
 to that precept which denounced it. No other 
 reason can I discover for the significant fact 
 that the declaration that God visits the sins of 
 the fathers upon the children is embodied in 
 the commandment not to make any image to 
 worship it, than because the habit of doing so 
 will assuredly result in the sins which will bring 
 about inevitably the fulfilment of that assertion. 
 It may seem, however, a very terrible and 
 narrow view to take of the tendency which has 
 expressed itself in all the more cultivated nations 
 to seek to embody the inner conceptions of the 
 mind in outward forms. Though the literal 
 construction of the second commandment is 
 such as to forbid all exercise or cultivation of 
 the plastic arts, and though it was so interpreted 
 by the nation itself, yet there is little doubt 
 that it was only the appropriation of them to 
 religious purposes that was forbidden. We 
 cannot suppose that painting and sculpture are 
 in themselves forbidden arts, at all events to us, 
 but only that all association of their efforts and 
 achievements with the object of worship is for- 
 bidden. There is undoubtedly everything in 
 them which entitles them to the epithet of the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 99 
 
 fine arts ; they are refining and elevating in their 
 tendency. Every cultivated mind will at once 
 and gratefully acknowledge their humanising 
 influence and subtle ethereal power. But this, 
 it must be allowed, is only on the presumption 
 that other influences are permitted to exercise 
 their influence in like manner. When the culti- 
 vation of the mind in other directions is carried 
 on at the same time, — when poetry, philosophy, 
 history, and science also assert their sway, and, 
 above all, when spiritual illumination predomi- 
 nates and is supreme, — the influence of art 
 can be nothing but beneficial ; but it may well 
 be questioned whether the exclusive or predo- 
 minant cultivation of art would not of itself 
 manifest those tendencies towards the fosterincf 
 of the gross and the sensual in life and morals 
 which the second commandment of the Law 
 aimed so directly at repressing. At all events, 
 we may well be jealous, since God is jealous, of 
 admitting into too close connection with His 
 spiritual worship those human additions of 
 painting, sculpture, and the like, of which the 
 effect has been in all ages to drag down the 
 worshipper, and confine him to his own level, 
 instead of elevating him to the Divine level. 
 
 But it is time to turn to the other consideration 
 which is suggested by the further and final reve- 
 
lOO Foundations of Morality, 
 
 lation of the second commandment — " showing 
 mercy unto thousands of them that love me and 
 keep my commandments." Now, this also had, 
 no doubt, an historical aspect. When we think 
 of the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
 that the children of Israel were about to inherit, 
 we cannot but see that it had the force of an 
 assurance that to walk in the steps of Abraham 
 would be to inherit the blessing of Abraham. 
 It also was altogether in keeping, therefore, 
 with the historic position of Israel, and fits in 
 wonderfully with the literary records of the 
 time at which it was given. But for us it 
 has surely a far higher value, if we duly regard 
 its import. God reveals Himself as showing 
 mercy unto thousands. In the seventh chapter 
 of Deuteronomy (ver. 9) this is expanded yet 
 further : " Know therefore that the Lord thy 
 God, He is God, the faithful God which keepeth 
 covenant and mercy with them that love Him 
 and keep His commandments to a thousand 
 generations." He visits the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children unto the third and fourth 
 generation, but He keepeth covenant and mercy 
 to a thousand generations. 
 
 Thus we see the Law was a revelation of 
 mingled awe and love. It was a partial revela- 
 tion, and was destined to be itself fulfilled in a 
 
Foundations of Morality, loi 
 
 yet higher law which should reveal the perfect 
 love that casteth out fear. It was like the 
 majestic course of the sun upon a summer's day» 
 which at his rising has to contend with clouds 
 that conceal his glory, till by degrees he grows 
 in brightness and the whole heavens are filled 
 with his meridian splendour. But it is, after all, 
 this revelation which is the revelation indeed.. 
 The revelation of God as a God of power, of 
 terrific might and force and awfulness, is that 
 which lies too often nearest to our senses and 
 to our natural heart. To behold God, and yet 
 more to trust in Him as a God of love, as a 
 God of mercy and loving-kindness, as a God 
 whose mercy rejoiceth against judgment, whose 
 love is greater than His wrath as the thousand 
 generations are greater than the three or four, 
 and as a God whose grace much more aboundeth 
 over the abounding sin of man, — this is the 
 special effect of the revelation of God which 
 specially requires a revelation, and which reve- 
 lation has been given by the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. It is something to know God as a 
 jealous God, and to know that He is jealous for 
 our sakes rather than His own ; but it is yet 
 more to know that He is a faithful God, and 
 that He keepeth covenant with thousands, and 
 to a thousand generations. Now this is assuredly 
 
102 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 the feature of God's character that is most abun- 
 dantly confirmed by the testimony of physical 
 science. Mark you, it is confirmed thereby — it 
 is not revealed thereby; for the revelations of 
 physical science vary as the interpreters of it 
 vary : it is revealed, and revealed only, by reve- 
 lation — that is, we can only learn it if we accept 
 revelation ; and the form in which revelation 
 gives it is a form that is not acceptable to 
 physical science, any more than it is to the 
 natural heart, for God is declared to be a faithful 
 God, and one that showeth mercy unto thou- 
 sands ; but then it is in them that love Him 
 and keep His commandments. Now, the truth 
 which God declares of Himself, " I love them 
 that love me," is one to which physical science 
 cannot aspire, and to which it gives no testimony ; 
 but this is the message of revelation — " shewing 
 mercy unto thousands of them that love me." 
 Here, then, is the knowledge implied in the love : 
 we can only love him whom we know, we can 
 only know the Unknowable as far as He has 
 made Himself known ; but that He has made 
 Himself known up to this point is most certainly 
 implied. And yet more than this is implied — 
 namely, that His love is conditioned by our 
 love. His mercy is shown to them that love 
 Him. This either is or is not a fact : if it is not 
 
Foundations of Morality, 103 
 
 a fact there is an end of the whole matter, we 
 may pass it by with total and supreme indiffer- 
 ence ; but if it is a fact then we can only know 
 it for a fact inasmuch as it is revealed, and as 
 far as it is revealed. And then in that case the 
 revelation of the fact implies and involves the 
 inspiration of the statement, the Divine authority 
 of the word. 
 
 And this, doubtless, is so and must be so : 
 God bases His love, so to say, upon our love ; 
 as we love Him so He loves us — a truth most 
 distasteful to the natural heart, but neverthe- 
 less a truth. Upon what, then, is our love based, 
 if His love is based on ours } Let us not shrink 
 from the apparent paradox and vicious circle, 
 for it is self-apparent that our love is based on 
 His. " We love Him because He first loved us." 
 We know that He has first loved us because, 
 and only because. He has told us so, and we 
 believe His word. Before we believe His word 
 we can have no love for Him, but having 
 believed it. He loves us yet the more because 
 we believe it, and in proportion as we continue 
 in His love He continueth more and more in 
 love towards us, for " He sheweth mercy unto 
 thousands in them that love Him and keep His 
 commandments." 
 
I04 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
 His name in vain." — Exodus xx. 7. 
 
 THE third commandment and the ninth are 
 alike in this, that they both aim at the 
 inculcation of truth. The third, however, deals 
 with the obligation of man in relation to God, 
 and the ninth in relation to his fellow-man in 
 this matter : it is the former we have now to 
 treat of. It may be doubted whether the direct 
 bearing and intent of the third commandment 
 is commonly understood by those who are most 
 familiar with its language. To take God's 
 jname in vain is generally supposed to mean to 
 use it lightly and irreverently ; but however 
 appropriately that offence may be regarded as 
 implicitly forbidden by the terms of the third 
 commandment, I apprehend it is certainly 
 not its immediate or primary meaning. What 
 the language of the third commandment really 
 means is, Thou shalt not make use of the name 
 of the Lord thy God in attestation of what is 
 
Foundations of Morality. 105 
 
 false, thou shalt not call upon Him to witness to 
 an untruth, thou shalt not, in fact, swear falsely. 
 This, I take it, is unquestionably what the 
 words mean. That which is forbidden is the 
 most extreme form of untruth; but then, of 
 course, every lesser violation of the spirit of the 
 precept is forbidden by implication, just as the 
 sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments are 
 universally understood as proscribing every act 
 which does violence not only to their letter 
 but their spirit. The third commandment, then, 
 is to be especially noted as the very first that 
 attempts to regulate the conduct of man after 
 having prescribed the conditions of his worship 
 of God. It is the first, therefore, that ap- 
 proaches the limits of what we understand as 
 morality— for the laws of the first table may 
 be generally regarded as dealing with religion, 
 while those of the second inculcate morality, 
 but the aim of the third is in the direction of 
 morality. In fact, its object lies at the very 
 foundation of morality, though it does not itself, 
 strictly speaking, enter into the realm of morals, 
 but is confined rather to that of religion. And 
 this distinction is, as I shall endeavour to show, 
 not a mere refinement ; for the principle of the 
 Ten Commandments is, like that of the Lord's 
 Prayer, to direct attention first and foremost 
 
io6 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 to matters concerning God, and to postpone those 
 which relate to man. And thus God says, Thou 
 shalt not lift up my name to that which is vain, 
 false, idle, for the Lord will not exculpate or 
 hold guiltless him that doth so. 
 
 Now, what I want you to observe is, that we 
 have here the Lord's jealousy exercised primarily, 
 if we may so say, upon His own behalf: He is 
 jealous for the honour of His own name, and 
 will not have us dishonour it. This, of course, 
 is no exception to what I remarked before — that 
 the Lord is jealous for our sakes rather than 
 His own — because it may very well be for our 
 ultimate and highest advantage that we should 
 so honour His name ; but the form which the 
 precept takes is the prohibition of that dis- 
 honour which our violation of it will do to 
 Him. It is remarkable, therefore, that this com- 
 mandment concerns itself with man's reverence 
 for the name of God and with the assertion of 
 the majesty of that name as a reality in itself 
 and as the standard and source of truth. And 
 we have to bear in mind that we are inquiring 
 into the authority and origin of the moral law, 
 we are endeavouring to find out not merely 
 whether or what things are right, but why they 
 are right and what the fact of their being right 
 teaches us about ourselves and about them. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 107 
 
 What, then, is the origin of this law ? It must 
 either be human or divine. If it is human it 
 is derived from Moses, — the precept was merely 
 an idea invented by him, having no higher 
 authority or origin. But then surely, in this 
 case, we should, so to say, be able to see to the 
 end of it, to see through it and account for it ; 
 we should not be raised by it to an elevation 
 above ourselves, to a position from which we 
 should, as it were, be able to look down upon 
 ourselves and condemn ourselves. 
 
 Let us suppose, for example, that something 
 which we knew to be an unreality and a lie were 
 to be put in the place of God, and were made 
 to usurp the language of the third command- 
 ment : should we not instinctively feel that we 
 were ourselves dishonoured, mocked, and befooled 
 thereby } Why, then, is this, but simply because 
 
 " We needs must love the highest when we see it " ? 
 
 We cannot but feel that it is in accordance with 
 the moral constitution of our nature that we 
 should owe allegiance and homage to truth, and 
 that we can only despise ourselves when we find 
 that we have been paying that allegiance and 
 homage to a lie. To suppose, therefore, for a 
 moment, if we can do so without blasphemy, 
 that the Speaker of the third commandment 
 
io8 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 were Himself such an unreality, would not the 
 language of it yet teach us that its principle was 
 in accordance with truth, even though He (which 
 God forgive us) were not true ? But then we 
 have this additional feature to account for. Not 
 only is the law framed in exact harmony with 
 our own moral constitution, but the Person 
 speaking offers Himself as the direct opposite 
 and antagonist of all that is false : Thou shalt 
 not take my name for the attestation of any lie, 
 in order to prove true any untruth, to show to 
 be real any unreality. How, then, can we 
 understand any precept like this on the sup- 
 position that the very name itself, and the 
 knowledge of it, is such an unreality ? That 
 is, God declares Himself as responsible for the 
 revelation of His name : if there be no revelation 
 of the name there can be no essential anta- 
 gonism between the person forbidding and 
 the thing forbidden. It is the unreal that 
 forbids the unreal ; in other words, as our Lord 
 says, Satan, the liar and the father of lies, is 
 divided against himself. 
 
 Now, forasmuch as this is the earliest and 
 the most solemn, if not the solitary inculcation 
 of reverence to the name of God as the God 
 of truth, and we know that the law inculcated 
 is the very rule and standard of our own moral 
 
Foundations of Morality. 109 
 
 constitution, is not that in itself a very strong 
 presumption that the law is a Divine law, and 
 not a human invention ? There is that in our 
 nature, in the very foundation of our moral 
 consciousness, which tells us that the prohibi- 
 tion of the third commandment must be the 
 will and intention of Him who is the eternal 
 truth, even if we suppose for a moment that 
 it were uttered falsely in His name. But as 
 this is how the knowledge of it comes to us, and 
 how alone it comes to us, what further proof 
 do we want to show that the Person to whose 
 righteous law our conscience thus bears witness 
 is Himself the Person whose law it is? Nothing 
 shall persuade us that this is not the law : what 
 further evidence do we need to show that the 
 Person through whom we have learnt the law 
 is verily He to whom the law refers ? — for if 
 otherwise, then He through whom we have 
 learnt the law is only making us conscious of 
 its solemn obligations in order to bring us in 
 guilty of violating them through ignorance of 
 Him to whom of right they refer. 
 
 Thus, again, we are brought back to the foun- 
 dation principle that the proof of revelation is 
 in the thing revealed. In God's light we see 
 light ; it is He, and He only, who gives us light, 
 and when He enables us to see the li^ht He 
 
no Foundations of Morality, 
 
 enables us to see the evidence of Himself, and we 
 are guilty of violence to our own nature as well 
 as of treason to Him when we use the possession 
 of the light as an excuse for not seeing Him 
 whose light it is, and who is Himself the Light. 
 
 The very utterance of the law, then, is itself 
 a revelation : Thou shalt not take my name, the 
 name of the Lord thy God, in vain. It is un- 
 lawful because, and only because, I am the Lord 
 thy God. I am the invisible law, the ultimate 
 standard and principle which thou canst not 
 but acknowledge and feel in thy moral nature. 
 Thou art conscious of a right, and of a wrong 
 which deflects from that right ; it is impossible 
 to confound the two without doing violence to 
 thyself. Why is this but because this is how 
 thou art made, this is how I have made thee 1 
 I have revealed the law, for thine own con- 
 science is a witness thereto ; and I have revealed 
 myself in revealing the law, for otherwise the 
 revelation of the law without the revelation of 
 the person to whom it referred would leave 
 thee in darkness thicker and greater than before. 
 But I have revealed the Person also, for the 
 Person speaking is L I have called thee by 
 thy name : thou art mine. 
 
 It is thus that the law reveals the Person by 
 its directly personal appeal : Thou shalt not take 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 1 1 
 
 my name in vain, nor associate it with any 
 falsehood. As thou shalt not fashion thee any 
 image to represent me, so thou shalt not mix 
 up any falsehood with thy utterance of my 
 name : I am the Lord thy God. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that the law, 
 though it is thus personal in its demands, is 
 universal in its operation. Even those whom it 
 does not directly address are not beyond the 
 sphere of its exercise, for the Lord will not hold 
 guiltless or clear from guilt any that take His 
 name in vain. The name once given is the 
 possession of mankind, but every man is respon- 
 sible for his use of it. It instinctively sends a 
 shudder through one to hear the foul oath or 
 the impious blasphemy as it falls from ungodly 
 lips in our streets, for it tells of a hardened heart 
 and a benighted understanding ; but it is 
 not these only who are offenders against the 
 third commandment, for assuredly this com- 
 mandment has a solemn message for all those 
 who address their brethren in the name of God. 
 If its meaning is, Thou shalt not make use 
 of my name to establish or confirm any lie, to 
 strengthen the appeal to what is false, then 
 verily is it fraught with a solemn warning for 
 those who teach in the name of God, lest while 
 they profess to utter the words of God they 
 
112 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 utter also their own. Every one, therefore, who 
 mixes up self with the holy things of God is 
 violating the spirit of this commandment. It 
 is thus that we see how the obligation to truth 
 which it inculcated was reflected back upon the 
 lawgiver. He was himself the first, the most 
 flagrant and egregious culprit, if in the promul- 
 gation of a law like this he was uttering his 
 own words and not God's, or seeking his own 
 glory rather than the glory of Him that sent 
 him. It is thus that not only the revelation of 
 the law is its own witness, but also the very 
 form of its promulgation is the warrant for its 
 truth ; for " God spake all these words saying, I 
 am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none 
 other gods but me . . . Thou shalt not take the 
 name of the Lord thy God in vain." 
 
 One may well be thankful that in the present 
 day the Christian minister is reheved from the 
 necessity of inveighing against those habits 
 of swearing and profanity which were at one 
 time too common among us. Like the habits 
 of intemperance that prevailed in former years 
 in the upper ranks of life, those habits have also 
 greatly disappeared. It is no longer a mark 
 of gentle blood, any more than it is of gentle 
 manners, to swear or to be drunk. There is 
 doubtless much that calls for reformation ; but 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 1 3 
 
 these things, at all events, have been repressed. 
 Still we must bear in mind that if the reforma- 
 tion is a matter only of taste and not of principle, 
 it is possible for taste to change, as it has 
 changed. We cannot rely upon the change of 
 taste unless it be based upon a change of prin- 
 ciple ; and it is the recognition of principle for 
 which I contend. It is principles that are at 
 stake in the present day. A large proportion 
 of those who think for us are adrift in the 
 matter of principle : they have given up the 
 old, and have not yet discovered the new ; and 
 it is not too much to say that they never will 
 except by returning to the old. We do not want 
 to assume the manners any more than to wear 
 the habiliments of the past, but we do want to 
 recognise eternal principle, and principle is a 
 matter of the present and the future rather than 
 of the past, for principle is that which liveth, 
 and He that liveth and is the only source of life 
 is the Lord. And the Lord declares that He 
 is our Maker and our Judge. To Him it be- 
 longeth to pronounce guilty or to hold guiltless — 
 a terrific prerogative and a tremendous alterna- 
 tive. Guilt and guiltlessness belong alike to Him. 
 Before His eyes we are, one and all, personally 
 guilty— or guiltless ; but, in either case, it is a 
 holding guilty or declaring guiltless. As a 
 
 8 
 
114 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 matter of fact, we have one and all sinned 
 and come short of the glory of God ; we have 
 all mixed up truth and falsehood, we have all 
 turned away from the real and followed after 
 shams and vanity, and we are verily guilty 
 under this head ; but it is the Lord's to hold 
 guiltless, to take away transgression, to abolish 
 that which cannot absolutely be undone, and 
 to clear from guilt. Even so it is said, " Blessed 
 is the man to whom the Lord will not impute 
 sin." And we know that this non-imputation 
 of sin, this imputation of sinlessness, is the gift 
 bestowed upon those who come unto God by 
 faith. As all darkness vanishes when it comes 
 into contact with the light, so is sin and guilt 
 dissipated when it is brought by faith into the 
 personal presence of God through the blood- 
 shedding of Jesus Christ. When we so call 
 upon the Father through Him whom He hath 
 sealed and chosen. He will hold us guiltless of 
 the great, transgression because we take hold 
 of His name as it is revealed to us in Christ 
 Jesus, and acknowledge that He is the one only 
 source of sinlessness and pardon who spake in 
 times past unto the fathers by the prophets 
 and lawgivers of old, but hath in these last 
 times spoken unto us by His Son, the sinless 
 One, who is the way, the truth, and the life. 
 
Fou7idations of Morality, 115 
 
 X. 
 
 "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six 
 days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work : But the 
 seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it 
 thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
 daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy 
 cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates : For in 
 six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and 
 all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore 
 the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." 
 
 Exodus xx. 8. 
 
 THE fourth commandment is the last of 
 those which concern rehgion as distinct 
 from morahty, or the duty of man in his 
 relation to God rather than his fellow-man. 
 
 The institution of the sabbath is characteristic 
 of, if it is not peculiar to, the Mosaic Law, 
 though there is evidence from the Mosaic 
 writings that its observance was of far earlier 
 date than the giving of the Law. The use of 
 the word " remember " may possibly but does 
 not necessarily point to this. But, at all 
 events, one thing is quite clear — that when this 
 commandment was given the first chapter of 
 
1 1. 6 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 Genesis was not only in existence, but familiar 
 to the people ; for the fourth commandment is 
 based upon the first chapter of Genesis, and 
 cannot itself have supplied the material for 
 the composition of that document. 
 
 And the special feature of this commandment 
 
 in regard to religion is the fact that it provides 
 
 for the religious disposal of man's time. A 
 
 certain proportion of man's life was to be set 
 
 apart as holy to God. He was so to regard 
 
 one-seventh of all his days. His whole life 
 
 \vas to be measured by the recurrence of the 
 
 weekly portion which was dedicated to God. 
 
 But this was not put forth as an arbitrary 
 
 command : on the contrary, it was declared to 
 
 be right because it was a following out of the 
 
 principle which had governed the divine action 
 
 in the beginning of the world. Man was to 
 
 keep holy a certain portion of his time, because 
 
 God in the beginning had kept a like portion 
 
 holy. God had blessed the seventh day and 
 
 hallowed it, because then He rested from his 
 
 work ; and man's observance of the seventh day 
 
 was in like manner to take the form of rest. 
 
 God's rest, however, is not to be misunderstood. 
 
 The work of production and of reproduction, 
 
 of calling into existence and of creating, which 
 
 is exclusively God's work, goes on still, and has 
 
Foundations of Morality. 117 
 
 gone on from the first ; as our Lord says, " My 
 Father worketh hitherto and I work."* The 
 rest, therefore, of God, which seems to embrace 
 all His personal action, must be something very 
 different from the creative work which is re- 
 corded in Genesis. It is impossible for us to 
 understand what this work was; but we are 
 led to infer that the present creative work of 
 God, which we witness with our own eyes, com- 
 pared with that is as rest compared with work. 
 
 Looked at, then, in its original bearing, what 
 evidence does this commandment give of its 
 own origin and authority t Surely the very 
 highest ; for it shows a desire on the part of 
 God that man should enter into His rest, it 
 shows God making provision not only for His 
 worship by man, as we saw in the second com- 
 m'andment, but also in such a manner as to 
 secure the worship itself Not only is the 
 manner but the fact of worship provided for ; 
 not only its method, but its measure. Sup- 
 posing this to be an actual fact, we could surely 
 have no higher evidence of God's personal 
 interest in and regard for man. If we accept 
 the revelation giving it, we know it for an actual 
 fact, and therefore have the most conclusive 
 proof of the love of God. The Sabbath is a i 
 * John V. 17. 
 
?? 
 
 1 1 8 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 I perpetual sign of this love — a perpetual witness 
 
 I between God and man. 
 
 But beyond this the institution is based upon 
 what is recorded as a fact in the past relations 
 between God and His universe of which it is 
 absolutely impossible for us to know anything 
 except by direct revelation. Neither scientific 
 investigation nor reflection, nor the use of any 
 agencies we can bring to bear, could possibly 
 have discovered that there were seven stages 
 or gradations in God's creation of the world — 
 that He wrought for six days and rested on 
 the seventh ; and therefore, if this is a fact, 
 which I maintain, it is simply impossible for 
 science either to prove or to disprove — it is a 
 fact which we can only know, so far as we know 
 it, on the authority of revelation. In order, 
 therefore, that the fourth commandment may 
 have any authority at all, we must allow the 
 conception of revelation ; but allowing that, it 
 surely comes to us in a form that justifies 
 revelation, for it is based upon a fact that 
 revelation alone could tell us. But if it is a 
 revelation that we have to deal with here — as it 
 must be, if what is told us is a truth — then the 
 precept which is based upon it needs no higher 
 authority, for its origin, like our knowledge of 
 the fact, is Divine. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 1 9 
 
 There is one other preliminary observation 
 to be made. We must, I conceive, be careful 
 not to assign any limit to the days here spoken 
 of, unless we wish to bring the whole matter 
 into contempt. The creative days were not 
 days in the life of man, but days in the life of 
 God. If the period of God's rest on the seventh 
 day is now going on, and includes the whole 
 of human history — as the narrative referred 
 to seems to suggest — this must be so ; but it 
 seems to me to be conclusively shown by that 
 narrative itself. What is the physical cause 
 of the alternation of day and night but the 
 motion of the earth in relation to the sun } But 
 the narrative tells us of those of the seven days 
 which had their mornings and evenings before 
 God made the two great lights of the fourth 
 day. It is therefore, as it seems to me, simply 
 impossible that we can be intended to under- 
 stand by these three days periods of twenty- 
 four hours ; but if not by those, why by the 
 others .'* Moreover, we are especially told that 
 God placed these lights in the firmament of 
 the heaven to divide the day from the night 
 and to be for signs and seasons, and for days 
 and years. What then about the days which 
 intervened before they were so placed } What- 
 ever difficulties may beset this marvellous 
 
120 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 narrative, let us be careful not to add to them 
 by making the narrative according to our inter- 
 pretation of it contradict itself. 
 
 I observed before that this commandment is 
 one of those which belong to the first table, or 
 the precepts .affecting man's relation to God. It 
 is, moreover, the only commandment of the ten 
 which has any of the marks of being of a tem- 
 porary or transient character. So far as it fixed 
 the seventh day as the day set apart for the 
 */*■ worship of God, it is perfectly clear that it has 
 
 Tj^ 1 been abrogated. The Sabbath is no longer the 
 t {^^ ' Lord's day. Of this abrogation there is not a 
 
 \ ^ trace in Scripture of a legislative character. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the universal Christian 
 Church has adopted another day. It has _post- 
 poned the Jewish Sabbath to the first day. 
 But no less is it a matter of fact that this 
 momentous change was brought about silently 
 and without observation in history. The Acts 
 of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, the 
 Revelation of St. John, aHke bear witness to the 
 change having been brought about ; but as to 
 how it was brought about they are altogether 
 silent. Of any Divine command respecting it, 
 there is, as I say, no trace. We have abund- 
 ant evidence of the fact, but of the command- 
 ment ruling the fact, not a vestige. And yet 
 
 A^* 
 
Foundations of Alorality, 1 1 1 
 
 it is impossible to account for the fact as a fact, 
 except only upon one supposition. A sufficient 
 cause had come into operation to account for 
 the change which had taken place as early as 
 the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The cause 
 must have been adequate, and it must have 
 been relative. The day observed was the first 
 day ; the first day had become vested with pro- 
 found significance, for it was very early the first 
 day of the week that Christ rose from the dead. 
 We know also that during the forty days that 
 followed His resurrection — those days which we 
 now commemorate — He specially noted by His 
 own conduct the recurrence of the first day. 
 The inference, therefore, is natural, is unavoid- 
 able — but I would ask you to observe that it is 
 only an inference — that He left behind Him 
 some verbal and unrecorded precept which 
 virtually abrogated that part of the fourth com- 
 mandment which related to the seventh day as 
 literally the seventh in order of the seven days 
 of the week. But then surely this is a very 
 significant fact. The whole Christian Church 
 agrees in taking no notice of the seventh day, 
 but observes the first instead. That is to say, 
 the very form of the fourth commandment is 
 set aside tacitly, but absolutely without any 
 express permission from the original Giver 
 
122 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 of it. St. Paul does indeed say, in his letter 
 to Colosse, "Let no man judge you in meat or in 
 drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the 
 new moon, or of the Sabbath days," — that is to 
 say, you are not to be condemned if you observe 
 not the Sabbath days ; for that this is his mean- 
 ing is clear from the context — " which are a 
 shadow of things to come, but the body is of 
 jChrist." We know that the churches of Corinth 
 came together on the first day ; we know that 
 St. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day ; we 
 know that the disciples at Troas came together 
 jto break bread on the first day ; but we have no 
 jScripture record of Christian observance of the 
 seventh day, for that Paul should preach to the 
 Jews in the synagogue at Antioch and Thessa- 
 lonica on the Sabbath days, was not only 
 natural but necessary, if he would bring them 
 to Christ ; but the evidence we have of Christian 
 worship as such from the very first is on the 
 first day — which being confirmed, as it is, by the 
 practice of our Lord Himself, may surely be 
 taken, as in fact it has been taken, for proof that 
 the injunctions of the fourth commandment in 
 :his respect have been abrogated. Resurrection 
 s a far higher act than God's resting from the 
 Work of creation, and far more worthy of the 
 Christian's commemoration, and therefore the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 123 
 
 first day is far more worthy of honour than the { 
 seventh, and therefore we keep the first and not I 
 the seventh. But this being so, we are not * 
 obscurely taught that as the first day has refer- 
 ence to the resurrection of Christ, so the seventh 
 day has reference to His rest in the tomb, and 
 the sixth to His death on the cross ; and that, 
 in fact, in some way which as yet we cannot 
 fully comprehend, the creative work of God may 
 have been, and probably was, significant of the 
 redemptive work of Christ, and was intended to 
 point us ultimately to that. But if so, the in- 
 junctions of the fourth commandment, in their 
 rig-id exclusion of work and their strict inculca- 
 tion of rest, had mystic reference to the rest of 
 Christ in death, and to that period in the history 
 of the world when He, having finished the work 
 God gave him to do, rested absolutely from all 
 His works in the darkness, silence, and extinc- 
 tion of the grave, as God did from His, and 
 so fulfilled the meaning of the rest of God on 
 the seventh day. If this was so, the very act 
 of Christ Himself, in so taking rest, would have 
 abrogated, we may well believe, the restrictions 
 of the fourth commandment, as His rising from 
 the dead on the first day abrogated its specific 
 appointment of the seventh day as the day of 
 rest. 
 
124 Foundations 0/ Morality, 
 
 Again, the fourth commandment from its very 
 lature was one which was liable to abuse in the 
 lirection of its observance. It is the first com- 
 mandment which is positive and not negative in 
 its form; it does not forbid — it enjoins, or at all 
 events it enjoins before it forbids : it first com- 
 mands the seventh day to be kept holy, and then 
 forbids any work upon it. We can see, therefore, 
 that it was specially open to violation in the 
 opposite directions of diminution and excess. 
 The Old Testament gives us examples of the 
 former during the period of the wanderings in 
 the age of the prophets, and in the time of 
 Nehemiah. The New Testament gives us 
 examples of the latter. In the time of our 
 ILord the Jewish observance of the Sabbath had 
 Ibecome a matter of gross and extravagant 
 superstition, so that this superstitious reverence 
 pf it called forth indignant reprobation from the 
 Son of God, and the utterance of the Divine 
 principle which at once abrogated the exclusive 
 restrictions of the fourth commandment and 
 revealed its true, inherent, and abiding principle, 
 " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
 for the Sabbath," when He coupled therewith 
 the majestic inference, "Therefore the Son of 
 ' man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Now, if any 
 one of less authority than Christ had ventured 
 
Foundations of Morality, 125 
 
 to enunciate such a principle, we should justly 
 have stood aghast at his audacity, as the Jews 
 did ; but when we duly realise the solemn and 
 momentous fact that here was one far greater 
 than Moses, who was only the mediator of the old 
 Law — even the Lawgiver Himself, "God made 
 manifest in the flesh " — we need no more to show 
 us that in the principle so enunciated we have 
 a revelation of at least equal authority with the 
 fourth commandment, and one which, cutting 
 across as it did the line of its over-observance, 
 must even now tend to modify and may claim 
 to interpret it. But then what a sublime com- 
 ment it is, and how it reveals more than ever 
 the heart of the Lawgiver ! 
 
 I said that God desires man to enter into His 
 rest. The world is a restless world, and to us 
 whose lot is cast in these latter days it is more 
 than ever restless ; but the life of God is a hfe 
 of rest. Of Him alone can we say that His 
 work is at once unresting and His rest unbroken ; 
 but most true is it that if man would enjoy rest 
 he can find it only in the heart of God and in 
 Christ who has revealed that heart. " Come 
 unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." Oh, blessed words, 
 which fall upon the ear like angels' strains, and 
 are full of sweetness and full of rest. Man can- 
 
 / 
 
126 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 not rest till he has heard these words and com- 
 plied with their hallowed invitation, for it is rest 
 which is holy : " God rested the seventh day 
 and hallowed it," and if man is to hallow the 
 seventh day he must rest. Very striking is this 
 intimate connection which the fourth command- 
 ment reveals between rest and holiness. Is not 
 that an indication, and do we need any other, 
 that it is Divine, — for rest is of God and God is 
 holy? Surely man could not have discovered for 
 himself, most assuredly he has not learnt it yet, 
 that rest is holiness and that holiness is rest ; 
 and yet he was told that in order to hallow the 
 Sabbath day he must rest, and that when God 
 rested on that day He made it holy. 
 
 And this is the lesson which for the present I 
 would leave with you : if we would rest, we must 
 rest in holiness, in God's holiness, for in God's 
 holiness and in that alone we shall find rest. 
 We are tossed to and fro on the weary, desolate 
 ocean of life. We are assailed by angry winds, 
 by raging storms and drifting currents ; we are 
 now tempest-tossed and now becalmed, we are 
 now in felt peril of our lives, and now in jeopardy 
 without knowing it ; neither sun nor stars have 
 for many days appeared, and no small tempest 
 lies upon us ; but He who rested in sleep 
 through the storm on the lake of Gahlee is 
 
Foundations of Morality, 127 
 
 with us still, and He says to us, as He said to 
 His own of old, " Why are ye fearful, O ye of 
 httle faith?" He ruleth the raging of the sea, 
 and the noise of his waves, and the madness 
 of the people. He calleth to us to be of good 
 cheer, and he that heareth His voice and be- 
 lieveth on Him shall enter into rest. 
 
128 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 
 XL 
 
 " Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy 
 God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labour, 
 and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
 of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, 
 thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, 
 nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any 
 of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; 
 that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well 
 as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the 
 land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee 
 out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out 
 arm : therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to 
 keep the sabbath day." — Deut. v. 12-15. 
 
 THE second promulgation of the fourth com- 
 mandment, which is preserved to us here, 
 differs in some important particulars from the 
 iirst, which is given in Exodus. Here, for ex- 
 ample, we have the specific mention of the ox 
 and the ass, in addition to the rest of the cattle, 
 as though flocks and herds were now about to 
 constitute more prominently the wealth of Israel 
 in the assured possession of Canaan. But more 
 remarkably, the reference to the six days' 
 creation is omitted, and the merciful object of 
 
Foundations of Morality, 129 
 
 the command revealed in the words "that thy 
 manservant and thy maidservant may rest as 
 well as thou," while the remembrance of the 
 bondage in Egypt is directly associated with 
 the rest of the Sabbath day. It is important 
 to notice these variations, because those who 
 have an interest in depreciating the value of 
 Scripture have drawn attention to them, and 
 used them as the means of throwing discredit 
 on the Divine authority of either and both 
 forms, but much more because we ought care- 
 fully to observe the different circumstances under 
 which each professes to have been spoken, and 
 the exact manner in which the variation in 
 the form corresponds with the variation in the 
 circumstances. The command as given in 
 Deuteronomy professes to be the republication 
 of the former one some forty years afterwards. 
 It is expressly said, therefore, '' Keep the Sab- 
 bath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath 
 commanded thee!' When and where was this, we 
 may ask, if not at Horeb, and in the 20th chapter 
 of Exodus, at the first giving of the Law } It 
 is assumed that the people were familiar with 
 the Law, as of course they were. The day also 
 is called, you will observe, the Sabbath day ; and 
 as Sabbath means rest, it is far more easy to 
 understand the application of that name to the 
 
 9 
 
I30 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 seventh day for the reason assigned in Exodus 
 than it is to understand the mere arbitrary 
 appointment of the seventh day as a day of rest 
 without any reason assigned, coupled as it is here 
 with the provision " that thy servant may rest as 
 well as thou." And then once more, when the 
 Law was first given, just after the Exodus, there 
 was little probability of Israel's forgetting the 
 bondage in Egypt; but now that they were 
 about to enter the long promised land and 
 become possessors of it, there could be nothing 
 more needful than that they should constantly 
 cherish the remembrance of that great redemp- 
 tion. For all these reasons, therefore, we can 
 see that the alteration of the form of this 
 commandment in Deuteronomy was specially 
 appropriate to the new occasion under which it 
 was made. 
 
 But again, there are two other features con- 
 nected with it which require to be mentioned. 
 As a different event is here associated with the 
 rest of the Sabbath day, the institution itself 
 is thereby vested with a degree of elasticity 
 which we should hardly have expected. Though 
 the rest of the seventh day was based on the 
 rest of God, that was not the only reason for 
 observing it. There was not merely a creative 
 work to be commemorated, but also a redemp- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 1 3 1 
 
 tive work ; and it was this redemptive work 
 which was to be the characteristic mark of the 
 new dispensation which was prefigured by the 
 second giving of the Law. Hence we are pre- 
 pared to a certain extent for the temporary and 
 transient character of the original precept by 
 the difference of the motive assigned for keeping 
 it. But more than all, there is brought into 
 strong prominence, on the second promulgation 
 of it, the benevolent purpose of the original com- 
 mand. The Sabbath was a merciful provision 
 designed for the benefit of all alike — "that 
 thy manservant and thy maidservant may 
 rest as well as thou." It was not designed for 
 the selfish advantage and enjoyment of one, 
 but for the general benefit of all. The reminder 
 thus given in Deuteronomy was at once worthy 
 of the milder character of the second enunciation 
 of the Law, and also preparatory for the coming 
 of that dispensation in which the Lawgiver 
 should Himself declare that the Sabbath was 
 made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 
 
 Thus far we have been endeavouring to arrive 
 at the principles which underlie the institution 
 of the Sabbath ; and in order fully to understand 
 them, it was needful to look at the precept, not 
 only as it was first given, but as it was sub- 
 sequently modified. The more difficult task is 
 
1 3 2 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 now before us of determining what is our 
 present relation to this precept ? We cannot 
 decide this without carefully apprehending the 
 nature of these principles. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted, when we duly bear 
 in mind all the facts, that there was something 
 in the fourth commandment of a merely 
 temporary character. It was not intended from 
 the first that the rest of the seventh day should 
 be permanently and universally observed with 
 all the rigidity of the Sabbath. I at least for 
 one cannot believe this when I consider atten- 
 tively all the facts. The Sabbath days, as St. 
 Paul says, were among those institutions which 
 are a shadow of things to come while the body 
 is of Christ. In other words, the Sabbath is a 
 means to an end — it is not an end in itself As 
 constantly happens with persons of a Judaic 
 tone of mind, the Jews made it an end in itself. 
 Their observance of it, therefore, was idolatrous 
 and superstitious. The means hid the end from 
 their view as the visible image hides the in- 
 visible. This is one of the principles to which 
 I refer — the transitory character of the Jewish 
 Sabbath as an institution. 
 
 The second is the spiritual purpose and 
 intention of the precept. The end aimed at 
 was mercy. The design was benevolent and 
 
Foundations of Morality^ 133 
 
 beneficent. God invites man to enter into His 
 rest; He desires that all may rest. The Sabbath 
 was made for man. Its character was human, 
 and its design humane. We shall not estimate 
 it aright if we fail thoroughly to grasp these 
 two principles. 
 
 But then, I think there are others also to 
 be borne in mind. The Sabbath day by its 
 very name is, after all, the day of rest ; and 
 the Sabbath, whether the first day or the 
 seventh, is after all one day in seven. Now, 
 these are the two principles in the opposite 
 direction which we have to observe and ponder. 
 And as with the Jews of old the two former 
 principles were those that were in danger of 
 being forgotten, so with us Christians now it 
 is these latter ones which require to be 
 thoroughly understood and appreciated. Let 
 us then try to understand and appreciate them. 
 
 Is there any special holiness attached to 
 one day in seven } That is the question which 
 is asked nowadays, and not seldom answered 
 in the negative; and the tendency of mind 
 thus evidenced is exemplified in various ways. 
 For instance, in like manner it is said that 
 we can do without the belief in miracles now, 
 because we have leaunt to see the super- 
 natural in common things, and so forth. But 
 
134 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 if it is the supernatural that we see in common 
 things, then where is the natural ? And if all 
 is natural, where is the supernatural ? Is 
 there no distinction between the two ? And if 
 there is any, what is it ? And so if a general 
 holiness has been suffused over everything, 
 and everything has been made holy, is there 
 nothing that is unholy ? Surely that is a 
 principle which would very soon lead us into 
 deadly error. If there is no such thing as sin, 
 then most assuredly there is no such thing as 
 holiness, and if there is no such thing as 
 holiness, there is no such thing as sin, or 
 rather everything is alike sinful ; and so if 
 every day is equally and alike holy, then not 
 only is there no day unholy, which may well 
 be the case, but also there is no day holy. But 
 we are told that God rested the seventh day 
 and halloived it. That is, He made the seventh 
 day to be what He had not made any other 
 day to be. He put a distinction of character, 
 and not merely a numerical distinction, between 
 the days of the week ; and He did this by the 
 institution of the week — an institution which 
 was not abrogated when He hallowed the first 
 day of the week by rising from the dead upon 
 it more than He did the seventh day by resting 
 upon it from His creative work. Christ did 
 
Foundations of Morality. 135 
 
 indeed hallow all the days of the week by 
 living and working and doing His deeds of 
 mercy, as far as we know, upon all alike ; but 
 He did not rise from the dead upon all: that 
 was the highest and most blessed act by which 
 He signalised the first day and marked it 
 out from all the rest. Because, then, He has 
 truly hallowed every day, that is no reason 
 why we should not keep holy the first day, 
 on which He rose and thereby made it the 
 Lord's day, — any more than because He has 
 redeemed and consecrated every action of our 
 human life and made it divine, that is any 
 reason why every action of that life should 
 be regarded as equally holy, or the acts of 
 prayer and Communion should be esteemed as 
 nothing more than the ordinary intercourse 
 with our fellow-men or than the breakinsf of 
 our daily bread. As a matter of fact, the 
 principle of disregarding the holiness of the 
 Lord's day on the ground that every day is 
 holy falls to pieces utterly when confronted 
 wnth the facts and constitution of our human 
 life, which God has made to consist of alter- 
 nations of day and night, of darkness and light, 
 of toil and rest. I take it, then, the principle 
 remains inviolate and inviolable that God has 
 put a difference between the days of our life, 
 
136 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 if only by teaching His beloved disciple to 
 call the first the Lord's day. And I cannot 
 but think that the conscience of every en- 
 lightened Christian would recognise as a 
 disastrous calamity the successful effort to 
 obliterate all distinction between the common 
 days of the week and that which, following 
 his example, we call the Lord's day. Depend 
 upon it, in accordance with our nature and 
 constitution it is not the surest way of hallowing 
 all the days of our life to hallow none. And 
 when St. Paul said " One man esteemeth one 
 day above another, and another man esteemeth 
 every day alike : let every man be fully persuaded 
 in his own mind," he did not contemplate such 
 a persuasion as would recognise no difference 
 for the people of God between days common 
 and days holy, or an entire abolition of the 
 Christian Sabbath. 
 
 And this brings us to the second principle. 
 The distinguishing characteristic of the Lord's 
 day is that of rest. We cannot be always work- 
 ing, any more than we can be always awake: 
 we must sleep, and we must rest. There is a 
 time to sleep and a time to rest, as there is 
 also a time to work ; and God has ordained for 
 the most merciful of all reasons that it is rest 
 which shall characterise His own holy day. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 137 
 
 We cannot contemplate with any satisfaction 
 the idea of continuous and unceasing work for 
 human society. As a matter of fact, if man 
 will not rest on the Lord's day, he must and 
 will rest on his own, for he cannot do without 
 rest. What a blessing it is, then, that this 
 rest, which is so needful for him, has been asso- 
 ciated by his Maker with the work of creation 
 and of re-creation, of God's own perpetual rest 
 and of His Son's resurrection from the grave; 
 and what a loss it must be to man when he 
 fails thus to enter into God's idea of rest ! The 
 Prime Minister said the other day — and I for 
 one was thankful he said it — "Of all Divine 
 institutions, there is none more Divine than 
 that which secures to man a day of rest." * But 
 Divine as the day is in its institution, that 
 which can alone make it Divine to man is that 
 man should associate with it the acts whereby 
 God has consecrated it — that is to say, by enter- 
 ing through faith into God's rest, " for we which 
 have believed do enter into rest," and by rising 
 from the death of sin and self as Christ rose. 
 As long as we fail to do this, we fail to realise 
 fully the Divine idea of the day of rest. The 
 day of rest was not given that man might be 
 idle and please himself; it was not given that 
 * Speech in the House of Lords, Monday, May 5, 1879. 
 
138 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 man might keep it as a saturnalian holiday, 
 pursuing the devices and desires of his own heart 
 with a greater zest than on any other day, 
 preoccupied as all other days necessarily are 
 with enforced obedience to the no less Divine 
 precept " Six days shalt thou work and do all 
 that thou hast to do," — but it was given that man 
 might recreate his soul after the image of Him 
 that created him, and rested from creating him 
 on the seventh day, and yet more by the 
 resurrection grace of Him who conquered death 
 and abolished sin by rising from the tomb the 
 first day. 
 
 It is the less needful for me to dwell in detail 
 upon the practical application of these principles 
 to some of the disputed problems of the present 
 day, because in proportion as these principles are 
 really grasped will those problems, I believe, be 
 solved. I suppose no Christian man, for example, 
 would advocate habitual Sunday travelling ; 
 but at the same time we must remember that 
 the exigencies of modern society had no counter- 
 part in the life of Israel in the desert, and a 
 thousand calls of duty may arise which neces- 
 sitate a journey on the Sunday, and if so, " let no 
 man judge you in respect of the Sabbath days." 
 I for one should be very sorry to see the English 
 Sunday more nearly assimilated to the Sunday 
 
Foundations of Morality, 139 
 
 in Paris ; nor do I believe that good would result 
 from the opening to the public of picture gal- 
 leries and museums on the Sunday. I do not see 
 that it could educate the people for God, even if 
 — which I greatly doubt — it could, strictly speak- 
 ing, educate them in any other way. But we 
 must not forget that this, after all, is not the 
 question ; but whether or not God has put a 
 difference between the days of our life by 
 hallowing His own day, and whether, if that be 
 so, this is one of the best ways of helping them 
 to hallow it, which I apprehend the advocates 
 of such a course would by no means be disposed 
 to maintain. And this brings us after all to 
 the root question — Is the institution of the 
 Sabbath, in whatever form and under whatever 
 name it is known, whether as the Sunday or 
 the seventh day or the day of rest or the Lord's 
 day, — is the observance of this day an ordinance 
 of man or of God? If of man, then unques- 
 tionably in our times there is a very strong 
 tendency at work in all directions towards set- 
 ting it aside ; and I do not, I confess, see why, if 
 man made it, he should not set it aside. Man 
 has got tired of the restraints of a law which he 
 framed in his own parliament : why not repeal 
 it ? If he had the power to make it, he un- 
 deniably has the power to repeal it. But if this 
 
1 40 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 is not the case, if this law was not made by 
 man, then who made it ? If man can give no 
 account in the nature of things why he should 
 have made it, or having made it, should kick 
 against it and wish it were done away with, 
 then the only natural inference is that some- 
 how or other God made it, that He made it as 
 a perpetual sign between Himself and man, that 
 in spite of himself man, as he listens to the 
 words of this law, more or less knows and feels 
 that it is from God, and that the key to its 
 true obedience lies in the living and eternal 
 spirit of the Lord's words that the Sabbath was 
 made by God for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 
 
 " Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may 
 be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee." — Exodus xx. 12. 
 
 WE now pass from our consideration of 
 those precepts of the Decalogue which 
 are the basis of religious obligation to those 
 which are the foundation and standard of 
 morality — from the laws affecting our relation 
 to God to those which concern our relation to 
 man. The first of these is that which inculcates 
 honour to parents. We find, then, in this com- 
 mandment what may be called the plan or 
 outline of all human society. If this precept 
 is of God, it lays down as a part of the Divine 
 scheme the foundation principle that one part 
 of human society is subordinate to another. 
 In these days when strong revulsion of thought 
 leads us to call in question opinions and beliefs 
 of ancient authority, men are by no means 
 universally persuaded that this principle of 
 subordination in society is Divine ; but I pro- 
 ceed on the supposition that the Decalogue is 
 verily and indeed of God, and endeavour to 
 
T42 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 ascertain why and how it is so. It is certain, 
 however, that one of the blatant cries of our 
 time has been " liberty, equality^ fra ternity/' 
 The question, therefore, is whether the root 
 principle of this cry or whether that of the 
 fifth commandment is the true one, and whether 
 the one which is true can establish its claim 
 to superiority and can show itself Divine. 
 
 For this is my first point — that the principle 
 which is represented by the cry of equality is 
 essentially inconsistent with and fundamentally- 
 opposed to the principle of the fifth command- 
 ment. The fifth commandment asserts, as 
 plainly as it is possible to do so, the principle 
 that in human society there are those by whom 
 honour must be given and those to whom it 
 is due. It affirms that the younger are bound 
 to honour the elder — that parents are entitled 
 to the honour of their children. Now, if this 
 is the case, and in whatever degree it is the case, 
 there is a fatal blow struck at the notion of 
 abstract equality. Two men cannot be equal 
 if one is under the obligation to pay honour 
 to the other which that other has a right to 
 receive. We are, of course, not speaking now 
 of the case in which two men are mutually 
 bound to honour each other, as constantly 
 happens, but of the case like that contemplated 
 
Foundations of Morality, 143 
 
 by the fifth commandment, in which honour 
 is due from the second to the first which is 
 not reciprocally due from the first to the second ; 
 and we maintain that whenever this occurs — as 
 it does occur, for example, between a father 
 and his son — there is an end to all notion of 
 abstract equality. The son is not equal to 
 the father because, and simply because, the 
 father is entitled to be honoured by the son, 
 as the son — for that is the point — is not entitled 
 to be honoured by the father because of his 
 subordinate position as a son. 
 
 Now, there is no question that this is the teach- 
 ing of the fifth commandment : the only question 
 that can be raised is, How far is this teaching 
 Divine } It would seem that the only way in 
 which we can show it to be Divine is by showing 
 it first to be necessarily and essentially human.-^ 
 If this is virtually the principle on which, as a 
 matter of fact, human society is constructed, 
 then we may assume that it is not a matter of 
 mere arbitrary arrangement on the part of man, 
 but that it represents the conditions of his 
 existence, the law of his being, so that to go 
 counter to this principle would be no less con- 
 trary to the true nature of man than to do 
 violence to the normal action of a complex 
 piece of machinery. 
 
J 44 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 But surely nature itself teaches us that there 
 is a difference of gradation between parents and 
 children, and that parents have rights over 
 their children which the children have not over 
 their parents. It is absurd and preposterous 
 to suppose that the child of ten is not subor- 
 dinate to the father of forty, just as it is to 
 imagine that he can be independent of him. 
 To insist upon the rights of the father is not to 
 disclaim or ignore those of the child, for if the 
 child is dependent on the father the father must 
 be responsible for his care of the child ; but it 
 remains an obvious fact that in virtue of this 
 dependence the child is also subordinate to his 
 father to that extent which the law demands 
 under the name of honour. 
 
 Nature, then, has given the father certain 
 rights over the child ; but as far as this is so the 
 father did not make those rights, but found 
 them ready made. If, however, those rights 
 are common to fatherhood as fatherhood — are 
 the universal prerogative of paternity — then that 
 shows that they are part of the principle upon 
 which humanity is constituted. Humanity, 
 therefore, must either have constructed itself on 
 this principle, or it must have been constructed ; 
 but it could not so construct itself, any more 
 than the child could construct for itself the 
 
Foundations of Mo7^ality. 145 
 
 relation in which it stands to its father. We are 
 therefore led to the conclusion of the Psalmist : 
 " It is he that hath made us and not we our- 
 selves." The voice of nature in this respect is 
 assuredly the voice of God, and the law of the 
 fifth commandment is the law of God because 
 it is the rescript of the law of nature. 
 
 But then it is to be observed that the principle 
 of the paternal relationship and the obligations 
 arising from it are but the patterns of similar 
 relationships characterising human society. If 
 the filial obligation is recognised the principle 
 of abstract inequality is recognised. There are 
 those who are subordinate to others, for all sons 
 are or ought to be subordinate to their fathers 
 and all children to their parents ; but as all men 
 are or have been children, all men are or have 
 been subordinate to others, even if now they have 
 attained to a position in which others are subor- 
 dinate to them. This shows us that the main 
 general feature of this relationship is expressed 
 by seniority. The relation of subordination 
 varies inversely with seniority : it gradually 
 passes away as seniority comes on ; but the 
 principle remains and is established that equality 
 is destroyed by seniority. The young, as a 
 matter of fact, are not equal to the old. 
 
 We see, then, that the relation of inequality 
 
 10 
 
146 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 is not dependent merely upon that of father 
 and son ; it may rightly and justly exist where 
 that relation does not exist. Among the various 
 ramifications, however, of human society, it 
 is plain that various accidental circumstances 
 will invest a man with conditions analogous to 
 those of paternity and seniority. Birth, wealth, 
 education, intellect, station, and the like, will 
 as a matter of fact give a man advantages 
 which it is simply impossible to ignore without 
 disregard to truth, and which cannot be set 
 aside without doing violence to the virtual and 
 the actual constitution of society. The man 
 that lacks these advantages is not equal, by 
 the constitution of God no less than by the 
 the accident of society, to the man that has 
 them, any more than the dwarf is equal to the 
 giant. It does not follow but that the dwarf 
 may have other advantages tending to compen- 
 sate him for his physical disadvantage, just as 
 the accidental advantages of station and the 
 like may be more than counterbalanced by 
 other defects ; but it is absurd, revolutionary, 
 and untrue, not to acknowledge the fact that 
 subordination is a primary and fundamental 
 principle of human society, and that this prin- 
 ciple has its origin in the law of God as pro- 
 pounded in the fifth commandment, and receives 
 
Foundations of Morality. 147 
 
 its sanction from it. The corruptions and 
 abuses of society may have brought about 
 certain conditions artificial and unreal in which, 
 the principle of subordination may operate 
 prejudicially to the interests of society at large, 
 or of certain portions of society; but there can 
 be no question that society at large is con- 
 structed, and divinely constructed, on the prin- 
 ciple of subordination, and not upon that of 
 an abstract and uniform equality, — and the 
 ultimate reason and proof of it is that it is 
 God who makes one man to differ from another, 
 as it was God who said at Sinai, " Honour thy 
 father and thy mother." 
 
 1^ The fifth commandment has been called by 
 (the apostle Paul " the first commandment with 
 promise." This promise as given in Deutero- 
 nomy slightly varies in form from that given 
 Ihere ; for there the commandment runs, " Honour 
 thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God 
 hath commanded thee" — that is to say, both 
 in Exodus xx. 5 and in thine own conscience — 
 »"that thy days may be prolonged, and that it 
 may go well with thee in the land which the 
 Lord thy God giveth thee." It is frequently 
 asserted that this temporal promise is now- 
 abrogated, and that we can no longer hope 
 for a literal fulfilment of it. But I venture to 
 
148 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 doubt very much whether it was ever intended 
 to be understood literally, even when first given, 
 and whether as a matter of fact it was then 
 more frequently fulfilled literally than it is now. 
 I am by no means sure that we have sufficient 
 evidence to show that God's providential deal- 
 ings with His people then differed in the main 
 from His dealings with us now. I apprehend 
 that the righteous were taken away from the 
 evil to come then, and not seldom in early 
 youth, as they are now. I apprehend that 
 inscrutable and untimely accidents were wont at 
 times to snatch away some of the most hopeful, 
 even as at times they do now ; but for all that 
 I fully believe that the general blessing of this 
 commandment is as true now as it was then. 
 I believe fully that the blessing of God, not 
 seldom revealed in visible prosperity and in 
 length of days, still accompanies those who in 
 the spirit of it are obedient to this command- 
 ment, just as it did of old. 
 
 I see no evidence to show that we are living 
 under a different dispensation now because the 
 principles of that dispensation are better under- 
 stood and are known to be of far wider appli- 
 cation than was then supposed. I am certain 
 that obedience to the laws of God will in the 
 long run secure the greatest amount of tem- 
 
 U 
 
Foimdations of Morality, 149 
 
 poral prosperity, just as obedience to the laws 
 of nature will secure in the main the greatest 
 average length of life and the largest enjoy- 
 ment of good health, even though in all cases 
 alike individual instances may occur which 
 appear to militate against the general rule. 
 And certain I am that habitual violation of the 
 
 ] principle of the fifth commandment, and the 
 attempt to substitute the theory of equality for 
 the fact of subordination, will quickly bring 
 down upon society the curse of God in the 
 form of disorganisation and disorder, revolu- 
 tion and anarchy ; and that those who set at 
 nought the merciful provisions of the fifth 
 commandment for the constitution of human 
 society shall not find it go well with them in 
 this country or in any other, and that they shall 
 not prolong their days in any land that the 
 Lord shall give them. For all human experi- 
 ence bears testimony to the consequences that 
 attend the violation of this precept, even if our 
 short-sighted and partial observation is not 
 
 1 able to discover universally the fulfilment of 
 the promise attached to it. 
 
 I have said that the fifth commandment is 
 the foundation of the moral law, inasmuch as 
 it is the first of those precepts which prescribe 
 the action of man towards his fellow-man. This 
 
150 Foundations 0/ Morality, 
 
 it does by the introduction of the principle of 
 order into human society. Human society is 
 not a fortuitous aggregate congeries of indi- 
 vidual atoms, in which one has no relation to 
 the other and each strives to be independent 
 of the rest ; but the main principle of its con- 
 stitution is prescribed by God, and is typically 
 and symbolically represented by the paternal 
 and filial relation. 
 
 In like manner the ideal king is the father 
 of his people, and the chief pastor of the church 
 an ideal " father in God," — even as St. Paul 
 addressed his converts, "My little children, of 
 whom I travail in birth again until Christ be 
 formed in you." The fatherly relationship is the 
 essential principle of human society. That it 
 is the universal condition of the continuation 
 of society is patent and obvious. We have all 
 had our natural parents ; but though this 
 relationship is a sufficient explanation of the 
 existing facts of society it is not a sufficient 
 explanation of the origin of society, for all 
 analogy teaches us that there must have been 
 a first man, who, being himself a father, had 
 no one like himself whom he could call a father. 
 We must therefore either conceive an unending 
 series of fathers and sons having literally no 
 beginning and no end — which we cannot con- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 151 
 
 ceive, — or we must suppose an original first man 
 derived according to modern theories from some 
 other being, on the hypothesis, as yet not a man, 
 but in whose case this reverential order, which 
 is the known basis of existing society, did not 
 obtain ; for under such circumstances the first 
 man could not honour his father, who was 
 nothing more than a rudimentary man or an 
 abnormal ape ; — or we must allow that the con- 
 ception of the first man leads us straight back 
 to God as the Creator and Originator of this 
 first man, even as St. Luke in his genealogy of 
 our Lord says that He was reckoned as the son 
 of Joseph, " which was the son of Adam, which 
 was the son of God." 
 
 Thus the Scripture theory of the constitution 
 of human society leads us up to the Divine 
 origin of man. Society is built upon paternity, 
 which involves order, which involves reverence, 
 because man himself in his original constitution 
 is the son of God. If the due relation between 
 son and father is to obtain, it can only be 
 because it finds its ultimate limit in God. God 
 is the Father of man, man is the son of God. 
 It is because man by his origin stands in this 
 relation to God that he is constituted to stand 
 in this relation to himself. The fatherly 
 authority of man over man is ultimately derived 
 
152 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 from the fatherly authority of God over man ; 
 and thus the violation of the former is ulti- 
 mately and indirectly a violation and denial 
 Vof the latter. The disregard of fatherly 
 authority and the defect of the filial spirit is 
 an insult to the constitution of man, which has 
 its root in the being of God. 
 
 In this way it is that the fifth commandment 
 bears silent witness to its own Divine origin. 
 We cannot satisfactorily and sufficiently account 
 for a principle which is manifestly and experi- 
 mentally the principle on which human society 
 is constituted, unless that principle finds its full 
 and ultimate realisation and justification in 
 man's relation to God. If God is verily the 
 Father of man, then the allegiance man owes 
 to God is the archetype and pattern of that 
 allegiance which the son owes his father or 
 the child his parent ; but if otherwise, then 
 the fatherly relation is not after an essential 
 principle, and in accordance with the nature of 
 things but a mere arbitrary arrangement which 
 is as uncertain in its duration as it is obscure 
 and ambiguous in its origin. Its obligations 
 may last as long as, but no longer than, man 
 chooses to acknowledge them, and then come 
 to nought. Whereas the experience of mankind 
 for generations and ages has shown, and will 
 
Foundations of Morality, 153 
 
 continue to show till time shall be no more, 
 that the old precept was indeed given by God, 
 and is verily still of God, ** Honour thy father 
 and thy mother, that thy days may be long in 
 the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 
 
154 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "Thou Shalt not kill."— ExODUS xx. 13. 
 
 IN seeking to ascertain what is the origin 
 and authority of the moral law we shall 
 probably find efficient and trustworthy guidance 
 in a close examination of the sixth command- 
 ment. For what is it that commandment 
 enjoins, and what does it enunciate ? It enun- 
 ciates the sacredness of human life, and enjoins 
 a mutual respect for it, binding aHke upon 
 ourselves and others. We have, then, to ask. 
 Is that injunction reasonable.'' and if so, why 
 is it reasonable, and what does its being reason- 
 able imply.? First, then, is the commandment 
 reasonable 1 The preservation of human life 
 and the value attaching to it manifestly 
 advances with the advance of civilisation. As 
 man progresses in the experience of life, he 
 attaches more importance to it ; as he deve- 
 lopes in knowledge and ingenuity and refine- 
 ment, he estimates the value of human life 
 more and more highly. Clearly, therefore, if 
 
Foundations of Morality, 155 
 
 the growth of knowledge, ingenuity and re- 
 finement is any index of the growth of reason, 
 and is in accordance with reason, a precept 
 which tends to the preservation of human life 
 and keeps watch over it cannot be otherwise 
 than reasonable. We notice that in uncivilised 
 and unenlightened ages the value of human 
 life was not appreciated; it was regarded 
 comparatively as a worthless thing, and is so re- 
 garded now in heathen and idolatrous countries. 
 If we bear in mind that 360,000 men were 
 employed upon one of the pyramids for nearly 
 twenty years, and think of the sacrifice and dis- 
 regard of human life which that implies, we shall 
 readily understand that human life in ancient 
 Egypt was a thing of no account. And instances 
 of the like estimate are characteristic of all the 
 great world-empires of antiquity. When, alas ! we 
 look back upon the execrable wars of Napoleon, 
 or the Franco-German war of 1869 and 1870, 
 or the Turko-Russian war of three years ago, 
 we may question indeed whether the progress 
 of human sentiment in regard to the value of 
 human life has advanced so much as we may 
 be disposed at times to flatter ourselves ; but 
 the very condemnation and disgust with which 
 we cannot but regard these wars may serve 
 justly to confirm the truth of our remarks, 
 
156 Fou7idations of Morality, 
 
 inasmuch as in ancient times there is no reason 
 to believe that the like sentiment was cherished, 
 or at all events to anything like the same 
 extent. 
 
 I ask, then. If respect for human life as a 
 sacred and inviolable thing is in any way reason- 
 able, why is it reasonable ? Now, we may at 
 once see that the population of the world by 
 man is a thing in itself to be desired, and in 
 accordance with the constitution of nature. 
 That the soil should be uncultivated, that the 
 fruits of the earth should fall ungathered and 
 its harvests perish un reaped, is a condition 
 that must obviously be less to be chosen than 
 one by which the wilderness becomes a garden. 
 Or at all events, given the existence of man, it 
 must be far preferable in the interests of man 
 himself. But the existence of man implies the 
 existence of society, and the existence of society 
 demands the necessity of its being preserved. 
 But if society is to be preserved it can only be 
 by the removal of anything which will tend 
 to destroy it. Suppose, then, for a moment 
 the abolition of the law which protects society. 
 Suppose any man at liberty to take the life 
 of his fellow-man. Such a condition could only 
 result in the destruction of society : man would 
 prey upon man till the garden of this world 
 
Foundations of Morality. 157 
 
 would quickly be reduced again to a wilderness. 
 And this would manifestly be detrimental to 
 the prescribed order of things ; it would tend 
 to overthrow and annul that which is clearly 
 most in accordance with the constitution of 
 man and nature. It is impossible to represent 
 this matter as one merely of opinion. It is 
 self-evident that it is for the advancement and 
 advantage of man, as well as for the develop- 
 ment of the inherent powers of nature, that 
 society should be protected and human life 
 preserved. 
 
 And indeed this becomes more and more 
 evident as the mutuality of the obligation which 
 protects life is observed. The instinct of self- 
 preservation is universal. Whatever liberty any 
 one man may claim with regard to the life of 
 his fellow, there is no one who does not dispute 
 that liberty when claimed by others towards 
 himself. Putting the case that he is unwilling 
 to let others live, there is no question as to the 
 jealousy with which he cherishes his own life. 
 No one would admit the right of any other ^••^'^ 
 person to take his life ; and as this is universally 
 true, the principle must be universally mutual 
 in its obligation. If no one has the right to 
 take the life of each individual in succession, 
 the obligation must work round to every indi- 
 
158 Fou7idations of Morality, 
 
 vidual in succession, till it includes all. It is 
 also clear that the right to life which every 
 individual in succession is disposed to claim, 
 though perhaps in the first instance personal, is 
 not merely so. For every individual life has 
 its value also to society at large. Society is a 
 loser by the loss of every individual life. There- 
 fore not only is society bound to acknowledge 
 the rights of each individual to his own life for 
 his personal ends, but it is bound to respect 
 them also for its own ends. Society, therefore, 
 is interested in turn in the life of every indi- 
 vidual. It is this which makes suicide a crime 
 against society, for in taking away his own life 
 the suicide deprives society of that upon which 
 it has a just claim, and of something which 
 legitimately belongs to it. 
 
 If, then, there is reason to believe, as I have 
 endeavoured to show, that the law which pro- 
 tects human life is reasonable and in conformity 
 with reason, what does this imply t It implies 
 that the preservation of human life is in accor- 
 dance with the natural principle which the 
 constitution of human society reveals. There 
 is that in almost every one (the exceptions are 
 so few that they may be practically disre- 
 garded) that shrinks from taking the life of his 
 fellow only in a lesser degree than that in 
 
Foundations cf Morality. 159 
 
 which he shrinks from having his own taken. 
 And there is no question that this reluctance, 
 at all events in the second case, is anterior to 
 any precept or law relating to it. Take away 
 any strong impulse, such as hatred, malice, 
 envy, greed, and the like, and it is inconceivable 
 that this reluctance should not be felt all but 
 universally. Why, then, is it so, but because - 
 there is that in such an act which does violence 
 to our nature } It is the nature of man to pre- 
 serve his own life ; it is the nature of man to 
 preserve his fellow's life. The natural impulse 
 may be overcome by a counter impulse in any 
 case, but the natural impulse is there, and 
 sooner or later it will make itself felt. -= 
 
 It was so with the first recorded murder. 
 There must have been a natural impulse in 
 Cain to respect the life of his brother before, 
 this impulse being overcome by a stronger one, 
 he rose up against him and slew him ; and even 
 afterwards the voice of his brother's blood would 
 not have cried to him from the ground unless, 
 even in the heart of the first murderer, there 
 had been that to which the voice could make 
 its appeal and so be heard. 
 
 The same narrative tells us distinctly that it 
 was the Lord who awakened the sense of that 
 voice which cried aloud to Cain. That is to 
 
i6o Foundations of Morality, 
 
 say, the voice being heard, it is the Lord's voice 
 which it echoes. The standard, therefore, with 
 which it corresponds, which it declares to have 
 been sinned against — the principle in nature 
 which it says has been violated — is the Divine 
 voice, the voice of the Lord. We may use 
 impersonal language about it, and call it a 
 principle, a natural standard of right, and the 
 like, but the only full explanation of the 
 mystery is that there is a personal Lord and 
 Judge speaking by it. 
 
 And thus, when the Law says "Thou shalt 
 not kill," just as no man in his senses can 
 deny the righteous force and binding obligation 
 of the Law, so if we ask ourselves who says it, 
 there is only one answer that can be given. 
 " Thou shalt not kill " is a law which you and 
 \f I cannot but recognise. It is preposterous to 
 dispute it ; but from whom does it come ? Does 
 it come from our fellow-man ? That is a wholly 
 inadequate origin to assign for it. It is not 
 my fellow-man who has a right to say to me 
 '' Thou shalt not kill " ; or at least, for him to 
 say so — though I do not dispute his right, for 
 we have seen that human life is the property 
 of human society at large — I repeat, for him 
 to say so does not exhaust my obligation. I 
 cannot but feel that there is an anterior law 
 
Foundations of Morality. 1 6 1 
 
 in harmony with which the interests of society 
 itself move. And this anterior law, if it speaks 
 to me as a person, must surely itself be the voice 
 of a person — that is to say, the law must be 
 the reflection of a will. That I therefore should 
 obey this law must be the will of the person 
 who imposes it upon me. 
 
 That the law works in the way it does for 
 the benefit of society generally, and in accord- 
 ance with the constitution of nature, when it is 
 conceivable that it might work otherwise or 
 that another law might prevail, is surely no 
 slight indication that this particular law, being 
 what it is, is the voice of a will, and if the voice 
 of a will the voice of a person. And therefore 
 the Person who says to me Thou must be one 
 who says of Himself / and / am. In other 
 words, the revelation of the Law as a personal 
 will is coupled with and ultimately runs up 
 into the revelation of a person whose will it is. 
 
 And thus we cannot duly respect and rever- 
 ence the law until we recognise and acknowledge 
 and bow before the Person whose law it is. To 
 regard the law as a li feless enact ment, a dead 
 precept, is to do dishonour to the will that it 
 implies and the Person who gave it. The very 
 form, therefore, in which the law is couched — as 
 a personal restriction which is universally binding, 
 
 II 
 
1 62 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 and is addressed to man as man — is itself a 
 witness to the being of one who has dominion 
 over man, and has a right to lay upon him, and 
 alone has a right to lay upon him, a command- 
 ment the authority of which he cannot but 
 acknowledge with deference, and which is so 
 manifestly in keeping with his natural consti- 
 tution. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the very age 
 of the Law — given as it was probably some 
 fifteen centuries before Christ, at a time and 
 in a period of the world's history when it is 
 perfectly well known that human life was for 
 the most part regarded as a thing of nought, 
 is no slight corroboration of our belief that the 
 giving of the law which made human hfe sacred, 
 and the giving of it in this form, is a proof and 
 indication of it as a Divine revelation. We, in 
 fact, with our cultivated conscience, as the result 
 of long experience and rich and varied educa- 
 tion, cannot but see the natural and inherent 
 strength of the law protecting life; but it is 
 another question whether we could of ourselves 
 have discovered it, and still more whether at 
 the age when it was given it could have been 
 formulated as it was. 
 
 At all events, if the law is the result of revela- 
 tion, then, like revelation, it must be dependent 
 
Foundations of Morality, 163 
 
 for its acceptance upon the existence of that 
 by which alone revelation can be received — 
 namely, faith. If the law that protects life is 
 the law of God, then we can only receive that 
 law, supposing it to be the law of God, by the 
 exercise of that faith by which we receive God. 
 When there is no faith there can be no ap- 
 prehension of God, and therefore no true 
 apprehension of the law of God. But when 
 there is the existence of the spirit of faith, then 
 the very law of life itself, by which we all live, 
 and by which human society is preserved, 
 becomes to us the token of the will of God 
 and the audible expression of the voice of God. 
 
 We are very apt to have material notions of 
 God ; and in fact, being complex creatures as we 
 are, with bodies as well as souls, it is impossible 
 altogether to avoid them. And thus we may 
 speak of the audible expression of the voice 
 of God ; but let us not be misled by the figure, 
 for what is this audible expression of the voice 
 of God but the unheard and inaudible and 
 invisible bent and impulse of our truest nature, 
 which of itself is a witness to the being and 
 the will of God t 
 
 Nor, again, let us ever forget that nature, in 
 her simplicity and majesty and truth, is the 
 reflex of the will of God. The law is holy. 
 
1 64 Foundations of Morality » 
 
 and the commandment holy and just and good. 
 Sin is the deviation from our true nature which 
 has perverted nature, as it has obscured and 
 perverted conscience. It is not nature which 
 is wrong, but sin which has done wrong' to 
 nature, and done wrong to the law of God 
 expressed in nature. When we return from sin 
 we return to the law of God, which is our true 
 nature. It is an indication of our sin that 
 nature has been identified with sin and used 
 in a dubious sense, and thereby the work of 
 God has been dishonoured. But if we go back 
 to the standard by which we are constituted, 
 we shall find that that standard is the law of 
 God, and in discovering the standard we shall 
 discover God. We shall then find that He has 
 written His law upon our hearts, and set His 
 mark there, and left His witness there ; and to 
 acknowledge that will be to acknowledge Him. 
 
 And that acknowledgment will be a revela- 
 tion. We shall not discover Him or find Him 
 out for ourselves, but He will reveal Himself 
 to us. He will say to us, " I am the Lord thy 
 God : Thou shalt not kill ; Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself" For is it not obvious 
 that the law which protects and preserves 
 human life, when it is interpreted spiritually, 
 can only be satisfied in proportion as it passes 
 
Foundations of Morality, 165 
 
 from a negative to a positive precept ? Human 
 life is not protected as long as in any case it 
 is exposed to injury which we ourselves should 
 avoid. And thus, even here, in a command 
 which we are apt to regard as applying only 
 or almost only to criminals, a channel of almost 
 infinite application is opened out. And in fact 
 the question " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 which was the question asked by the first 
 murderer, is by no means alien from the spirit 
 of many who would vehemently resist the 
 imputation of being murderers. And is not 
 this a head under which we are all verily guilty 
 concerning our brother ? 
 
 Lastly, the spiritual interpretation of the law 
 which protects life demanded that in the high- 
 est and typical instance obedience to the law 
 should only be exhibited under conditions which 
 involved its violation. If the counterpart of 
 '' Thou Shalt not kill " is " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself," then we can at once see 
 that the only one who should absolutely fulfil 
 the law would be one who should submit to 
 the violation of the law at the hands of his 
 fellow-man. Life was protected because, being 
 the gift of God, and given in the image of God, 
 it was too precious and too sacred to be thrown 
 away. But its preciousness and sanctity would 
 
1 66 Foimdations of Morality, 
 
 alone be seen by the sacrifice of which they 
 were deemed worthy, — and this was the life of 
 the pattern Man and the Son of God. And 
 not till that life was taken away and restored 
 again, could man really learn the value of that 
 which he was ready enough to prize in him- 
 self, though but too apt to depreciate it in 
 others ; and so when Christ came He enhanced 
 infinitely the value of human life, for it was He 
 who said, as He alone could say, " I am come 
 that they might have life, and that they might 
 have it more abundantly." 
 
Foundations of Morality. 167 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " Thou Shalt not commit adultery."— ExODUS xx. 14. 
 
 WE have seen that the sixth command- 
 ment involved, at all events to a certain 
 extent, the idea of property, inasmuch as human 
 life seemed to be regarded as the property or 
 possession of the individual himself, and in 
 some sense of society at large. In this way 
 we found that suicide was a crime committed 
 against society, inasmuch as it deprived society 
 of its share in the work and usefulness of the 
 person guilty of it, to and upon which society 
 had a just right and a valid claim ; while it is 
 clear that he who takes away the life of 
 another takes away that to which no one but 
 the possessor has any right, unless indeed — 
 which is quite conceivable under certain circum- 
 stances — his own right to it is forfeited. 
 
 We pass on now to deal with the seventh 
 commandment, with a view to ascertaining 
 what light it sheds on the origin and authority 
 of the moral law. 
 
 And here also it is plain that the idea of 
 
1 68 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 property or ownership may readily enter in, 
 even if it be not that idea which lies at the 
 root of it. The act of committing adultery is 
 not defined, but it is at once understood as 
 that of taking or taking away another man's 
 wife or another woman's husband. But we 
 no sooner state it thus than we bring into it 
 somewhat of the notion of property. Whether 
 or not that is primarily the reason why this 
 commandment is given, we need not stop now 
 to determine ; it is obvious that the breach of 
 it involves the violation of a law we have not 
 yet considered — namely, the law of property. 
 It is not, however, exclusively on this ground 
 that the seventh commandment is to be dealt 
 with, any more than the sixth, but only inci- 
 dentally. It is clear that these three com- 
 mandments, the sixth, seventh, and eighth, 
 may be regarded as laying the foundation of 
 all moral action between- man and man in 
 three of the most important particulars — those, 
 namely, of the respect due to human life, of 
 the respect due to the family, and of the 
 respect due to possession or property. 
 
 It is to be observed, then, first that the 
 seventh commandment implies and necessitates 
 and sanctions the idea of the family in contra- 
 distinction to that of indiscriminate confusion. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 1 69 
 
 That which is forbidden is that which of neces- 
 sity obliterates the distinctions and limits of 
 family life and destroys the idea of the family. 
 
 And of course a moment's thought will at 
 once show that the principle of the family is 
 the safeguard of human society, just as much 
 as in another sphere the law which preserves 
 individual life is the safeguard of human 
 society. It is the family which is the unit of 
 civilisation. It is not possible to contemplate 
 on an equal basis the state of society in 
 which the principle of the family obtains, and 
 that, if it can anywhere be met with, in which 
 this principle is unknown. But if this be so, 
 what a marvellous and conclusive- testimony 
 it brings to the correctness and accuracy of 
 adaptation with which the principle of the 
 family is felt to be correspondent with the 
 constitution of our nature ! Here, again, then, 
 we discover at once that the moral law runs 
 pari passu in exact parallelism with the deepest 
 requirements of our nature, and tends to its 
 greatest well-being. Abolish the notion of the 
 family, and human society would be overthrown : 
 it would become a ruinous heap." 
 
 The question, therefore, is whether this is a 
 principle which society could discover for itself, 
 independently of higher sanctions or precepts. 
 
I yo Foundations of Morality. 
 
 and whether there is any ground to believe that 
 such higher sanctions and precepts have been 
 given. Now, there can be no doubt that the 
 idea of the family was known and respected in 
 many nations where such knowledge could not 
 have been owing in any degree to the Mosaic 
 Law. Wherever, therefore, the principle of the 
 family was held in honour, there a fresh indi- 
 cation might be discovered of the natural 
 tendency of human society to develop in a way 
 most in accordance with its own constitution. 
 It is felt, in the great majority of cases, among 
 nations, that the idea of the family is the best 
 and most advantageous expression of the social 
 life. It would therefore be arbitrary and auda- 
 cious in the extreme to attempt to substitute 
 any other. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that ac- 
 cepting the idea of the family in some form or 
 other as the model idea of the original principle 
 upon which society was constituted, it is by no 
 means certain what that form is to be, and 
 whether or not it is to admit, as it did among 
 the Hebrews themselves, of polygamy. The 
 expression of the Mosaic law on this point, or 
 at all events of the practice following it, would 
 seem to be very ambiguous and indefinite. If 
 adultery is not defined, it is nowhere prescribed 
 
Foundations of Morality, 171 
 
 in the Old Testament that Hebrew social life 
 was to be monogamouSj while the facility 
 afforded to divorce must have opened the door 
 to very great disorders. It was reserved for 
 Christ Himself to speak with authority on this 
 point, and for His great apostle to declare 
 distinctly, " Let every man have his own wife, 
 and every woman her own husband." And 
 there can be no question whatever but that this 
 has ever been felt to be the emphatic and de- 
 finitive expression of the mind of the Christian 
 Church in this matter. As Christians, therefore, 
 we need inquire no further into the obligation 
 resting upon us in respect of the seventh com- 
 mandment, because it is perfectly clear and 
 explicit what is meant. However that com- 
 mandment was understood to apply to the 
 people of the old dispensation, it is plain that 
 to us its restrictions have been increased rather 
 than relaxed. 
 
 , But I want to inquire what guarantee those 
 have who reject the Divine authority of Scripture 
 that they will be able to direct and determine 
 their conduct in the all-important and vital 
 matter of family life and the relations involved 
 in it. Suppose they decide that the authority 
 of St. Paul, so far as it rests upon him, is invalid, 
 how are they to be resolved that his authority 
 
172 Foimdations of Morality, 
 
 in this particular matter is pei'- se valid ? I take 
 it that this is the question which society has a 
 right to ask of those who would reconstruct it 
 without reference or deference to Christian 
 principles, and it is one which they also are 
 bound to answer. Is the expression of the 
 mind of society so unmistakable, apart from 
 any original Divine precept in the matter, as 
 to make the landmarks of human obligation 
 in regard to the subject-matter of the seventh 
 commandment so fixed and permanent that we 
 may dispense with the Divine command and 
 have no fear for the result upon society at 
 large ? We are told that this is so, but can we 
 be sure of it ? Are we to be given over to the 
 uncertain verdict of a bare majority in the 
 matter ? and are we sure that that verdict will 
 always be unalterable ? — because, if not, then it 
 will be clearly desirable that we should be able 
 to fall back upon something which will not 
 fail us, and which being Divine is of necessity 
 not liable to change. 
 
 And it must be admitted that the position 
 now contemplated is of its very nature experi- 
 mental. It has not as yet on a large scale 
 been tried whether mankind can do without 
 any Divine restraints. The problem of an 
 atheistic community has yet to be tried on a 
 
Foundations of Morality, 173 
 
 large scale. Because all the society of the old 
 world was quite otherwise. Religion entered 
 largely into the social, material, and political life 
 of all the ancients. They felt that they could 
 not live without the Gods. It was reserved for 
 these latter days, after having been enlightened 
 with the true light from heaven, to wish to 
 ascertain by experiment whether the darkness 
 is not preferable, whether it is not possible for 
 man to develope freely and fully without refer- 
 ence to God, and whether the permanent basis 
 of morality is not altogether independent of 
 religion. 
 
 And it seems that the seventh commandment 
 supplies the very best possible test for the 
 validity of this position, inasmuch as it is quite 
 evident that society may be able to protect 
 itself in the matter of human life, and of 
 personal property, but it is not quite so clear 
 how we are to arrive at fixed principles in 
 matters relating to the seventh commandment 
 if we repudiate the restrictions of that command- 
 ment as Divine. Because though in one aspect 
 the seventh commandment may be regarded 
 as relating to a department of the law of 
 property, and so be covered by it, yet this is 
 not by any means its only aspect, but much 
 rather it concerns the entire relation between 
 
174 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 man and woman. And it is absolutely certain, 
 as a matter of history, that the religion of Jesus 
 Christ has purified and elevated this relation 
 to a degree before unknown and unexampled. 
 The question is, therefore, whether without 
 borrowing from the sanctions of the Christian 
 religion we can maintain morality at this 
 elevation. And this" I say, is a matter of 
 experience, or rather of experiment, which 
 cannot be put to the test and proved in one 
 or two generations. Certainly, as far as expe- 
 rience has yet gone, we may without hesitation 
 predict its total failure as an experiment. If 
 God has not prescribed a right and a wrong in 
 these matters, who has } It is certain that the 
 prescription of society is historically variable, 
 and worth nothing. And if we cannot discover 
 the standard in society, can we discover it in 
 ourselves apart from God .'' If we are conscious 
 of a right and a wrong, who is it makes the 
 right or the wrong, and why are we conscious 
 of it 1 Does it vary with the individual } and 
 if it does not, how can there be any common 
 authoritative standard which does not point to 
 a person, inasmuch as it deals only with persons 
 and lays its prohibitions only upon persons, 
 while the rest of animate nature gives no 
 indication of its law.-* 
 
Foundations of Morality, 175 
 
 We are led, therefore, as before, to discern in 
 the " Thou shalt not " a witness to the presence 
 of a Person who not only commands, but has 
 also authority to do so ; and it is this conception 
 which alone seems adequate to account for the 
 general witness there is in humanity to the 
 consciousness of a right and a wrong, however 
 vague and undecided it may be, while it alone 
 supplies the definite standard of authority and 
 direction which the nature and constitution of 
 society so imperatively demands. It is God and 
 God only who has laid the foundations of the 
 family deep and broad, and made the restric- 
 tions incidental to it the safeguard and preser- 
 vation of society. 
 
 For here also the principle of reciprocity ex- 
 tends and is in force, and the principles which 
 are valid in the case of any one family are valid 
 in the case of all ; and as there is no one who is 
 not a sister or a daughter, a brother or a son, so 
 there is no one to whom the obligations arising 
 from these relationships are not due, nor any one 
 on whom they are not binding. The apostolic 
 precept, therefore, given in a particular instance 
 is of general and universal application : " The 
 elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, 
 with all purity." It is because the sacred limi- 
 tations of family hfe are not duly reverenced, 
 
176 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 and because they are not seen to be of universal \ 
 
 extent, and reciprocal obligation, that the terrible 
 confusion is introduced into our social life that 
 more than anything else cries aloud to God for 
 judgment, while it witnesses in unmistakable 
 language to the existence of a God who will 
 surely execute it. 
 
 And it is here that the religion of Jesus 
 Christ comes in, with its blessed sanctions and 
 purifying influences ; for every family, with its 
 root in fatherhood, is a token and earnest of the 
 fatherhood of God and the family in heaven. 
 If the family as the unit of human society is 
 the handiwork of God on earth, it is so because 
 it is fashioned after the pattern of a Divine 
 ideal which exists only in its perfection in 
 Christ. And thus we see how it was in the 
 nature of things that Christ should liken the 
 kingdom of heaven to a marriage, and that He 
 should first assert His authority over nature at 
 the marriage feast, because it is not only mar- 
 riage which is the foundation of human society 
 as it now exists, but it is marriage also which is 
 the very type of the reconstruction of human 
 society in Christ. It is the family which, as 
 the very fairest of the plants that grow on earth, 
 is destined to be transplanted into the soil of 
 heaven, that it may for ever flourish and abound 
 
Foundations of Morality. 177 
 
 there in all its unimagined and inconceivable 
 spotless and unsullied beauty. 
 
 And therefore it is the religion of Christ, and 
 that alone, which shows as nothing else can show 
 the heinous enormity and disgrace of breaking 
 up the barriers of that which God has fenced 
 about as His own special and reserved posses- 
 sion, and introducing disorder and lawlessness 
 where He has ordained order, peace, and purity 
 — in the confines of the Christian family, for the 
 protection and preservation of which He has 
 enacted the seventh commandment ; nor can 
 there be anything more important as a point of 
 practical morals than to inculcate upon our sons 
 and daughters the reverence which is due to 
 the sanctity of the family as the type of society 
 at large, which in its constitution is but an 
 aggregate of families, and to teach them that 
 the rights for the maintenance of which they 
 would be especially sensitive and jealous in the 
 case of their own family involve them also in 
 reciprocal obligations with regard to every other 
 family and to every member of every other 
 family. If this principle were duly recognised 
 and acted upon, it would be found to be co- 
 extensive in its operation with the working of 
 the seventh commandment, for the violation of 
 that commandment in any respect is found to 
 
 12 
 
178 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 be the violation of the principle of family life 
 and of that which it involves. 
 
 Nor can we account for the educated con- 
 science which recognises the sanctity of the 
 family-idea as founded in marriage, and the fact 
 that it, and it alone, is consistent with and con- 
 ducive to the highest well-being of the race, 
 without arriving at the conclusion that herein is 
 a revelation of the will of God. It is He, and 
 He only, who has laid these foundations and set 
 these barriers, and the judgment of God there- 
 fore must surely overtake those who attempt to 
 lessen or remove them. 
 
 So far, therefore, as the origin and authority 
 of the moral law are capable of being discovered 
 by investigation and experiment, we seem justi- 
 fied in deciding that this particular precept of 
 it points to no other, while it does point most 
 distinctly and significantly to Him. It is He, 
 and He only, who is our Father in heaven ; it 
 is He, and He only, who is the Father of the 
 reconstituted family on earth in the person of His 
 only-begotten and well-beloved Son ; and it is 
 He, and He only, of whom every fatherhood in 
 heaven and earth is named, and in whom alone 
 it can find its primordial type and origin or its 
 ultimate end and object. 
 
Foundatiojis of Morality, 179 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Thou shalt not steal."— ExoD. xx. 15. 
 
 IF the sixth and seventh commandments in- 
 volve, as we have seen, the recognition of 
 the law of property, it is self-evident that that 
 law is not only recognised but enunciated by 
 the eighth commandment. In accordance with 
 the aim and method of these lectures, we have 
 to ascertain if possible what light is thrown by 
 the existence and general recognition of this law 
 upon its own origin and authority. Why is it 
 wrong to steal } and what does its being wrong 
 show } and what is the principle involved in the 
 idea of stealing ? It is evident, then, that the law 
 which prohibits stealing inculcates and recog- 
 nises the sacredness of property. Take away 
 the notion of property, and you abolish the 
 possibility of stealing. A man walking among 
 the mountains and valleys of Switzerland, who 
 gathers the wild flowers and the wild straw- 
 berries, does not steal them, because he takes 
 that which is no man's property, which belongs 
 to no one or to every one, and therefore to him 
 
1 8o Foundations of Morality, 
 
 as well as others ; but the man who walking 
 through a private orchard or garden plucks the 
 flowers or fruit without the permission, tacit or 
 express, of the owner, is unquestionably guilty 
 of a theft, the more conspicuous in proportion 
 to the privacy and seclusion of the garden or 
 orchard ; and this because they are not his — 
 because they belong to some one else. Clearly, 
 therefore, the law which steps forward and 
 enunciates a precept forbidding such an act 
 unmistakably recognises a principle which is the 
 foundation of the idea and the fact of property. 
 The law which proclaims this precept gives its 
 sanction and sets its seal to the idea of pos- 
 session. In short, the eighth commandment is 
 intrinsically opposed to and incompatible with 
 the theory of an absolute community of goods. 
 This is the first point we have clearly to appre- 
 hend. If the sanction of the eighth command- 
 ment is acknowledged, the principle of possession 
 as a legitimate condition is admitted. 
 
 So far, then, as this law is just and valid, there 
 is and can be nothing wrong in my possessing a 
 gold watch, or a valuable horse, or an acre of land, 
 or a hundred watches, or a hundred acres, or a 
 hundred thousand acres : once admit the principle 
 of possession, and you shut the door to the 
 principle of the community of goods. And once 
 
Foundations of Morality. 1 8 1 
 
 admit this principle, and you admit it absolutely 
 and infinitely. If I may have one watch or one 
 acre, there is no reason why I may not have two 
 or five or fifty, or a hundred, or a hundred 
 thousand — provided, that is, I come by them 
 lawfully or in accordance with the sanction and 
 restrictions of the law which sanctions my having 
 them at all. 
 
 Now, it is very important that we should 
 distinctly apprehend this principle, because a 
 notion seems to be gaining ground in the 
 present day that there is something in the 
 abstract wrong in a man's possessing, for 
 example, a hundred thousand acres. But surely 
 if possession is in any sense lawful, the law can 
 hardly be consistent with itself in assigning any 
 limit to possession, so long as its essential prin- 
 ciple is not violated. 
 
 Into the question of the land being the 
 inalienable property of mankind at large, so 
 that all men have a right to it, which the 
 great possessors of it ROB them of, I do not 
 purpose to enter, any further than to observe 
 that it is impossible even to state this theory 
 without assuming the very principle that I 
 maintain — for he who robs another steals from 
 him that to which he has a right, natural or 
 acquired, which is assuming the idea of pro- 
 
1 82 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 perty, the theory of possession. Besides, if a 
 man may possess a horse or a cow or a sheep, 
 what is there naturally unlawful in his pos- 
 sessing a piece of ground ? and if one piece, 
 why not more ? and if more, why not many 
 more ? 
 
 We have, then, next to inquire whether the 
 idea of property, the theory of possession, is 
 or is not in accordance with the natural con- 
 stitution of society. Is it apparently better for 
 society that the notion of private possession 
 should or should not obtain and be acted upon ? 
 Would it be better, as society is constituted, that 
 there should be no such thing as property — 
 that all things should be common, or the 
 reverse ? There can be no question that the 
 experience of mankind seems to have brought 
 them to the conclusion that the idea of pro- 
 perty is one that must be maintained go where 
 you will, even among savages, and this principle 
 is known and acted on. Community of goods 
 is found by experience to be impracticable and 
 impossible ; but community of goods is our 
 only alternative if we put aside the idea of 
 property. And, indeed, even community of 
 goods is hardly an antithesis to property, 
 because in a condition in which all things 
 were common no one could say that anything 
 
FoundaHo7is of Morality, 183 
 
 was his own, for the simple reason that it would 
 belong to some one else as much as to him, 
 and to him as much as to any one else. Even 
 here, therefore, we should scarcely preclude 
 altogether the notion of property, though it 
 would exist under altered circumstances. 
 
 It seems, then, useless to moot the question 
 whether in the abstract it would be better for 
 society to abolish altogether the idea of pro- 
 perty, because society seems to be agreed that 
 it is an idea that must be maintained, and if 
 so, the principle involved is one that must be 
 in accordance with the constitution of society. 
 One may certainly infer that if any society of 
 men were to start with the principle of com- 
 munity of goods, it would infallibly work round 
 to the recognition of property, just as any 
 society which started with the abstract theory 
 of the equality of mankind would by the mere 
 force of circumstances be constrained before 
 long to acknowledge facts that would contradict 
 that theory and overthrow it. 
 
 If, then, society is constituted on a basis which 
 involves the recognition of the law of property, 
 the constitution of society bears witness to the 
 wisdom and accuracy of that law. It is a law 
 which is in harmony with the constitution of 
 society, and is intended for the mutual advan- 
 
1 84 FoiLndations of Morality, 
 
 tage and protection of the individuals composing 
 it. To assert and maintain this law, then, is to 
 bejealousfor the interests and welfare of society. 
 It promotes the greatest happiness not only of 
 the greatest number, but of all, because it is 
 jealous not only of the interests of some, but 
 of the interests of all ; for the law which restrains 
 me restrains my fellow as well as me, and the 
 law which protects me protects my fellow as 
 well as me. It presses in its operation equally 
 and evenly in all directions. 
 
 If, then, this law is one which is in accordance 
 with the constitution of mankind, and seeks the 
 benefit of mankind, what is its origin and autho- 
 rity ? Is it a law voluntarily imposed upon 
 society by society itself, or does it point to any 
 higher, deeper, or external origin ? Is it an arbi- 
 trary or a natural law ? Is it a law which, being 
 invented and imposed by society upon itself, 
 is one which society also, if it pleased, could 
 abrogate and repeal t Or is it antecedent in its 
 authority to the voluntary action of society, so 
 that society is bound by it and unable to shake 
 it off ? Is it, in short, human or Divine 1 What 
 witness, in fact, does tlie law bear to its own 
 origin } 
 
 Who is it, then, that says to me ** Thou shalt 
 not steal " ? Is this merely the form in which 
 
Fou7idations of Morality, 185 
 
 the expression of a universal compact among men 
 is cast, or is it the voice of a person who has 
 authority over me? Is it society that speaks, or 
 is it God ? We have seen that the recognition 
 of the law is not only general, but practically 
 universal ; and as far as it is so, it cannot be the 
 result of any general compact, but is rather the 
 spontaneous recognition of an independent and 
 external principle. For instance, if the law 
 were the result of a general compact, how 
 would such a compact affect the generations 
 of men yet unborn ? It is evident that no such 
 compact could reasonably be supposed to bind 
 the progeny, say, of two centuries to come; and 
 yet do we not feel that every man born into 
 this world inherits, so to say, his obligation to 
 this law, no less than he does his obligation 
 to the law which prohibits murder ? It seems, 
 therefore, that the authority of the law in this 
 respect is antecedent even to our own existence. 
 When we were born we found the law not only 
 already in operation, but claiming its obligation 
 upon us in spite of ourselves, and asserting its 
 authority over us not merely as the existing 
 law of society but as a law anterior to any 
 of the compacts and conventional restrictions of 
 society. 
 
 If, then, this was so, why was it so ? and what 
 
1 86 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 does its being so point us to ? It surely points 
 us to a power and a will which antecedently to 
 our existence and naturally has authority over 
 us that we cannot dispute, and that we cannot 
 refuse to recognise without doing violence to 
 the instincts of our nature. For if this is not 
 so, the law of property is merely a conventional 
 law; but no law that is merely conventional 
 appeals in like manner to the deepest instincts 
 of our nature. If, however, we cannot sin 
 against the eighth commandment without feel- 
 ing that we do wrong, is not the sense of doing 
 wrong that we feel itself a witness to the 
 presence of a Power that has a right to say to 
 us " Thou shalt not steal " .? And it is this 
 right on His part being set at nought and done 
 violence to which makes it wrong for us to act 
 in such a way as to produce this feeling. If 
 a thing is right or wrong, that which makes it 
 right or wrong must be something antecedent 
 to our nature or inherent in the nature itself. 
 The law of property which says " Thou shalt 
 not steal," however consonant and in accordance 
 with our nature and constitution, is rather ante- 
 cedent to than inherent in it ; and so far as it is 
 it points us to a Person who has the power 
 and authority to say to us Thou shalt or Thou 
 shalt not. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 187 
 
 The law, then, is a witness to a God pro- 
 claimed and revealed, even if there is no power 
 in the law alone and of itself to reveal Him. 
 The law of property was acknowledged and 
 obeyed before it was given from Sinai, whether 
 or not it revealed God ; but when God revealed 
 Himself by the giving of the law, the law so 
 given was the witness to the revelation of God. 
 And so no sooner is God proclaimed to us as 
 our Maker and Judge, than we see that the law 
 and our involuntary recognition of its authority 
 in our own hearts is a witness to His being and 
 presence. We find and feel that the law which 
 bows our will and claims our authority does so 
 because it is the law of God. The voice with 
 which it speaks is His voice, and the will which 
 it declares is His will. It is not, therefore, any 
 human conventionality or compact which has 
 set boundaries about possession, and established 
 the law of property, and said to man " Thou 
 shalt not steal/' but it is the God and Feather of 
 our race, it is the King and Judge of man, it is 
 the Constituter and Architect of human society, 
 who for the benefit and well-being of society 
 has prescribed that the goods which are the 
 natural endowments of society should not be 
 indiscriminately scattered among all ahke, so 
 that none should have a personal share in any 
 
1 88 Foimdations of Morality. 
 
 but that they should be unequally distributed 
 among men, and that the rights by which they 
 are held should be recognised and respected by 
 all alike, and that to do so is for the advantage 
 of all alike. The recognition of this law is not 
 merely the protection of the rich against the poor, 
 and of the strong against the weak, but equally 
 the defence of the poor against the rich, and of 
 the weak against the strong. But then, while 
 the law most unquestionably asserts and defends 
 the theory of property, and in so doing lays the 
 foundation of the difference between rich and 
 poor — for possession prepares the way for accu- 
 mulation, and allows of it — yet most certainly 
 the recognition of the law is intended also to 
 carry with it the recognition of those obligations 
 which possession and property involve. 
 
 Once in the history of our race an effort was 
 made to reform and reconstitute the law of 
 property by a voluntary abnegation on the part 
 every member of a select society of the rights of 
 property. Each literally surrendered all that 
 he had for the benefit of the rest ; and this was 
 the spontaneous effort that was made by the 
 regenerated early church. It was no doubt a 
 noble impulse, and it was the earnest of that 
 to which under other circumstances regenerated 
 human society may one day attain, or that may 
 
Foundations of Morality. 1 89 
 
 be reserved for it ; but the very transient dura- 
 tion of that effort, and its almost immediate 
 abandonment, showed very plainly that the 
 effort or the aspiration it implied was premature. 
 It is not for society as at present constituted 
 to substitute community of goods for the law 
 of property ; but rather this law is God's own 
 landmark, which He has set for the regulation 
 of the inheritance of mankind as long as the 
 world lasts. But the assertion of the law is 
 inadequate and defective as long as the obliga- 
 tions that go along with it are unacknowledged. 
 Possession only fulfils its idea so long as it 
 is possession held in dependence upon God ; 
 and possession that is held in dependence upon 
 God involves a trust — a trust bestowed by Him 
 for the good of others, and in subordination 
 to the claims and demands of their well-being. 
 It is when possession and property are thus 
 seen to be the fulfilment of a Divine will that 
 they become likewise significant reminders of 
 the high responsibilities of the trust which they 
 involve. And these responsibilities, of course, 
 vary as possession itself varies. As soon as any 
 one of us says inwardly that aught of the things 
 which he possesses, be they what they may 
 — lands or houses, gold or silver, intellect or 
 influence — is his own, absolutely, so that no one 
 
1 90 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 else has any claim on him because of it, he sins 
 against the ideal law of property itself, because 
 he virtually fails to see in that law any manifes- 
 tation of the will of God in the distribution 
 of wealth which He has entrusted to each for 
 the good of all. In proportion as the law of 
 property is not merely a social compact or con- 
 ventional arrangement of mankind, but a Divine 
 sanction fraught with obligations alike human 
 and Divine, it becomes recognised as the ex- 
 pression of the Divine will, and is traced back to 
 its true origin in the mind of God. And as it is 
 only when we see its Divine origin and authority 
 that we see its true dignity, so it is only when 
 we assign it to its true Author that we discern 
 how far-reaching its purpose is and how benefi- 
 cent its scope. But when the law of property is 
 thus traced home to the intention and will of 
 God, His bounty and beneficence is in some sense 
 communicated to His gift ; and as we do not 
 lose sight of the Giver in His gift, but are bound 
 by it more and more closely to Him, so it be- 
 comes to us a continual pledge of His goodness, 
 and filling our hearts with gratitude to Him, the 
 Giver of all good, it disposes us to show to our 
 fellow-men the like goodness we have ourselves 
 received, and to reflect to others the image of that 
 grace and benevolence which has shined on us. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 191 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh- 
 bour."— Exodus XX. 16. 
 
 THE ninth commandment introduces us into 
 an entirely different domain or depart- 
 ment of law from the three previous command- 
 ments. Its object is in no sense the recognition 
 or enforcement of the rights of property, but 
 much rather of the law of truth. What, then, 
 is there in the nature of things which lays us 
 under the obligation of this law of truth ? Why 
 is it incumbent on any one of us to speak the 
 truth, and why is it wrong in any one to tell 
 a lie.^ The question may appear to some to 
 be sufficiently absurd, but no inquiry into the 
 origin and authority of the moral law, no re- 
 searches into the foundations of morality, would 
 be complete without an attempt to answer it. 
 
 We may note, therefore, first, the form which 
 the precept takes : Thou shalt not answer 
 against thy neighbour as a false witness, or 
 thou shalt not cause a false witness to answer 
 against thy neighbour. In either case the 
 
192 Foundations of Morality* 
 
 presence of some judicial court or trial is implied ; 
 but though the special case contemplated is of 
 this nature, the breadth of spirit with which it 
 is obvious that all the commandments must be 
 interpreted forbids us to confine its application 
 to any such case, and requires us to understand 
 it much rather as a distinct assertion of the 
 universal authority of the law of truth. 
 
 But yet we must not fail to observe that a 
 condition of society is implied in which judicial 
 processes of some kind are recognised and as- 
 sumed to exist. It is clearly supposed, therefore, 
 that society has some sort of right to constitute 
 and organise itself, and to appoint those to 
 whom ultimate appeal must be made between 
 man and man. It is inferred, therefore, that 
 there is inherent in society a standard of appeal 
 and an instinctive principle of discrimination 
 between right and wrong. False witness is 
 not to be borne, because it will tend to cloud 
 the recognition of this principle and perplex its 
 course of action. At all events, therefore, the 
 reality of the difference between truth and 
 falsehood, right and wrong, is declared, and the 
 obligation of man to be bound thereby affirmed. 
 But if so, this is surely a significant and impor- 
 tant fact. Whence is it that there is in society 
 a power of this kind } Is the difference between 
 
Foundations of Morality, 193 
 
 right and wrong merely a subjective one, acci- 
 dental and imaginary, or is there something, 
 in fact, of which it is the reflection ? If it is an 
 objective reality, and resides, as it unquestionably 
 does, in the nature of things, what does this 
 show but that the fact of such being the nature 
 of things is a witness to an original standard 
 or principle which proposes itself as that by 
 which they must be judged? The tongue of 
 the balance does not make the weight ; it only 
 declares what the weight is. The tongue of the 
 balance is but the index of an unseen reality, 
 which we cannot touch, but only feel. So truth 
 is the correspondence of anything with an ideal 
 standard which we call reality, falsehood the 
 deviation therefrom ; right the observance of 
 an unwritten law, wrong the violation of it. It 
 is this essential difference between right and 
 wrong, truth and falsehood, that the very wording 
 of the ninth commandment assumes. It does 
 not condescend to prove the fact, but takes it 
 for granted. It implies, moreover, not only 
 that the difference exists in itself, but also that 
 the perception of it is inherent in society. Thus, 
 while the precepts of the moral law clearly 
 enunciate and define the limits of risfht and 
 wrong action, they by no means profess to 
 determine them arbitrarily, but much rather in 
 
 13 
 
194 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 defining them to reveal the essential principles 
 upon which they are based and from which they 
 spring. The faculty of discrimination is part of 
 the inherent prerogative of mankind, — so much 
 so that this faculty is the very foundation of 
 intelligence and wisdom, and in certain lan- 
 guages — as for instance the language of the Old 
 Testament — is expressly regarded as identical 
 therewith. But unless this faculty actually 
 creates the difference of which it takes cogni- 
 sance it stands to reason that there is something 
 answering to this difference in the world of 
 realities. ' A thing is true because it accurately 
 corresponds with this reality ; it is false because 
 it deviates from and contradicts it. We cannot 
 but note the difference, and in proportion to our 
 intelligence shall do so the more carefully ; but 
 the difference exists before we note it, and in 
 no sense arises from the fact of our noting 
 it, any more than the existence of the sun is 
 dependent upon the existence or the soundness 
 of the eye that sees it. 
 
 Supposing, however, that we are prepared to 
 admit the truth of all this, it still remains for 
 us to answer the questions with which we 
 started — Why is it incumbent upon us to speak 
 the truth ? Why is it wrong to tell a lie ? And 
 here the object of these discourses will have 
 
Foundations of Morality, 195 
 
 been entirely missed if we do not at once reply 
 Certainly not because the ninth commandment 
 enjoins the one and forbids the other — how- 
 ever emphatically and truly in either case it may 
 do this — but for some reason antecedent to the 
 giving of the Decalogue, enunciated, indeed, 
 but not created thereby. For the giving of 
 the Law did not make right to be right nor 
 wrong to be wrong — we must never lose sight 
 of that fact, — it only declared with authority 
 what was right and what was wrong. That it 
 did so under the conditions and circumstances 
 related, is itself confirmed by the very nature 
 of the law that was so declared, and thus the 
 nature of the law was the witness to its own 
 origin. It not only bore witness to itself as 
 written on the conscience, but also bore witness 
 to the authority that then enforced it. 
 
 Why is it, then, the duty of every one to speak 
 the truth } This will be best seen by inquiring 
 what are the consequences of not speaking it ; 
 and these are mainly twofold — namely, the con- 
 sequences to ourselves, and the consequences to 
 our fellow-creatures. What, then, are the con- 
 sequences to ourselves of diverging from the 
 truth, of telling a lie ? Surely the first and fore- 
 most is the sense of violence done to ourselves 
 which we thereby cause. For if any one main- 
 
196 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 tains that the feeling which results from telling 
 a He is the same as that which results from 
 speaking the truth, I fear he is thereby placed 
 far beyond the reach of argument. In fact, no 
 one could maintain this who was not prepared 
 to maintain also that to tell a lie was the same 
 thing as to speak the truth. And this would 
 be to fly in the face of that most incorruptible 
 of all witnesses, the unconscious testimony of 
 language. First, then, there is the feeling of 
 a wrench or ar being given to the nature — of 
 something which gives the sense of a shock or 
 surprise — of something which awakes the con- 
 sciousness, and puts it, so to say, on the alert 
 and the alarm. 
 
 Perhaps it is a further consequence that a 
 degree of callousness is produced by familiarity 
 with the practice, for this would not be the case 
 if there were not something capable of becoming 
 hard. You can blunt the edge of a fine razor, 
 but not of an iron bar which has no edge. 
 Thus, if habitual liars lose by practice the sense 
 of telling a lie, this is one of the consequences 
 of the habit. But surely no one can regard with 
 equal approbation or with indifference one who 
 habitually tells lies and is hardened in doing 
 it, and one who always speaks the truth. And 
 thus a further consequence of telling lies is that 
 
Foundations of Morality, 197 
 
 obvious and undeniable degradation of the char- 
 acter — that breaking down and demolition of the 
 whole moral edifice which every moral man 
 cannot but feel, when it becomes like a ruined 
 and dismantled tower, no longer fit for the 
 habitation of man, but the dwelling-place of 
 noxious birds and unclean beasts. 
 
 Upon the consequences to our fellows it is need- 
 less to dilate. It is clear that the whole fabric of 
 society must go to pieces if once the habit of 
 lying should obtain to any extent, and in pro- 
 portion as it does. All the intercourse of man- 
 kind is based on the supposition that truth and 
 not falsehood is accepted as current among men. 
 So wisely and significantly — though here again 
 the testimony is unconscious and inaudible — -are 
 the common formulas adopted and employed in 
 written correspondence of "yours truly" and 
 " yours faithfully." Now conceive the havoc 
 that would be wrought by the general intro- 
 duction of uncertainty and suspicion into the 
 transactions and the dealings of mankind one 
 with another. So accurately has St. Paul hit the 
 ruling principle in this matter when he enforces 
 the precept '* Speak every man truth with his 
 neighbour " with the reason assigned, — " FOR we 
 are members one of another." It is manifestly for 
 the good of society that men should speak the 
 
igS Foundations of Morality, 
 
 truth, and it is clearly the duty of every member 
 of society to seek and advance the welfare of 
 every other member of it. But that this is the 
 case with society is the result of the constitution 
 of society, — that is to say, society has been 
 framed upon the principle that its welfare is 
 promoted or impaired according as truth is or 
 is not commonly spoken, and that therefore no 
 member of society can make himself so inde- 
 pendent of society as not to be bound by obliga- 
 tions to seek its welfare, even as he has a right 
 to have his own well-being protected and 
 advanced by society. Forasmuch, therefore, as 
 to tell a lie is an impediment to the progress 
 and the free action of society, it is incumbent 
 upon every member of society to speak the 
 truth. And this is surely the original and 
 antecedent reason that is suggested by the 
 very terms of the ninth commandment. The 
 inherent and essential motive is the implied 
 welfare and the personal rights of the neighbour. 
 There is one dwelling high unto us, living with 
 and by us, who is under obligations to us and is 
 entitled to rights and obligations from us. It is 
 an infringement of his rights, a violation of his 
 privileges and his integrity, if we say what is 
 untrue about him. We not only have no right 
 to damage his fair fame, but we are bound also 
 
Foundatio7is of Morality, 199 
 
 to believe that his fair fame is of the nature of 
 a trust committed to our keeping ; and we shall 
 be guilty of unfaithfulness if we betray it, — of 
 unfaithfulness to him, inasmuch as he has the 
 same right to expect this of us that we have to 
 look for it from him. But can we stop there ? 
 Shall we not also be unfaithful to some one else ? 
 If in damaging his fair fame by an untruth we 
 do violence to our own nature, as we surely do, 
 is not this also the breach of an implied trust 
 committed to us by Him who made that nature 
 what it is? — for surely this complicated tissue 
 and texture of interests and responsibilities 
 speaks of a person, a will, a design, an intent, 
 and not of an accident, a chance, a lifeless and 
 unconscious impulse. Had this been so, it would 
 surely have been difficult to say why there 
 should be any check felt in speaking a lie which 
 is not felt in speaking the truth. The natural, 
 nay, the only conceivable interpretation of this 
 involuntary check, is that as the one is in accord- 
 ance with the constitution of our nature, and the 
 other not, so this constitution is a witness that it 
 is not a matter of indifference absolutely whether 
 we speak truth or falsehood, any more than it is 
 to our own well being ; but that there are in our 
 moral nature indications of a will which has 
 ruled and determined that it shall be as it is 
 
200 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 rather than otherwise, and which, as a matter of 
 fact, has not only spoken in this original con- 
 stitution, but also virtually speaks every time 
 conscious violence is done to it. In fact, the 
 moral nature of man cannot be explained but 
 by the postulate of a moral Being as the Author 
 of it, who has declared it as His will that human 
 action shall take a definite moral course in 
 preference to an immoral one, as is witnessed 
 by the effects of such action upon the individual 
 and upon society. Whether we call this, with 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold, "a tendency not ourselves 
 which makes for righteousness," or whether, in 
 less quaint and crabbed and more intelligible 
 language, we call it God, it matters not. If 
 there is a tendency in the world which makes 
 for righteousness, that is surely a very strong 
 proof that the Maker of the world is a righteous 
 Being; for that the world should have no maker 
 and yet tend to righteousness rather than un- 
 righteousness, is inconceivable, while that the 
 world should tend to righteousness and yet 
 be the work of a being who is unrighteous is 
 impossible. 
 
 It seems, then, to be not altogether hopeless 
 to find some answer to the questions Why is 
 it our duty to speak the truth } Why is it wrong 
 to tell a lie } In doincr the one we act in 
 
Foundatmis of Morality, 201 
 
 accordance with our nature, in doing the other 
 we do violence to our nature ; in doing the one 
 we apparently fulfil the will of our Maker, in 
 doing the other we go counter to His will and 
 resist it. 
 
 Who, then, is it who says to us, " Thou shalt, 
 not bear false witness against thy neighbour " ? 
 Is it Moses, or is it any human lawgiver ? If 
 so, it is plain that before the promulgation of 
 any such precept it was not unlawful to do so. 
 But in the nature of things there never was 
 a time when it was lawful — when it could be a 
 matter of indifference whether or not we spoke 
 the truth to and about our neighbour. When, 
 therefore, Moses said "Thou shalt not bear 
 false witness," he merely spoke in the name 
 of One who spoke by him. He revealed and 
 declared a law to which the conscience before- 
 time might be more or less insensible, but 
 which it could not but recognise and allow as 
 soon as it was declared. It is of the nature 
 of truth to be eternal ; truth may be discovered 
 or revealed, it cannot be created ; that which 
 we create is the semblance of truth, but that 
 which is true is anterior to our discovery of it. 
 When, therefore, the conscience first responded 
 to the righteousness of the precept " Thou shalt 
 not bear false witness," it merely recognised a 
 
202 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 fact which was a fact before, and which from 
 all eternity was destined to be a fact as soon 
 as the conditions arose which should admit of 
 it — that is, as soon as there should arise a 
 neighbour. Now, there is only One who can 
 speak to us with authority about our neighbour, 
 and that is He who has made him to be our 
 neighbour. If it is a mere accident that we 
 have a neighbour, if we merely happen to be 
 so many units lying here and there like so 
 many stones, it is absurd to talk of duty : 
 there can be no such thing as duty. Duty 
 can only arise when the relation of mutuality 
 arises, when reciprocity begins ; and reciprocity 
 is not a relation that is voluntarily assumed, 
 but one that is involuntarily imposed. It is 
 not of my will or my neighbour's will, that I 
 have a neighbour ; but if he is my neighbour, 
 and in proportion as he is, it can only be 
 because some one external to us both has 
 made him so. 
 
 Thus we see that the tendency of the Deca- 
 logue as it advances is to develop the concep- 
 tion of the neighbour. The sixth, seventh, and 
 eighth commandments imply his existence, 
 but the ninth and tenth only recognise his 
 being expressly. The more delicate the rela- 
 tionship, the more delicate and subtle the 
 
Foundations of Morality, 203 
 
 obligations it involves, while the delicacy of 
 these obligations themselves depends upon the 
 recognition of the delicacy of the relationship. 
 If I have a neighbour, and if he is my neigh- 
 bour, I must speak truly to and about him, 
 and not injure him even in thought; but I 
 shall certainly fail to appreciate these obliga- 
 tions if I do not truly appreciate the fact of 
 his being my neighbour, and I shall certainly 
 not appreciate the fact of his being my neigh- 
 bour, except as I rise to the apprehension of 
 the Being who has made him to be so. In 
 proportion as I recognise this relationship as 
 the appointment of a gracious God who is our 
 common Father, I shall realise the magnitude 
 and importance of the obligations that flow 
 therefrom. If, therefore, there is any one who 
 says to me " Thou shalt not bear false witness 
 against thy neighbour," that person must be 
 God, for no one else has or can have any 
 moral authority over me, and no one but God 
 can call into existence the neighbourly relation- 
 ship. But if this commandment is spoken to 
 me, and I hear in my conscience the voice of 
 it, and acknowledge its truth and majesty, 
 then does not that fact point me to one con- 
 clusion — that there is an ultimate fountain of 
 law, and that the fountain of law is the foun- 
 
204 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 tain also of my being — that I and the moral 
 law whose majesty I cannot but acknowledge 
 are co-ordinate in origin — that the moral law 
 is as deep as my own existence, that it springs 
 from the still deep waters of primaeval being, 
 and that if it can and does speak to me as 
 " Thou," it can only be because it speaks with 
 the authority and the voice of God, and in 
 thus speaking to me as a separate and isolated 
 being it utters the solemn reminder that I am 
 twin brother to this " stern daughter of the 
 voice of God," and that He who made me in 
 the womb is my Lawgiver and my Judge ? 
 
Foundations of Morality, 205 
 
 XVII. 
 
 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt 
 not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor 
 his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything 
 that is thy neighbour's." — Exodus xx. 17. 
 
 WHEN this commandment is repeated in 
 Deuteronomy, it appears with certain 
 minute verbal alterations, such as the substitu- 
 tion of another word for desiring the neighbour's 
 wife and the addition of his field to the objects 
 that are not to be so desired. Those who make 
 it their business, as it is their pleasure, to detect 
 anything like a discrepancy in narratives osten- 
 sibly sacred, and especially in duplicate words 
 which are equally ascribed to the Almighty, 
 have not suffered this fact to escape them, and 
 have been eager to make the most of it. " We 
 can see for ourselves that God cannot have 
 spoken both sets of words with their variations, 
 as He is stated to have done, at one and the 
 same time. One set, therefore, must be the 
 work of the lawgiver, who nevertheless claims 
 Divine authority for both." We are placed, 
 
2o6 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 therefore, in this dilemma — which is the original 
 form of the words ? while it is suggested that our 
 only rational mode of escape is to reject both. 
 Now, not to lay any stress upon the manifest 
 fact that the repetition of the Ten Command- 
 ments in Deuteronomy professes to be but 
 the hortatory enforcement of precepts already 
 recorded, and therefore may well be allowed 
 the innocent licence of additional copulas, trans- 
 positions, verbal changes, and the like, without 
 sacrificing its claim to substantial and essential 
 accuracy, is it not obvious that thus to insist 
 upon the ipsissima verba which the Lord spoke 
 being known, before we can be sure that He 
 spoke at all, is a reversal of all the ordinary 
 conditions of evidence. The prime minister 
 rises in his place in Parliament and makes a 
 speech upon a particular subject. In three or 
 four journals his speech is reported, with minor 
 differences : are we to reject all because they 
 do not minutely correspond .? Or, yet further, 
 are we to discredit the fact that he spoke at all 
 because we cannot be perfectly certain of the 
 exact words he used } Would this be reasonable 
 or logical — nay, more, would it be common sense 
 to do it } In like manner, can any reasonable 
 man doubt that in the two forms of the Ten 
 Commandments we have to all intents and 
 
Foundations of Alorality, 207 
 
 purposes the actual substance of what the Lord 
 is stated to have said — supposing, that is, we 
 accept the fact that He spoke at all ? Indeed, 
 we may state it as an axiom of revelation that 
 it is far more important to be quite sure of the 
 fact that God spake than it Is to be perfectly- 
 certain of the exact words He used ; for the 
 simple reason that the essential virtue of the 
 Divine word lies in its substantive meaning 
 and not in its minute verbal form, except of 
 course so far as the former may be dependent 
 upon the latter. Now, no man in his senses can 
 for a moment suppose that anything turns upon 
 the fact whether or not the words his field were 
 included among those God uttered from Sinai. 
 Every one must see that the phrase 7ior any- 
 thing that is his is of sufficient breadth to 
 include his field, no matter how large or how 
 small the field may have been. Whereas every- 
 thing turns upon the fact whether or not God 
 said " Thou shalt not covet," and upon whether 
 the person who said it was actually God or 
 was virtually Moses. 
 
 We pass on, then, to inquire what light the 
 last of the commandments throws upon the 
 origin of all, and whether it is possible to re- 
 gard this precept as absolutely authoritative 
 without postulating its authority as Divine. It 
 
2o8 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 is, of course, patent to every one that the last 
 commandment acts as a safeguard to all the 
 others, or at all events to those of the second 
 table. Theft, adultery and murder in every 
 case involve the infringement of the tenth com- 
 mandment as an unavoidable preliminary, so 
 that if that were preserved inviolate the earlier 
 precepts would remain unbroken. It is plain, 
 therefore, that this is the purpose of the tenth 
 commandment — to act as a barrier for the pro- 
 tection of the others. We may certainly infer 
 here the presence of design. This is equally so 
 whether the lawgiver is Divine or human. It 
 was the manifest intention of the person im- 
 posing the law to put restraint upon the desires 
 as containing in themselves the springs of all 
 action. But has any human being the right to 
 impose restraint upon my desires } And if any 
 human being has the right, is there any likeli- 
 hood of his possessing also the power .? Do we 
 not all know that the attempt to restrain our 
 desires, if made by any one else, would be no 
 more successful than the attempt to restrain the 
 wind from blowing or the tide from rising } The 
 desires in themselves are impulses absolutely 
 ungovernable by any second person. A man 
 may imprison and enchain his fellow-man, but 
 his desires he must leave alone. Supposing, 
 
Foundations of Morality, 209 
 
 therefore, that the ultimate author of the tenth 
 commandment was Moses, or any one else, all 
 that we can understand him to have meant to 
 say is that in order to keep the previous com- 
 mandments it was needful for a man to impose 
 restraint upon his own desires. But to under- 
 stand this would be to dilute very considerably 
 the force and meaning of "Thou shalt not 
 covet." In fact, it is simply impossible to inter- 
 pret that precept literally and according to its 
 full and obvious significance, and not to see that 
 if it has any meaning at all it can only be that 
 the person who forbids to covet, if he forbids it 
 at all, must have the natural power no less 
 than the natural right to lay restraint upon the 
 desires. The person who alone can say so is 
 the Person to whom the desires no less than all 
 the other faculties, capacities and impulses of 
 the mind are subject — that is, their Maker. But 
 then, to go a step further, Is there any one who 
 does not feel that he is under a natural obliea- 
 tion to place restraint upon his desires ? And is 
 there any one who does not see that if he does 
 not do so, his desires will very soon place 
 restraints of a multifarious but very severe kind 
 upon him ? Am I at Hberty, either as regards 
 myself or as regards my fellow-man, to give the 
 rein to my desires to the utmost possible limit, 
 
 14 
 
2IO Foundations of Morality, 
 
 even supposing I stop short of actually infring- 
 ing other and independent commandments by 
 the commission of theft, adultery, and murder ? 
 Are there not many ways in which the un- 
 bridled exercise of my desires will work havoc 
 in the domain of my relations to my neighbour, 
 and most unquestionably in that of the duties 
 which I owe to myself? Is it not plain that, 
 even in the sphere of imagination and thought, 
 unrestrained licence cannot fail to be productive 
 of very disastrous and disgraceful results ? 
 
 But if this is the case, does it not show to 
 demonstration that in spite of ourselves there 
 are certain restraints imposed by nature, to say 
 nothing about circumstance, upon the exercise 
 of the desires and the thoughts — that in spite of 
 our eagerly longed-for and asserted freedom, we 
 are, after all, not absolutely free even in the 
 freest of all domains — the realm of thought 
 and desire ? If I think with impropriety of my 
 neighbour, is not that certain so to affect my 
 conduct towards him as to bring about unde- 
 sirable complications between us ? If my code 
 of inward morality is one of unbridled liber- 
 tinism, is it possible that my life should be 
 otherwise than fraught with contamination and 
 contagion to my fellow-creatures ? And will not 
 this inevitably act perniciously and detrimen- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 211 
 
 tally upon myself? So manifestly is this the 
 case, that when the great Lawgiver appeared 
 incarnate among men, it was here, in the realm 
 of desire, that He detected the spring and 
 essence of obedience or of disobedience to the 
 moral law : " Whosoever looketh on a woman to 
 lust after her hath committed adultery with her 
 already in his heart." There is, therefore, in the 
 nature of things, that which warns us against 
 the danger of allowing the desires to run riot 
 and unrestrained, and especially on account of the 
 evil which may accrue therefrom to ourselves; 
 but the tenth commandment forbids it rather 
 on account of our neighbour's welfare being 
 injured thereby: "Thou shalt not covet thy 
 neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy 
 neighbour's wife," and the like. It is zealous for 
 the safety, honour, and welfare of the neighbour, 
 and sets the landmark which is to determine 
 and defend his interests in the desires. 
 
 And we are clearly in a position to ask two 
 questions about this matter. First, can we or can 
 we not discover traces of wisdom in the provision 
 thus made t Is it or is it not for the benefit of 
 our fellow-men that we should hold our desires 
 in check } Even supposing that the unrestrained 
 licence of the desires does not lead on to the 
 infringement of other distinct precepts, is not 
 
212 Foundatio7is of Morality. 
 
 the welfare of my neighbour promoted by my 
 showing all due regard to his interest in desire 
 and thought ? And will not this naturally re-act 
 to the promotion of my own well-being if he 
 manifests the same consideration for me ? But 
 if so, then secondly, who is it who is thus pater- 
 nally interested in my own and my neighbour's 
 well-being, but some one who is not my neigh- 
 bour and is not myself — who, in fact, stands in 
 the relation of a common father to us both ? 
 He who says " Thou shalt not covet that which 
 is thy neighbour's," if the words have any 
 meaning, must speak from a standing-ground 
 that is higher than mine or my neighbour's ; and 
 if the words have the meaning which they seem 
 to have, they bear their own testimony to the 
 authority with which they are spoken and to 
 the character of the person speaking them. 
 
 If they mean, then, what they seem to mean, 
 they imply the existence of One who has the 
 right to impose this injunction and to require 
 obedience to it. And so far as there is any 
 response in the heart and conscience to the 
 reality of the command, and so far as there is 
 any witness in the moral nature and in the 
 constitution of society to the truth, wisdom and 
 justice of the precept, so far is this response 
 confirmatory of the evidence which the precept 
 
Foundations of Morality, 213 
 
 bears to the existence and the nature of the 
 person who gives it. We may not, indeed, 
 appeal to the precept in proof that there is a 
 God ; but postulating the existence of God, we 
 may legitimately point to the evidence afforded 
 by the precept in confirmation of His existence 
 and in illustration of His character. And while 
 the constitution of the moral nature is what 
 it can be shown to be, and the tendency of 
 the precept to the advantage and well-being of 
 society is a matter of experience and demon- 
 stration, we may surely point to these things 
 as facts which have to be accounted for and 
 explained on the opposite supposition, that 
 behind and beyond them all there is no moral 
 controlling power, no conscious and deliberate 
 designer, who has arranged that these things 
 should be as they are rather than otherwise, so 
 that the dictates of the moral nature and the 
 interests of society do not move in opposite 
 directions, but work harmoniously towards one 
 and the same beneficent result which is the 
 glory of God in the good of man. Certainly, i^ 
 the existence of a moral sense is denied, it 
 must and will be very difficult to prove it; but 
 surely Bishop Butler has gone a long way 
 towards doing so by showing that it is im- 
 possible for any one to pass the same judgment 
 
214 Foundations of Morality. 
 
 on himself or another upon two different actions 
 which are diametrically opposite in character ? * 
 No one, for example, can regard cruelty and 
 kindness with the same feelings, and all must 
 admit that the man who does, if such there be, 
 is deficient in the faculty of judgment ; but 
 if this is the case, is not the existence of the 
 moral sense established as a fact thereby ? 
 Thus St. Paul says of the Gentiles — that is, of 
 man independently of any external revelation — 
 that they show the work of the law written 
 in their hearts, their conscience also bearing 
 witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile 
 accusing or else excusing one another. And it 
 does not seem possible to rebut this testimony. 
 But then, what is the meaning of the moral 
 sense, of the involuntary perception that we 
 have of the difference between right and wrong ? 
 Can we regard it as a mere accident, alone and 
 by itself, or must we not rather look upon it 
 as the reflection of an external standard or law 
 which occasions this difference according as the 
 law or standard is or is not fulfilled ? And is 
 not each, involuntary act of this discriminating 
 faculty equivalent to an indication on the part 
 of this law or standard of approval or dis- 
 approval of the action judged t Is it not a 
 * Works, vol. ii. lo. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 215 
 
 proof, so to say, that the foundation principle of 
 the world is a moral principle, and an energetic 
 because a not indifferent moral principle, and 
 therefore a personal moral principle ? In short, 
 what is the voice which thus passes judgment 
 within us, if it be not the echo of the voice of 
 God ? It is clearly not our own voice, because 
 we are conscious that however inseparable from 
 us it may be, it is nevertheless distinct from 
 ourselves, and moreover from its very nature 
 it asserts authority over us and claims sub- 
 mission at our hands. We feel that it has a 
 right to say, and can say, "Thou shalt not 
 covet." 
 
 Furthermore, the revelation of the New 
 Testament has taught us that covetousness 
 is idolatry ; and inasmuch as covetousness 
 indicates the going forth of the heart after 
 objects of sense, its truly idolatrous character 
 is obvious. But this fact it is which gives to the 
 tenth commandment its remarkable feature of 
 fitly closing and completing the ten by revert- 
 ing to the standpoint and subject of the first — 
 "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." 
 He who begins with announcing Himself 
 as the sole object of worship, after traversing 
 the whole field of morals rightly ends with 
 proscribing that heart-worship of the creature 
 
2 1 6 Fomidations of Morality, 
 
 which is implied in coveting. He claims to 
 be independent of and separate from His 
 creatures, and declines to be identified with 
 them or to have them substituted for Himself. 
 The revelation, therefore, is complete : " I am 
 the Lord thy God .... thou shalt not covet." 
 
 What, then, is the light which the tenth 
 commandment throws upon the origin and 
 authority of the moral law } Does it not speak 
 to us of One who so tries the hearts and reins 
 that He knoweth whereof we are made, and 
 understandeth our thoughts long before — who 
 detects in the unrestrained desires after any 
 earthly object that spirit of disloyalty which 
 casts off allegiance to Him, as well as that 
 infringement of the neighbour's rights which 
 must ultimately prove fatal to ourselves } Does 
 not the law, then, taken at its just value and 
 significance, proclaim loudly the existence and 
 character of the Lawgiver } If " Thou shalt not 
 covet " is a fact and a reality, it must come from 
 One who alone has a right to say so. But if 
 He has a right to say so, then to dispute His 
 authority is altogether out of the question. 
 If the law is Divine in its origin, it must be 
 paramount and absolute in its authority. There 
 can be no appeal from it, and no violation or 
 infringement of it with impunity. Where, then. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 217 
 
 shall we seek for the foundations of morality ? 
 They lie in the very framework and essence 
 of our own being, and in the constitution of 
 society. The moral law is the reflection of the 
 very plan and principle upon which society is 
 formed, and of the force and influence by which 
 it is held together ; it is that in relation to which 
 our own existence moves most harmoniously 
 and attains the greatest freedom ; it is that by 
 obedience to which the complex relations and 
 interests of society can alone be fully developed 
 and adequately secured. But if the foundations 
 of morality can be discovered here, must they 
 not He also in that which is alike the founda- 
 tion of our own existence and of the constitu- 
 tion of society? Must they not strike deep 
 down to the very throne — nay, the personal 
 being and essence of God Himself? And thus. 
 If the law is a revelation of God, it cannot be 
 independent of that which is a yet fuller 
 and subsequent revelation of Him — namely, 
 religion ; and if religion is a true revelation of 
 God, then the ultimate foundation of religion 
 and morality must be one and the same Being, 
 — none other than the Person and the Word of 
 the living and true God. 
 
2 1 8 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " If there be any other commandment, it is briefly 
 comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 Rom. xiii. 9, lo. 
 
 THE precept which is here quoted inciden- 
 dentally by St. Paul is the great glory of 
 the Old Testament revelation. Although not 
 one of the ten commandments, our Lord shows 
 us that it expresses the very essence of those 
 which are comprised in the second table. Had 
 it not, however, been enunciated in the midst 
 of those documents which embody and enforce 
 the Decalogue, we should undoubtedly have 
 hesitated so to summarise the second portion 
 of it, and should certainly not have credited 
 the Mosaic code with any such precept. As it 
 is, the words are found in the midst of the 
 most transitory and local of the books of the 
 Law,* and therefore cannot be separated from 
 its intrinsic and essential teaching. And yet, 
 
 * Lev. xix. 1 8. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 2ig 
 
 strange to say, there is no other ancient moral 
 code than that of Moses which has enunciated 
 so subhme and spiritual a precept as this. We 
 may admit, therefore, that no treatment of 
 the general scope and principles of the ten 
 commandments would be complete which should 
 omit this as highly characteristic of the latter 
 half of them. 
 
 Nor must it by any means be overlooked, 
 that as this precept stands in Leviticus it bears 
 traces both of its special origin and hkewise of 
 its permanent and universal authority. " Thou 
 shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against 
 the children of thy people, but thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. I am the Lord." 
 Israel, therefore, is clearly entitled to the whole 
 merit of the precept as its own exclusive pos- 
 session ; while the fact that it is enunciated in 
 the name of the living Lord not only vouches 
 for its Divine authority, but proves also that 
 the very form and framework of its setting was 
 unexpectedly and inherently expansive, inas- 
 much as if the Divine Father of the human 
 race was indeed the Lawgiver, then the signifi- 
 cance of the words " thy people " can only be 
 co-extensive with the limits of that race, and 
 " thy neighbour " must virtually mean not only 
 every born Israelite, but every member of the 
 
2 20 Foundatmis of Morality, 
 
 whole family of God which He has purchased 
 and claimed for His own, and redeemed by 
 the incarnation and the death of His well 
 beloved Son. If we thus accept and allow the 
 broad facts of revelation, all the surroundings 
 of the precept become correct and intelligible ; 
 but if these features are invented and fictitious, 
 then we have to account for the fact that Israel 
 alone among the nations attained to the dis- 
 covery of this moral precept, the position of 
 which in a book like that of Leviticus is in- 
 congruous and incomprehensible, and that the 
 precept itself is the most perfect expression of 
 those moral obligations which we all feel, and 
 from which we cannot escape. If, therefore, 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is a 
 statement of any binding force, wherein lies its 
 power.? whence is its authority derived? and 
 how is it that it has any authority at all } Sup- 
 posing society to be a merely accidental growth 
 exhibiting and embodying no moral principle, 
 and therefore pointing to no design, what right 
 has society or any individual in society to say 
 to me " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself" .'' I am prepared to maintain on this 
 principle that I have a right to love myself 
 more than my neighbour, and that he has 
 an equal right to love himself more than he 
 
Foundations of Morality. 2 2 1 
 
 loves me. He has, in fact, no right to prescribe 
 any rule for my conduct in the matter, unless 
 he can show his power to do so. But for all 
 that there is something in my nature which 
 responds to the wisdom and recognises the 
 authority of this precept as soon as it is 
 declared ; and this is a fact which cannot be 
 explained unless we postulate the existence 
 of an authoritative moral will behind the pre- 
 cept. But then in that case the very existence 
 of the precept, and the form in which it is 
 given, is a proof that this moral will is not 
 merely otiose and dormant, but active and ener- 
 getic in expressing itself Thus the law, if 
 its form is not fictitious and delusive, is a 
 witness to the activity and operation of the 
 moral will— is itself a guarantee that the will 
 has come out of its hiding-place to reveal and 
 express itself, and therefore an indication that 
 it can and may do so again, and in fact a 
 pledge and earnest that it will. Thus morality, 
 so far as it is a living and real thing vested 
 with any true authority, contains in itself the 
 evidence of revelation, and supplies a valid 
 basis for religion ; and thus religion not only 
 has its roots in morality, but morality also 
 can have no valid authority unless it suppHes a 
 solid and secure foundation for religion. And 
 
222 Foundatmis of Morality, 
 
 thus, not only is religion dependent upon the 
 same foundation upon which morality rests, 
 but morality has also no true foundation at 
 all if it has not one which is likewise a valid 
 basis for religion. For if morality does not 
 point us directly to the supernatural as its 
 only adequate and permanent authority, it rests 
 upon nothing but conventional prescription, and 
 must therefore be liable to change ; but so far 
 as it does it indicates likewise to us a source 
 from which may well flow not only the purify- 
 ing streams of morality, but also the life-giving 
 waters of religion — not only the precepts of a 
 permanent ethical code, but also the blessed 
 hope and promises of supernatural and revealed 
 truth. 
 
 There can be no question more important in 
 the present day than this concerning the founda- 
 tion of morality. What is the basis upon which 
 the precept *' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself" rests, if it is not Divine } Nay, is the 
 precept in itself a wise and just one ? Is it 
 true } or is it exaggerated and extreme } If it 
 is true, how do we know it to be true } Is it a 
 precept we could have discovered for ourselves 1 
 and if so, what is the discovery of it more than 
 the perception of a primary principle which we 
 in no sense invented, but which must have re- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 223 
 
 vealed itself as part of the very original plan 
 upon which society was constituted, the intention 
 with which it was designed ? I use the words 
 intention and design advisedly, because they 
 imply and involve a personal act ; but I ask 
 also, can we contemplate the fact and express 
 or explain it in any other way ? If what we 
 discover is a principle antecedent to the exist- 
 ence or coeval with the origin of society, or 
 expressive merely of the perfect standard and 
 ideal towards which it tends, is not this equally 
 an indication of a mind directing and controlling 
 its development ? Can we conceive of society 
 as possessing any inherent tendency thus to 
 develop itself? and must not the tendency, so 
 far as it is real, be accepted as evidence of a 
 person and will guiding it ? So far is this the 
 case that even the most enthusiastic disciples 
 of evolution cannot avoid the use of language 
 expressive of personal agency in describing the 
 processes of which they speak. Doubtless, if we 
 shut God out of the world and deliberately turn 
 the key upon Him, we must resort to other 
 methods of accounting for recognised pheno- 
 mena ; but is it more reasonable to invest 
 lifeless abstractions, such as society and the 
 like, with attributes characteristic of ourselves ? 
 or to suppose that tendencies and principle^ 
 
2 24 Fomidations of Morality, 
 
 manifest in them point to an original arche- 
 typal mind, of which our own powers and 
 faculties are the minute reflection, and from 
 which they, no less than these tendencies and 
 principles, have been derived ? 
 
 But over and beyond the recognition of this 
 grand principle of loving the neighbour as one- 
 self, the apostle gives us the reason why it is 
 so comprehensive and so effectual. It virtually 
 covers the entire area of the second table, and 
 therefore practically secures the fulfilment of it. 
 He shows us, moreover, that the essential prin- 
 ciple of the law is love ; it is designed with love 
 and fulfilled by love. There is nothing more 
 sublimely characteristic of Holy Scripture than 
 the majestic and unfaltering testimony which it 
 bears to the presence and the person of God. 
 It is uniformly and persistently unconscious of 
 the possibility of the opposite idea, except as 
 a thought lurking in the heart of the fool. But 
 probably there is no action more inseparable 
 from the idea of a person, or more inevitably 
 implying a person, at all events in its higher 
 and fuller forms, than love. If, therefore, love 
 is the object at which the moral law aims, and 
 if love is the only principle that adequately 
 fulfils it, is not this the highest possible indica- 
 tion of the personal character of that will which 
 
Foundations of Morality. 225 
 
 the law expresses ? For it is plain that the 
 object which the law sets before itself is the 
 protection and advancement of the interests and 
 welfare of the neighbour, and the only way in 
 which these can be protected and advanced is 
 by the action of love. Love, moreover, will 
 anticipate the requirements of the law, and 
 prevent the possibility of its infringement as 
 nothing else can, not even the strictest com- 
 pliance with the mere letter of the law which 
 leaves out love. Surely, therefore, in proportion 
 to the reality of this as a fact, we may find in 
 it an unmistakable proof of the real principle 
 operating in the law, and of the really personal 
 character of that principle. Nothing else than 
 mind can truly love, and nothing else than mind 
 can set love before itself as an object to be aimed 
 at. When, therefore, this is done, we have evi- 
 dence of the presence and the action of mind. 
 If, therefore, the free exercise and action of love 
 is the direct object of the law, what higher 
 evidence can we desire of the presence and 
 operation of a personal will ? Nay, is it not 
 certain that this can in no sense be the purpose 
 of the law unless there is a personal will 
 behind it ? 
 
 But if theft, adultery, and murder, are for- 
 bidden for no other reason than because 
 
 15 
 
2 26 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 they work ill to the neighbour, and if to this 
 end also the law of truth is inculcated and 
 restraint upon the desires enforced, is it not 
 certain that love is the direct object of the 
 law, inasmuch as by no other means than by 
 the exercise of love can the law be adequately 
 fulfilled ? Certain it is that the most punctilious 
 discharge of all social obligations will leave a 
 great void unfilled if love is not thrown in to 
 fill it. The presence of love in the affairs of 
 life is like that of sunshine. The form and 
 outward features of the world and its objects are 
 the same, but the colouring and expressions 
 are indescribably different. It is the difference 
 between dejection and exuberant joy. So truly 
 is this the case that conventionally love is the 
 very antithesis of the legal spirit, from which 
 we learn that the necessary complement of the 
 law is love, and that if the law was intended 
 to promote the exercise of love, it could only 
 be by spirit infused into it by God, inasmuch 
 as historically this has never been the effect 
 of it, and practically it was not likely to be 
 so. If, therefore, the theory of the law implied 
 love, this again was a patent evidence of a 
 mind so conceiving and designing it ; and that 
 love is the fulfilling of the law, we have abun- 
 dant practical illustrations all around us. Mere 
 
Foundations of Morality. 227 
 
 legal restraints are daily found to be altogether 
 inadequate to protect or preserve the well- 
 being of society. What is the jealousy of class 
 interests, the collision between capital and 
 labour, the misconception between rich and 
 poor, the want of understanding between master 
 and servant, employer and employed, and the 
 like, but so many more evidences of the want 
 of love ? There can be no mutual confidence, 
 but only mutual suspicion and mutual restraint, 
 where there is not love. If love worketh no 
 ill to his neighbour, certainly that which worketh 
 the greatest possible ill, which is productive 
 of all kinds of mischief, is the absence of love. 
 It may and probably will in many cases stop 
 short of any open breach of the moral law, 
 because of the very existence and operation 
 of that law ; but though the law is not violated, 
 it assuredly will not be fulfilled : indeed, the 
 intention of the law can only be fulfilled by 
 love. But in using these very words, what have 
 we not implied ? what have we not conceded } 
 Even the work of a designer, and the presence 
 and action of a presiding mind, which has dis-( 
 cerned the end from the beginning and pro- 
 vided and ordained accordingly. And certain 
 it is that the more we interpret the law in 
 the light of love and accept love as the only 
 
2 28 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 adequate fulfilment of its precepts, the more 
 readily we shall adore the wisdom and acknow- 
 ledge the presence of the person giving it ; for 
 if love was the design of the lawgiver, then 
 love is the attribute and prerogative of a person ; 
 and if the origin of the Law was love, then its 
 authority must be Divine. 
 
 But again, if love is the fulfilling of the law, 
 it can only be because it secures the greatest 
 possible amount of protection for the interests 
 of the neighbour. Thus the law is eminently 
 and conspicuously unselfish. It puts the in- 
 terests of the neighbour on a level with one's 
 own. Now, this is strictly speaking and prac- 
 tically a superhuman standard. Doubtless, on 
 many occasions the interests of self are post- 
 poned by every virtuous man to those of his 
 neighbour. But it stands to reason that the 
 same principle would involve under certain 
 extreme circumstances the surrender of life 
 itself. And this is a degree to which very few 
 would be willing to attain, and to which still 
 fewer have attained ; but, nevertheless, nothing 
 short of this is the extreme requirement of the 
 law, nothing short of this can absolutely fulfil 
 it. And therefore, if the requirements of the 
 law are perfect love, the very enunciation of 
 these requirements, if Divine, contains the pro- 
 
Foundations of Morality, 229 
 
 mise of their fulfilment. If God has given a 
 law, and that law requires the neighbour to be 
 loved even as the self, it stands to reason that 
 the law must be fulfilled : but fulfilled by whom ? 
 The fulfilment of the law would be an achieve- 
 ment worthy of the Lawgiver ; and none but the 
 Lawgiver could fulfil it, for no one but He whose 
 name and nature is love could give an exhi- 
 bition of perfect love. Thus it was He who 
 unfolded more than any one the spiritual re- 
 quirements of the law who was found to give 
 the most perfect exhibition of their fulfilment. 
 It was He who said " Greater love hath no man 
 than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
 friends," who was found prepared when His hour 
 came to surrender His own life even to the 
 death upon the cross. It therefore showed that 
 the requirements and authority of the law were 
 absolute, and consequently that its origin was 
 Divine. The most perfect exhibition of the law 
 of love, however, involved the entire surrender 
 of the self; and thus the cross has become 
 synonymous not only with self-sacrifice, but 
 with love. But it is only in the light of 
 the life and death of Christ that we can see 
 how rigorous and how exacting are the claim? 
 of the law, and how truly the fulfilment of it 
 involves love. The cross must ever challenge 
 
230 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 to itself the right to be regarded as a super- 
 human and Divine exhibition of love. All 
 interpretation of it is inadequate which pro- 
 nounces it to be merely human. But if the 
 merit of the cross is Divine, what is the 
 essential character of that law which it vin- 
 dicates, confirms, establishes, and illustrates } 
 Can it be other than Divine ? The cross was 
 endured in obedience to no human law, and no 
 human law was honoured or fulfilled in its 
 imposition. " I find no fault in this man " was 
 the admission of the highest functionary of the 
 Roman law ; and therefore the only law that was 
 fulfilled in it was the law of God. But it exem- 
 plified and did not surpass the requirements of 
 that law, for the love of the neighbour as the 
 self when salvation was at stake demanded no 
 less than the giving up of life, and if the life 
 had been withheld the law would have been un- 
 fulfilled. Thus not only does the cross of Christ 
 exhibit in itself a Divine act, but it shows also 
 how profound, how sacred, how Divine is the 
 origin, and therefore how absolute and how 
 universal is the authority, of the law which it 
 illustrates and fulfils. And as the cross of 
 Christ is the triumph, symbol, and exponent 
 of religion, its very essence, root, and kernel, 
 its foundation and its crown, so that in behold- 
 
Foundations of Morality. 231 
 
 fng the cross of Christ we behold the evidence 
 and demonstration of the truth of religion, the 
 depth and stability of its foundation as a Divine 
 gift to man, so in the cross of Christ we see as 
 we can see nowhere else that the foundation of 
 religion is the foundation also of morality, that 
 the moral law is based on nothing else than that 
 foundation on which religion also rests, so that 
 if there be no morality there can be no religion ; 
 and likewise, if there be no Divine evidence of, 
 no Divine truth in, religion, there can also be no 
 Divine authority in, no Divine sanction for, the 
 moral law ; but the one common foundation on 
 which both alike rest is overthrown, and uni- 
 versal moral ruin is the inevitable result. 
 
232 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every 
 one that believeth." — Rom. x. 4. 
 
 THE exhibition of love as the fulfilling of 
 the law which the cross of Christ presents 
 to us has altogether another aspect than that 
 merely of complete attainment to an ideal and 
 perfect moral standard such as the law demands. 
 It has an aspect towards God and an aspect 
 towards man. Its aspect towards God is that 
 which it has when regarded as the manifestation 
 of God's personal love to man. This is its evi- 
 dent and most universal aspect, and that pro- 
 bably in which it is still destined to make the 
 greatest impression on mankind, and achieve its 
 greatest victories. Many, perhaps, who cannot 
 look on the death of Christ in its relation to 
 the moral law, and are unaffected by it in that 
 relation, are altogether attracted and subdued 
 by it as the great revelation of the love of God. 
 And thus each successive age of the world's 
 history supplies additional illustration of the 
 Lord's words, " And I, if I be lifted up, will 
 
Foundations of Morality, 233 
 
 draw all men unto me." But the cross of Christ 
 has also another aspect in relation to man, and 
 one which it was intended to have where the 
 ethical teaching of the law had really taken 
 effect, as it would have done among those 
 Israelites who believed in Christ. 
 
 The death of Christ, we may be quite certain, 
 had altogether another purpose than that of 
 supplying an example of symmetrical correspon- 
 dence with the law. Regarded in this aspect, 
 there are probably few whom it would win. 
 But there are probably few also who would thus 
 regard it. The law of God is a frigid and un- 
 attractive thought when it is not apprehended 
 in any relation to ourselves. It is only when 
 the law of God is apprehended as a symbol 
 expressing and representing all the confusion 
 and disorder that sin has produced within us, 
 that the law of God becomes a matter of per- 
 sonal interest. When we look into our own 
 hearts and see there the havoc and demolition 
 wrought by sin, and feel our own inability to 
 accomplish our endeavours and desires, our 
 painful fallings-short of what we might and 
 ought to be, then it is that the law of God as a 
 symbol expressive of this consciousness becomes 
 a terrible reality, and then it is that we begin to 
 ask in despair whether there is any method of 
 
234 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 deliverance by which we can attain a position 
 where we shall be beyond the reach of these 
 stings and torments of self-reproach and con- 
 demnation. It would be untrue to say that 
 we had committed adultery, theft, or murder, or 
 had, it may even be, in any very obvious sense 
 violated the letter of the commandments for- 
 bidding these things, even when interpreted 
 most stringently ; but for all that there is a 
 sense of something terribly wrong within — of 
 incompleteness and defect, of spiritual hunger, 
 disease and poverty, of nakedness, shame, and 
 destitution in the soul, — and this is what is 
 meant by the broken law of God. It is, perhaps, 
 not very easy to see the fitness of the words to 
 express the condition, or to define precisely the 
 precepts that have been transgressed ; but if we 
 understand by the law of God that condition 
 of wholeness, integrity, satisfaction, and sound- 
 ness, the want of which we feel so painfully, 
 then it is plain that this sense of want may well 
 be represented and expressed by the broken 
 law of God. And certain it is that such a sense 
 as this is that which the contemplation of the 
 law as an inviolable standard is intended to pro- 
 duce. The law is meant to v/ork in us a sense 
 of sin, of guilt, and defect. When this is the 
 result produced, we need not stop to specify 
 
Foundations of Morality, 235 
 
 which of the ten commandments we have 
 broken. As a matter of fact, whatever the 
 divisions and subdivisions of the law, there are 
 but two, which inculcate love to God and love 
 to man, and it needs but little discernment to 
 perceive that we are verily guilty upon both 
 points. We imperfectly love our fellow-man, 
 and we do not at all love God. Now, as this 
 is the condition of mental consciousness which 
 the law is intended to work in us, so the aspect 
 towards man in which the cross is meant to be 
 regarded is that in which it is seen completely 
 to repair and supply the havoc and defect felt 
 within, and to meet with perfect sympathy, 
 sufficiency, and satisfaction, the sense of want 
 and disaster that is so painful and so deep. 
 
 In this sense, then, it is that Christ is the end 
 of the law for righteousness to every one that 
 believeth. That is to say, those who accept 
 Christ as the effectual means whereby the 
 imperfection, want, and misery felt within, are 
 counteracted and removed, find in Him and see 
 that He is the very end of the Law, that which 
 exhausts all its meaning, satisfies all its demands 
 and fulfils its highest ideals. It was because 
 the law was apprehended by the Jew as a 
 partial and imperfect code, dealing chiefly with 
 restrictions, and not inculcating that which was 
 
236 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 involved by the correlative precept when stated 
 positively, that though he reverenced it as God- 
 given, and was inclined to worship its very letter, 
 it became to him an obstacle in the way of his 
 salvation, and a direct barrier between him and 
 Christ. For as long as the law was a merely 
 restrictive principle, the Jew might flatter 
 himself that he had not overstepped its pre- 
 cepts, and would be unlikely to reproach himself 
 for falling short of the merely impHed demands 
 of it which he failed altogether to perceive. It 
 was thus that the rich young man in the 
 Gospel* was offended, and stumbled at the 
 application and interpretation given by Christ 
 of that law in which till then he was disposed 
 to boast. Christ showed that the law involved 
 positive demands as well as imposed negative 
 restrictions, and that it was in respect of these 
 positive demands that the severity and urgency 
 of the law was felt as a condemning principle. 
 For in this way not only could no man fulfil 
 the law, but not even could Christ fulfil it 
 unless He was prepared to lay down His life 
 and die for it. Nor is this blindness with regard 
 to the real nature of the law characteristic only 
 of the Jew. Doubtless the statement just made 
 will appear to many a so-called Christian to be 
 '■' Matt. xix. 16 ; Mark x. 17 ; Luke xviii. 18 ; cf. x. 25. 
 
Foundations of Morality. 237 
 
 paradoxical, if not little short of blasphemy. 
 But it is nevertheless literally true. Christ could 
 not and did not fulfil the law till He had died 
 for it, because only by dying could the precept 
 ^'Thoushalt love thy neighbour as thyself" be 
 literally fulfilled. And it is this that shows us 
 that to every one who is in the position of the 
 Jew the law cannot be other than a stumbling- 
 block and an occasion to fall in the way to 
 Christ. True it is that the law was our school- 
 master or our guide, to take us by the hand and 
 lead us to Christ, but only on condition that we 
 were content to be led by it and left there with 
 Him. The law was intended to be a con- 
 demning principle, and in no sense a means of 
 life, else had Christ as the end of the law been 
 superfluous and unnecessary. Unquestionably 
 there are many to whom this will seem to be 
 altogether inconsistent and at variance with 
 numerous assertions in the Psalms and else- 
 where of the perfection and beauty of the law 
 of God, and of the advantage to be derived 
 from observing its precepts. But assuredly it 
 is not so. No one will affirm that because it is 
 hopeless to attain to a standard, therefore it is 
 useless or unprofitable to attempt to do so, 
 or that the standard ceases to be a guide in 
 consequence. The writer of the hundred and 
 
238 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 nineteenth Psalm, who is loudest in his praises 
 of the law and in his professions of having been 
 guided by it, is constrained to end* with the 
 confession that he has gone astray like a sheep 
 that is lost. Even if, therefore, we assume that 
 the law was his hope then, what about its 
 condemnation of the past ? What hope could 
 he find in the law to set over against that 
 condemnation, if he did not find it in the Law- 
 giver rather than His law ? But this is to throw 
 in the opposite principle of faith, and to give 
 up and throw away the law as a source of hope 
 or ground of confidence. So true is it that 
 Christ becomes the end of the law for righteous- 
 ness to every one that believeth. There are, 
 then, unquestionably two principles in Ethics 
 which are opposite, and in some sense antago- 
 nistic, as they have often proved ; and these, in 
 the language of St. Paul, are the law and faith. 
 Christ as the fulfiller of the law utterly 
 destroyed its condemning power. The law 
 was satisfied and became silent. It was as 
 though a person who had failed, and was utterly 
 bankrupt, had a fresh start given him in life, 
 with not only the means provided of avoiding 
 former errors, but with other counsels, aids and 
 tendencies enabling him to avoid them. For 
 * Psalm cxix. 176. 
 
Foundations of Morality, 239 
 
 though the condemning power of the law was 
 destroyed, its ethical force and significance was 
 largely increased. As it was seen to be so 
 terribly exacting, so it was seen to be likewise 
 stringently imperative. As the penalties of the 
 law could not be eluded, so neither could its 
 commands be disobeyed. The law was futile 
 and baseless as a ground of hope, but it became 
 invaluable as a guide of life. And it is plain 
 that David and many of the writers of the Old 
 Testament had risen to the apprehension of it 
 in this aspect. Hence their expressions of zeal 
 for it and devotion to it. They had not beheld 
 Christ as the end of the law, but they had 
 imbibed His spirit and so had learnt to hope 
 in God and to live by it. 
 
 And perhaps the very best method that we 
 can adopt of expressing the two opposite prin- 
 ciples referred to is that of using the law for 
 life and from life — of taking it as the means of 
 life or as the guide of life. Now, Christ has 
 shown us that the law is useless as a means of 
 life, because He is Himself the end of the law 
 for righteousness ; He has also shown us how 
 to use the law as a guide of life by giving us an 
 example that we should follow His steps. He 
 is both a sacrifice for sin and also an ensample 
 of godly life. He is thus the end of the law 
 
240 Foundatio7is of Morality, 
 
 as being its highest fulfilment and the victim 
 of its pains and penalties. The law has spent 
 itself on Christ as a victim, and accomplished 
 itself in Him as a standard. 
 
 But it may be said, Whereby do we know 
 this } wherein does the death of Christ differ 
 from any other death } And in answer to 
 this question we may ask again, Wherein 
 does the life of Christ differ from any other 
 life } It is impossible to separate the life of 
 Christ from the teaching of Christ and the 
 claims of Christ. It is impossible to separate 
 the death of Christ from the claims of Christ 
 as the consequence of those claims. But if so, 
 the death of Christ is as soHtary as the life of 
 Christ is unique. He stands alone in His death 
 because He stands alone in His life and alone 
 in His teaching, and because His death is the 
 seal of the validity of His claims. He is thus 
 the end of the law because of the zeal with 
 which He professed to fulfil it, — *' My meat 
 is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to 
 finish His work,"* — and because He declared 
 that the spring of His death and resurrection 
 was the commandment of God, — " Therefore 
 doth my Father love me because I lay down 
 my life that I might take it again : no man 
 ■^ John iv. 34. 
 
Foicndations of Morality. 241 
 
 taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. 
 I have power to lay it down and I have power 
 to take it again. This commandment have I 
 received of my Father."* 
 
 At the same time the apostle does not conceal 
 the fact — neither must we conceal it — that Christ 
 is the end of the law to every one that believeth, 
 but to no 07te else. He does not, indeed, express 
 this, but it is clearly implied, because it is for 
 righteousness that He is the end of the law. 
 That is, Christ is the complete satisfaction of all 
 that the law seeks after in the heart and nature 
 of him who longs for righteousness and who is 
 continually baffled in the search for it by the 
 discovery of the continually increasing demands 
 of the law. There is no end to these demands, 
 looked at in their naked simplicity and severity; 
 but Christ has put an end to them, for He is the 
 end of the law. He has satisfied the otherwise 
 insatiable. The righteousness of God's testi- 
 monies is everlasting, and He is their everlasting 
 righteousness. But that He is and can be this 
 to him only that believeth is patent from the 
 the fact that if Christ is not the end of the 
 law there is and can be no other end to it. 
 The law is unsatisfied and insatiable; it is 
 infinite in its demands and everlasting in its 
 * John X. 17, 18. 
 
 16 
 
242 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 enforcement of them, and those only can delude 
 themselves into the belief that they have fulfilled, 
 or can fulfil, the law who are totally ignorant of 
 its nature and its claims. To make good this 
 position to those who are so is perhaps a 
 hopeless matter. We are thankful to remember 
 that it is enough continually to proclaim and 
 enforce the truth. Then we are no longer 
 responsible for its effect. God will take care 
 of His own word, and will see that it does not 
 return unto Him void. Therefore it is our duty 
 to declare and declare again, as though it had 
 never been declared before, that Christ is the 
 end of the law for righteousness to every one 
 that believeth. The mere statement of that 
 fact is certain, in God's good time, to make 
 its own way and produce its own results, and 
 these we are content to leave with Him. 
 
 What, then, is the bearing of this fact upon 
 the origin and authority of the moral law, and 
 what light does it throw upon the relation be- 
 tween religion and morality } Surely it contains 
 in itself the key of the whole position, the very 
 solution of the problem, for if there is any one 
 doctrine of the gospel which may challenge to 
 itself an indisputably divine origin, it is surely 
 the doctrine of faith. Not only as a matter of 
 fact is no trace of it to be discovered outside 
 
Foundations of Morality. 243 
 
 the area of revelation, for the simple reason that 
 there could be no possible ground for it till 
 such a ground was laid, as it is the sole prero- 
 gative of revelation to' proclaim ; but also if 
 there is any one doctrine that is most repulsive 
 to the natural heart, and whose very pretensions 
 are fatal to its acceptance by man as he is in 
 himself and left to himself, it is most undeniably 
 this doctrine of faith. If proof of the statement 
 is demanded, we have it here in the fact that 
 there is no one who has sincerely and with his 
 whole heart embraced the doctrine, who will 
 not endorse the statement and confess that this 
 is the way in which he received it— with great 
 reluctance, and after, it may be, long repugnance, 
 resistance, and aversion. It was so with St. Paul, 
 it was so with Luther : nay, who is there with 
 whom it has not been so ? We may be certain, 
 therefore, that this plant is of no human growth, 
 
 it is an exotic in human soil. Its origin is 
 
 proclaimed by its very character, for the heart of 
 man could not have produced it. But what is 
 the doctrine of faith, and of salvation by faith, 
 but religion in its simplest and purest form ? And 
 it is a plant that will infallibly wither and pine 
 except in the atmosphere of the supernatural. 
 For if Christ was not a superhuman Person, 
 and if the incidents of His life and death and 
 
244 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 history did not transcend and surpass and defy 
 the conditions of the merely human and the 
 merely natural, we know not how they could 
 be surpassed, nor what would surpass them, and 
 Christ is the sole object and ground of faith. 
 We have nothing and no one to believe in, 
 if we do not believe in Christ. Christ is the 
 centre, the substance, the foundation, and the 
 evidence of religion : take away Christ, and we 
 can have no religion properly so called, for we 
 can have no Divine sanction or guarantee for 
 it ; but given Christ, and we have religion too, 
 for Christ is the foundation-stone, the corner- 
 stone, the head-stone of the edifice of faith 
 which religion proclaims with shoutings of 
 Grace, Grace unto it. We need be in no 
 anxiety about the safety of religion, or the 
 stability and security of faith, so long as we 
 have Christ, for the cause of faith is the cause 
 of Christ. 
 
 But how about morality if religion is over- 
 thrown 1 We have seen that morality strikes 
 its roots down deeper than ever in the soil of 
 that religion which proclaims Christ as the 
 end of the law for righteousness. It finds its 
 most congenial soil there because it discerns in 
 Him its complete vindication and justification. 
 Before morality, to change the figure, beheld 
 
Fou7idatio7is of Morality, 245 
 
 Christ, she dreamt of her Divine origin ; after 
 she has seen Him it is impossible for her to 
 doubt of it, for Christ has not only shown her 
 from whence she came, and declared her to be 
 the daughter of the voice of God, but has re- 
 vealed also the Father from whose voice she 
 springs, and manifested Himself as the very- 
 Word which was in the bosom of the Father 
 from all eternity, and in process of time and 
 under the limitations of time gave utterance to 
 the voice. It is Christ who has given us the 
 fuller conception of the majesty and require- 
 ments of the law, and has shown us that no 
 conception is adequate that falls short of 
 that. He has therefore laid the foundations of 
 morality deeper and stronger and broader than 
 ever they were laid before; but in so doing 
 He has also revealed their essential identity with 
 those of religion. If Christ is the end of the 
 law it can only be because He is also its origin 
 and commencement, and therefore, if He who 
 is at once the end and origin of the law is 
 rejected, the foundations of morality are over- 
 thrown. It is not merely religion that is 
 destroyed, but morality also that is sapped. 
 All experience tends to show that it is not 
 possible to increase our reverence for a given 
 object and still retain it when we have ceased 
 
246 Foundations of Morality, 
 
 to believe in the grounds on which it was in- 
 creased. But if Christ is the end of the law, 
 He is an end which none but the Lawgiver 
 could ever contemplate ; and therefore it is not 
 possible to reject Him and yet believe in the 
 Divine sanctions of the moral law, for in reject- 
 ing Him we have detected the unreality of those 
 sanctions and thrown them to the winds. If 
 religion, meaning thereby faith in Christ as the 
 end of the law, is a baseless fiction, then 
 morality also has no sure foundation. It is 
 no longer unchangeable in its authority because 
 Divine in its origin; but it is conventional, 
 human, expedient, transitory. It is of the 
 earth earthy, and is doomed to change and 
 perish with the earth ; but if religion is a 
 Divine thing and given by God, then also is 
 the origin and authority of the moral law 
 Divine, and then also are the foundations of 
 morality permanent and secure, because Christ 
 has been declared by God to be the one only 
 end of the law for that righteousness which 
 is its ultimate aim and object, and because 
 He has been found to be so to every one that 
 believeth. 
 
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