second. In order of time the State is first. And what has been
attempted has been to shew how starting with the State and its
institutions, the higher order which was initiated by the historical
Incarnation (though not without preparatory and imperfect
anticipations in earlier and especially in Jewish history), comes in
to mould, to purify, and to supplement. But these words only express
partial aspects of the whole process by which a higher order acts on a
lower. It interpenetrates far more deeply than can be expressed in any
classification of the modes of its operation. The Christian religion
has been acting on the group of States which we call Christendom from
the first days when stable organizations formed themselves after the
entrance of the new life of the Germanic races into the remains of the
dying Roman Empire. It has been the strongest of all the influences
that have moulded them throughout their history. It has pierced and
penetrated the life of individuals, the life of families, the life of
guilds, as well as the laws and institutions, the writings and works
of art in which they have embodied their thoughts and hopes. They are
in a sense its children. It is impossible to regard them as
S. Augustine regarded pagan Rome. But deep and penetrating as has been
her influence and manifold her consequent implications with the
existing national and social life of mankind, the Church is
essentially Catholic, and only incidentally national. It is their
Catholic character so far as it remains, at least their Catholic
ideal, which gives to the different fragments of the Church their
strength and power. The 'Church of England' is a peculiarly misleading
term. The Church of Christ in England is, as Coleridge pointed out,
the safer and truer phrase. And this fundamental Catholicism, this
correspondence not to one or another nation, but to humanity, rests on
the appeal to deeper and more permanent needs than those on which the
State rests. It is thus that the true type of the Church is rather in
the family than in the State, because the family is the primitive unit
of organized social life. Not in the order of time, but in the order
of reason, the Church is prior to the State, for man is at once
inherently social and inherently religious. And therefore it is only
in the Church that he can be all that it is his true nature to be.
[407] Law, _Third letter to the Bishop of Bangor_, second edition,
1762, p. 66.
[408] Martensen, _Christian Ethics_, special part, second division,
Eng. Transl. p. 98.
[409] Church, Oxford House Papers, No. xvii, _The Christian Church_,
p. 10.
[410] Holland, _Creed and Character_, first edition, 1887, p. 156.
[411] xix. 17.
[412] i. 6.
[413] _Immortale Dei._
[414] Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14, 15.
[415] S. T. Coleridge, _Church and State_, edited by H. N. Coleridge,
1839, P. 24.
[416] A. C. Bradley, 'Aristotle's Conception of the State,' in
_Hellenica_, 1880, p. 243.
[417] 'Metu coercet,' Aug. _De lib. Arb._ i. 15.
[418] Compare Aug. _De lib. Arb._ i. 5.
[419] Art. on 'Future Retribution,' _Church Quarterly_, July, 1888.
[420] S. Matt. v. 48.
[421] Eph. iv. 13.
[422] S. Matt. v. 5, 11, 39, 40.
[423] S. Matt. xxii. 21.
[424] Rom. xiii. 1-10. Compare S. Peter's teaching in 1 S. Pet.
ii. 13-17.
[425] _Ad Scap._ II.
[426] _Oratio in Auxentium de basilicis tradendis._
[427] Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, v. 17, but cp. _De bono Conj._ 16, for a
recognition of the possibility of the unjust use of legitimate power.
[428] _Hom._ xxiii. on _Rom._ xiii. 1.
[429] Tyrannicide was defended by some of the more extreme opponents
of the temporal power, like John of Salisbury, the secretary of Thomas
Becket (_Policraticus_ VIII. 17, 'Tyrannus pravitatis imago; plerumque
etiam occidendus'). But it was condemned by the sounder judgment of
Aquinas (_De Reg. Princ._ I. 6, 'Hoc apostolicae doctrinae non
congruit').
[430] Thomas Aquinas, _Comm. Sent._ XLIV. q. 2 a. 2; q. 1 a. 2. In
_Comm. Pol._ v. 1 § 2 he goes so far as to make Insurrection in
certain cases a duty.
[431] Janet, _Histoire de la Science politique_, third edition, 1887,
vol. i. p. 330.
[432] Hooker, _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. ii. 5, 9. Cp. I. x. 4.
[433] _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. ii. 11.
[434] _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. App. No. I. (ed. Keble.) Cp. I. x. 8.
[435] Acts iv. 34, 35.
[436] Especially in S. Ambrose; the passages are collected in Dubief,
_Essai sur les idées politiques de S. Augustin_, 1859, ch. vi.
S. Augustine himself opposed the obligatory Communism, advocated by
Pelagianism; cp. _Ep._ 157 (Ed. Bened.) to Hilary, quoted by Dubief.
[437] Sen. _De vita beata_, 24.
[438] Uhlhorn, _Christian Charity in the Ancient Church_, Eng.
Transl. 1883, Bk. I. ch. i. pp. 18-21, 41, 42.
[439] Pater, _Marius the Epicurean_, Vol. II. ch. xxii. p. 127.
[440] 1 Cor. xiii. 3 (R.V.).
[441] Acts xi. 26-29; cp. also Acts iv. 34, 35, quoted above.
[442] Dubief, p. 11.
[443] II. 15.
[444] Overton, _Life in the English Church_, 1660-1714, Ch. v.
[445] Hooker, _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. i. 4. In all commonwealths, things
spiritual ought above temporal to be provided for. And of things
spiritual, the chiefest is religion. Cp. V. i. 2.
[446] We have already shewn reasons for thinking that though no doubt
the State has _a_ great co-ordinating and regulative function in
regard to human life, it is not fitted for the part of _the_ moral
guide of mankind.
[447] Dicey, _Law of the Constitution_, second edition, 1886, lecture
ii. p. 36, 'The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither
more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has,
under the English Constitution, the right to make or unmake any law
whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the
law of England as having a right to override or set aside the
legislation of Parliament.'
[448] Westcott, _Social Aspects of Christianity_, ch. v. p. 76.
[449] _The State in its relations with the Church_, p. 41.
[450] _Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission_, Vol. II. p.
601. Answers to questions,--Scotland, Established Church.
'No appeal lies to a Civil Court in matters of discipline or on the
ground of excess of punishment. But if under the form of discipline
the Church Courts were to inflict Church censures (involving civil
consequences) on a minister for _e.g._ obeying the law of the land, a
question ... might be brought before the Civil Court on the ground of
excess of jurisdiction. It is believed that in no case would the Civil
Court entertain an appeal from a judgement of an Ecclesiastical Court
on a question of doctrine, or enter on an examination of the soundness
of such a judgement before enforcing its civil consequences.
'Any questions which have arisen on points of ritual ... have hitherto
been decided exclusively by the Church Courts.' (A qualifying sentence
follows as to possible extreme cases justifying, on the failure to
obtain redress from the General Assembly, an appeal to the Civil
Court.)
[451] _Report of Eccl. Courts Commission_, Vol. II. p. 605. Answers to
questions,--France.
'The State remains _lay_, and does not interpose, except when the acts
of the clergy are offences at Common Law, or when there is a _cas
d'abus_ in which either the public order or individual interests are
injured. In which case the Council of State is summoned at the
instance of the Government, or on the complaint of the citizens, to
repress abuses and annul the _acts of abuse_ (actes d'abus) on the
part of the clergy.
'To recapitulate, the minister, as citizen, has to submit to the
Common Law; as priest, he belongs entirely to the jurisdiction of the
Church, with which the State _does not interfere_, and with which it
has not to interfere, for it is solely in the domain of conscience.'
[452] Martensen, _Christian Ethics_, special part, second division,
English Translation, p. 100.
[453] Cp. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, v. 24, of Christian Emperors, 'we think
them happy if they remember themselves to be _men_.'
[454] Rev. xxi. 24 (R.V.).
[455] Aug. _Ep. ad Marcellinum_, 138, 15.
XII.
_CHRISTIAN ETHICS._
ROBERT OTTLEY.
The study of early Church History suggests the conclusion that the
Christian religion was recognised as a rule, or fashion of life,
before it was discovered to be a philosophy and a creed. To be
complete, therefore, any account of Christianity must include the
presentation of it as a Divine 'way of life'--a coherent system of
practical ethics, marked by characteristic conceptions of freedom,
duty, the moral standard, the highest end of life, and the conditions
of human perfection. Such is the task we are about to attempt. To the
necessary limitations of a sketch in outline, the reader may ascribe a
general avoidance of controversial, and a preference for positive,
statements; as also the fact that some large and interesting branches
of the subject are dismissed with no more than a passing allusion.
It may be admitted, at the outset, that non-religious ethical
speculation has in a measure paved the way for a re-statement of the
Christian theory, by its inquiries into the source and nature--the
rational basis and binding force--of moral obligation. For it may be
maintained that in Christianity, rightly understood, is to be found an
adequate answer to the question which all schools of thought agree in
regarding as fundamental--the question '_Why_ must I do right?'
On the other hand, the Christian Church claims to meet the plain needs
of average human nature by her answer to the question, '_How_ am I to
do right?' She claims to have at command practical means of solving a
problem which is admittedly abandoned as hopeless by the ethics of
naturalism. If Jesus Christ gave profound extension to the ideas of
duty and obligation, He was also the first who pointed humanity to the
unfailing source of moral power. In this respect Christianity presents
a favourable contrast to other systems, the tendency of which is to be
so concerned with the Ideal as to underrate the importance and
pressure of the Actual. Christianity claims to be in contact with
facts; such facts as sin, moral impotence, perverted will, the tyranny
of habit. And while she is large-hearted and eagle-spirited in her
scope--dealing with all possible relationships in which a human being
may stand, whether to God above him, his fellow-men about him, or the
sum of physical life below him; the Church is none the less definite
and practical in method and aim; witness the importance she attaches
to the individual character, the recreation of which is at least a
step towards a regeneration of society.
The chief point of distinction, however, between Christian and
non-Christian ethics is to be found in a difference of view as to the
relation existing between morality and religion. A system which so
closely connects the idea of Good with the doctrine of God, must needs
at every point present conduct as inseparably related to truth, and
character to creed. It has been noticed indeed that Pliny's letter to
Trajan--the earliest record we possess of the impression produced on
an intelligent Pagan by the new religion--testifies to the intimate
connection of morals with dogma and worship. What the Christian
consciousness accepted as truth for the intellect, it embraced also as
law for the will. Whether then we have regard to the practical
purpose, or the wide outlook of the Christian system, we shall feel
the difficulty of giving even a fair outline of so vast a subject in
so limited a space. If the idea of Good corresponds in any sense to
the conception of God, that idea must have an infinite depth of
significance, and range of application. If the recreation of human
nature be a practicable aim, no department of anthropology or
psychology can be without its interest for ethics. It must suffice to
indicate, rather than unfold, the points which seem to be of primary
importance.
Christian Morals are based on dogmatic postulates. The foundation of
our science is laid, not merely in the study of man's nature, his
functions and capacities, but in revealed truths as to the nature and
character of God, His creative purpose, His requirement of His
creatures. We believe that Christ came to liberate human thought from
systems of morality having their centre or source in man[456].
Man is not God, but hath God's end to serve;
A Master to obey, a course to take,
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become....
How could man have progression otherwise?
The postulates may conveniently be distributed under three main heads:
the doctrine of God, of Man, of Christ.
For the purpose of ethics, two simple truths as to the Being of God
require attention.
God is an Infinite, but _Personal_ Being; existing from eternity in
the completeness of His own blessedness, yet willing to become the
centre of a realm of personalities. To this end He called into
existence a world of personal beings, in a sense independent of
Himself, but destined, in communion and intercourse with Himself, to
find and fulfil the law of their creaturely perfection. To these free
and rational beings, Almighty God deigns to stand in self-imposed
relations.
Again, God is an _Ethical_ Being: He is essentially Holy and Loving.
He is Holy; and appoints that for the entire realm of personality, as
for Himself, holiness should be the absolute law. He alone can
communicate to His creatures the idea of holiness; of a supreme,
eternal, ethical Good. The Good exists only in Him; is the essential
expression of His Nature, the reflected light of His Personality. The
idea of ethical Good is not therefore due to a natural process by
which the accumulated social traditions of our race are invested with
the name, and sanction, of moral Law. The idea is communicated,
derived from the living Source of Good freely acting on the faculties
of intelligent creatures who are capable of receiving such
communications 'in divers parts and in divers manners[457].'
The apprehension of moral Law thus appears to correspond with a
progressive apprehension of God. Along with the idea of the unity and
absoluteness of God, heathendom lost the sense of an absolute moral
Law[458]; and conversely, in proportion as the Divine Nature manifests
Itself more fully to human intelligence, the idea of moral Good gains
expansion and depth.
God is also Love: a truth which as it helps our thought to a more
profound and consistent view of His mysterious Being, so implies that
God must needs will His rational creature to be what He Himself is,
'holy and blameless before Him[459];' to engage itself in activities
resembling His own; to be free with His Freedom; enlightened by His
Light[460]. Nor can we think that Divine Love is content with a bare
revelation of moral _requirement_. We believe that what God requires,
He is ready and able to impart; He will empower man to render what His
righteousness exacts. Finally, if His purpose for man be interrupted
or thwarted, He will 'devise means' for its final and victorious
fulfilment. He, the Author of Creation, will in due time provide for a
recreation, not less potent and complete in its effects than the evil
power which has invaded and marred the first creation[461]. For we can
form no idea of Love other than that of an active, energizing
principle by which a personal Being reveals Himself; a Being tenacious
of His purpose, multiform in His expedients, supremely patient in His
beneficent activity. The God presupposed in Christian Ethics is One
who displays holiness combined with power, love controlled by wisdom:
in a word, He is the God of redemptive history. Thus morality finds
its starting-point in theology[462].
The Christian account of _Man_ next engages attention. We confine
ourselves to an inquiry into three points: what is man's essential
nature, his ideal destiny, his present condition?
We have already observed that in Christian Ethics man is not the
central object of study. The moral universe tends towards a more
comprehensive end than the perfection of humanity. Nevertheless
Christianity is specially marked by a particular conception of man.
Regarding him as a being destined for union with, capable of likeness
to God, she offers an account of man's failure to fulfil his true
destiny, and witnesses to a Divine remedy for his present condition.
The familiar contrast between humanity as it might become, and as it
is, gives significance to the peculiarly Christian doctrine of sin. It
is the dignity of the sufferer that makes the mischief so ruinous; it
is the greatness of the issue at stake that makes a Divine movement
towards man for his recovery at once credible, and worthy of God[463].
First, then, we presuppose a certain view of man's nature.
Christianity lays stress on the principle of _personality_, with its
determining elements, will and self-consciousness. It is for
psychology to accurately define personality. For ethics it is simply
an ultimate, all-important fact. It is that element in man which makes
him morally akin to God, and capable of holding communion with Him;
that which places him in conscious relation to Law; gives him a
representative character as God's vice-gerent on earth, and conveys
the right to dominion over physical nature. If religion consists in
personal relations between man and God, religious ethics must be
concerned with the right culture and development of personality.
But in virtue of his creaturely position, man's personality cannot be
an end to itself[464]. The tendency of Greek thought was to regard man
as a self-centred being; to look for the springs of moral action, and
the power of progress, within human nature itself. Thus Aristotle's
ideal is the self-development of the individual under the guidance of
reason, and in accordance with the law of his being. The question is,
what is this law, and what the ground of its obligation? Personality,
we answer, marked man from the first as a being destined for communion
with, and free imitation of God[465]. Personality enables man to be
receptive of a message and a call from God. It confers on each
possessor of it an absolute dignity and worth. _Personality_--here is
our crucial fact; enabling us to take a just measure of man, and of
our duty towards him. One of the deepest truths brought to light by
the Gospel was the value of the personal life, of the single soul, in
God's sight. Man is great, not merely because he thinks, and can
recognise moral relationships and obligations; but chiefly because he
was created for union with God; and was destined to find blessedness
and perfection in Him alone. Christianity therefore rates highly the
worth of the individual; and her task is to develop each human
personality--to bring each into contact with the Personality of
God[466].
For, secondly, man has an ideal destiny[467]--life in union with God,
a destiny which, as it cannot be realized under present conditions of
existence, postulates the further truth of personal immortality[468].
Man is capable of progressive assimilation to God of ever deeper
spiritual affinity to Him[469]. Such must be the ideal end of a being
of whom it is revealed that he was made 'in the image of God.'
But the thought of the 'Divine image' leads us a step further.
Whatever be the precise import of the expression, it at least implies
that the Good, which is the essence of the _Divine_, is also a vital
element in the perfection of _Human_ nature. It remains to indicate
the way in which man is capable of recognising Good as the law of his
being, and embodying it in a character. Christianity, as a moral
system, offers an account of _conscience_ and of _freedom_.
The Scriptural doctrine of conscience represents it as the faculty
which places man in conscious relation to moral Law, as the expression
of the Divine nature and requirement. In a brief sketch it is enough
to lay stress on two points.
1. Conscience appears to be an original and constant principle in
human nature. To assign to it a merely empirical origin--to derive it
from social evolution, from the circumstances, prevalent beliefs,
traditional customs of a human community, is inadequate, inasmuch as
no such supposed origin will satisfactorily account for the
authoritativeness, the spontaneity, the 'categorical imperative' of
conscience[470]. Further, the functions attributed to this faculty in
Scripture, e.g. 'judging,' 'accusing,' 'witnessing,' 'legislating'--all
convey the idea that man stands in relation to moral Law as something
outside and independent of himself, yet laying an unconditional claim
on his will. In the Christian system the existence of conscience in
some form is regarded as a primary and universal fact. Its permanent
character is everywhere the same; its function, that of persistently
witnessing to man that he stands in necessary relation to ethical Good.
2. The language of the Bible throughout implies that conscience in its
earliest stage is an imperfect organ, capable like other faculties of
being cultivated and developed. Our Lord's reference to the inward
'eye' (S. Matt. vi. 22) suggests a fruitful analogy in studying the
growth of conscience. In its germ, conscience is like an untrained
sense, exercising itself on variable object-matter, and hence not
uniform in the quality of its dictates. It is enough to point out that
this fact is amply recognised by New Testament writers. S. Paul speaks
more than once of progress in knowledge and perception as a feature of
the Christian mind, and the faculty of discerning the Good is said to
grow by exercising itself on concrete material[471]. So again, the
moral faculty is impaired by unfaithfulness to its direction; the
moral chaos in which the heathen world was finally plunged resulted
from such unfaithfulness on a wide scale. The Gentiles knew God, but
did not act on their knowledge. They 'became darkened;' they lost the
power of moral perception[472].
To enlarge on this subject forms no part of our present plan. It is
fair, however, to cordially acknowledge that Christian thought is
indebted to psychological research for deeper and more accurate
conceptions of the moral faculty; and the possibility of large
variation both in the dictates of conscience, and the certainty of its
guidance, may be freely admitted. And yet it has been justly observed
that the question of the origin of this faculty is not one with which
ethics are primarily concerned. That inquiry is wholly distinct from
the question of its capacities and functions _when in a developed
state_[473]. The unconditional claim of conscience--this is the
constant factor which meets us amid all variations of standard and
condition. It is enough that conscience is that organ of the soul by
which it apprehends moral truth, and is laid under obligation to
fulfil it. A Christian is content to describe it as God's voice; or,
in a poet's words,
God's most intimate presence in the soul
And His most perfect image in the world.
For Conscience, while making an absolute claim on man's will, appeals
to him as a being endowed with a power of choice: and thus we pass to
the subject of _freedom_. What is freedom, in the Christian sense? In
the New Testament freedom is connected with truth. 'The truth,' it is
said, 'shall make you free.' If man stands in a real relation to the
Good, his true freedom can only mean freedom to correspond with, and
fulfil the law of his nature[474]. The formal power of choice with
which man is born--a power which in fact is seen to be extremely
limited[475]--is only the rudimentary stage of freedom. Will is as yet
subject to numberless restrictions, such that they seem utterly to
preclude an unfettered choice. It is limited, for example, by the
influence of heredity to an extent which often appears to determine
unconditionally the choice between different courses of action.
'Determinism' has at least liberated our thinking from the crude idea
of freedom as man's power 'to do as he likes.' True liberty can only
mean freedom from false dependence, emancipation of the will from the
undue pressure of external forces, or inherited tendencies. The
condition of 'perfect freedom' is that in which man yields an unforced
accord to the Good--his correspondence with it as the law of life. And
as his formal power of choice becomes by habit more and more
determined towards a fixed adherence to the Good, he begins to taste
the 'glorious liberty' of a right relation to God and His Law. He
becomes free with the liberty which is 'freedom not to sin,' he finds
himself 'under the sole rule of God most free[476].'