CHAP. 4.] VIRTUE. 41 that God is merciful: but if we attempt to define, with strictness, what the term merciful means, we shall find it a difficult, perhaps an impracticable task and especially we shall have a difficult task if, after the definition, we attempt to reconcile every appearance which presents itself in the world, with our notions of the attribute of mercy. I would speak with reverence when I say, that we cannot always perceive the mercifulness of the Deity in his administrations, either towards his rational or his irrational creation. So again in respect of the attribute of justice who can determinately define in what this attribute consists ? Who, especially, can prove that the Almighty designs that we should always be able to trace his justice in his government? We believe that he is unchangeable: but what is the sense in which we understand the term? Do we mean that the attribute involves the necessity of an unchanging system of moral government, or that the Deity cannot make alterations in, or additions to, his laws for mankind? We cannot mean this, for the evidence of revelation disproves it. Now if it be true that the Divine attributes, and the uniform accordancy of the Divine dispensations with our notions of those attributes, are not sufficiently within our powers of investigation to enable us to frame accurate premises for our reasoning, it is plain that we cannot always trust with safety to our conclusions. We cannot deduce rules for our conduct from the Divine attributes, without being very liable to error; - and the liability will increase in proportion as the deduction attempts critical accuracy. Yet this is a rock upon which the judgments of many have suffered wreck, a quicksand where many have been involved in inextricable difficulty. One, because he cannot reconcile the commands to exterminate a people with his notions of the attribute of mercy, questions the truth of the Mosaic writings. One, because he finds wars permitted by the Almighty of old, concludes that, as he is unchangeable, they cannot be incompatible with his present or his future will. One, on the supposition of this unchangeableness, perplexes himself because the dispensations of God and his laws have been changed; and vainly labours, by classifying these laws into those which result from his attributes and those which do not, to vindicate the immutability of God. We have no business with these things: and I will venture to affirm that he who will take nothing upon trust-who will exercise no faith-who will believe in the divine authority of no rule, and in the truth of no record, which he is unable to reconcile with the Divine attributes-must be consigned to hopeless Pyrrhonism. The lesson which such considerations teach is a simple but an important one: That our exclusive business is to discover the actual present will of God, without inquiring why his will is such as it is, or why it has ever been different; and without seeking to deduce, from our notions of the Divine attributes, rules of conduct which are more safely and more certainly discovered by other means. VIRTUE. The definitions which have been proposed of virtue have necessarily been both numerous and various, because many and discordant standards of rectitude have been advanced; and virtue must, in every man's sys 42 VIRTUE [ESSAY I. tem, essentially consist in conforming the conduct to the standard which he thinks is the true one. This must be true of those systems, at least, which make virtue consist in doing right.-Adam Smith indeed says, that "Virtue is excellence; something uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vulgar and ordinary."* By which it would appear that virtue is a relative quality, depending not upon some perfect or permanent standard, but upon the existing practice of mankind. Thus the action which possessed no virtue among a good community, might possess much in a bad one. The practice which "rose far above" the ordinary practice of one nation, might be quite common in another: and if mankind should become much worse than they are now, that conduct would be eminently virtuous among them which now is not virtuous at all. That such a definition of virtue is likely to lead to very imperfect practice is plain; for what is the probability that a man will attain to that standard which God proposes, if his utmost estimate of virtue rises no higher than to an indeterminate superiority over other men? Our definition of virtue necessarily accords with the principles of morality which have been advanced in the preceding chapter: Virtue is conformity with the standard of rectitude; which standard consists primarily in the expressed will of God. Virtue, as it respects the meritoriousness of the agent, is another consideration. The quality of an action is one thing, the desert of the agent is another. The business of him who illustrates moral rules, is not with the agent, but with the act. He must state what the moral law pronounces to be right and wrong: but it is very possible that an individual may do what is right without any virtue, because there may be no rectitude in his motives and intentions. He does a virtuous act, but he is not a virtuous agent. Although the concern of a work like the present is evidently with the moral character of actions without reference to the motives of the agent, yet the remark may be allowed, that there is frequently a sort of inaccuracy and unreasonableness in the judgments which we form of the deserts of other men. We regard the act too much, and the intention too little. The footpad who discharges a pistol at a traveller and fails in his aim, is just as wicked as if he had killed him; yet we do not feel the same degree of indignation at his crime. So, too, of a person who does good. A man who plunges into a river to save a child from drowning, impresses the parents with a stronger sense of his deserts than if, with the same exertions, he had failed.-We should endeavour to correct this inequality of judgment, and in forming our estimates of human conduct, should refer, much more than we commonly do, to what the agent intends. It should habitually be borne in mind, and especially with reference to our own conduct, that to have been unable to execute an ill intention deducts nothing from our guilt; and that at that tribunal where intention and action will be both regarded, it will avail little if we can only say that we have done no evil. Nor let it be less remembered, with respect to those who desire to do good, but have not the power, that their virtue is not diminished by their want of ability. I ought perhaps to be as grateful to the man who feelingly commiserates my sufferings but cannot relieve them, as to him who sends me money or a physician. The mite of the widow of old was estimated even more highly than the greater offerings of the rich. • Theo. Mor. Sent. CHAP. 5.] IMPERFECT COINCIDENCE. 43 CHAPTER V. SCRIPTURE. THE MORALITY OF THE PATRIARCHAL, MOSAIC, AND CHRISTIAN ONE of the very interesting considerations which are presented to an inquirer in perusing the volume of Scripture, consists in the variations in its morality. There are three distinctly defined periods, in which the moral government and laws of the Deity assume, in some respects, a different character. In the first, without any system of external instruction, he communicated his will to some of our race, either immediately or through a superhuman messenger. In the second, he promulgated through Moses a distinct and extended code of laws, addressed peculiarly to a selected people. In the third, Jesus Christ and his commissioned ministers delivered precepts, of which the general character was that of greater purity or perfection, and of which the obligation was universal upon mankind That the records of all these dispensations contain declarations of the will of God is certain; that their moral requisitions are not always coincident is also certain; and hence the conclusion becomes inevitable, that to us one is of primary authority :-that when all do not coincide, one is paramount to the others. That a coincidence does not always exist may easily be shown. It is manifest, not only by a comparison of precepts and of the general tenor of the respective records, but from the express declarations of Christianity itself. One example, referring to the Christian and Jewish dispensations, may be found in the extension of the law of love. Christianity, in extending the application of the law, requires us to abstain from that which the law of Moses permitted us to do. Thus it is in the instance of duties to our "neighbour," as they are illustrated in the parable of the Samaritan.* Thus, too, in the sermon on the mount: "It hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, love your enemies." It is indeed sometimes urged that the words "hate thine enemy" were only a gloss of the expounders of the law: but Grotius writes thus; "what is there repeated as said to those of old are not the words of the teachers of the law, but of Moses; either literally or in their meaning. They are cited by our Saviour as his express words, not as interpretations of them." If the authority of Grotius should not satisfy the reader, let him consider such passages as this: "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt, Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever."§ This is not coincident with "Love your enemies ;" or with "Do good to them that hate you;" or * Luke x. 30. † Mat. v. 43. Rights of war and peace. Deut. xxiii. 3, 4, 6. with that temper which is recommended by the words, "to him that smiteth thee on one cheek, turn the other also.'* "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name,"t-is not coincident with the reproof of Christ to those who, upon similar grounds, would have called down fire from heaven. "The Lord look upon it and require it,"§—is not coincident with, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."|| "Let me see thy vengeance on them,"¶"Bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction,"**—is not coincident with, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."†† Similar observations apply to swearing, to polygamy, to retaliation, to the motives of murder and adultery. And as to the express assertion of the want of coincidence :-"The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did."‡ "There is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof."§§ If the commandment now existing is not weak and unprofitable, it must be because it is superior to that which existed before. But although this appears to be thus clear with respect to the Jewish dispensation, there are some who regard the moral precepts which were delivered before the period of that dispensation, as imposing permanent obligations; they were delivered, it is said, not to one peculiar people, but to individuals of many; and, in the persons of the immediate survivors of the deluge, to the whole human race. This argument assumes a ground paramount to all questions of subsequent abrogation. Now it would appear a sufficient answer to say,-If the precepts of the patriarchal and Christian dispensations are coincident, no question needs to be discussed; if they are not, we must make an election; and surely the Christian cannot doubt what election he should make. Could a Jew have justified himself for violating the Mosaic law, by urging the precepts delivered to the patriarchs? No. Neither then can we justify ourselves for violating the Christian law, by urging the precepts delivered to Moses. We, indeed, have, if it be possible, still stronger motives. The moral law of Christianity binds us, not merely because it is the present expression of the will of God, but because it is a portion of his last dispensation to man,-of that which is avowedly not only the last, but the highest and the best. We do not find in the records of Christianity that which we find in the other Scriptures, a reference to a greater and purer dispensation yet to come. It is as true of the patriarchal as of the Mosaic institution, that "it made nothing perfect," and that it referred us, from the first, to "the bringing in of that better hope which did." If then the question of supremacy is between a perfect and an imperfect system, who will hesitate in his decision? There are motives of gratitude, too, and of affection, as well as of reason. The clearer exhibition which Christianity gives of the attributes of God; its distinct disclosure of our immortal destinies; and above all, its wonderful discovery of the love of our Universal Father, may well give to the moral law with which they are connected, an authority which may supersede every other. These considerations are of practical importance; for it may be ob * Mat. v. 39. ¶ Jer. xx. 12. + Jer. x. 25. ** Jer. xvii. 18. + Luke ix. 54. 62 Chron. xxiv. 22. || Acts vii. 60. Ó Heb. vii. 18. M I CHAP. 5.] CHRISTIAN MORALITY. 45 served of those who do not advert to them, that they sometimes refer indiscriminately to the Old Testament or the New, without any other guide than the apparent greater applicability of a precept in the one or the other, to their present need: and thus it happens that a rule is sometimes acted upon, less perfect than that by which it is the good pleasure of God we should now regulate our conduct. It is a fact which the reader should especially notice, that an appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures is frequently made when the precepts of Christianity would be too rigid for our purpose. He who insists upon a pure morality, applies to the New Testament: he who desires a little more indulgence, defends himself by arguments from the Old. Of this indiscriminate reference to all the dispensations there is an extraordinary example in the newly discovered work of Milton. He appeals, I believe, almost uniformly to the precepts of all, as of equal present obligation. The consequence is what might be expected-his moral system is not consistent. Nor is it to be forgotten, that in defending what may be regarded as less pure doctrines, he refers mostly, or exclusively, to the Hebrew Scriptures. In all his disquisitions to prove the lawfulness of untruths, he does not once refer to the New Testament.* Those who have observed the prodigious multiplicity of texts which he cites in this work, will peculiarly appreciate the importance of the fact. -Again: "Hatred," he says, "is in some cases a religious duty." A proposition at which the Christian may reasonably wonder. And how does Milton prove its truth? He cites from Scripture ten passages, of which eight are from the Old Testament and two from the New. The reader will be curious to know what these two are :-" If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother-he cannot be my disciple."+ And the rebuke to Peter; "Get thee behind me, Satan."§ The citation of such passages shows that no passages to the purpose could be found. It may be regarded, therefore, as a general rule, that none of the injunctions or permissions which formed a part of the former dispensations, can be referred to as of authority to us, except so far as they are coincident with the Christian law. To our own master we stand or fall; and our master is Christ.-And in estimating this coincidence, it is not requisite to show that a given rule or permission of the former dispensations is specifically superseded in the New Testament. It is sufficient if it is not accordant with the general spirit; and this consideration assumes greater weight when it is connected with another which is hereafter to be noticed,-that it is by the general spirit of the Christian morality that many of the duties of man are to be discovered. Yet it is always to be remembered, that the laws which are thus superseded were, nevertheless, the laws of God. Let not the reader suppose that we would speak or feel respecting them otherwise than with that reverence which their origin demands,—or that we would take any thing from their present obligation but that which is taken by the lawgiver himself. It may indeed be observed, that in all his dispensations there is a harmony, a one pervading principle, which, without other evidence, indicates that they proceeded from the same authority. The variations are circumstantial rather than fundamental; and after all, the great principles in which they accord far outweigh the particular applications in which they differ. The Mosaic dispensation was "a school† P. 641. Mark viii. 33. * Christian Doctrine, p. 660. + Luke xiv. 26. |