Rom. ii. 14, 15.
When the Gentiles, which have not the Law, DO by Nature the things contained in the Law, these, having not the Law, are a Law unto themselves: which shew the work of the Law written in their hearts, their CONSCIENCE also bearing witness, and their thoughts in the mean while ACCUSING or else EXCUSING one another.
The scope of this chapter being to assert, that the Gentile, as well as Jew, had a right to be admitted into the Christian church, and that he was equally entitled to share in the blessings of it, the Apostle grounds his argument upon this Principle, “That, in the final judgement, there would be no respect of persons with God; but that Gentiles, as well as Jews, would be recompensed in that day, if not in the same degree, yet by the same rule of proportion, that is, according to their works.”
Whence it would follow, that, if this equal measure was to be dealt to both, in the future judgement, it could not seem strange if both were to be admitted to the present benefits and privileges of the Gospel.
But to keep off a conclusion so uneasy to his inveterate prejudices, the Jew would object to this reasoning, “That the Apostle’s assumption must be false; for that as God had given the Heathens no Law, they were not accountable to him: that, as there could be no room for Punishment, where no Law forbade, so there could be no claim to Reward, where no Law enjoined: and consequently, that the Heathen world, being left without Law, had no concern in a future recompence, at all.”
This suggestion the Apostle obviates, by shewing the inconsequence of it. His answer is to this effect. You, says he, conclude, that the Heathens are not accountable, because they have no Law. But it no way follows, because they had no Law extraordinarily revealed to them from Heaven, that therefore the Heathens had no Law, or Rule of life, at all. For these, having no such Law, were a Law unto themselves; that is, their natural reason and understanding was their Law.
And, for the real existence of such natural Law, he appeals to the virtuous ACTIONS of some Heathens, who DO by nature the things contained in the Law; who, besides, as it follows in the next verse, shew the work of the Law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. In which last words are contained two additional arguments in proof of the same point; the first, taken from their own CONSCIOUSNESS of such a Law; and the second, from their reasonings between one another, ACCUSING or else EXCUSING: for this is the strict sense and literal construction of those words in the original, which we improperly translate—their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another[13].
So that in the verses of the Text we have a PROPOSITION asserted; and THREE distinct arguments brought in proof of it. The proposition is, that the Heathen are a Law unto themselves, or, as it is otherwise expressed, have a Law written in their hearts. The arguments in proof of it are, 1. The virtuous lives of some heathen, doing by nature the work of the Law: 2. The force of conscience, testifying their knowledge of such Law: and, 3. lastly, their private and judicial reasonings among themselves, referring to the confessed authority of it.
In conformity to this method of the Apostle, my business will be to open and explain the several arguments in the order, in which they lie; and to confirm, by that means, the truth of his general Proposition, That there is a natural Law, or Rule of moral action, written in the hearts of men.
I. The argument from the virtues of the heathen world, in proof of a Law of nature, written in the hearts of men, will seem strange to some, who may object, “That, if the appeal be to action, it may with greater reason be inferred, there was not any such law; since the crimes and vices of the heathen world, as terribly set forth by St. Paul himself in the preceding chapter, were far more notorious, than its Virtues. So that if there be any force in St. Paul’s appeal to the virtuous lives of some heathen, as evincing a Law, written in their hearts, because their practice was governed by it; the like appeal to the vicious lives of many more heathen, should seem with still more force to prove the non-existence of such Law, in as much as it did not govern their practice.” But the answer is obvious. For a law may be in part, or even totally, violated by persons under a full conviction of its existence and obligation: whereas it is hard to imagine, that any number of men, of different times, in distant places, and under different circumstances of age, temper, and education, should exhibit in their lives the same tenour of action, without the guidance of some fixed and common Rule.
This then being observed, let us turn our eyes upon the heathen world; on that part, more especially, which is best known to us from the authentic monuments of Greek and Roman story. For bad as that world was, it cannot be denied to have furnished many instances of extraordinary virtue. We find there justice, temperance, fortitude, and all those virtues, which their own Moralists called Offices, and which the sacred page has dignified with the name of Graces, exhibited in their fairest forms, and emulating, as it were, even Christian perfection[14].
But it will be said of both these people, what was long since objected by one of them to the other, that their actions were not so illustrious, as is pretended; that we take the accounts of them from their own interested relaters, to whose vanity or genius we are rather to impute the fine portraits, they have given us, of pagan virtue, than to real fact and the undisguised truth of things[15].
Be this allowed. Still there will be ground enough to enforce the Apostle’s conclusion. For whence, if not from the source to which he points, could be derived those numerous corresponding instances, though of faint, unfinished Virtue? how, but by nature, did the heathen, in any degree, the things of the Law? and whence, the traces of that conduct in the pagan world, which the Law itself prescribed as virtuous?
Or, were the evidence from facts ever so suspicious, whence those admired portraits and pictures themselves? or, by what accountable means has it come to pass, that their historians and panegyrists have been able to feign so successfully? In truth, had the pagan world afforded no one instance of a virtuous people, I had almost said, no one instance of a virtuous character, yet would the projected form of such a people, by one hand[16], and the delineation of such a character, by another[17], have been a certain evidence of some Rule of life and manners, written in the heart, if not transcribed into practice; influencing the judgement to approve, if not the will to obey it. But this consideration, perhaps, comes more naturally under the second head of the Apostle’s reasoning, which is drawn,
II. From the force of conscience in the heathen world.
To perceive the force of this argument, it must be remembered, That, by conscience, is only meant a man’s judgement concerning the quality of his own actions; which judgement, however come at, whether by use, or institution, by reason, or instinct, equally supposes some Law, or Rule of conduct, by which the nature of each action is tried, and by which its worth is estimated. Now it is of no moment in the present case, from which soever of these sources that judgement is immediately drawn, since it cannot but be, that some fixed principle, common to human nature, and of equal extent with it, must have originally given birth to such judgement. For if use, or institution, be considered as the probable source of it, the question will recur, whence that Use, or what the original of that Institution? A question, which cannot be resolved, unless we conceive some natural law, as working at the root, and branching out, as it were, into Use, or Institution.
Nor is it sufficient to say, That the manners of different people are, and have been, widely different; and that conscience, or self-judgement, according as different notions or practices prevail, condemns, or approves the very same action. Without doubt, it does; but the consequence is not, as some sceptical writers have imagined, that there is no common principle of nature, distinguishing between right and wrong, or that moral action is of absolute indifference; but that men are, and have been, careless and corrupt; that they have either not used the light of nature, or have some way abused it. For it holds of Sentiment, as of Action, that, though the agreement of numbers in all times and places be a good argument for the existence of some common rule of right, as effecting such agreement (because otherwise no tolerable account can be given of it); yet the disagreement even of greater numbers is no proof against the existence of such Rule, as we can, without that supposition, give a satisfactory account of that disagreement. I call it a satisfactory account; for it comes from St. Paul himself, who has taken care to obviate this plausible objection. If it be said then, That the Heathen approved bad, and condemned good actions, we own they sometimes did, but answer with the Apostle, That, in such cases, they became vain in their imaginations, and that their foolish heart was darkened; that, as they did not search to retain God in their knowledge, did not exert their faculties to acquire or preserve a right sense of God’s nature and will, he gave them up to an unsearching mind, suffered them to darken and put out the light of their understandings, and so to do [and to approve] things that were not convenient[18].
This being the true account of the diversity of human judgement, such diversity only proves that the light of nature has been misused, not, that it was never given. Whereas, on the other hand, if the Heathen world can shew us, in general, a conformity of judgement in moral matters, under their state of nature, with that of the world, under the light of Revelation, what follows, but that they, having not the Law, shew the work of the Law written in their hearts?
But now that there was, in fact, such a conformity, we conclude from the accounts of these times, the sense of writers, and the confessions of persons themselves: the only means, by which a point of this nature can be established. The pagan historians and moralists are full of such lessons, as we now profit by: and even their poets, on the stage itself (where common nature is drawn for the sake of common instruction) represent their characters, for the most part, as good or bad, according to the ideas we should now entertain of them. In writers of all sorts, we find abundant evidence of this truth. Numberless persons are upon record, who confess, in their own cases, and attest, this uniform power of conscience. They applaud themselves for, what we should call, a well-spent life, and they condemn themselves for, what we call, a bad one. To touch on a topic so known as this, is, in effect, to exhaust it. I shall then but just point to the great Roman patriot[19] exulting in the memory of his Virtues: and to the Roman governour[20], so famous in sacred writ, whom the preaching of Paul, in concurrence with his own heart, made tremble for his Vices.
III. But if men did not feel the power of conscience operating within themselves, and declaring a Law written in their hearts, yet their daily conduct towards each other, in the civil concerns of life, would evidently proclaim it. For observe how studious men are to repel an injurious imputation, fastened on a friend; and still more, how they labour to assert their own innocence. What pains do we see taken, to overthrow a false evidence, and what colours of art do we see employed to palliate or disguise a true one! No man needs be told that this is the constant practice of Christians: and did not the Heathens the same? Here then is a fresh proof of the point in question; an argument of familiar evidence arising from the transactions of common life. For, in the altercations with each other, in reference to right and wrong, there is manifestly supposed some prior Law of universal reason, to which the appeal on both sides is directed, and by which the decision is finally to be made. And this, as the Apostle’s argument suggests, whichever of the contending parties be in the wrong: For the charging another with wrong conduct, equally implies a Rule, determining my judgement of moral action; as the defending myself or others from such a charge, evinces my sense of it. Thus, whether I accuse, or answer for myself, either way, I shew a law written in my heart; whence I estimate the right or wrong of the supposed question. Thus much might be inferred from the ordinary topics of conversation: but the case is still clearer, when they come to be debated in courts of Justice. More especially, therefore, the struggles and contentions of the Bar (for the terms, employed in the text, being forensic, direct us chiefly to that interpretation), a series of civil and judiciary pleadings, such as have been preserved to us, from heathen times, in the writings of a Demosthenes, or Cicero, are a standing, unanswerable argument for the existence of a Rule of Right, or Law of natural reason. For how should these debates be carried on without a Rule, to which the advocates of either party refer? or how should these judicial differences be composed, without a common Law, to arbitrate between them? And what though the Law, referred to, be a written institute: it was first written in the heart, before legislators transcribed it on brass, or paper.
You see then, the sum of the Apostle’s reasoning stands thus. The Heathens, who had no revealed Law, DID by nature, the things of the Law: their JUDGEMENT, too, of their own actions, conformed to the judgement of the Law: and, lastly, their DEBATES with one another, whether public or private, concerning right and wrong, evidenced their sense of some Law, which Nature had prescribed to them.
And in this fine chain of argument, we may observe the peculiar art, by which it is conducted, and the advantage, resulting from such conduct to the main conclusion. For if the argument from WORKS should seem of less weight (as it possibly might, after the Apostle’s own charge upon the heathen world, and in that age of heathen corruption) yet the evidence arising from CONSCIENCE, which was an appeal to every man’s own breast, could hardly be resisted: or, if conscience could be laid asleep (as it might be by vice and ill habits) it was impossible they could deny the DEBATES among themselves, or not see the inference that must needs be drawn from them.
It may, further, seem to have been with some propriety that the sacred reasoner employed these topics of argument, in an address to Romans: who could not but feel the weight of them the more, as well knowing the ancient VIRTUE of their country; as knowing too, that the Roman people had been famous for their nice sense of right and wrong, or, in other words, a moral CONSCIENCE; and that, as having been a free people, they had been always accustomed to DEBATES about moral action, public and private.
Such is the force, and such the elegant disposition and address, of the Apostle’s reasoning. The conclusion follows irresistibly, That there is a Law written in our hearts, or that, besides a Revealed Law, there is a law of natural reason.
That this conclusion is not injurious to revealed Law, but indeed most friendly and propitious to it; that, in particular, it no way derogates from the honour of the Christian Law, nor can serve in any degree to lessen the value, or supersede the use and necessity of it; I shall attempt to shew in another discourse.