Mark Hopkins, in Princeton Rev., Sept. 1882:190—“In moral law there is enforcement by punishment only—never by power, for this would confound moral law with physical, and obedience can never be produced or secured by power. In physical law, on the contrary, enforcement is wholly by power, and punishment is impossible. So far as man is free, he is not subject to law at all, in its physical sense. Our wills are free from law, as enforced by power; but are free under law, as enforced by punishment. Where law prevails in the same sense as in the material world, there can be no freedom. Law does not prevail when we reach the region of choice. We hold to a power in the mind of man originating a free choice. Two objects or courses of action, between which choice is to be made, are presupposed: (1) A uniformity or set of uniformities implying a force by which the uniformity is produced [physical or natural law]; (2) A command, addressed to free and intelligent beings, that can be obeyed or disobeyed, and that has connected with it rewards or punishments” [moral law]. See also Wm. Arthur, Difference between Physical and Moral Law.
B. The expression of the divine will in the constitution of rational and free agents;—this we call moral law. This elemental law of our moral nature, with which only we are now concerned, has all the characteristics mentioned as belonging to law in general. It implies: (a) A divine Law-giver, or ordaining Will. (b) Subjects, or moral beings upon whom the law terminates. (c) General command, or expression of this will in the moral constitution of the subjects. (d) Power, enforcing the command. (e) Duty, or obligation to obey. (f) Sanctions, or pains and penalties for disobedience.
All these are of a loftier sort than are found in human law. But we need especially to emphasize the fact that this law (g) Is an expression of the moral nature of God, and therefore of God's holiness, the fundamental attribute of that nature; and that it (h) Sets forth absolute conformity to that holiness, as the normal condition of man. This law is inwrought into man's rational and moral being. Man fulfills it, only when in his moral as well as his rational being he is the image of God.
Although the will from which the moral law springs is an expression of the nature of God, and a necessary expression of that nature in view of the existence of moral beings, it is none the less a personal will. We should be careful not to attribute to law a personality of its own. When Plutarch says: “Law is king both of mortal and immortal beings,” and when we say: “The law will take hold of you,” “The criminal is in danger of the law,” we are simply substituting the name of the agent for that of the principal. God is not subject to law; God is the source of law; and we may say: “If Jehovah be God, worship him; but if Law, worship it.”
Since moral law merely reflects God, it is not a thing made. Men discover laws, but they do not make them, any more than the chemist makes the laws by which the elements combine. Instance the solidification of hydrogen at Geneva. Utility does not constitute law, although we test law by utility; see Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 58-71. The true nature of the moral law is set forth in the noble though rhetorical description of Hooker (Eccl. Pol., 1:194)—“Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.” See also Martineau, Types, 2:119, and Study, 1:35.
Curtis, Primitive Semitic Religions, 66, 101—“The Oriental believes that God makes right by edict. Saladin demonstrated to Henry of Champagne the loyalty of his Assassins, by commanding two of them to throw themselves down from a lofty tower to certain and violent death.” H. B. Smith, System, 192—“Will implies personality, and personality adds to abstract truth and duty the element of authority. Law therefore has the force that a person has over and above that of an idea.” Human law forbids only those offences which constitute a breach of public order or of private right. God's law forbids all that is an offence against the divine order, that is, all that is unlike God. The whole law may be summed up in the words: “Be like God.” Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 101-126—“The realization of the nature of each being is the end to be striven for. Self-realization is an ideal end, not of one being, but of each being, with due regard to the value of each in the proper scale of worth. The beast can be sacrificed for man. All men are sacred as capable of unlimited progress. It is our duty to realize the capacities of our nature so far as they are consistent with one another and go to make up one whole.” This means that man fulfills the law only as he realizes the divine idea in his character and life, or, in other words, as he becomes a finite image of God's infinite perfections.
Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 191, 201, 285, 286—“Morality is rooted in the nature of things. There is a universe. We are all parts of an infinite organism. Man is inseparably bound to man [and to God]. All rights and duties arise out of this common life. In the solidarity of social life lies the ground of Kant's law: So will, that the maxim of thy conduct may apply to all. The planet cannot safely fly away from the sun, and the hand cannot safely separate itself from the heart. It is from the fundamental unity of life that our duties flow.... The infinite world-organism is the body and manifestation of God. And when we recognize the solidarity of our vital being with this divine life and embodiment, we begin to see into the heart of the mystery, the unquestionable authority and supreme sanction of duty. Our moral intuitions are simply the unchanging laws of the universe that have emerged to consciousness in the human heart.... The inherent principles of the universal Reason reflect themselves in the mirror of the moral nature.... The enlightened conscience is the expression in the human soul of the divine Consciousness.... Morality is the victory of the divine Life in us.... Solidarity of our life with the universal Life gives it unconditional sacredness and transcendental authority.... The microcosm must bring itself en rapport with the Macrocosm. Man must bring his spirit into resemblance to the World-essence, and into union with it.”
The law of God, then, is simply an expression of the nature of God in the form of moral requirement, and a necessary expression of that nature in view of the existence of moral beings (Ps. 19:7; cf. 1). To the existence of this law all men bear witness. The consciences even of the heathen testify to it (Rom. 2:14, 15). Those who have the written law recognize this elemental law as of greater compass and penetration (Rom. 7:14; 8:4). The perfect embodiment and fulfillment of this law is seen only in Christ (Rom. 10:4; Phil. 3:8, 9).
Ps. 19:7—“The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul”; cf. verse 1—“The heavens declare the glory of God”—two revelations of God—one in nature, the other in the moral law. Rom. 2:14, 15—“for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them”—here the “work of the law”—, not the ten [pg 539]commandments, for of these the heathen were ignorant, but rather the work corresponding to them, i. e., the substance of them. Rom. 7:14—“For we know that the law is spiritual”—this, says Meyer, is equivalent to saying “its essence is divine, of like nature with the Holy Spirit who gave it, a holy self-revelation of God.” Rom. 8:4—“that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”; 10:4—“For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth”; Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”; Heb. 10:9—“Lo, I am come to do thy will.” In Christ “the law appears Drawn out in living characters.” Just such as he was and is, we feel that we ought to be. Hence the character of Christ convicts us of sin, as does no other manifestation of God. See, on the passages from Romans, the Commentary of Philippi.
Fleming, Vocab. Philos., 286—“Moral laws are derived from the nature and will of God, and the character and condition of man.” God's nature is reflected in the laws of our nature. Since law is inwrought into man's nature, man is a law unto himself. To conform to his own nature, in which conscience is supreme, is to conform to the nature of God. The law is only the revelation of the constitutive principles of being, the declaration of what must be, so long as man is man and God is God. It says in effect: “Be like God, or you cannot be truly man.” So moral law is not simply a test of obedience, but is also a revelation of eternal reality. Man cannot be lost to God, without being lost to himself. “The ‘hands of the living God’ (Heb. 10:31) into which we fall, are the laws of nature.” In the spiritual world “the same wheels revolve, only there is no iron”(Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 27). Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2:82-92—“The totality of created being is to be in harmony with God and with itself. The idea of this harmony, as active in God under the form of will, is God's law.” A manuscript of the U. S. Constitution was so written that when held at a little distance the shading of the letters and their position showed the countenance of George Washington. So the law of God is only God's face disclosed to human sight.