By "moral motives" we mean regard for what is right and just, because it is right and just, respect for the voice of conscience, and reverence for the will and requirements of God. If the consequences of our moral conduct were to follow immediately on the heels of the act, if reward or punishment were instantly to ensue, then moral motives could have no exercise. If there were no delay—no interval between sin and its punishment, moral government would cease, and a merely natural government would remain, such as prevails over irrational creatures. Man would then be influenced purely by motives of personal interest or safety or enjoyment, and his obedience would not be the result of moral motives, consequently neither virtuous nor vicious. God has, therefore, put the consequences of much of our conduct into the future, that we may have room for free deliberate choice, while just so much of consequence is permitted to appear as will clearly indicate that we are under moral government, and awaken the anticipation that all our conduct will be brought into judgment.
(4.) That our present life is a probation for a future life is more fully proved by the fact that as a moral economy the present life is incomplete. The present is a sphere too contracted for the equitable administration of rewards and punishments, because some of the last actions of men's lives, some of their best actions or some of their basest actions, would come under neither. The blood of the martyrs who died for the faith, or of the patriot who bled for his country, would cry alike in vain for vengeance or reward. The man who first took away his brother's life, and then his own, has evaded justice, and escaped punishment. The hand of violence has robbed the virtuous man of his present reward; and the suicide, by breaking in upon the sanctuary of his own life, has defied and defeated the government of God, if there be no future life.
In the present life retribution fails in uniformity. It is a proposition which the reason of every man must approve—that the government of God must be perfectly equitable, and that under it every man must receive his just due. But men do not receive their requital in this life, consequently we are bound to affirm that in the present life the Divine administration is incomplete. We can not conceal from ourselves the fact that events occur in the present life which we can not conceive as benevolently or righteously consummated. These events lift the tyrant to power, and trample down the patriot and the freeman. The orphan eats the bitter bread of misery, while the man who has robbed him of the paternal inheritance revels in luxury. The ungodly prosper in the world, "their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more than heart could wish," while the righteous suffer affliction, and are in need. And if there is no future life in which God will balance accounts with the universe, and render to every man according to his works, then moral government is incomplete, injustice has triumphed, wrong has prevailed. An imperfect retribution and an unequal providence demand a future life for their vindication—a future life both for the good and the bad, so that God may reckon with all of them—and teach most convincingly that the present life is a probation. The experiences, changes, conflicts, trials of a probationary economy, are all intended to prove men, to test their principles and make manifest their real character.
The government of God is a moral discipline by which men are trained in the practice and confirmed in the habits of virtue, and thus brought, by the "schooling of their own consent," into harmony with the Divine order.
It is a question which may be properly entertained, whether a free self-determined being can be made perfect in moral character in any other manner than by the discipline of the will. There certainly can be no created moral desert. Responsible character must be the product of free choice. A man can no more become virtuous without the discipline of the will than he can become intelligent without the discipline of the understanding. For wherein consists the virtue of a self-determined being? Is it not in his free choice of what is right and good, his resistance to temptation, his voluntary submission to the Divine will? Is it not in his integrity, his patience, his fortitude, and his resignation? But how can these virtues exist, how can they be exercised, and how brought to maturity, except in the midst of difficulties and hinderances? Where can patience and resignation and fortitude and sympathy have a place, if there are no sufferings to be endured? How can firmness and diligence and courage be developed, if there are no difficulties and hinderances to the practice of virtue?
Therefore, in order that men may be trained and educated and perfected, they are placed amid such scenes, experiences, and trials as shall draw out the moral powers of the soul, shall strengthen and confirm the will in goodness, and establish them in the law of their being, so that their moral future is secure. "Life, thus ordered, is a magnificent scheme to bring out the value of law, and teach the necessity of right as the only conserving principle of order and happiness; teaching the more powerfully, if so it must, by disorder and sorrow." Suffering is a chastisement which is wholesome: it teaches the blessedness of purity and the sinfulness of sin; and it may develop into "a godly sorrow" which shall heal and purify the soul.
The moral government of God is an equitable administration, in which responsibility is graduated on the scale of available light and opportunity. "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world." Light is the symbol of knowledge, because it reveals the right and clearly manifests what duty is. Light is consequently the exact measure of responsibility. Our knowledge of what we ought to do, or ought not to do, determines the degree of our accountability. An absolute and involuntary ignorance would be the most perfect plea of innocence. The imputation of sin in such a case would be made void, but thereby the completeness of human nature be destroyed. That which would relegate man from the sphere of responsibility would also banish him from the sphere of rationality.
St. Paul distinctly recognizes an alleviation of responsibility and guilt in the "ignorance" of heathen life, and speaks of a Divine "overlooking of the times of that ignorance"—a non-imputation of sins committed in ignorance. But he does not by any means account the sinning heathen as free from all guilt. He shows that they were not in utter ignorance, and that much of their ignorance was voluntary. He refers to the original consciousness of God, and to the fact that this consciousness is kept alive by the revelation of God in nature; and he shows that the disorder of their religious and moral life resulted from the voluntary suppression of this consciousness—"When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." He also appeals to the no less definite power of conscience in the heart of the heathen, "which shows the works required by the law to be written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness to this law, and their thoughts approving or condemning each other," and their civil laws "adjudging their crimes as worthy of death." So far as their ignorance was involuntary it was an alleviation of guilt, though not an excuse for all sin. Whatever light they had, be it little or much, it was the standard and measure of their accountability.
The Founder of Christianity distinctly recognized this principle of moral government. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin"—clearly teaching that ignorance would be a negation of guilt, and knowledge an aggravation of guilt. Not that we are to suppose that the Jews, without the light which Christ supplied, were absolutely guiltless; their ignorance was a mitigation of their guilt. Christ lays it down as a universal principle that knowledge of the Divine law or ignorance of the Divine law by the person who violates it is the ground of a distinction in the different degrees of culpability. "That servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."[558] This is the uniform rule of the Divine government among all nations.
Increase of light and knowledge necessarily enhances human responsibility. "To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." More is expected of the man than of the child. More is demanded at the hands of the man who has been blessed with the advantages of a Christian civilization than from the untutored savage. The man who has been favored with a liberal education is held to a more rigid account than the man who has been cradled in ignorance and schooled in vice. And when the kingdom of God comes nigh to men, human responsibility must be enlarged in commensuration with its blessings. There is a holier, richer trust, and consequently a deeper obligation. There is a greater light and a greater condemnation.