1. The law of work, which—though the kinds of work are various, as of body, mind, character, spirit, suffering—lies upon all men alike. “If any man will not work, neither let him eat.”
2. The law of rest, like God’s rest. God works, as in creation, redemption, the establishment of the kingdom; and then rests in contemplation of His finished work; see Gen. i. 31, Matt. iii. 17, Rev. xxi. 2: or, as otherwise stated by our Lord (St. John v. 17), God works continually and yet rests in working, as is exemplified in our Lord “semper agens, semper quietus.” Thus man is to share God’s rest, by resting in God (Ps. cxxvii), and the sabbath was intended to help to this end. The sabbath however was a day of rest from physical labour, which only secondarily became a day of worship. The Christian Lord’s day, on the other hand, was originally a day of worship, which became secondarily a day of rest from labour. The primary object of Sunday is that men by taking time and thought for worship should learn the true rest, which is rest in God. The secondary object is that all men equally should have the opportunity for physical rest and recreation. All questions as to Sunday observance are to bejudged by their relation to those two objects in their right order.
3. The law of fellowship. This fellowship of all men (and even of men with beasts) is developed in the New Testament into the principle that each man has a right to equal consideration, that each man counts for one, and nobody for more than one. Cp. above, [p. 182.]
V. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. By this “commandment with promise” honour to parents, which is the principle of family life, is made also the basis of national prosperity (cf. Deut. v. 16). It is enlarged in all the “wise sayings” of the Book of Proverbs about family life. It receives its completion in the principle of mutual duty between parents and children, husbands and wives, masters and servants, which are enunciated in such passages as Eph. v. 22–vi. 9; Col. iii. 18–iv. 1. It receives a natural extension, so as to include the whole principle of mutual subordination in Church and State: cf. Hebr. xiii. 17; Rom. xiii; 1 Pet. ii. 13–iii. 7. It involves towards the Church the duty, not only of loyal obedience, but of generous support. “Give to thy mother what thou wouldst allow to ev’ry corporation.”
VI. Thou shalt do no murder. This commandment is developed by our Lord so as to prohibit hatred or contempt in thought and word as well as in deed. Translated from the negative into the positive it becomes an injunction to do all that lies in one’s power to promote the life of others, physically and spiritually—to “love thy neighbour as thyself”—and to do this with a good will even towards enemies.
VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Our Lord deals with this commandment partly by an increased strictness with regard to the marriage law which brings under the head of adultery a number of remarriages after divorce hitherto tolerated under theJewish system; partly by making the indulged intention to sin equally guilty with the sin itself. On another occasion our Lord gives “adulteries, fornications, lasciviousness,” a conspicuous place among the sins which “proceed out of the heart” or “from within,” as though to emphasize the necessity in regard to this class of sins in particular of cleansing the inner springs of action and feeling. If we make the injunction positive and general instead of negative and partial, we arrive at the “law of liberty,” the duty of subordinating the flesh to the spirit, in respect of eating and drinking, as well as of the sexual passions; and the necessity of self-discipline or fasting as a means to that end (see above, [pp. 120] f.).
VIII. Thou shalt not steal, converted from the negative into the positive, becomes“Thou shalt labour, working with thine hands the thing that is good, that thou mayest have to give to him that needeth.”[93] It is, in another form, the loving one’s neighbour as oneself: the having the same care for his goods as for one’s own: the same anxiety that he should have proper wages for labour as oneself. From the Christian point of view this commandment is broken, not only by stealing in the ordinary sense, but also (1) by fraudulent dealings in business or trade, whereby our fellow man receives for money given something less, or other, than he had a right to expect: (2) by “sweating” or requiring others to work for inadequate wages: (3) by giving or receiving bribes or, in other ways, defrauding an employer of the best service of the employed: (4) by expecting others to work for us without doing our own fair share of work: (5) by neglecting or inadequately performing the duty of almsgiving. And in our generation we specially need reminding that association in “companies” leaves the moral responsibility for commercial dealings still resting on each member ofthe company, at least in the form of a duty to vote for directors who will have righteousness in view: to discountenance all unrighteousness as far as possible: to refuse gains for unrighteous dealing, when known. In all cases the Christian must prefer to suffer wrong rather than to do it.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. This commandment, converted from the negative—the prohibition of wilful slander—to the positive, becomes an injunction to make the law of love the motive of all our speech, with as tender a regard to others’ reputation as to our own. We may have to speak painful truth against others, to rebuke, to accuse, to punish, etc., but the motive of all speech is to be a deliberate good will.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, etc. The ten commandments, as has been remarked, began and ended with an injunction bearing not upon the outward conduct, but upon the heart. This one affords no discouragement to our vital instinct of making the best of ourselves, but it bids us have regard to what we can ascertain of the divine intention for ourselves. We are to realize God’s purpose for us, and to desire that every one else should do the same. Thus this commandment prohibits envy or jealousy at another’s success or abilities: discontent with what God has allowed us: ambition properly so called, i.e. the desire to compass greatness, without regard to the will of God. The New Testament even tends to make us personally prefer the humbler to the higher place, and obedience to authority. But, on the other hand, it says all that is possible to encourage a “divine discontent” with the disorder of the world, which is the work of evil wills resisting the will of God, that sort of discontent which makes a man a fellow-worker with Christ for the realization of the kingdom of heaven.