Such is the kingdom for which we look, and its Centre and Head is the living Christ[488]. He is the type after which the new personality is to be fashioned. He who unveils this world of spiritual beings and powers, is Himself the source of its movement, the centre of its attraction, the surety of its final triumph.
There cannot but result from this hope a particular view of the present world. It is characteristic of the Christian spirit frankly to recognise the natural world in its due subordination to personality, in its subserviency to ethical ends. An absolute idealism is not less alien to this standpoint than a crude materialism. The Christian is not blind to the tokens of interdependence between the worlds of matter and spirit; the fact indeed of such relation gives peculiar colour to the Christian regard for nature. Nature is precious as the sphere in which a Divine Life is manifested, as the object of Divine Love[489]. And yet, in the light of revelation, the universe cannot be contemplated without mingled emotions. The Christian knows something of the pain, and of the satisfaction which in their unchastened form we call Pessimism and Optimism. For there must be sorrow in the recollection of the causal link that unites physical to moral evil. Though pain has value as the condition of nobler phases of life, and heightened spirituality of character, it is nevertheless an evil producing in a healthy nature something more than a transient disturbance. Pain is the sensible, even if remote, outcome of moral perversity, of misdirected desire. It pervades impartially the physical universe, but seems in manifold instances to point beyond itself to its source in human sin.
And yet there is a Christian optimism—a thankful joy even amid present conditions. There is the joy of at least a rudimentary realization of the chief Good; the joy of setting a seal, as it were, to the truth of God[490]. The 'powers of the world to come' are already within reach; they can be set in motion, felt, tested, enjoyed. There is a known end of creation by the light of which all forms and products of human enterprize can be judged. Thus even the growth and organized strength of evil does not dismay the Christian; for he knows that the advance of the kingdom is certain, whatever be the hindrances opposed to it, and that God's invincible will controls and overrules all that seems most lawless, and hostile to His purpose. 'The city of God,' says S. Augustine, 'is a pilgrim sojourning by faith among evil men, abiding patiently the day when righteousness shall turn to judgment, and victory bring peace.' In his assurance that 'all things work together for good to them that love God,' that the end is certain, and human fears are blind, the Christian can be free from illusions or extravagant hopes, yet not cast down, 'sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing,' 'perplexed, but not in despair[491].'
II. Christ's Revelation of the Moral Law, its authority, sanctions, and content.
On the place and meaning of freedom in Christian Ethics we have already touched. Our formal freedom is the ground of moral responsibility—that element in us to which Law makes its authoritative appeal. From the thought of freedom in relation to a moral universe we pass naturally to that of Law.
And first, it is convenient to inquire what is the revealed basis of obligation in general?
The most conspicuous feature of the Sermon on the Mount—that first great outline of Christian morality—is its authoritative tone. We instinctively turn to it in searching for a fundamental principle of obligation, a ground of authority for Law. Nor are we disappointed, for our question is met by the consideration that this great discourse is primarily a revelation of the personal God in His holy relation to mankind. It is with this personal relationship that the claim of moral Good on man's will is seen to be uniformly connected. The Good in fact presents itself to man in the shape of a personal appeal: 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Morality appears as God's exhortation to man to embrace and fulfil the true law of his nature. 'Be ye perfect,' it is said, 'even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect[492].' The Good is thus at once the explicit declaration of the Divine will, and the condition of human perfection. Already the coldness of abstract Law begins to disappear. Law is seen to be not an abstraction merely, but inseparably connected with the living Personality behind it. It is the self-revelation of a loving Being, appealing to the object of His Love, and seeking its highest welfare. Obligation is transformed, and is seen to be the tie of vital relationship between persons[493].
Further, it must be borne in mind that Christ's teaching as to obligation was accompanied by the promise of a supernatural gift—the gift of a new capacity to fulfil the Law. The Good had hitherto been known, howsoever imperfectly, as requirement. Ethical progress before Christ's coming could only tend to deepen this knowledge. We know indeed what was the object of that long providential discipline of humanity which culminated in the Incarnation: how it ended by driving man to look and long for a condition of things which should no longer be marked by hopeless severance of the actual from the obligatory. With the advent of the Redeemer, a new joy dawned on the world—the possibility of goodness.
We learn then that the ground of obligation is God's will for the perfection of His creatures—His desire that they should be like Himself[494]. The sense of obligation is indeed never absent from the consciousness of Christ Himself. 'We must work,' He says, 'the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.' 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work[495]:'—in which utterances we discern the principle we need. Only when duty presents itself in the form of personal appeal, only when obedience is kindled and enriched by feeling, can law become a bond, not of constraint, but of love.
It follows that obligation, thus founded on personal relationship to God, is absolute and independent of variation in the specific demands of Law. Human goodness will consist in correspondence to the will of God, and the degree of clearness with which a man apprehends that will is the measure of his obligation. This principle seems to preclude any idea of 'supererogatory works,' and tends to neutralise for the individual conscience the distinction between 'commands' and 'counsels of perfection,' the spirit in which Law is ideally fulfilled being that of sonship, eager, loyal, and generous[496].