The universal obligation of moral Law is by Christ connected for practical purposes with a system of sanctions. As to the Christian doctrine of rewards and punishments it is only necessary to observe, that any ethical system which has regard to the condition of man as he is, finds itself constrained, for disciplinary ends, to lay a certain stress on this point. Further, it should be noticed that the nature of these sanctions is seldom clearly understood. They occupy a place in Christ's teaching, because it is His wont to deal with human nature as He finds it: He points, however, not so much to a future state, as to a present spiritual sphere in which conduct is indissolubly linked to consequence, and there operate 'the searching laws of a spiritual kingdom[497].' The sanctions with which Christ enforces His doctrine may thus be regarded as pointing to a reign of Law in the spiritual realm which He reveals to mankind. He seems indeed to recognise the occasional need of appeals to fear, as likely to rouse the conscience and will. He sets before us the prospect of spiritual judgments acting, at least partially, in the sphere of the present life. His more frequent appeal, however, is to what may be called the enlightened self-interest of men. Their true life, He tells them, is to be found or acquired in a consecration, a sacrifice of the natural life to the claims and calls of the Divine kingdom[498]. Such sacrifice, such co-operation with God, is its own ineffable reward.
What then, it may be asked, are the motives, the inducements to action, appealed to by Christianity? how far are imperfect motives recognised? and in view of the fact that no mere sense of relation to Law is in general likely to move the human will, where does the Gospel find its 'moral dynamic'—its highest motive?
We have seen that Christianity in a peculiar degree combines the presentation of duty with an appeal to feeling. In the same way by connecting obligation to obey God with a revelation of His Love, Jesus Christ solves the most difficult problem of ethics. The highest motive is Love to God, kindled not only by the contemplation of His Perfections, but also by a passionate sense of what He has wrought in order to make possible the fulfilment of His Law. 'We love Him,' says S. John, 'because He first loved us.' We do not, however, expect the motive of actions to be in all cases identical, or uniformly praiseworthy. A practical system must recognise very different stages of maturity in character; and the possibility of imperfect or mixed motives is frankly allowed by Christian thinkers, and seems to be sanctioned by our Lord Himself[499]. It may be said on the whole that while the Gospel ever appeals to man's desire for his own good, it adapts itself and condescends to widely varying forms and degrees of that desire, by way of educating it to greater disinterestedness and purity[500]. We may fittingly speak of 'a hierarchy of motives,' and can view with equanimity those attacks on Christianity which represent it as a thinly-disguised appeal to selfishness. For the reward promised to man is one which will only appeal to him in so far as he has parted with his old self, and has made the Divine purpose his own. The reward is joy—the 'joy of the Lord;' the joy of a worthy cause embraced and advanced; of a task achieved, of labour crowned by nobler and wider service. Such joy could only be an inspiring motive to self-forgetful love, which finds the fulfilment of every aspiration, the satisfaction of every desire in God and in His work[501].
Christian duty, the content of the Law, demands somewhat larger treatment. It has been suggested that the conception of morality as a Divine code, as 'the positive law of a theocratic community,' which seems characteristic of early Christian writings on morals—is a legacy from Judaism[502]. Be this as it may—the distinctive feature of Christianity is that henceforth the Law is not contemplated apart from the Personality of God. The Law is 'holy, just, and good,' because it reflects His character. Obedience to it is acknowledged to be the indispensable condition of true union between God and His creatures. For Jesus Christ teaches us to discern in the Law the self-unveiling of a Being whose holiness and love it reflects, as well as His purpose for man.
The revealed Law is comprised in the Decalogue. It seems needless to vindicate at length the paramount place which this fundamental code occupies in Christian thought[503]. Suffice it to say that in broad outline it defines the conditions of a right relation to God, and to all that He has made. And the Law is 'spiritual[504].' Though for educative purposes primarily concerned with action, it makes reference to inward disposition, and thereby anticipates the main characteristic of Christian goodness. It also recalls the great landmarks of God's redemptive action; it sets forth His gracious acts, partly as an incentive to gratitude, partly as a ground of obligation.
In our Lord's teaching we find two truths implied: (1) The absolute priority and permanence of the Decalogue in relation to all other precepts of the Jewish Law. (2) Its essential unity viewed as a Law of love. This latter aspect is anticipated in the book of Deuteronomy, and is explicitly set forth by our Lord. There are, He tells us, two commandments: the first and greatest, love to God; the second 'like unto it,' love to man, with the limitation annexed, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'
Thus guided by precedent, a Christian, in examining the Law's content, may take the Decalogue as a natural basis of division. It may be shortly analysed as embracing a comprehensive outline of man's duty towards (i) God, (ii) his fellow-men, and implicitly towards himself and non-personal creatures.
First stand duties towards God, resulting directly from the personal contact assumed to be possible between God and man. The all-embracing command which involves the fulfilling of the Law is contained in the words, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind[505].' In this 'great commandment' we find the widest point of divergence from Pagan ethics. Man's true centre is God. His perfection is to be sought in creaturely subjection and free conformity to the Divine purpose[506]. The general sphere of God-ward duty is defined in the first four commandments, which are seen to give moral sanction, not only to the outward expression, but to the actual substance of belief; the distinctive duties enjoined therein have been summarily described as faith, reverence, service[507]. The fourth precept lays down the principle that man is bound to honour God by consecrating a definite portion of time to His worship, and by providing space for the due recreation of that human nature which by creative right is God's, and is destined for union with Him.
The duty of love to our fellow-men follows upon that of love to God. Every man's personality gives him absolute and equal worth in God's sight, and therefore lays us under obligation towards him. Heathen moralists confined the sphere of obligation to a few simple relationships, e.g. family-life, friendship, civic duty. But the revealed law of love to man embraces every relationship. 'Every man is neighbour to every man[508].' It is clear that any adequate outline of this precept involves the whole treatment of social duty. Men have their rights, i.e. lay us under obligation, both individually and collectively. The individual has his 'duty' to fulfil to the family, the association, the class, the city, the state, the Church which claims him. The immense field of our possible duties towards society, and towards each individual, so far as he comes in contact with us, may be regarded as embraced in the second table of the Decalogue. Thus the fifth commandment lends important sanction not only to the parental claim, but also to the authority of fundamental moral communities—the family, the state, the Church. The following precepts regulate the security of life and personality, of marriage and sexual distinctions, of property, honour, and good name. The tenth commandment anticipates that 'inwardness' which constitutes the special feature of Christian morality. 'It is the commandment,' says an ethical writer, 'which perhaps beyond any of the rest was likely to deepen in the hearts of devout and thoughtful men in the old Jewish times, that sense of their inability to do the will of God, and to fulfil the Divine idea of what human life ought to be, which is indispensable to the surrender of the soul to God[509].'
But according to the Christian theory there are duties to self, which seem to follow from the relation in which man stands to God, and form the true measure of his regard for others: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' There is a right self-love, a right care of the personality as being itself an object of God's Love, and so included in the category of things ethically good. What the Christian ought to love, however, is not the old natural self, but the 'new man,' the true image of himself which has absolute worth[510]. A moral complexion is thus given to all that concerns the personal life—the care of health, the culture of faculties, the occasions of self-assertion. Every moment of conscious existence, and every movement of will,—all in fact, that relates to the personality—is brought within the domain of Law. Christianity 'claims to rule the whole man, and leave no part of his life out of the range of its regulating and transforming influence[511].' For in every situation, transaction, or display of feeling, will is required to declare itself: moral activity takes place. Duties to self, as loved by God, are thus implied in the 'great commandment.' For God therein requires of man a consecration of the entire self, an inward self-devotion, a reasonable, heartfelt service: He asks for love. From this point of view, sin—the false claim to independence—is simply wrong self-love.