Theology and Morality

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”—Micah vi. 8.

These words have often been quoted with respectful admiration by persons who look upon what they suppose to be the theology of the Bible with indifference or contempt. “Here,” they have said, “is a genuine witness for that morality which lies hid beneath the forms and doctrines of different religions, and must at last supersede them, a morality essentially the same in all, but narrowed and localized by the notions of particular tribes, kept out of sight—often grossly contradicted—by the subtlety and self-interest of priests. The religious coverings of these great, universal, and permanent truths,” it is said, “have become as much the causes of strife, division, hatred, among men, as these, if they were believed and acted upon, would be of union and fellowship.” The inference is obvious. The philosopher and philanthropist is to be invited to extricate these great maxims from the overlying mass, to give them the prominence which has been given to those dogmas which are so intricate, and which lead to evil results or to none. He is not indeed to be satisfied with this vindication of what was good in the old time. It must be illustrated by all modern discoveries respecting the laws and conditions under which man and the external universe exists, by our experience of what our species has required and does require for its well-being. This wisdom will relieve the saws of antiquity of their dryness, and will connect them with our actual life and work.

No doubt, brethren, those who use this language have much to say for themselves. God forbid that we should deny it! The misfortune, I believe, both for them and us, is that we have had so very much to say, when what is most desirable, according to their showing as well as ours, is that we should do. The Prophet says, “Do justly,” not, Talk about Justice; “Love mercy,” not, Understand what a very good and lovely thing Mercy is; “Walk humbly before thy God,” not, Discourse learnedly and eloquently about Humility and about God. Let us grant at once that priests have again and again darkened counsel by words without knowledge; the Scriptures say so; Micah declares as much in this very passage; we who believe that our Lord was put to death by the priests and rulers of His nation, can have no temptation—no power—to deny that awful truth or to conceal it. Let us admit that the whole story of His life on earth tells us so, that the struggle of the Jews with Him was the struggle of men who laid down a system of belief and rules of action for themselves and their disciples, with One who believed and actually worked, and who communicated faith and the power of working to those who followed Him. But if the case is so, let us manfully ask ourselves how we are to escape their sin and their curse. Clearly we shall not escape it by changing one kind of dogmatism for another, Sadducean unreality for Pharisaic unreality, phrases about moral principles and philosophical truths for phrases about religious opinions and feelings. To be or not to be, to do or not to do, must be always the question for human beings. If we cannot find a ground for action, and a power enabling us to act, we may try one scheme after another, but all will be equally useless, frivolous, mischievous. Most cheerfully then do I take these words of the Prophet as my guide; they are worthy of all the honour which has been paid them. But they ask for no compliments. They are addressed in all earnestness to each one of us. “What doth the Lord require of thee?” And I own the answer sounds to me very terrible, not the least one which tempts me to return the Prophet fine words.

To do justly, love mercy, walk humbly,—does God indeed require all this of me? What: this which I have been finding all my life long so unspeakably difficult? If I had been asked for ten thousand rivers of oil, they perhaps might have been rendered. But the service of a life; the resistance to tendencies which I find every moment at work in me, stronger with every new development of my own powers, stronger with every new complication of society—tendencies to be unjust, unmerciful, proud; this is indeed a demand to make on such a creature as I am. Is there no dispensation, no royal road, no possibility of commuting so much wrong-doing to which I have a disposition, for so much of the good things that have been given me? Is there no making up with long prayers for the lack of Justice, Mercy, Humility? If one speaks of them to one’s fellows, will not that be something? If one denounces other men for wanting them, will not that please God? If I try to set the world right, surely He will not search out what I am? Must I my own self be all this? Is it required of me? Cruel Prophet, I will flatter thee no more. Thy words were sweet in the mouth, but when they are received within, they are as bitter as gall. Unless thou canst tell me more, thou hadst no business to tell me so much. If I may not learn how I can be just and merciful and humble, to assure me that I am bound to be so is an intolerable oppression.

My brethren, men have felt this in all times, they are feeling it now. And the feeling—though it is mixed with much contradiction—is not a false one. They would have a right to complain of us, and of the Bible, if we came and delivered to them a set of precepts—the best precepts in the world—and did not tell them whence they were to derive the strength for obeying these precepts. They would have a right to say to us, You are laying heavy burdens on men’s shoulders. You know nothing of yourselves if you do not know what an effort it is to lift these burdens, how often it seems an impossible effort. They would have a right to say: “You do not really mean doing justly, loving mercy, walking humbly, when you use these words; you mean something which passes for these acts in your class. You mean, not offending against certain rules and customs which you have established for your convenience. You mean by doing justly, not stealing from other men’s hoards when you have plenty of your own; your mercy consists in overlooking the transgressions that do not particularly affect your comfort; your humility, in subjection to superiors whom it is not wise to affront, or in not denying opinions which you hold to be right and salutary. These virtues,” so they might speak to us, “are merely decency, respectability, conventional propriety, virtues for summer weather, which in any shipwreck of society, even in any ordinary storm, are shaken to pieces, which cannot stand the shock of the most vulgar temptation, which are found too weak to resist the craving for gold even in those in whom that craving has had most abundant satisfaction.” All these charges are true, and will prove true against our morality if it has not some deep underground basis to rest upon. And what is that basis? I answer, You must seek it in that very theology of the Bible which you have supposed it so great a deliverance to cast aside. There, and there only, will you find the protection against the narrow, local, artificial dogmas of priests, and the dry, hard, scarcely less artificial, often even more heartless dogmas of philosophers. There you will find the protection against the flimsy, conventional morality of classes and ages; there you will find a meaning for the words, “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly,” and a power to translate them from words into life.

I. The Lord requires thee to “Do justly.” The whole question of the ground of moral obligation is raised by this sentence. It seems to tell me that some One is commanding a certain course of action which I am bound to follow because He commands it. And this course of action is described by the phrase “doing justly.” Is justice then nothing in itself? Are actions made right because a certain Power insists that they shall be performed? The main controversy between the mere priest and the mere philosopher, so far as it bears upon human conduct, lies here. The one has always been tempted to maintain that an Omnipotent decree makes that good which would not be good without it, makes that evil which would be otherwise indifferent; the other has been always seeking to find what constitutes an action or a habit just or unjust, true or false; whether something in its own nature, or in its effect upon the individual doer, or in its influence upon society. The conscience in men cries out for a Ruler; therefore it gives heed to the priest. It exists only in the affirmation that right and wrong are eternally opposed; therefore it gives heed to the philosopher. Experience shows that the priest is very prone to raise maxims of temporary expedience to the level of eternal laws; therefore the conscience protests against him. Experience shows that the philosopher can find no standing-ground from which he can act upon individuals or society, but is obliged to beg a standing-ground from their opinion, or to erect his own above both; therefore the conscience protests against him. “The Lord,” says Micah, “requires thee to do justly.” Did Micah believe that the Lord was a mere Power who commanded certain things to be done, and certain things to be left undone? If he did, he set at nought the Law and History which he confessed to be divine. That Law and History declared that the I Am, the Righteous Being, had revealed Himself to the creatures whom He had formed in His image, and had said to them, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” The theology of the Bible starts from this ground, and declares every other to be untenable. Gods of power were worshipped by the heathens. The powers which were exercised over them in Nature were manifold; therefore the gods were manifold. Some of the influences which proceeded from those powers were beneficent, some malignant, therefore the gods were some beneficent, some malignant, or the same now beneficent and now malignant. It was unreasonable to think the same arguments could be addressed to a god of the hills and a god of the valleys,—that they would delight in the same objects; the worship must be local, the offerings local. The priest must learn, from tradition or his own guesses, which were likely to be most acceptable. Whatever they were, they must be enforced by the threat of terrible penalties which would follow if they were neglected. The conscience of the worshipper aggravates these penalties, gives them a new reality. The rivers of oil must be poured forth; the first-born of the body must be given for the sin of the soul.

Then comes the message: “He hath shewn thee, O man, what is good.” A message from whom? How has He who sends it, shown me what is good? If He has not told me what He is, the tidings are worth nothing, the good has not been shown. Then we are turned loose upon all the schemes of men to frame gods after their own conceptions, or if not gods—laws, customs, theories, as useless and as tyrannical. If you desire a Universal Morality, there must be the Revelation of a Moral Being. If you would have the command Do justly in place of a weight of rules and observances and ceremonies, you must have Justice set before you, not in words, formulas, decrees, but livingly, personally, historically. You must be taught what the Just Being is by seeing what He does—what He does for you. He must set before you His government over the armies of Heaven,—and, since you can only know that through what you feel, and He is ever the same,—over the children of men. And you must know how His methods may become yours. He would have you like Him. He must tell you how He makes you like Him. Any book commanding us to do justly, without imparting this knowledge, is, I must say it again, a hard-hearted book, one which enjoins the making of bricks without giving the straw; one which insists upon our being something which the writers must have known that we could not be. And it is just for not being such a book as this that we complain of the Bible; just for not being a book of mere moralities, utterly inefficient for any moral purpose. If we take away the Theology of the Bible, we reduce it into a book of this kind. For its Theology is the unveiling of the Righteous Being to the heart and conscience of the only creature that is capable of being righteous, because of the only creature that is capable of departing from Righteousness. It is an invitation, first to a man, then to a family, then to a nation, to trust in this Righteous Being who has shown that He cares for them, and will not forsake them. It is at last the manifestation to all nations of that Original Righteousness which had been the root of all Righteousness in them; the Manifestation of the Divine Righteousness in a Man, who came into the world to reconcile men to His Father, that they might receive His Spirit, and be able to be just, as He is, to do justly, as He does.

II. But the Prophet says that the Lord requires of men to “love Mercy.” This is a higher obligation still—harder to fulfil. I may be bidden to do certain acts, and the acts will be gone through, slowly, reluctantly, against the whole bias of my nature. But they may be gone through. They will not be just or righteous acts according to the Scriptural idea of righteousness, which supposes the man to be good before he does good things. But they may be just according to some legal, philosophical, or sacerdotal rule. Can such a rule explain how I am to love because it is desirable that I should? Mercy is, no doubt, a beautiful quality; all religions confess it to be so; when it comes forth in life, men generally are disposed to pay it a frank, unquestioning homage. But there is a limit to this admiration. If Mercy meets an unmerciful habit of mind in us, its works will be explained away. The Pharisee will say, “He casteth out devils through the Prince of the Devils;” the Sadducee will say, “He deceiveth the people.” The people themselves may come to prefer an insurgent leader, a brigand, to the One who has shown them the most royal mercy. “Not this Man, but Barabbas. Let Him be crucified.”

Mercy then is not necessarily loved when it is exhibited in its fullest, most perfect form; when it shows itself in the most gracious and serviceable acts. There may be a cry for it on another ground. Men may feel that they resisted the Divine Righteousness, that they are at war with it. They may invoke Mercy to avert the punishment which they believe that Righteousness desires to inflict upon them. This notion of a war between Righteousness and Mercy, which the evil conscience so readily suggests, is often confirmed by the priest. He devises arts for enlisting the one against the other. The Philosopher protests against the separation as dangerous to morality; but he cannot extirpate the moral evil which has caused it; he even sanctions the separation; he sets Justice above Mercy, as the conscious sinner sets Mercy above Justice; he cannot teach us how we may both do justly and love Mercy.

Again you must turn to the Theology of the Bible if you would remove the contradiction. For there Christ is set forth as the Image of the Father, not in one quality, but in His whole character. He is said to show forth the Righteousness of God in the forgiveness of Sins. Regard Him only as a wonderfully gracious and merciful man, and you can only feel that the evil in man triumphed over the good. Those who nailed Him to the tree will have proved that there is in men a hopeless, invincible principle of opposition to Goodness. Regard Him as God manifest in the flesh, meeting that unkindness and hardness of heart which knew not what it did,—which hated not only the Son, but the Father,—meeting it with a divine Love which was stronger than Death and Sin and Hell,—and you feel that man indeed wants Mercy because he has sinned, but that this Mercy has in it a power of putting away sin, of covering it, extinguishing it—of transforming the creature who was the subject and slave of it, into a new creature who can love Mercy and do justly. Believe that the Spirit of Mercy and Forgiveness does indeed proceed from the Father and the Son, and you see how that very Forgiveness which is shown to man becomes a principle in him able to overcome his unforgiving nature, able to go out in acts of forbearance and gentleness.

III. But lastly, the Prophet says that the Lord requires man to walk “humbly with Him.” About this virtue of Humility there is as much strife as about Justice and Mercy. The priest is inclined to extol it as the cardinal excellence, that to which all others are subordinate. But does it not seem often in his practice, as well as in his theory, to involve the destruction of moral purpose, of intellectual effort? Can it be intended that the man should think meanly of the nature and the powers which God has given him? The more nobly he judges of his Humanity, the more noble, says the philosopher, he himself will be.

Men are grievously distracted between these opinions. They embrace first one, then the other. The result of each experiment is to make them suppose that the course they have not chosen must be the right one. “Oh for intellectual freedom!” cries the victim of sacerdotal rule; “Oh for an absolute, infallible guide!” cries he who has known no government but his own.

Brethren, it is most true that if we try by any artificial methods to cultivate what is called the grace of Humility, it may become actually another name for meanness, for the abandonment of manliness and dignity, for a nominal self-denial which is compatible with much inward self-exaltation. And what, then, is that humility which our consciences bear witness to be true and divine,—which we demand, and not in vain, of every earnest investigator of truth, of every brave man? Micah’s words contain the answer. We are humble in ourselves only when we are walking with God, when we are remembering that we are in His presence, that He is going with us where we go, and staying with us where we stay. It is this thought which lays a man in the dust, for then His eyes are upon him in whose sight the angels are not clean. It is this which raises him to a height he had never dreamt of, for the Lord God has been mindful of him, and come near to him, and fitted him for converse with Himself. Once more, then, the Theology of the Bible explains its morality, and enables us to know what we ought to be, and to be what we would wish to be. If we believe that He who was in the form of God, humbled Himself and became of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, that He might raise us to the state of sons of God, and to be the sharers of His Nature, we can understand how the poor in spirit may be heirs of the Kingdom of God; we can confess for ourselves that we have been grovellers because we have been proud, that we have undervalued the glory of our race because we have been lifted up in our own conceit, that we have despised our brethren because we have not aspired to intercourse with Him who despises nothing and cares for all. We may ask to be made in the likeness of Him who stooped to the death of the Cross, that so we may have the likeness of the Eternal God of Justice and Mercy, who dwelt in Him bodily.