I now propose a question which the reckless and the heedless may pass by without particular notice; but which the thinking and the candid will admit to be one of immense interest. Will these aspirations, this innate sense of justice, before referred to, ever be gratified? That they are not, that they cannot be gratified in the present state, need not be argued. Is my moral nature, my sense of right and justice, satisfied to see virtue trodden under foot? to see the libertine mocking over the grave of blighted hopes and a broken heart? to see the priceless treasure of virtuous purity, around which cluster the fondest hopes of earth, sported with as a mere toy of little worth? to see honest toil sink unrequited, and hide itself in squalid poverty and a pauper's grave? to see the vain, rolling in wealth accumulated by fraud and oppression? to see vice exalted to the pinnacle of fame? to hear the praises of him whose very presence is loathsome by reason of the filthiness of his iniquities? And when words fail to express the horrors of such and kindred evils, must I smile complacently and say, This is right, in this my soul delights? But this is but a mere glance at the facts as they exist, as they have existed, and are likely to exist in this present state. Is it possible that these aspirations, these discriminations of right and wrong, were placed within our breasts to be mocked—to look and long in vain? Is it possible that the Supreme One, who has so nicely arranged the material world, and subjected it to certain laws, has placed moral balances in our hands to no purpose? that we are to long for, but never see, a vindication of the great principles of justice? Is it not rather reasonable to conclude that he has a moral government, and that our moral sense is evidence that we are within the limits of a moral system? Are not our convictions of wrong proof to ourselves of our amenability to such a system?
The very fact that we discriminate between moral and natural laws, as I have shown that all men do, is a recognition of the fact that there is a moral government. Thus, to look above Nature—to acknowledge God as a moral Governor—is necessary, to be true to our own natures, to the convictions planted in every breast. In this great truth our aspirations find rest. Here our sense of justice takes refuge; for a government is a system of laws maintained, and the very idea of a moral government leads us to look forward to a vindication of the right principles or laws now trampled upon. Why should we pronounce upon the nature or demerit of human actions, if there is no accountability for those actions? Our feelings of responsibility (the movings of conscience) are but the expectation of a great assize, in or by which injustice, fraud, and every wrong, will be requited, and down-trodden virtue and injured innocence be exalted and vindicated. This is, indeed, but a legitimate deduction from the propositions established, and in this we find a sure vindication of the divine government in regard to the anomalies of the present state.
We find some, even among those who acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being, who deny the existence of moral wrong; but the reasonableness of their denial, I cannot perceive. It is founded mostly on the alleged inability of man to act except in a given line. But here, again, we find them false to their own theory, and uniformly so. They will, as readily as others, sit in judgment upon, and condemn, the actions of their fellow-men. They will blame any for encroaching on their rights. But it were surely the height of folly, the grossest injustice, to blame one for doing what he cannot avoid. And how unreasonable to think that God bestows a moral sense, and plants within us the monitor of conscience, to lead us to do right, and yet compels us to do wrong. We count the man immoral and degraded who disregards the distinctions of right and wrong; what, then, could we think of a God who would frame a system wherein these distinctions could not be preserved? And yet such is the case, if man has no freedom to act. We all acknowledge the difference between right and wrong, as principles; that it is right to regard our neighbor's life and property; and hence, he that disregards them does wrong. And all are conscious that the
wrong we do is of ourselves; and no one ever seeks to throw it back to any other cause until his moral sense is perverted by selfishness and false reasoning.
Akin to the above position is the oft-repeated idea that God is so loving, so kind, that he will not mark to condemn our aberrations from duty. This is contrary to, and of course a denial of, the declarations of Scripture. But let me ask the objector, laying the Bible aside. Where is your evidence that God so loves us? You surely do not learn from nature that love is the sole attribute of Deity. How came you by the idea that the Deity must possess love? Reflect on this. Whence do you derive your conceptions of love, and of its necessity in the divine character? Can you tell? Your only answer must be that they are intuitive; that you owe this conception to your own consciousness. You have, in a degree, an innate knowledge of the moral fitness of things; and according to this, you clothe the Deity with such attributes as your moral sense determines to be fitting to him. But, in the idea above advanced, you are only partially true to your higher nature; partially just to your own consciousness, in awarding to Deity only love. For I affirm that our consciousness, our self-judgment of the moral fitness of things, gives us as definite and clear conceptions of justice as of love. All the propositions established in this argument tend to this point. We are apt to lose sight of justice, and to exalt love. This is quite natural with all who have any sense of wrong (and who has not?), for we feel the need of love or mercy, and are ever willing or anxious to screen ourselves from justice. But in this, as before remarked, we do violence to our moral sense, to gratify our selfish feelings. Can any one dispassionately reason and reflect on this subject, and accept the idea of a God of even partial justice? The idea is alike repugnant to reason and to reverence. God must be strictly, infinitely just. I should choose to be annihilated rather than to possess immortal existence in a universe governed or controlled by a being of almighty power, but lacking justice.
But the thought is humiliating that a word of remark is necessary to prove to any that moral wrong exists. What! must I stop to reason with a man, a human being, with all his faculties in exercise, to prove to him that it is wrong to commit adultery, to murder, or to steal? To argue the question seems to insult the sense of mankind. The real question is, how to dispose of the evil with which we meet; how to rescue criminals from the awful consequences of their violations of the law of Him who is infinitely just. I do not ask you to consider whether they might not be suffered to escape by suspending justice, or how they might stand before a being of partial justice; but how they are to stand when justice is maintained and vindicated on the scale of infinity.— Atonement.