THE FREE MORAL AGENCY OF MAN.
By G. T. Wilson
By the word “moral,” we are to understand that which pertains to “intentions and actions, of which right and wrong are predicted.” And morals have to do with our relationship to our Maker and our fellow-creatures. So man is a moral being, and his actions are weighed in the balances of his Creator by the standard of God’s universal moral law. All men are accountable to him in their intentions and actions. God is love, and he intends that man shall be ruled by that blessed principle in all his thoughts and acts; for he says: “He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.” “We love him, because he first loved us.” “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” Then to love the Sovereign of the universe with all the powers he has given us, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, are the moral duties he requires of all his intelligent creatures, who can know and comprehend his holy will. That will is expressed in the moral law, the Ten Commandments, for God said to the Jew to whom he gave the written law on tables of stone, “Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law.” The will of God is therefore expressed in his law, and in it is made known “the whole duty of man.” Eccl. 12:13. The blessed moral code is the briefest expression of the character of Jehovah, who is love, and on the two great principles of this law, love to God and love to man, “hang all the law and the prophets.” All the actions and intentions of all God’s intelligent creatures are either moral or immoral as compared with the moral law. We, of course, know that in a commonly accepted sense, morality is outward conformity of action to the civil law, or to the accepted rules of the majority in society; but this may leave, yea, does leave, the thoughts, which are the real index of our character, untouched. A man may think impurely, hate his fellow-men intensely enough to murder, covet the property of others enough to want to steal, but the fear of punishment may restrain him from doing these. Will any candid person say that such a man is strictly moral, according to the strictest use of the word “moral”? Webster says of morality, it is “the conformity of an act to the divine law, or the principles of morals.” We use the word not as meaning simply civility, but as meaning the entire conformity of our lives to God’s perfect law of morals, the Ten Commandments. True morality, then, is righteousness, and we are unable to bring our lives into harmony with perfect righteousness until we are born again, born of the Spirit, from above. Christ alone has power to make and keep any man truly moral. “All unrighteousness is sin,” and sin is immorality in that it is not conformable to God’s holiness. Morality is therefore righteousness. All men are active agents of morality or immorality in its strictest sense; and we all either gather with Christ or scatter from him. We are either the children of God or the children of the wicked one; for, said our Saviour, “Ye can not serve God and mammon.” We become the children of God by faith. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” and sin is immorality in God’s sight. The leader of immorality is Satan. The leader of true morality is Jesus Christ. If we are of Christ, we will do his works, as it is written, “He that doeth righteousness [morality] is righteous, even as he [Christ] is righteous.” We are the servants of that power which we obey. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” Rom. 6:16. We are free to choose our masters,—to choose good or evil, life or death; to choose Christ as our master, or Satan. God will not compel us to choose eternal life, nor force us to be lost. We may become the agents of just that power we choose to obey. So God says: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.” “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him; for he is thy life.” Deut. 30:15, 19, 20. Again he has said, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15); and again: “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Eze. 18:32). But God compels no one to come to him, or to choose eternal life. He pleads for all to come, and complains of some, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.” From these words, it is evident that all men are left free to make their choice of masters, and are therefore free moral agents, at least so far as their relationship to their Creator is concerned. Of course he will bring them to judgment for the violation or infringement of his law, if they do not repent, but God does not compel any one to serve him. He entreats, beseeches, and by love’s most bewitching means, tries to win souls to come unto him and receive everlasting life, but compels no person to make the choice of life. The moral Governor of the universe alone has the right to condemn for disobedience those souls who have trampled down his laws, and so we hear him say to mankind, “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; who art thou that judgest another?” James 4:12. This great Lawgiver asks of those who have appointed themselves as moral governors of their fellow-men, in earthly governments, and have condemned those who did not come up to their ideas of what is required in religious morals: “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.” “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at naught thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more.” Rom. 14:4, 10–13. “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” James 2:12, 13. “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Matt. 7:2. Said the Christian Statesman of Oct. 2, 1884:— Enforce upon all who come among us the laws of Christian morality. And said Rev. M. A. Gault, a district secretary of the National Reform Association, U. S. A.:— Our remedy for all these malific influences is to have the government simply set up the moral law, and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it. At a Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Convention, held at Augusta, Wisconsin, Oct. 24, 1888, the following preambles and resolution on the subject of morality were passed:— WHEREAS, God would have all men honor the Son, even as they honor the Father; and, WHEREAS, The civil law which Christ gave from Sinai is the only perfect law that will secure the rights of all classes; therefore, Resolved, That civil government should recognize Christ as the moral Governor, and his law as the standard of legislation. And so these self-constituted moral reformers are determined to set themselves, or others in their place, to act as moral governors, and to thus usurp the place which belongs alone to God as the moral Governor of mankind, taking their interpretation of God’s law as the standard of morality, and judging men accordingly. God will ask at last, “Who hath required this at your hands?” “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant?” It is the same spirit which reigned in the breasts of the princes of Darius’ court, in Daniel’s day, when they said of him, because he did not conform to the will of the majority in matters of religion, “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.” Dan. 6:5. But how about these lawmakers setting themselves in the place of God, and usurping his rights and authority, and making laws to compel his servants to break Jehovah’s law to obey their laws? Our Saviour tells us the reason that men put themselves in the place which belongs alone to the Lord, and persecute those not of the majority’s way of doing and thinking, or who do not act as the rulers think they should in matters of religion. He says: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent me.” John 15:20, 21. “They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.” John 16:2, 3. This statement of Scripture is very important, for it tells us that the reason men persecute those who are serving God differently from themselves is that they do not know God, the Father, nor his Son, Jesus Christ. They are entire strangers to the Spirit of God and to the Gospel of his salvation. Human laws have never yet made one Christian, or saved a single soul from eternal ruin; why then should men be so eager to force others to bend to their religious dogmas and practices? G. T. WILSON. Impression Bay, Tasmania.