DISCOURSE XII.

MAN'S MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS ARE RECOGNIZED BY THE SCRIPTURES AS A PART OF GOD'S LAW, COÖRDINATE WITH THEMSELVES.

HE HATH SHOWED 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.

It

It is the opinion of some of the profoundest critics and theologians, that this is the answer of Balaam to Balak when he called him out of Mesopotamia to curse Israel. This opinion is not without strong reasons. follows immediately after this introduction, "O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Then comes the answer

which constitutes the text," He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

The latter part of this inquiry seems more in character with a heathen king than with the most uninstructed Israelite, to whom a human sacrifice would have seemed the most impious and horrible of crimes, instead of an acceptable offering to God. And the first part of the inquiry corresponds exactly with what Balak actually did, in offering a profusion of sacrifices to propitiate the Supreme Being and induce him to permit the prophet to curse Israel.

The meaning will be the same in either case, whether we consider the passage a dialogue between Balak and Balaam, or between the prophet Micah and the people of Israel. If it be a dialogue between Balak and Ba-laam, the argument will be a little stronger for the purpose to which I intend to apply it. It is one proof of what I wish in this discourse to demonstrate, that the Scriptures assume and take for granted the rectitude of the moral nature of man, and recognize the dictates of that nature, the reason, the conscience, and the religious convictions of men, as coördinate and of equal authority with themselves, as a part of the Divine law, that law which God has given to man, and by which he judges his character and actions. Revelation recognizes the law of nature in those who have no revelation as the whole rule of action which God has given them, and in those who have a revealed law, as the supplement or the complement of itself, or itself as the complement of the law of nature.

If this was an address of Balaam to Balak, it was a

declaration that God had shown him what was good by the law written on the heart, that the first of all duties is, to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." The only reason he gives for the propriety or the necessity of sacrifices is to atone for sin. It is certainly better not to commit the sin, and then sacrifice is unnecessary. And the only possible way in which a heathen can sin is by violating the law written on the heart, that which God by the light of nature showed him was good, even to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” Sin is the violation of a law. The heathen has no other law than the dictates of his own moral and spiritual nature.

If it was an address of Micah to the Israelites, then it is a reference to the dictates of their moral sense. The command to do justly is a command to do that which the man himself perceives to be just, in each particular case. The revealed law did not anticipate and specify all possible cases, and direct what was to be done in each, nor could it have done so. It supposes a sense of justice in every man, which will point out to him what is right. The command is to do it. Every man feels that he has this sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice. This, of course, supposes the rectitude and integrity of the moral nature of man. If he does not know what is right and just, or if what seems to him right and just is not so, then the command to do justly is absurd.

Besides, language must have preceded revelation, that is, a written revelation. It was formed by the natural powers of the human mind. The primitive meaning of the Hebrew word pry, rendered righteous, is "straight," that which deviates neither to the right hand

nor the left. Like almost all words, in all languages, which are applied to intellectual operations, it is metaphorical, and derived from the senses. As the word straight implies the sense of sight to perceive what is straight, so the word righteous implies an intellectual sense which determines whether an action is right. So the word vow, which is translated just, has for its original meaning, as applied to the senses, that which is "level" or equal. So, when applied to the mind, it implied a power of discerning what is equal or just in the transactions between man and man. These words were in being long before any written law, and were applied to what men found really existing in the human mind. That words of identical signification exist in all languages, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, shows that the thing really exists in man independently of all revelation.

So the command, "Thou shalt not steal," did not enact into a crime that which was considered innocent before. The word steal, among the Israelites, had the same meaning before the giving of the law that it had afterward. Stealing was made a crime before the law by the instinct of property, and the sense of justice, which are primary and constituent elements of human nature, whenever and wherever man has existed. So it is with the command, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." The obligation of truth is as instinctive as the perception of truth, and as universal. There is in the human soul a natural contempt and abhorrence for falsehood. Its natural impulse is to speak and act the truth. Lying and injustice are naturally hateful to all mankind.

The first instance we have in the Bible of the recognition of the rectitude of man's moral nature, and of its

dictates as the law of God, we have in the case of Cain and Abel. They were the first two children born after what is called the Fall. Their history is certainly no evidence of a deterioration of human nature, for one of them was a good man. We do not read that Abel fell at all. Of the first pair, both fell. Of the second pair, one remained upright. God is represented as having said to Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" literally, if thou doest what is good. Abel was accepted, which proves that he had done what was good. How did he know what was good? We read of no special revelation made to him, except that which was made through the constitution of his moral nature, the same revelation which is made to all mankind. His obedience to that was the ground of his acceptance with God.

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The dictates of that moral nature, then, must have been God's law, since he recognized it as such, and acted upon it. That moral nature could not have been changed, and deteriorated, and corrupted by the Fall, for God still recognizes it as his law. That Abel did right, is sufficient evidence that there was nature of Cain to prevent him from doing right. We have no reason to assume any difference of nature between the brothers. But one chose to do what was good, and the other chose to do that which was evil. The history of Abel is a sufficient refutation of the common theory of the Fall, and shows conclusively that Adam left human nature just where he found it, and that he, like other human parents, had no power to change the essential constitution of his offspring.

It shows, moreover, what is the nature of virtue or goodness in the sight of God. It is doing that which is