Part 8 (1/2)
7. I remark again that the doctrine of mixed moral action is contradicted by the express teachings of inspiration. ”Whosoever cometh after me,” says Christ, ”and forsaketh not _all_ that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” The Bible knows men only as the disciples, or not disciples, of Christ. All who really comply with the condition above named are His disciples. All others, however near their compliance, are not His disciples, any more than those who have not conformed in any degree. If an individual has really conformed to this condition, he has surely done his entire duty. He has loved with all his heart. What other meaning can we attach to the phrase, ”forsaketh all that he hath?” All persons who have not complied with this principle are declared to be wholly without the circle of disciples.h.i.+p. What is this, but a positive a.s.sertion, that a moral action of a mixed character is an impossibility?
Again. ”No man can serve two masters.” ”Ye cannot serve G.o.d and mammon.”
Let us suppose that we can put forth intentions of a mixed character--intentions partly sinful and partly holy. So far as they are in harmony with the law, we serve G.o.d. So far as they are not in harmony with the law, we serve Mammon. Now, if all our moral exercises can be of a mixed character, then it is true that, at every period of our lives, we can serve G.o.d and Mammon. The service which we can render also to each, may be in every conceivable degree. We may render, for example, ninety-nine degrees of service to G.o.d and one to Mammon, or ninety-nine to Mammon and one to G.o.d. Or our service may be equally divided between the two. Can we conceive of a greater absurdity than this?
What also is the meaning of such declarations as this, ”no fountain can send forth both sweet water and bitter,” if the heart of man may exercise intentions combining such elements as sin and holiness?
Declarations of a similar kind abound in the Bible. They are surely without meaning, if the doctrine of Mixed Moral Actions is true.
8. Finally. It may be questioned whether the whole range of error presents a dogma of more pernicious tendency than the doctrine of Mixed Moral Actions. It teaches moral agents that they may be selfish in all their moral exercises, and yet have enough of moral purity mingled with them to secure acceptance with the ”Judge of all the earth.” A man who has adopted such a principle will almost never, whatever his course of life may be, seem to himself to be dest.i.tute of real virtue. He will always seem to himself to possess enough of it, to render his acceptance with G.o.d certain. The kind of virtue which can mingle itself with selfishness and sin in individual intentions or moral acts, may be possessed, in different degrees, by the worst men on earth. If this be a.s.sumed as real holiness--that holiness which will stand the ordeal of eternity, who will, who should conceive himself dest.i.tute of a t.i.tle to heaven? Here is the fatal rock on which myriads of minds are wrecked for ever. Let it ever be borne in mind, that the same fountain cannot, at the same time and place, ”send forth both sweet water and bitter.” ”Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon.”
OBJECTIONS.
Two or three objections to the doctrine above established demand a pa.s.sing notice here.
AN ACT OF WILL MAY RESULT FROM A VARIETY OF MOTIVES.
1. It is said that the mind may act under the influence of a great variety of motives at one and the same time. The same intention, therefore, may be the result of different and opposite motives, and as a consequence, combine the elements of good and evil. In reply, I remark, that when the Will is in harmony with the Moral law, it respects the good and rejects the bad, alike in _all_ the motives presented. The opposite is true when it is not in harmony with the law. The same regard or disregard for moral obligation which will induce an individual to reject the evil and choose the good, or to make an opposite choice, in respect to one motive, will induce the same in respect to all other motives present at the same time. A mixed moral act can no more result from a combination of motives, than different and opposite motions can result in the same body at the same time, from forces acting upon it from different directions.
LOVING WITH GREATER INTENSITY AT ONE TIME THAN ANOTHER.
2. It is said that we are conscious of loving our friends, and serving G.o.d, with greater strength and intensity at one time than at another.
Yet our love, in all such instances, is real. Love, therefore, may be real, and yet be greatly defective--that is, it may be real, and embrace elements morally wrong. It is true, that love may exist in different degrees, as far as the action of the Sensibility is concerned. It is not so, however, with love in the form of intention--intention in harmony with moral obligation, the only form of love demanded by the moral law.
Such intention, in view of the same degrees of light, and under the same identical influences, cannot possess different degrees of intensity. The Will always yields, when it really does yield at all to moral obligation, with all the intensity it is, for the time being, capable of, or the nature of the case demands.
MOMENTARY REVOLUTIONS OF CHARACTER.
3. On this theory, it is said, an individual may become perfectly good and perfectly bad, for any indefinite number of instances, in any definite period of time. This consequence, to say nothing of what is likely to take place in fact, does, as far as possibility is concerned, follow from this theory. But let us contemplate it, for a moment, in the light of an example or two. An individual, from regard to moral obligation, maintains perfect integrity of character, up to a given period of time. Then, under the influence of temptation, he tells a deliberate falsehood. Did his previous integrity so fuse itself into that lie, as to make it partly good and partly bad?--as to make it anything else than a _total_ falsehood? Did the prior goodness of David make his acts of adultery and murder partly good and partly bad? Let the advocate of mixed moral action extract the elements of moral goodness from these acts if he can. He can just as well find these elements here, as in any other acts of disobedience to the Moral law. ”The righteousness of the righteous cannot save him” from total sinfulness, any more than from condemnation ”in the day of his transgression.”
CHAPTER XI.
RELATION OF THE WILL TO THE INTELLIGENCE AND SENSIBILITY, IN ALL ACTS OR STATES, MORALLY RIGHT OR WRONG.
THE Will, sustaining the relation it does to the Intelligence and Sensibility, must yield itself to the control of one or the other of these departments of our nature. In all acts and states morally right, the Will is in harmony with the Intelligence, from respect to moral obligation or duty; and all the desires and propensities, all the impulses of the Sensibility, are held in strict subordination. In all acts morally wrong, the Will is controlled by the Sensibility, irrespective of the dictates of the Intelligence. Impulse, and not a regard to the just, the right, the true and the good, is the law of its action. In all such cases, as the impulses which control the Will are various, the external forms through which the internal acts, or intentions, will manifest themselves, will be equally diversified. Yet the _spring_ of action is in all instances one and the same, impulse instead of a regard to duty. Virtue does not consist in being controlled by _amiable_, instead of _dissocial_ and _malign_ impulses, and in a consequent exterior of a corresponding beauty and loveliness. It consists in a voluntary harmony of intention with the just, the right, the true and the good from a sacred respect to moral obligation, instead of being controlled by mere impulse of any kind whatever. On the principle above ill.u.s.trated, I remark:
THOSE WHO ARE OR ARE NOT TRULY VIRTUOUS, HOW DISTINGUISHED.
1. That the real distinction between those who are truly virtuous, and those who are not, now becomes apparent. It does not consist, in all instances, in the mere exterior _form_ of action, but in the _spring_ or _intention_ from which all such action proceeds. In most persons, and in all, at different periods, the amiable and social propensities predominate over the dissocial and malign. Hence much of the exterior will be characterized by much that is truly beautiful and lovely. In many, also, the impulsive power of conscience--that department of the Sensibility which is correlated to the idea of right and wrong, and impels to obedience to the Moral law--is strongly developed, and may consequently take its turn in controlling the Will. In all such instances, there will be the external forms of real virtue. It is one thing, however, to put on the exterior of virtue from mere impulse, and quite another, to do the same thing from an internal respect and sacred regard for duty.
How many individuals, who may be now wearing the fairest forms of virtue, will find within them, as soon as present impulses are supplanted by the strong action of others, in opposition to rect.i.tude, no maxims of Will, in harmony with the law of goodness, to resist and subject such impulses. Their conduct is in conformity to the requirements of virtue, not from any internal intention to be in universal harmony with moral obligation, but simply because, for the time being, the strongest impulse happens to be in that direction. No individual, it should ever be kept in mind, makes any approach to real virtue, whatever impulses he may be controlled by, till, by a sealing act of moral election, the Will is placed in harmony with the universal law of duty, and all external action of a moral character proceeds from this internal, all-controlling intention. Here we find the broad and fundamental distinction between those who are truly virtuous, and those who are not.
SELFISHNESS AND BENEVOLENCE.
2. We are also prepared to explain the real difference between _Selfishness_ and _Benevolence_. The latter expresses and comprehends all the forms of real virtue of every kind and degree. The former comprehends and expresses the forms of vice or sin. Benevolence consists in the full harmony of the Will or intention with the just, the right, the true, and the good, from a regard to moral obligation. Selfishness consists in voluntary subjection to _impulse_, irrespective of such obligation. Whenever self-gratification is the law of action, there is pure selfishness, whatever the character or direction of the impulse may be. Selfishness has sometimes been very incorrectly defined, as a supreme regard to our own interest or happiness. If this is a correct definition, the drunkard is not selfish at all; for he sacrifices his present and future happiness, to gratify a beastly appet.i.te, and destroys present peace in the act of self-gratification. If selfishness, however, consists in mere subjection to impulse, how supreme his selfishness at once appears! A mother who does not act from moral obligation, when under the strong influence of maternal affection, appears most distinguished in her a.s.siduous care of her offspring. Now let this affection be crossed by some plain question of duty, so that she must violate the latter, or subject the former, and how soon will selfishness manifest itself, in the triumph of impulse over duty! A gift is not more effectual in blinding the eyes, than natural affection uncontrolled by a regard to moral obligation. Men are just as selfish, that is, as perfectly subject to the law of self-gratification, when under the influence of the social and amiable propensities, as when under that of the dissocial and malign, when, in both instances alike, impulse is the law of action. Moral agents were made, and are required to be, social and amiable, from higher principles than mere impulse.
COMMON MISTAKE.
3. I notice a mistake of fundamental importance into which many appear to have fallen, in judging of the moral character of individuals. As we have seen, when the Will is wholly controlled by the Sensibility irrespective of moral obligation, the impulsive department of conscience takes its turn, among the other propensities, in controlling the action of the voluntary power. Now because, in all such instances, there are the exterior forms of virtue, together with an apparently sincere internal regard for the same, the presence of real virtue is consequently inferred. Now before such a conclusion can be authorized, one question needs to be determined, the _spring_ from which such apparent virtues originate. They may arise from that regard to moral obligation which const.i.tutes real virtue. Or they may be the result purely of excited Sensibility, which, in such instances happens to be in the direction of the forms of virtue.