Christian ethics Author:Ralph Wardlaw Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE V. OK THE RULE OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 1 John III. 4. " Sin textit{la the transgression of law." In the review which has been taken, in former Lec... more »tures, I have left unnoticed various systems of morals, with their respective varieties and modifications, partly to avoid repetition and tediousness, and partly because the applicability to them of the general principles which it was my object to establish, is, without particular illustration, sufficiently apparent. ? Let us now see whether we can arrive at anything more satisfactory. I must recall your attention to the distinction, stated in the outset, between the textit{principle or textit{foundation, and the textit{rule or textit{law, of moral rectitude. The latter is simply the authoritative direction by which the conduct of the subject of any government is to be regulated ; the former is that, whatever it may be, in the prescribed action itself, or in its tendencies and effects, on account of which it is that the governor enjoins it. I shall begin with the con- Reason for sideration of the textit{rule or textit{law. To some this heginning may appear somewhat preposterous, the order textit{nde rather natural order of subsistence; inasmuch as the than the of discussion not being in conformity to Iheprinciple must precede the rule, ? and the consideration on account of which a law is enacted, commanding one kind of conduct and prohibiting its opposite, must be prior to the law itself; I prefer this method, however, first, because the law, if I may so express myself, lies nearest to us, and is that with which we have most immediately to do ; ? and secondly, because, by the consideration and satisfactory settlement of this point, we may be the better prepared for ascending to the higher and more abstrus...« less