True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 444

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444. The reason why, when a moral life is at the same time spiritual, this is charity, is that the practices of a moral life and a charitable one are the same. Charity is willing good to the neighbour and as a result dealing well with him; and this too is the concern of a moral life. The spiritual law is the one prescribed by the Lord:

Everything you wish people to do to you, do the same to them; this is the Law and the Prophets. Matt. 7:12.

This same law applies universally to moral life. But it would take a great many pages to list all charitable deeds and compare them with the deeds prescribed by a moral life, so merely six commandments of the second table of the Ten Commandments can serve as an illustration. It is plain to anyone that they are the commandments of moral life; and it may be seen above (329-331) that they also contain everything to do with love towards the neighbour. Charity fulfils all these commandments, as is clear from the following passage of Paul:

Love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, You are not to commit adultery, You are not to commit murder, You are not to steal, You are not to be a false witness, You are not to covet, and any other commandment there may be, these are all summed up in this phrase: You are to love your neighbour as yourself. Charity does not do evil to the neighbour; it is the fulfilment of the law. Rom. 13:8-10.

[2] If anyone's thinking comes solely from the external man, he cannot fail to be surprised that the seven commandments of the second table were delivered by Jehovah on Mount Sinai amid such miraculous circumstances, when those same rules were enjoined by the laws of the civil legal system in every kingdom upon earth, including therefore Egypt, which the Children of Israel had just left; for no kingdom can last without them. But the fact that they were delivered by Jehovah, and written by His finger on two stone tables, caused them to be not only the commandments of the civil community, and so of natural moral life, but also the commandments of the heavenly community, and so of spiritual moral life. Thus to break them would not only be acting against one's fellow men, but also against God.


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