Gold Nugget 315 - The Universal Empire
That in the course of time the essence of religion may have evaporated, and its place so taken up by forms and ceremonies, that the connection between religion and justice may seem to be lost, must be admitted to be a possibility, but it does not alter the principle here enunciated.
This guarantee of justice between man and man is found in a power of appeal on both sides to a law of immutable right mutually acknowledged. To such a law conscience, the regulative faculty, points with a steady finger. Such law obeyed, she approves the obedience, and when disobeyed, she condemns the disobedient. Both the approval and the condemnation of the voice within are witnesses to the existence and government of a Great Judge of all, who seated on the throne of universal empire, issues his mandates to the world! And in the appeal from human acts to the judgment of the Great Supreme, lies the safeguard of justice between man and man. In a word, religion is the sole adequate guarantee of morality. … Religion is righteousness towards God; morality is righteousness towards man.
If man ever comes to regard himself as the supreme existence, empowered to make right and wrong, instead of regarding himself as subject to the everlasting laws of right, the best and dearest privileges of the human family will be in imminent peril, and at best can endure but for a while!
The Pulpit Commentary, Deuteronomy p. 289, Deuteronomy 17:8-13, (C. Clemance)
Gold Nugget 315
The Universal Empire
