DIVINE LAW FLOUTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1005, 23 June 1930, Page 14

DIVINE LAW FLOUTED

DIVORCE AND GAMBLING SERMON BY REV. D. D. SCOTT “If all our courts closed down and all our police were dismissed, we should have reason to expect the appearance oi’ much lawless behaviour,” said the Rev. D. D. Scott in the Onehunga Presbyterian Church yesterday morning in a sermon contrasting the laws of God with the laws of men. Founding his address on Jeremiah xxxi., 03, "1 will put my law iu their inward parts and iu their heart 1 will write it; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” Mr. Scott showed that the Christian rule of living was not an enforced obedience to God’s laws, but a purely voluntary submission which evoked in its turn an abounding joy. To an habitual offender against the laws of a nation, the very existence of those laws seemed a restriction under which he chafed; a compulsion he disagreed with and it was only the fear of consequences that caused his restraint. Our civilisation was not so complete, howover, that the threat of punishment could be removed. The principal purpose of our intricate system of law was to guide the public into ways of order and justice, with a penal attachment for infringement. Some obeyed under stress of fear, others from choice, and although such conditions were not ideal, they were preferable to allowing everybody to do as he pleased, thereby displeasing everybody but himself. Law, continued the speaker, helped to build the character of the people and in a country such as our own it might be urged that the laws reflected the character of the people. But the institution of law went back into the past and was far more than the creation of one generation. The truth was that while the character of the people bore upon the quality of their laws, the laws had helped to mould the character of the nation. It had been shown that. in the Roman code the origin of a long list of laws had been influenced by the action of the early Christian Church through its bishops. Among these were enactments defending the weak, the moral elevation of whole neglected classes, the sanctity of marriage, the protection of children, the care of prisoners, public morality, Sunday rest and even questions oi property. All this reflected the effect of Christian conscience upon legislation and the influence of such legislation upon the conscience of succeeding generations. EASY DIVORCE Many people accepted the law of the land as a sufficient moral guide, but —iu particular aspects it might not be so. The ease with which divorce could be obtained was a case in point. In order to meet a difficult problem the law was amended and almost at once the solution thus offered was raised to the dignity of an ideal. "Easy divorce,” declared the preacher, "can never be a Christian ideal, but the support given by Parliamentary decree has dignified a practice that should be repugnant to Christian feeling.” Further, continued Mr. Scott, the State patronage of gambling bad given an air of respectability to an obnoxious business. To guard against promiscuity in betting and gambling, laws had been framed not for the abolition of such, but for their regulation. The law was accepted as being right and then that which was formerly reprehensible was held to be virtuous. “Gambling,” he said, "is an evil, whether conducted privately or as an enterprise tolerated by law.” The harmfulness of running Sunday excursion trains, he said, became negligible in the eyes of many when the practice was supported by law. It inculcated the erroneous idea that whatever the Government did was right. Jeremiah had looked for a coming day when the laws of God would become so wrapped up in the lives of men that they would obey them( not from outside compulsion, but from inward reverence for what God had revealed to be right. Concluding an earnest appeal for moral legislation, Mr. Scott pictured man, captured by the gospel of Christ, being brought into a fellowship with Him where obedience to His laws was no strain, but an abounding joy.