wages of going on.'[28] In his
latest volume Deissmann has pointed out that we can only do justice to
the utterances of the New Testament regarding work and wages by examining
them _in situ_, {162} amidst their natural surroundings. Jesus and St.
Paul spoke with distinct reference to the life and habits of the common
people of their day. 'If you elevate such utterances to the level of the
Kantian moral philosophy, and reproach primitive Christianity with
teaching for the sake of reward, you not only misunderstand the words,
but tear them up by the roots.' . . . 'The sordid ignoble suggestions so
liable to arise in the lower classes are altogether absent from the
sayings of Jesus and His apostles, as shown by the parable of the
Labourers in the Vineyard, and the analogous reliance of St. Paul solely
upon grace.'[29]

The same inner relation subsists between Sin and Penalty. But here,
again, the award of punishment is not arbitrary, but the natural
consequence of disobedience to the law of the spiritual life. He who
seeks to save his life shall lose it. He who makes this world his all
shall receive as his reward only what this world can give. He who buries
his talent shall, by the natural law of disuse, forfeit it. Not to
believe in Christ is to miss eternal life. To refuse Him who is the
Light of the world is to remain in darkness.

(6) An examination of the Pauline epistles yields a similar conclusion.
St. Paul does not disdain to employ the sanctions of hope and fear.
'Knowing the terrors of the Lord' he persuades men, and 'because of the
promises' he urges the Corinthians 'to cleanse themselves and perfect
holiness.' But in Paul's case, as in that of our Lord, the charge of
hedonism is meaningless. For not only does the conception hold a most
subordinate place in his teaching, but the idea loses the sense of merit,
and is transmuted into that of a free gift. And in general, in all the
passages where the hope of the future is introduced, the idea of reward
is merged in the yearning for a fuller life, which the Christian, who has
once tasted of its joy here, may well expect in richer measure
hereafter.[30]

Enough has been said to clear Christianity of the charge of hedonism. So
far from Christian Ethics falling {163} below Philosophical Ethics in
regard to purity of motive, it really surpasses it in the sublimity of
its sanctions. The Kantian idea of virtue tends to empty the obligation
of all moral c