a rule of action; a precept or command, coming from a superior
authority, which an inferior is bound to obey. The manner in which God
governs rational creatures is by a law, as the rule of their obedience
to him, and this is what we call God’s moral government of the world.
The term, however, is used in Scripture with considerable latitude of
meaning; and to ascertain its precise import in any particular place, it
is necessary to regard the scope and connection of the passage in which
it occurs. Thus, for instance, sometimes it denotes the whole revealed
will of God as communicated to us in his word. In this sense it is
generally used in the book of Psalms, i, 2; xix, 7; cxix; Isaiah viii,
20; xlii, 21. Sometimes it is taken for the Mosaical institution
distinguished from the Gospel, John i, 17; Matt. xi, 13; xii, 5; Acts
xxv, 8. Hence we frequently read of the law of Moses as expressive of
the whole religion of the Jews, Heb. ix, 19; x, 28. Sometimes, in a more
restricted sense, for the ritual or ceremonial observances of the Jewish
religion. In this sense the Apostle speaks of the law of commandments
contained in ordinances,” Eph. ii, 15; Heb. x, 1; and which, being only
a shadow of good things to come,” Christ Jesus abolished by his death,
and so in effect destroyed the ancient distinction between Jew and
Gentile, Gal. iii, 17. Very frequently it is used to signify the
decalogue, or ten precepts which were delivered to the Israelites from
Mount Sinai. It is in this acceptation of the term that the Lord Jesus
declares he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” Matt. v, 17;
and he explains its import as requiring perfect love to God and man,
Luke x, 27. It is in reference to this view that St. Paul affirms, By
the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified; for by the law
is the knowledge of sin,” Rom. iii, 20. The language of this law is, The
soul that sinneth it shall die,” and Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things that are written,” or required, in the book of the
law, to do them,” Gal. iii, 10. To deliver man from this penalty, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being himself made a curse
for us,” Gal. iii, 13. The law, in this sense, was not given that men
should obtain righteousness or justification by it, but to convince them
of sin, to show them their need of a Saviour, to shut them up, as it
were, from all hopes of salvation from that source, and to recommend the
Gospel of divine grace to their acceptance, Gal. iii, 19–25. Again, the
law often denotes the rule of good and evil, or of right and wrong,
revealed by the Creator and inscribed on man’s conscience, even at his
creation, and consequently binding upon him by divine authority; and in
this respect it is in substance the same with the decalogue. That such a
law was connate with, and, as it were, implanted in, man, appears from
its traces, which, like the ruins of some noble building, are still
extant in every man. It is from those common notions, handed down by
tradition, though often imperfect and perverted, that the Heathens
themselves distinguished right from wrong, by which they were a law unto
themselves, showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience bearing witness,” Rom. ii, 12–15, although they had no
express revelation.
The term law, is, however, eminently given to the Mosaic law; on the
principles and spirit of which, a few general remarks may be offered.
The right consideration of this divine institute, says Dr. Graves, will
surround it with a glory of truth and holiness, not only worthy of its
claims, but which has continued to be the light of the world on
theological and moral subjects, and often on great political principles,
to this day. If we examine the Jewish law, to discover the principle on
which the whole system depends, the primary truth, to inculcate and
illustrate which is its leading object, we find it to be that great
basis of all religion, both natural and revealed, the self-existence,
essential unity, perfections, and providence of the supreme Yahweh, the
Creator of heaven and earth. The first line of the Mosaic writings
inculcates this great truth: In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.” When the lawgiver begins to recapitulate the statutes and
judgments he had enjoined to his nation, it is with this declaration:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4; or, as it
might be more closely expressed, Yahweh our Elohim, or God, is one
Yahweh. And at the commencement of that sublime hymn, delivered by
Moses immediately before his death, in which this illustrious prophet
sums up the doctrines he had taught, the wonders by which they had been
confirmed, and the denunciations by which they were enforced, he
declares this great tenet with the sublimity of eastern poetry, but at
the same time with the precision of philosophic truth: Give ear,” says
he, O ye heavens, and I will speak: and hear, O earth, the words of my
mouth. My doctrine shall drop rain: my speech shall distil as the dew,
as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the
grass,” Deut. xxxii, 1, &c. What, is that doctrine so awful, that the
whole universe is thus invoked to attend to it? so salutary as to be
compared with the principle whose operation diffuses beauty and
fertility over the vegetable world? Hear the answer: Because I will
publish the name of Yahweh; ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is
the rock, his work is perfect: a God of truth, and without iniquity,
just and right is he.”
This, then, is one great leading doctrine of the Jewish code. But the
manner in which this doctrine is taught displays such wise accommodation
to the capacity and character of the nation to whom it is addressed, as
deserves to be carefully remarked. That character by which the supreme
Being is most clearly distinguished from every other, however exalted;
that character from which the acutest reasoners have endeavoured
demonstratively to deduce, as from their source, all the divine
attributes, is self-existence. Is it not then highly remarkable, that it
is under this character the Divinity is described on his first
manifestation to the Jewish lawgiver? The Deity at first reveals himself
unto him as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and therefore
the peculiar national and guardian God of the Jewish race. Moses,
conscious of the degeneracy of the Israelites, their ignorance of, or
their inattention to, the true God, and the difficulty and danger of any
attempt to recall them to his exclusive worship, and to withdraw them
from Egypt, seems to decline the task; but when absolutely commanded to
undertake it, he said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me
unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say
unto them? And God said unto Moses, _I am that I am_: and he said, Thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, _I Am_ hath sent me unto
you,” Exod. iii, 13, 14. Here we observe, according to the constant
method of the divine wisdom, when it condescends to the prejudices of
men, how in the very instance of indulgence it corrects their
superstition. The religion of names arose from an idolatrous polytheism;
and the name given here directly opposes this error, and in the
ignorance of that dark and corrupted period establishes that great
truth, to which the most enlightened philosophy can add no new lustre,
and on which all the most refined speculations on the divine nature
ultimately rest, the self-existence, and, by consequence, the eternity
and immutability, of the one great Yahweh.
But though the self-existence of the Deity was a fact too abstract to
require its being frequently inculcated, his essential unity was a
practical principle, the sure foundation on which to erect the structure
of true religion, and form a barrier against the encroachments of
idolatry: for this commenced not so frequently in denying the existence,
or even the supremacy, of the one true God, as in associating with him
for objects of adoration inferior intermediate beings, who were supposed
to be more directly employed in the administration of human affairs. To
confute and resist this false principle was, therefore, one great object
of the Jewish scheme. Hence the unity of God is inculcated with
perpetual solicitude; it stands at the head of the system of moral law
promulgated to the Jews from Sinai by the divine voice, heard by the
assembled nation, and issuing from the divine glory, with every
circumstance which could impress the deepest awe upon even the dullest
minds: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other gods beside
me,” Exod. xx, 2, 3. And in the recapitulation of the divine laws in
Deuteronomy, it is repeatedly enforced with the most solemn earnestness:
Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4. And again:
Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is
God; there is none else beside him. Know, therefore, this day, and
consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and
in the earth beneath: there is none else,” Deut. iv, 35, 39.
This self-existent, supreme and only God is moreover described as
possessed of every perfection which can be ascribed to the Divinity: Ye
shall be holy,” says the Lord to the people of the Jews; for I the Lord
your God am holy,” Lev. xix, 2. Ascribe ye,” says the legislator,
greatness unto our God; he is the rock; his work is perfect; a God of
truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he,” Deut. xxxii, 4. And
in the hymn of thanksgiving on the miraculous escape of the Israelites
at the Red Sea, this is its burden: Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among
the gods? who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in
praises, doing wonders?” Exod. xv, 11. And when the Lord delivered to
Moses the two tables of the moral law, he is described as descending in
the cloud, and proclaiming the name of the Lord: And the Lord passed by
before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by
no means clear the guilty,” Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7.
But to teach the self-existence, the unity, the wisdom, and the power of
the Deity, nay, even his moral perfections of mercy, justice, and truth,
would have been insufficient to arrest the attention, and command the
obedience of a nation, the majority of which looked no farther than mere
present objects, and at that early period cherished scarcely any hopes
higher than those of a temporal kind,--if, in addition to all this, care
had not been taken to represent the providence of God as not only
directing the government of the universe by general laws, but also
perpetually superintending the conduct and determining the fortune of
every nation, of every family, nay, of every individual. It was the
disbelief or the neglect of this great truth which gave spirit and
energy, plausibility and attraction, to the whole system of idolatry.
While men believed that the supreme God and Lord of all was too exalted
in his dignity, too remote from this sublunary scene, to regard its
vicissitudes with an attentive eye, and too constantly engaged in the
contemplation of his own perfections, and the enjoyment of his own
independent and all-perfect happiness, to interfere in the regulation of
human affairs, they regarded with indifference that supreme Divinity who
seemed to take no concern in their conduct, and not to interfere as to
their happiness. However exalted and perfect such a Being might appear
to abstract speculation, he was to the generality of mankind as if he
did not exist; as their happiness or misery were not supposed to be
influenced by his power, they referred not their conduct to his
direction. If he delegated to inferior beings the regulation of this
inferior world; if all its concerns were conducted by their immediate
agency, and all its blessings or calamities distributed by their
immediate determination; it seemed rational, and even necessary, to
supplicate their favour and submit to their authority; and neither
unwise nor unsafe to neglect that Being, who, though all-perfect and
supreme, would, on this supposition appear, with respect to mankind,
altogether inoperative. In truth, this fact of the perpetual providence
of God extending even to the minutest events, is inseparably connected
with every motive which is offered to sway the conduct of the Jews, and
forcibly inculcated by every event of their history. This had been
manifested in the appointment of the land of Canaan for the future
settlement of the chosen people on the first covenant which God entered
into with the Patriarch Abraham; in the prophecy, that for four hundred
years they should be afflicted in Egypt, and afterward be thence
delivered; in the increase of their nation, under circumstances of
extreme oppression, and their supernatural deliverance from that
oppression. The same providence was displayed in the destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red Sea; the travels of the thousands of Israel through
the wilderness, sustained by food from heaven; and in their subsequent
settlement in the promised land by means entirely distinct from their
own strength. Reliance on the same providence was the foundation of
their civil government, the spirit and the principle of their
constitution. On this only could they be commanded to keep the sabbatic
year without tilling their land, or even gathering its spontaneous
produce; confiding in the promise, that God would send his blessing on
the sixth year, so that it should bring forth fruit for three years,
Lev. xxv, 21. The same faith in Divine Providence alone could prevail on
them to leave their properties and families exposed to the attack of
their surrounding enemies; while all the males of the nation assembled
at Jerusalem to celebrate the three great festivals, enjoined by divine
command, with the assurance that no man should desire their land when
they went up to appear before the Lord their God thrice in the year,
Exodus xxxiv, 24. And, finally, it is most evident, that, contrary to
all other lawgivers, the Jewish legislator renders his civil
institutions entirely subordinate to his religious; and announces to his
nation that their temporal adversity or prosperity would entirely
depend, not on their observance of their political regulations; not on
their preserving a military spirit, or acquiring commercial wealth, or
strengthening themselves by powerful alliances; but on their continuing
to worship the one true God according to the religious rites and
ceremonies by him prescribed, and preserving their piety and morals
untainted by the corruptions and vices which idolatry tended to
introduce.
Such was the theology of the Jewish religion, at a period when the whole
world was deeply infected with idolatry; when all knowledge of the one
true God, all reverence for his sacred name, all reliance on his
providence, all obedience to his laws, were nearly banished from the
earth; when the severest chastisements had been tried in vain; when no
hope of reformation appeared from the refinements of civilization or the
researches of philosophy; for the most civilized and enlightened nations
adopted with the greatest eagerness, and disseminated with the greatest
activity, the absurdities, impieties, and pollutions of idolatry. Then
was the Jewish law promulgated to a nation, who, to mere human judgment,
might have appeared incapable of inventing or receiving such a high
degree of intellectual and moral improvement; for they had been long
enslaved to the Egyptians, the authors and supporters of the grossest
idolatry; they had been weighed down by the severest bondage,
perpetually harassed by the most incessant manual labours; for the
Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in
brick, and in all manner of service in the field,” Exod. i, 14. At this
time, and in this nation, was the Mosaic law promulgated, teaching the
great principles of true religion, the self-existence, the unity, the
perfections, and the providence of the one great Yahweh; reprobating
all false gods, all image worship, all the absurdities and profanations
of idolatry. At this time, and in this nation, was a system of
government framed, which had for its basis the reception of, and steady
adherence to, this system of true religion; and establishing many
regulations, which would be in the highest degree irrational, and could
never hope to be received, except from a general and thorough reliance
on the superintendence of Divine Providence, controlling the course of
nature, and directing every event, so as to proportion the prosperity of
the Hebrew people, according to their obedience to that law which they
had received as divine.
It is an obvious, but it is not therefore a less important remark, that
to the Jewish religion we owe that admirable summary of moral duty,
contained in the ten commandments. All fair reasoners will admit that
each of these must be understood to condemn, not merely the extreme
crime which it expressly prohibits, but every inferior offence of the
same kind, and every mode of conduct leading to such transgression; and,
on the contrary, to enjoin opposite conduct, and the cultivation of
opposite dispositions. Thus, the command, Thou shalt not kill,” condemns
not merely the single crime of deliberate murder, but every kind of
violence, and every indulgence of passion and resentment, which tends
either to excite such violence, or to produce that malignant disposition
of mind, in which the guilt of murder principally consists: and
similarly of the rest. In this extensive interpretation of the
commandments, we are warranted, not merely by the deductions of reason,
but by the letter of the law itself. For the addition of the last, Thou
shalt not covet,” proves clearly that in all, the dispositions of the
heart, as much as the immediate outward act, is the object of the divine
Legislator; and thus it forms a comment on the meaning, as well as a
guard for the observance, of all the preceding commands. Interpreted in
this natural and rational latitude, how comprehensive and important is
this summary of moral duty! It inculcates the adoration of the one true
God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is;” who
must, therefore, be infinite in power, and wisdom, and goodness; the
object of exclusive adoration; of gratitude for every blessing we enjoy;
of fear, for he is a jealous God; of hope, for he is merciful. It
prohibits every species of idolatry; whether by associating false gods
with the true, or worshipping the true by symbols and images. Commanding
not to take the name of God in vain, it enjoins the observance of all
outward respect for the divine authority, as well as the cultivation of
inward sentiments and feelings suited to this outward reverence; and it
establishes the obligation of oaths, and, by consequence, of all
compacts and deliberate promises; a principle, without which the
administration of laws would be impracticable, and the bonds of society
must be dissolved. By commanding to keep holy the Sabbath, as the
memorial of the creation, it establishes the necessity of public
worship, and of a stated and outward profession of the truths of
religion, as well as of the cultivation of suitable feelings; and it
enforces this by a motive which is equally applicable to all mankind,
and which should have taught the Jew that he ought to consider all
nations as equally creatures of that Yahweh whom he himself adored;
equally subject to his government, and, if sincerely obedient, entitled
to all the privileges his favour could bestow. It is also remarkable,
that this commandment, requiring that the rest of the Sabbath should
include the man-servant, and the maid-servant, and the stranger that was
within their gates, nay, even their cattle, proved that the Creator of
the universe extended his attention to all his creatures; that the
humblest of mankind were the objects of his paternal love; that no
accidental differences, which so often create alienation among different
nations, would alienate any from the divine regard; and that even the
brute creation shared the benevolence of their Creator, and ought to be
treated by men with gentleness and humanity.
When we proceed to the second table, comprehending more expressly our
social duties, we find all the most important principles on which they
depend clearly enforced. The commandment which enjoins, Honour thy
father and mother,” sanctions the principles, not merely of filial
obedience, but of all those duties which arise from our domestic
relations; and, while it requires not so much any one specific act, as
the general disposition which should regulate our whole course of
conduct in this instance, it impresses the important conviction, that
the entire law proceeds from a Legislator able to search and judge the
heart of man. The subsequent commands coincide with the clear dictates
of reason, and prohibit crimes which human laws in general have
prohibited as plainly destructive of social happiness. But it was of
infinite importance to rest the prohibitions, Thou shalt not kill,” Thou
shalt not commit adultery,” Thou shalt not steal,” Thou shalt not bear
false witness,” not merely on the deductions of reason, but also on the
weight of a divine authority. How often have false ideas of public good
in some places, depraved passions in others, and the delusions of
idolatry in still more, established a law of reputation contrary to the
dictates of reason, and the real interests of society. In one country we
see theft allowed, if perpetrated with address; in others, piracy and
rapine honoured, if conducted with intrepidity. Sometimes we perceive
adultery permitted, the most unnatural crimes committed without remorse
or shame; nay, every species of impurity enjoined and consecrated as a
part of divine worship. In others, we find revenge honoured as spirit,
and death inflicted at its impulse with ferocious triumph. Again, we see
every feeling of nature outraged, and parents exposing their helpless
children to perish for deformity of body or weakness of mind; or, what
is still more dreadful, from mercenary or political views; and this
inhuman practice familiarized by custom, and authorized by law. And, to
close the horrid catalogue, we see false religions leading their deluded
votaries to heap the altars of their idols with human victims; the
master butchers his slave, the conqueror his captive; nay, dreadful to
relate, the parent sacrifices his children, and, while they shriek
amidst the tortures of the flames, or in the agonies of death, he drowns
their cries by the clangour of cymbals and the yells of fanaticism. Yet
these abominations, separate or combined, have disgraced ages and
nations which we are accustomed to admire and celebrate as civilized and
enlightened,--Babylon and Egypt, Phenicia and Carthage, Greece and Rome.
Many of these crimes legislators have enjoined, or philosophers
defended. What, indeed, could be hoped from legislators and
philosophers, when we recollect the institutions of Lycurgus, especially
as to purity of manners, and the regulations of Plato on the same
subject, in his model of a perfect republic; when we consider the
sensuality of the Epicureans, and immodesty of the Cynics; when we find
suicide applauded by the Stoics, and the murderous combats of gladiators
defended by Cicero, and exhibited by Trajan? Such variation and
inconstancy in the rule and practice of moral duty, as established by
the feeble or fluctuating authority of human opinion, demonstrates the
utility of a clear divine interposition, to impress these important
prohibitions; and it is difficult for any sagacity to calculate how far
such an interposition was necessary, and what effect it may have
produced by influencing human opinions and regulating human conduct,
when we recollect that the Mosaic code was probably the first written
law ever delivered to any nation; and that it must have been generally
known in those eastern countries, from which the most ancient and
celebrated legislators and sages derived the models of their laws and
the principles of their philosophy.
But the Jewish religion promoted the interests of moral virtue, not
merely by the positive injunctions of the decalogue; it also inculcated
clearly and authoritatively the two great principles on which all piety
and virtue depend, and which our blessed Lord recognised as the
commandments on which hang the law and the prophets,--the principles of
love to God and love to our neighbour. The love of God is every where
enjoined in the Mosaic law, as the ruling disposition of the heart, from
which all obedience should spring, and in which it ought to terminate.
With what solemnity does the Jewish lawgiver impress it at the
commencement of his recapitulation of the divine law: Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” Deut.
vi, 4, 5. And again: And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require
of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to
love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all
thy soul?” Deut. x, 12. Nor is the love of our neighbour less explicitly
enforced: Thou shalt not,” says the law, avenge, nor bear any grudge
against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself: I am the Lord,” Lev. xix, 18. The operation of this
benevolence, thus solemnly required, was not to be confined to their own
countrymen; it was to extend to the stranger, who, having renounced
idolatry, was permitted to live among them, worshipping the true God,
though without submitting to circumcision or the other ceremonial parts
of the Mosaic law: If a stranger,” says the law, sojourn with thee in
your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you
shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as
thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord thy
God,” Lev. xix, 33, 34.
Thus, on a review of the topics we have discussed, it appears that the
Jewish law promulgated the great principles of moral duty in the
decalogue, with a solemnity suited to their high preëminence; that it
enjoined love to God with the most unceasing solicitude, and love to our
neighbour, as extensively and forcibly, as the peculiar design of the
Jewish economy, and the peculiar character of the Jewish people, would
permit; that it impressed the deepest conviction of God’s requiring, not
mere external observances, but heart-felt piety, well regulated desires,
and active benevolence; that it taught sacrifice could not obtain pardon
without repentance, or repentance without reformation and restitution;
that it described circumcision itself, and, by consequence, every other
legal rite, as designed to typify and inculcate internal holiness, which
alone could render men acceptable to God; that it represented the love
of God as designed to act as a practical principle, stimulating to the
constant and sincere cultivation of purity, mercy, and truth; and that
it enforced all these principles and precepts by sanctions the most
likely to operate powerfully on minds unaccustomed to abstract
speculations and remote views, even by temporal rewards and punishments;
the assurance of which was confirmed from the immediate experience of
similar rewards and punishments, dispensed to their enemies and to
themselves by that supernatural Power which had delivered the Hebrew
nation out of Egypt, conducted them through the wilderness, planted them
in the land of Canaan, regulated their government, distributed their
possessions, and to which alone they could look to obtain new blessings,
or secure those already enjoyed. From all this we derive another
presumptive argument for the divine authority of the Mosaic code; and it
may be contended, that a moral system thus perfect, promulgated at so
early a period, to such a people, and enforced by such sanctions as no
human power could undertake to execute, strongly bespeaks a divine
original.
2. The moral law is sometimes called the Mosaic law, because it was one
great branch of those injunctions which, under divine authority, Moses
enjoined upon the Israelites when they were gathered into a political
community under the theocracy. But it existed previously as the law of
all mankind; and it has been taken up into the Christian system, and
there more fully illustrated. As the obligation of the moral law upon
Christians has, however, been disputed by some perverters of the
Christian faith, or held by others on loose and fallacious grounds, this
subject ought to be clearly understood. It is, nevertheless, to be
noticed, that the morals of the New Testament are not proposed to us in
the form of a regular code. Even in the books of Moses, which have the
legislative form to a great extent, not all the principles and duties
which constituted the full character of godliness,” under that
dispensation, are made the subjects of formal injunction by particular
precepts. They are partly infolded in general principles, or often take
the form of injunction in an apparently incidental manner, or are
matters of obvious inference. A preceding code of traditionary moral law
is all along supposed in the writings of Moses and the prophets, as well
as a consuetudinary ritual and a doctrinal theology, both transmitted
from the patriarchs. This, too, is eminently the case with Christianity.
It supposes that all who believed in Christ admitted the divine
authority of the Old Testament; and it assumes the perpetual authority
of its morals, as well as the truth of its fundamental theology. The
constant allusions in the New Testament to the moral rules of the Jews
and patriarchs, either expressly as precepts, or as the data of
argument, sufficiently guard us against the notion, that what has not in
so many words been re-enacted] by Christ and his Apostles is of no
authority among Christians. In a great number of instances, however, the
form of injunction is directly preceptive, so as to have all the
explicitness and force of a regular code of law, and is, as much as a
regular code could be, a declaration of the sovereign will of Christ,
enforced by the sanctions of eternal life and death. This, however, is a
point on which a few confirmatory observations may be usefully adduced.
No part of the preceding dispensation, designated generally by the
appellation of the law,” is repealed in the New Testament, but what is
obviously ceremonial, typical, and incapable of coëxisting with
Christianity. Our Lord, in his discourse with the Samaritan woman,
declares, that the hour of the abolition of the temple worship was come;
the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, teaches us that the
Levitical services were but shadows, the substance and end of which is
Christ; and the ancient visible church, as constituted upon the ground
of natural descent from Abraham, was abolished by the establishment of a
spiritual body of believers to take its place. No precepts of a purely
political nature, that is, which respect the civil subjection of the
Jews to their theocracy, are, therefore, of any force to us as laws,
although they may have, in many cases, the greatest authority as
principles. No ceremonial precepts can be binding, since they were
restrained to a period terminating with the death and resurrection of
Christ; nor are even the patriarchal rites of circumcision and the
passover obligatory upon Christians, since we have sufficient evidence
that they were of an adumbrative character, and were laid aside by the
first inspired teachers of Christianity.
With the moral precepts which abound in the Old Testament the case is
very different, as sufficiently appears from the different, and even
contrary, manner in which they are always spoken of by Christ and his
Apostles. When our Lord, in his sermon on the mount, says, Think not
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to
destroy the law, but to fulfil;” that is, to confirm or establish it;
the entire scope of his discourse shows that he is speaking exclusively
of the moral precepts of the law,” eminently so called, and of the moral
injunctions of the prophets founded upon them, and to which he thus
gives an equal authority. And in so solemn a manner does he enforce
this, that he adds, doubtless as foreseeing that attempts would be made
by deceiving or deceived men professing his religion, to lessen the
authority of the moral law, Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven;” that is, as St. Chrysostom interprets,
He shall be the farthest from attaining heaven and happiness, which
imports that he shall not attain it at all.” In like manner St. Paul,
after having strenuously maintained the doctrine of justification by
faith alone, anticipates an objection by asking, Do we then make void
the law through faith?” and subjoins, God forbid: yea, we establish the
law;” meaning by the law,” as the context and his argument clearly show,
the moral and not the ceremonial law.
After such declarations, it is worse than trifling for any to contend
that, in order to establish the authority of the moral law of the Jews
over Christians, it ought to have been formally reënacted. To this we
may, however, farther reply, not only that many important moral
principles and rules found in the Old Testament were never formally
enacted among the Jews; were traditional from an earlier age; and
received at different times the more indirect authority of inspired
recognition; but, to put the matter in a stronger light, that all the
leading moral precepts of the Jewish Scriptures are, in point of fact,
proposed in the New Testament in a manner which has the full force of
formal reënactment, as the laws of the Christian church. This argument,
from the want of formal reënactment, will therefore have no weight. The
summary of the law and the prophets, which is to love God with all our
heart, and to serve him with all our strength, and to love our neighbour
as ourselves, is unquestionably enjoined, and even reënacted by the
Christian lawgiver. When our Lord is explicitly asked by one who came
unto him and said, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?” the answer given shows that the moral law contained
in the decalogue is so in force under the Christian dispensation, that
obedience to it is necessary to final salvation:--“If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments.” And that nothing ceremonial is
intended by this term, is manifest from what follows: He saith unto him,
Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit
adultery. Thou shalt not steal,” &c. Matt. xix, 17–19. Here, also, we
have all the force of a formal reënactment of the decalogue, a part of
it being evidently put for the whole. Nor were it difficult to produce
passages from the discourses of Christ and the writings of the Apostles,
which enjoin all the precepts of this law taken separately, by their
authority, as indispensable parts of Christian duty, and that, too,
under their original sanctions of life and death; so that the two
circumstances which form the true character of a law in its highest
sense, divine authority and penal sanctions, are found as truly in the
New Testament as in the Old. It will not, for instance, be contended,
that the New Testament does not enjoin the acknowledgment and worship of
one God alone; nor that it does not prohibit idolatry; nor that it does
not level its maledictions against false and profane swearing; nor that
the Apostle Paul does not use the very words of the fifth commandment
preceptively, when he says, Honour thy father and mother, which is the
first commandment with promise,” Eph. vi, 2; nor that murder, adultery,
theft, false witness, and covetousness are not all prohibited under pain
of exclusion from the kingdom of God. Thus, then, we have the whole
decalogue brought into the Christian code of morals, by a distinct
injunction of its separate precepts, and by their recognition as of
permanent and unchangeable obligation; the fourth commandment,
respecting the Sabbath only, being so far excepted, that its injunction
is not so expressly marked. This, however, is no exception in fact; for
beside that its original place in the two tables sufficiently
distinguishes it from all positive, ceremonial, and typical precepts,
and gives it a moral character, in respect to its ends, which are,
first, mercy to servants and cattle, and, second, the worship of
almighty God, undisturbed by worldly interruptions and cares, it is
necessarily included in that law” which our Lord declares he came not to
destroy, or abrogate; in that law” which St. Paul declares to be
established by faith,” and among those commandments” which our Lord
declares must be kept,” if any one would enter into life.” To this,
also, the practice of the Apostles is to be added, who did not cease
themselves from keeping one day in seven holy, nor teach others so to
do; but gave to “the Lord’s day” that eminence and sanctity in the
Christian church which the seventh day had in the Jewish, by
consecrating it to holy uses; an alteration not affecting the precept at
all, except in an unessential circumstance, (if indeed in that,) and in
which we may suppose them to have acted under divine suggestion.
Thus, then, we have the obligation of the whole decalogue as fully
established in the New Testament as in the Old, as if it had been
formally reënacted; and that no formal reënactment of it took place, is
itself a presumptive proof that it was never regarded by the lawgiver as
temporary, which the formality of republication might have supposed. It
is important to remark, however, that, although the moral laws of the
Mosaic dispensation pass into the Christian code, they stand there in
other and higher circumstances; so that the New Testament is a more
perfect dispensation of the knowledge of the moral will of God than the
Old. In particular, (1.) They are more expressly extended to the heart,
as by our Lord, in his sermon on the mount; who teaches us that the
thought and inward purpose of any offence is a violation of the law
prohibiting its external and visible commission. (2.) The principles on
which they are founded are carried out in the New Testament into a
greater variety of duties, which, by embracing more perfectly the social
and civil relations of life, are of a more universal character. (3.)
There is a much more enlarged injunction of positive and particular
virtues, especially those which constitute the Christian temper. (4.) By
all overt acts being inseparably connected with corresponding principles
in the heart, in order to constitute acceptable obedience, which
principles suppose the regeneration of the soul by the Holy Ghost. This
moral renovation is, therefore, held out as necessary to our salvation,
and promised as a part of the grace of our redemption by Christ. (5.) By
being connected with promises of divine assistance, which is peculiar to
a law connected with evangelical provisions. (6.) By their having a
living illustration in the perfect and practical example of Christ. (7.)
By the higher sanctions derived from the clearer revelation of a future
state, and the more explicit promises of eternal life, and threatenings
of eternal punishment. It follows from this, that we have in the Gospel
the most complete and perfect revelation of moral law ever given to men;
and a more exact manifestation of the brightness, perfection, and glory
of that law, under which angels and our progenitors in paradise were
placed, and which it is at once the delight and the interest of the most
perfect and happy beings to obey.
authority, which an inferior is bound to obey. The manner in which God
governs rational creatures is by a law, as the rule of their obedience
to him, and this is what we call God’s moral government of the world.
The term, however, is used in Scripture with considerable latitude of
meaning; and to ascertain its precise import in any particular place, it
is necessary to regard the scope and connection of the passage in which
it occurs. Thus, for instance, sometimes it denotes the whole revealed
will of God as communicated to us in his word. In this sense it is
generally used in the book of Psalms, i, 2; xix, 7; cxix; Isaiah viii,
20; xlii, 21. Sometimes it is taken for the Mosaical institution
distinguished from the Gospel, John i, 17; Matt. xi, 13; xii, 5; Acts
xxv, 8. Hence we frequently read of the law of Moses as expressive of
the whole religion of the Jews, Heb. ix, 19; x, 28. Sometimes, in a more
restricted sense, for the ritual or ceremonial observances of the Jewish
religion. In this sense the Apostle speaks of the law of commandments
contained in ordinances,” Eph. ii, 15; Heb. x, 1; and which, being only
a shadow of good things to come,” Christ Jesus abolished by his death,
and so in effect destroyed the ancient distinction between Jew and
Gentile, Gal. iii, 17. Very frequently it is used to signify the
decalogue, or ten precepts which were delivered to the Israelites from
Mount Sinai. It is in this acceptation of the term that the Lord Jesus
declares he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” Matt. v, 17;
and he explains its import as requiring perfect love to God and man,
Luke x, 27. It is in reference to this view that St. Paul affirms, By
the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified; for by the law
is the knowledge of sin,” Rom. iii, 20. The language of this law is, The
soul that sinneth it shall die,” and Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things that are written,” or required, in the book of the
law, to do them,” Gal. iii, 10. To deliver man from this penalty, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being himself made a curse
for us,” Gal. iii, 13. The law, in this sense, was not given that men
should obtain righteousness or justification by it, but to convince them
of sin, to show them their need of a Saviour, to shut them up, as it
were, from all hopes of salvation from that source, and to recommend the
Gospel of divine grace to their acceptance, Gal. iii, 19–25. Again, the
law often denotes the rule of good and evil, or of right and wrong,
revealed by the Creator and inscribed on man’s conscience, even at his
creation, and consequently binding upon him by divine authority; and in
this respect it is in substance the same with the decalogue. That such a
law was connate with, and, as it were, implanted in, man, appears from
its traces, which, like the ruins of some noble building, are still
extant in every man. It is from those common notions, handed down by
tradition, though often imperfect and perverted, that the Heathens
themselves distinguished right from wrong, by which they were a law unto
themselves, showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience bearing witness,” Rom. ii, 12–15, although they had no
express revelation.
The term law, is, however, eminently given to the Mosaic law; on the
principles and spirit of which, a few general remarks may be offered.
The right consideration of this divine institute, says Dr. Graves, will
surround it with a glory of truth and holiness, not only worthy of its
claims, but which has continued to be the light of the world on
theological and moral subjects, and often on great political principles,
to this day. If we examine the Jewish law, to discover the principle on
which the whole system depends, the primary truth, to inculcate and
illustrate which is its leading object, we find it to be that great
basis of all religion, both natural and revealed, the self-existence,
essential unity, perfections, and providence of the supreme Yahweh, the
Creator of heaven and earth. The first line of the Mosaic writings
inculcates this great truth: In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.” When the lawgiver begins to recapitulate the statutes and
judgments he had enjoined to his nation, it is with this declaration:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4; or, as it
might be more closely expressed, Yahweh our Elohim, or God, is one
Yahweh. And at the commencement of that sublime hymn, delivered by
Moses immediately before his death, in which this illustrious prophet
sums up the doctrines he had taught, the wonders by which they had been
confirmed, and the denunciations by which they were enforced, he
declares this great tenet with the sublimity of eastern poetry, but at
the same time with the precision of philosophic truth: Give ear,” says
he, O ye heavens, and I will speak: and hear, O earth, the words of my
mouth. My doctrine shall drop rain: my speech shall distil as the dew,
as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the
grass,” Deut. xxxii, 1, &c. What, is that doctrine so awful, that the
whole universe is thus invoked to attend to it? so salutary as to be
compared with the principle whose operation diffuses beauty and
fertility over the vegetable world? Hear the answer: Because I will
publish the name of Yahweh; ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is
the rock, his work is perfect: a God of truth, and without iniquity,
just and right is he.”
This, then, is one great leading doctrine of the Jewish code. But the
manner in which this doctrine is taught displays such wise accommodation
to the capacity and character of the nation to whom it is addressed, as
deserves to be carefully remarked. That character by which the supreme
Being is most clearly distinguished from every other, however exalted;
that character from which the acutest reasoners have endeavoured
demonstratively to deduce, as from their source, all the divine
attributes, is self-existence. Is it not then highly remarkable, that it
is under this character the Divinity is described on his first
manifestation to the Jewish lawgiver? The Deity at first reveals himself
unto him as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and therefore
the peculiar national and guardian God of the Jewish race. Moses,
conscious of the degeneracy of the Israelites, their ignorance of, or
their inattention to, the true God, and the difficulty and danger of any
attempt to recall them to his exclusive worship, and to withdraw them
from Egypt, seems to decline the task; but when absolutely commanded to
undertake it, he said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me
unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say
unto them? And God said unto Moses, _I am that I am_: and he said, Thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, _I Am_ hath sent me unto
you,” Exod. iii, 13, 14. Here we observe, according to the constant
method of the divine wisdom, when it condescends to the prejudices of
men, how in the very instance of indulgence it corrects their
superstition. The religion of names arose from an idolatrous polytheism;
and the name given here directly opposes this error, and in the
ignorance of that dark and corrupted period establishes that great
truth, to which the most enlightened philosophy can add no new lustre,
and on which all the most refined speculations on the divine nature
ultimately rest, the self-existence, and, by consequence, the eternity
and immutability, of the one great Yahweh.
But though the self-existence of the Deity was a fact too abstract to
require its being frequently inculcated, his essential unity was a
practical principle, the sure foundation on which to erect the structure
of true religion, and form a barrier against the encroachments of
idolatry: for this commenced not so frequently in denying the existence,
or even the supremacy, of the one true God, as in associating with him
for objects of adoration inferior intermediate beings, who were supposed
to be more directly employed in the administration of human affairs. To
confute and resist this false principle was, therefore, one great object
of the Jewish scheme. Hence the unity of God is inculcated with
perpetual solicitude; it stands at the head of the system of moral law
promulgated to the Jews from Sinai by the divine voice, heard by the
assembled nation, and issuing from the divine glory, with every
circumstance which could impress the deepest awe upon even the dullest
minds: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other gods beside
me,” Exod. xx, 2, 3. And in the recapitulation of the divine laws in
Deuteronomy, it is repeatedly enforced with the most solemn earnestness:
Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord,” Deut. vi, 4. And again:
Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is
God; there is none else beside him. Know, therefore, this day, and
consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and
in the earth beneath: there is none else,” Deut. iv, 35, 39.
This self-existent, supreme and only God is moreover described as
possessed of every perfection which can be ascribed to the Divinity: Ye
shall be holy,” says the Lord to the people of the Jews; for I the Lord
your God am holy,” Lev. xix, 2. Ascribe ye,” says the legislator,
greatness unto our God; he is the rock; his work is perfect; a God of
truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he,” Deut. xxxii, 4. And
in the hymn of thanksgiving on the miraculous escape of the Israelites
at the Red Sea, this is its burden: Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among
the gods? who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in
praises, doing wonders?” Exod. xv, 11. And when the Lord delivered to
Moses the two tables of the moral law, he is described as descending in
the cloud, and proclaiming the name of the Lord: And the Lord passed by
before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by
no means clear the guilty,” Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7.
But to teach the self-existence, the unity, the wisdom, and the power of
the Deity, nay, even his moral perfections of mercy, justice, and truth,
would have been insufficient to arrest the attention, and command the
obedience of a nation, the majority of which looked no farther than mere
present objects, and at that early period cherished scarcely any hopes
higher than those of a temporal kind,--if, in addition to all this, care
had not been taken to represent the providence of God as not only
directing the government of the universe by general laws, but also
perpetually superintending the conduct and determining the fortune of
every nation, of every family, nay, of every individual. It was the
disbelief or the neglect of this great truth which gave spirit and
energy, plausibility and attraction, to the whole system of idolatry.
While men believed that the supreme God and Lord of all was too exalted
in his dignity, too remote from this sublunary scene, to regard its
vicissitudes with an attentive eye, and too constantly engaged in the
contemplation of his own perfections, and the enjoyment of his own
independent and all-perfect happiness, to interfere in the regulation of
human affairs, they regarded with indifference that supreme Divinity who
seemed to take no concern in their conduct, and not to interfere as to
their happiness. However exalted and perfect such a Being might appear
to abstract speculation, he was to the generality of mankind as if he
did not exist; as their happiness or misery were not supposed to be
influenced by his power, they referred not their conduct to his
direction. If he delegated to inferior beings the regulation of this
inferior world; if all its concerns were conducted by their immediate
agency, and all its blessings or calamities distributed by their
immediate determination; it seemed rational, and even necessary, to
supplicate their favour and submit to their authority; and neither
unwise nor unsafe to neglect that Being, who, though all-perfect and
supreme, would, on this supposition appear, with respect to mankind,
altogether inoperative. In truth, this fact of the perpetual providence
of God extending even to the minutest events, is inseparably connected
with every motive which is offered to sway the conduct of the Jews, and
forcibly inculcated by every event of their history. This had been
manifested in the appointment of the land of Canaan for the future
settlement of the chosen people on the first covenant which God entered
into with the Patriarch Abraham; in the prophecy, that for four hundred
years they should be afflicted in Egypt, and afterward be thence
delivered; in the increase of their nation, under circumstances of
extreme oppression, and their supernatural deliverance from that
oppression. The same providence was displayed in the destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red Sea; the travels of the thousands of Israel through
the wilderness, sustained by food from heaven; and in their subsequent
settlement in the promised land by means entirely distinct from their
own strength. Reliance on the same providence was the foundation of
their civil government, the spirit and the principle of their
constitution. On this only could they be commanded to keep the sabbatic
year without tilling their land, or even gathering its spontaneous
produce; confiding in the promise, that God would send his blessing on
the sixth year, so that it should bring forth fruit for three years,
Lev. xxv, 21. The same faith in Divine Providence alone could prevail on
them to leave their properties and families exposed to the attack of
their surrounding enemies; while all the males of the nation assembled
at Jerusalem to celebrate the three great festivals, enjoined by divine
command, with the assurance that no man should desire their land when
they went up to appear before the Lord their God thrice in the year,
Exodus xxxiv, 24. And, finally, it is most evident, that, contrary to
all other lawgivers, the Jewish legislator renders his civil
institutions entirely subordinate to his religious; and announces to his
nation that their temporal adversity or prosperity would entirely
depend, not on their observance of their political regulations; not on
their preserving a military spirit, or acquiring commercial wealth, or
strengthening themselves by powerful alliances; but on their continuing
to worship the one true God according to the religious rites and
ceremonies by him prescribed, and preserving their piety and morals
untainted by the corruptions and vices which idolatry tended to
introduce.
Such was the theology of the Jewish religion, at a period when the whole
world was deeply infected with idolatry; when all knowledge of the one
true God, all reverence for his sacred name, all reliance on his
providence, all obedience to his laws, were nearly banished from the
earth; when the severest chastisements had been tried in vain; when no
hope of reformation appeared from the refinements of civilization or the
researches of philosophy; for the most civilized and enlightened nations
adopted with the greatest eagerness, and disseminated with the greatest
activity, the absurdities, impieties, and pollutions of idolatry. Then
was the Jewish law promulgated to a nation, who, to mere human judgment,
might have appeared incapable of inventing or receiving such a high
degree of intellectual and moral improvement; for they had been long
enslaved to the Egyptians, the authors and supporters of the grossest
idolatry; they had been weighed down by the severest bondage,
perpetually harassed by the most incessant manual labours; for the
Egyptians made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in
brick, and in all manner of service in the field,” Exod. i, 14. At this
time, and in this nation, was the Mosaic law promulgated, teaching the
great principles of true religion, the self-existence, the unity, the
perfections, and the providence of the one great Yahweh; reprobating
all false gods, all image worship, all the absurdities and profanations
of idolatry. At this time, and in this nation, was a system of
government framed, which had for its basis the reception of, and steady
adherence to, this system of true religion; and establishing many
regulations, which would be in the highest degree irrational, and could
never hope to be received, except from a general and thorough reliance
on the superintendence of Divine Providence, controlling the course of
nature, and directing every event, so as to proportion the prosperity of
the Hebrew people, according to their obedience to that law which they
had received as divine.
It is an obvious, but it is not therefore a less important remark, that
to the Jewish religion we owe that admirable summary of moral duty,
contained in the ten commandments. All fair reasoners will admit that
each of these must be understood to condemn, not merely the extreme
crime which it expressly prohibits, but every inferior offence of the
same kind, and every mode of conduct leading to such transgression; and,
on the contrary, to enjoin opposite conduct, and the cultivation of
opposite dispositions. Thus, the command, Thou shalt not kill,” condemns
not merely the single crime of deliberate murder, but every kind of
violence, and every indulgence of passion and resentment, which tends
either to excite such violence, or to produce that malignant disposition
of mind, in which the guilt of murder principally consists: and
similarly of the rest. In this extensive interpretation of the
commandments, we are warranted, not merely by the deductions of reason,
but by the letter of the law itself. For the addition of the last, Thou
shalt not covet,” proves clearly that in all, the dispositions of the
heart, as much as the immediate outward act, is the object of the divine
Legislator; and thus it forms a comment on the meaning, as well as a
guard for the observance, of all the preceding commands. Interpreted in
this natural and rational latitude, how comprehensive and important is
this summary of moral duty! It inculcates the adoration of the one true
God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is;” who
must, therefore, be infinite in power, and wisdom, and goodness; the
object of exclusive adoration; of gratitude for every blessing we enjoy;
of fear, for he is a jealous God; of hope, for he is merciful. It
prohibits every species of idolatry; whether by associating false gods
with the true, or worshipping the true by symbols and images. Commanding
not to take the name of God in vain, it enjoins the observance of all
outward respect for the divine authority, as well as the cultivation of
inward sentiments and feelings suited to this outward reverence; and it
establishes the obligation of oaths, and, by consequence, of all
compacts and deliberate promises; a principle, without which the
administration of laws would be impracticable, and the bonds of society
must be dissolved. By commanding to keep holy the Sabbath, as the
memorial of the creation, it establishes the necessity of public
worship, and of a stated and outward profession of the truths of
religion, as well as of the cultivation of suitable feelings; and it
enforces this by a motive which is equally applicable to all mankind,
and which should have taught the Jew that he ought to consider all
nations as equally creatures of that Yahweh whom he himself adored;
equally subject to his government, and, if sincerely obedient, entitled
to all the privileges his favour could bestow. It is also remarkable,
that this commandment, requiring that the rest of the Sabbath should
include the man-servant, and the maid-servant, and the stranger that was
within their gates, nay, even their cattle, proved that the Creator of
the universe extended his attention to all his creatures; that the
humblest of mankind were the objects of his paternal love; that no
accidental differences, which so often create alienation among different
nations, would alienate any from the divine regard; and that even the
brute creation shared the benevolence of their Creator, and ought to be
treated by men with gentleness and humanity.
When we proceed to the second table, comprehending more expressly our
social duties, we find all the most important principles on which they
depend clearly enforced. The commandment which enjoins, Honour thy
father and mother,” sanctions the principles, not merely of filial
obedience, but of all those duties which arise from our domestic
relations; and, while it requires not so much any one specific act, as
the general disposition which should regulate our whole course of
conduct in this instance, it impresses the important conviction, that
the entire law proceeds from a Legislator able to search and judge the
heart of man. The subsequent commands coincide with the clear dictates
of reason, and prohibit crimes which human laws in general have
prohibited as plainly destructive of social happiness. But it was of
infinite importance to rest the prohibitions, Thou shalt not kill,” Thou
shalt not commit adultery,” Thou shalt not steal,” Thou shalt not bear
false witness,” not merely on the deductions of reason, but also on the
weight of a divine authority. How often have false ideas of public good
in some places, depraved passions in others, and the delusions of
idolatry in still more, established a law of reputation contrary to the
dictates of reason, and the real interests of society. In one country we
see theft allowed, if perpetrated with address; in others, piracy and
rapine honoured, if conducted with intrepidity. Sometimes we perceive
adultery permitted, the most unnatural crimes committed without remorse
or shame; nay, every species of impurity enjoined and consecrated as a
part of divine worship. In others, we find revenge honoured as spirit,
and death inflicted at its impulse with ferocious triumph. Again, we see
every feeling of nature outraged, and parents exposing their helpless
children to perish for deformity of body or weakness of mind; or, what
is still more dreadful, from mercenary or political views; and this
inhuman practice familiarized by custom, and authorized by law. And, to
close the horrid catalogue, we see false religions leading their deluded
votaries to heap the altars of their idols with human victims; the
master butchers his slave, the conqueror his captive; nay, dreadful to
relate, the parent sacrifices his children, and, while they shriek
amidst the tortures of the flames, or in the agonies of death, he drowns
their cries by the clangour of cymbals and the yells of fanaticism. Yet
these abominations, separate or combined, have disgraced ages and
nations which we are accustomed to admire and celebrate as civilized and
enlightened,--Babylon and Egypt, Phenicia and Carthage, Greece and Rome.
Many of these crimes legislators have enjoined, or philosophers
defended. What, indeed, could be hoped from legislators and
philosophers, when we recollect the institutions of Lycurgus, especially
as to purity of manners, and the regulations of Plato on the same
subject, in his model of a perfect republic; when we consider the
sensuality of the Epicureans, and immodesty of the Cynics; when we find
suicide applauded by the Stoics, and the murderous combats of gladiators
defended by Cicero, and exhibited by Trajan? Such variation and
inconstancy in the rule and practice of moral duty, as established by
the feeble or fluctuating authority of human opinion, demonstrates the
utility of a clear divine interposition, to impress these important
prohibitions; and it is difficult for any sagacity to calculate how far
such an interposition was necessary, and what effect it may have
produced by influencing human opinions and regulating human conduct,
when we recollect that the Mosaic code was probably the first written
law ever delivered to any nation; and that it must have been generally
known in those eastern countries, from which the most ancient and
celebrated legislators and sages derived the models of their laws and
the principles of their philosophy.
But the Jewish religion promoted the interests of moral virtue, not
merely by the positive injunctions of the decalogue; it also inculcated
clearly and authoritatively the two great principles on which all piety
and virtue depend, and which our blessed Lord recognised as the
commandments on which hang the law and the prophets,--the principles of
love to God and love to our neighbour. The love of God is every where
enjoined in the Mosaic law, as the ruling disposition of the heart, from
which all obedience should spring, and in which it ought to terminate.
With what solemnity does the Jewish lawgiver impress it at the
commencement of his recapitulation of the divine law: Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” Deut.
vi, 4, 5. And again: And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require
of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to
love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all
thy soul?” Deut. x, 12. Nor is the love of our neighbour less explicitly
enforced: Thou shalt not,” says the law, avenge, nor bear any grudge
against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself: I am the Lord,” Lev. xix, 18. The operation of this
benevolence, thus solemnly required, was not to be confined to their own
countrymen; it was to extend to the stranger, who, having renounced
idolatry, was permitted to live among them, worshipping the true God,
though without submitting to circumcision or the other ceremonial parts
of the Mosaic law: If a stranger,” says the law, sojourn with thee in
your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you
shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as
thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord thy
God,” Lev. xix, 33, 34.
Thus, on a review of the topics we have discussed, it appears that the
Jewish law promulgated the great principles of moral duty in the
decalogue, with a solemnity suited to their high preëminence; that it
enjoined love to God with the most unceasing solicitude, and love to our
neighbour, as extensively and forcibly, as the peculiar design of the
Jewish economy, and the peculiar character of the Jewish people, would
permit; that it impressed the deepest conviction of God’s requiring, not
mere external observances, but heart-felt piety, well regulated desires,
and active benevolence; that it taught sacrifice could not obtain pardon
without repentance, or repentance without reformation and restitution;
that it described circumcision itself, and, by consequence, every other
legal rite, as designed to typify and inculcate internal holiness, which
alone could render men acceptable to God; that it represented the love
of God as designed to act as a practical principle, stimulating to the
constant and sincere cultivation of purity, mercy, and truth; and that
it enforced all these principles and precepts by sanctions the most
likely to operate powerfully on minds unaccustomed to abstract
speculations and remote views, even by temporal rewards and punishments;
the assurance of which was confirmed from the immediate experience of
similar rewards and punishments, dispensed to their enemies and to
themselves by that supernatural Power which had delivered the Hebrew
nation out of Egypt, conducted them through the wilderness, planted them
in the land of Canaan, regulated their government, distributed their
possessions, and to which alone they could look to obtain new blessings,
or secure those already enjoyed. From all this we derive another
presumptive argument for the divine authority of the Mosaic code; and it
may be contended, that a moral system thus perfect, promulgated at so
early a period, to such a people, and enforced by such sanctions as no
human power could undertake to execute, strongly bespeaks a divine
original.
2. The moral law is sometimes called the Mosaic law, because it was one
great branch of those injunctions which, under divine authority, Moses
enjoined upon the Israelites when they were gathered into a political
community under the theocracy. But it existed previously as the law of
all mankind; and it has been taken up into the Christian system, and
there more fully illustrated. As the obligation of the moral law upon
Christians has, however, been disputed by some perverters of the
Christian faith, or held by others on loose and fallacious grounds, this
subject ought to be clearly understood. It is, nevertheless, to be
noticed, that the morals of the New Testament are not proposed to us in
the form of a regular code. Even in the books of Moses, which have the
legislative form to a great extent, not all the principles and duties
which constituted the full character of godliness,” under that
dispensation, are made the subjects of formal injunction by particular
precepts. They are partly infolded in general principles, or often take
the form of injunction in an apparently incidental manner, or are
matters of obvious inference. A preceding code of traditionary moral law
is all along supposed in the writings of Moses and the prophets, as well
as a consuetudinary ritual and a doctrinal theology, both transmitted
from the patriarchs. This, too, is eminently the case with Christianity.
It supposes that all who believed in Christ admitted the divine
authority of the Old Testament; and it assumes the perpetual authority
of its morals, as well as the truth of its fundamental theology. The
constant allusions in the New Testament to the moral rules of the Jews
and patriarchs, either expressly as precepts, or as the data of
argument, sufficiently guard us against the notion, that what has not in
so many words been re-enacted] by Christ and his Apostles is of no
authority among Christians. In a great number of instances, however, the
form of injunction is directly preceptive, so as to have all the
explicitness and force of a regular code of law, and is, as much as a
regular code could be, a declaration of the sovereign will of Christ,
enforced by the sanctions of eternal life and death. This, however, is a
point on which a few confirmatory observations may be usefully adduced.
No part of the preceding dispensation, designated generally by the
appellation of the law,” is repealed in the New Testament, but what is
obviously ceremonial, typical, and incapable of coëxisting with
Christianity. Our Lord, in his discourse with the Samaritan woman,
declares, that the hour of the abolition of the temple worship was come;
the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, teaches us that the
Levitical services were but shadows, the substance and end of which is
Christ; and the ancient visible church, as constituted upon the ground
of natural descent from Abraham, was abolished by the establishment of a
spiritual body of believers to take its place. No precepts of a purely
political nature, that is, which respect the civil subjection of the
Jews to their theocracy, are, therefore, of any force to us as laws,
although they may have, in many cases, the greatest authority as
principles. No ceremonial precepts can be binding, since they were
restrained to a period terminating with the death and resurrection of
Christ; nor are even the patriarchal rites of circumcision and the
passover obligatory upon Christians, since we have sufficient evidence
that they were of an adumbrative character, and were laid aside by the
first inspired teachers of Christianity.
With the moral precepts which abound in the Old Testament the case is
very different, as sufficiently appears from the different, and even
contrary, manner in which they are always spoken of by Christ and his
Apostles. When our Lord, in his sermon on the mount, says, Think not
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to
destroy the law, but to fulfil;” that is, to confirm or establish it;
the entire scope of his discourse shows that he is speaking exclusively
of the moral precepts of the law,” eminently so called, and of the moral
injunctions of the prophets founded upon them, and to which he thus
gives an equal authority. And in so solemn a manner does he enforce
this, that he adds, doubtless as foreseeing that attempts would be made
by deceiving or deceived men professing his religion, to lessen the
authority of the moral law, Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven;” that is, as St. Chrysostom interprets,
He shall be the farthest from attaining heaven and happiness, which
imports that he shall not attain it at all.” In like manner St. Paul,
after having strenuously maintained the doctrine of justification by
faith alone, anticipates an objection by asking, Do we then make void
the law through faith?” and subjoins, God forbid: yea, we establish the
law;” meaning by the law,” as the context and his argument clearly show,
the moral and not the ceremonial law.
After such declarations, it is worse than trifling for any to contend
that, in order to establish the authority of the moral law of the Jews
over Christians, it ought to have been formally reënacted. To this we
may, however, farther reply, not only that many important moral
principles and rules found in the Old Testament were never formally
enacted among the Jews; were traditional from an earlier age; and
received at different times the more indirect authority of inspired
recognition; but, to put the matter in a stronger light, that all the
leading moral precepts of the Jewish Scriptures are, in point of fact,
proposed in the New Testament in a manner which has the full force of
formal reënactment, as the laws of the Christian church. This argument,
from the want of formal reënactment, will therefore have no weight. The
summary of the law and the prophets, which is to love God with all our
heart, and to serve him with all our strength, and to love our neighbour
as ourselves, is unquestionably enjoined, and even reënacted by the
Christian lawgiver. When our Lord is explicitly asked by one who came
unto him and said, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?” the answer given shows that the moral law contained
in the decalogue is so in force under the Christian dispensation, that
obedience to it is necessary to final salvation:--“If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments.” And that nothing ceremonial is
intended by this term, is manifest from what follows: He saith unto him,
Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit
adultery. Thou shalt not steal,” &c. Matt. xix, 17–19. Here, also, we
have all the force of a formal reënactment of the decalogue, a part of
it being evidently put for the whole. Nor were it difficult to produce
passages from the discourses of Christ and the writings of the Apostles,
which enjoin all the precepts of this law taken separately, by their
authority, as indispensable parts of Christian duty, and that, too,
under their original sanctions of life and death; so that the two
circumstances which form the true character of a law in its highest
sense, divine authority and penal sanctions, are found as truly in the
New Testament as in the Old. It will not, for instance, be contended,
that the New Testament does not enjoin the acknowledgment and worship of
one God alone; nor that it does not prohibit idolatry; nor that it does
not level its maledictions against false and profane swearing; nor that
the Apostle Paul does not use the very words of the fifth commandment
preceptively, when he says, Honour thy father and mother, which is the
first commandment with promise,” Eph. vi, 2; nor that murder, adultery,
theft, false witness, and covetousness are not all prohibited under pain
of exclusion from the kingdom of God. Thus, then, we have the whole
decalogue brought into the Christian code of morals, by a distinct
injunction of its separate precepts, and by their recognition as of
permanent and unchangeable obligation; the fourth commandment,
respecting the Sabbath only, being so far excepted, that its injunction
is not so expressly marked. This, however, is no exception in fact; for
beside that its original place in the two tables sufficiently
distinguishes it from all positive, ceremonial, and typical precepts,
and gives it a moral character, in respect to its ends, which are,
first, mercy to servants and cattle, and, second, the worship of
almighty God, undisturbed by worldly interruptions and cares, it is
necessarily included in that law” which our Lord declares he came not to
destroy, or abrogate; in that law” which St. Paul declares to be
established by faith,” and among those commandments” which our Lord
declares must be kept,” if any one would enter into life.” To this,
also, the practice of the Apostles is to be added, who did not cease
themselves from keeping one day in seven holy, nor teach others so to
do; but gave to “the Lord’s day” that eminence and sanctity in the
Christian church which the seventh day had in the Jewish, by
consecrating it to holy uses; an alteration not affecting the precept at
all, except in an unessential circumstance, (if indeed in that,) and in
which we may suppose them to have acted under divine suggestion.
Thus, then, we have the obligation of the whole decalogue as fully
established in the New Testament as in the Old, as if it had been
formally reënacted; and that no formal reënactment of it took place, is
itself a presumptive proof that it was never regarded by the lawgiver as
temporary, which the formality of republication might have supposed. It
is important to remark, however, that, although the moral laws of the
Mosaic dispensation pass into the Christian code, they stand there in
other and higher circumstances; so that the New Testament is a more
perfect dispensation of the knowledge of the moral will of God than the
Old. In particular, (1.) They are more expressly extended to the heart,
as by our Lord, in his sermon on the mount; who teaches us that the
thought and inward purpose of any offence is a violation of the law
prohibiting its external and visible commission. (2.) The principles on
which they are founded are carried out in the New Testament into a
greater variety of duties, which, by embracing more perfectly the social
and civil relations of life, are of a more universal character. (3.)
There is a much more enlarged injunction of positive and particular
virtues, especially those which constitute the Christian temper. (4.) By
all overt acts being inseparably connected with corresponding principles
in the heart, in order to constitute acceptable obedience, which
principles suppose the regeneration of the soul by the Holy Ghost. This
moral renovation is, therefore, held out as necessary to our salvation,
and promised as a part of the grace of our redemption by Christ. (5.) By
being connected with promises of divine assistance, which is peculiar to
a law connected with evangelical provisions. (6.) By their having a
living illustration in the perfect and practical example of Christ. (7.)
By the higher sanctions derived from the clearer revelation of a future
state, and the more explicit promises of eternal life, and threatenings
of eternal punishment. It follows from this, that we have in the Gospel
the most complete and perfect revelation of moral law ever given to men;
and a more exact manifestation of the brightness, perfection, and glory
of that law, under which angels and our progenitors in paradise were
placed, and which it is at once the delight and the interest of the most
perfect and happy beings to obey.