Chapter 40

The law, then, has a deeper foundation than that God merely“said so.”God's word and God's will are revelations of his inmost being; every transgression of the law is a stab at the heart of God. Simon, Reconciliation, 141, 142—“God continues to demand loyalty even after man has proved disloyal. Sin changes man, and man's change involves a change in God. Man now regards God as a ruler and exactor, and God must regard man as a defaulter and a rebel.”God's requirement is not lessened because man is unable to meet it. This inability is itself non-conformity to law, and is no excuse for sin; see Dr. Bushnell's sermon on“Duty not measured by Ability.”The man with the withered hand would not have been justified in refusing to stretch it forth at Jesus' command (Mat. 12:10-13).The obligation to obey this law and to be conformed to God's perfect moral character is based upon man's original ability and the gifts which God bestowed upon him at the beginning. Created in the image of God, it is man's duty to render back to God that which God first gave, enlarged and improved by growth and culture (Luke 19:23—“wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have required it with interest”). This obligation is not impaired by sin and the weakening of man's powers. To let down the standard would be to misrepresent God. Adolphe Monod would not save himself from shame and remorse by lowering the claims of the law:“Save first the holy law of my God,”he says,“after that you shall save me!”Even salvation is not through violation of law. The moral law is immutable, because it is a transcript of the nature of the immutable God. Shall nature conform to me, or I to nature? If I attempt to resist even physical laws, I am crushed. I can use nature only by obeying her laws. Lord Bacon:“Natura enim non nisi parendo vincitur.”So[pg 542]in the moral realm. We cannot buy off nor escape the moral law of God. God will not, and God can not, change his law by one hair's breadth, even to save a universe of sinners. Omar Kháyyám, in his Rubáiyát, begs his god to“reconcile the law to my desires.”Marie Corelli says well:“As if a gnat should seek to build a cathedral, and should ask to have the laws of architecture altered to suit its gnat-like capacity.”See Martineau, Types, 2:120.Secondly, the law of God as the ideal of human nature.—A law thus identical with the eternal and necessary relations of the creature to the Creator, and demanding of the creature nothing less than perfect holiness, as the condition of harmony with the infinite holiness of God, is adapted to man's finite nature, as needing law; to man's free nature, as needing moral law; and to man's progressive nature, as needing ideal law.Man, as finite, needs law, just as railway cars need a track to guide them—to leap the track is to find, not freedom, but ruin. Railway President:“Our rules are written in blood.”Goethe, Was Wir Bringen, 19 Auftritt:“In vain shall spirits that are all unbound To the pure heights of perfectness aspire; In limitation first the Master shines, And law alone can give us liberty.”—Man, as a free being, needs moral law. He is not an automaton, a creature of necessity, governed only by physical influences. With conscience to command the right, and will to choose or reject it, his true dignity and calling are that he should freely realize the right.—Man, as a progressive being, needs nothing less than an ideal and infinite standard of attainment, a goal which he can never overpass, an end which shall ever attract and urge him forward. This he finds in the holiness of God.The law is afence, not only for ownership, but for care. God not only demands, but he protects. Law is the transcript of love as well as of holiness. We may reverse the well-known couplet and say:“I slept, and dreamed that life was Duty; I woke and found that life was Beauty.”“Cui servire regnare est.”Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 56—“In Plato's Crito, the Laws are made to present themselves in person to Socrates in prison, not only as the guardians of his liberty, but as his lifelong friends, his well-wishers, his equals, with whom he had of his own free will entered into binding compact.”It does not harm the scholar to have before him the ideal of perfect scholarship; nor the teacher to have before him the ideal of a perfect school; nor the legislator to have before him the ideal of perfect law. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 134—“The moral goal must be a flying goal; the standard to which we are to grow must be ever rising; the type to which we are to be conformed must have in it inexhaustible fulness.”John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:119—“It is just the best, purest, noblest human souls, who are least satisfied with themselves and their own spiritual attainments; and the reason is that the human is not a nature essentially different from the divine, but a nature which, just because it is in essential affinity with God, can be satisfied with nothing less than a divine perfection.”J. M. Whiton, The Divine Satisfaction:“Law requires being, character, likeness to God. It is automatic, self-operating. Penalty is untransferable. It cannot admit of any other satisfaction than the reëstablishment of the normal relation which it requires. Punishment proclaims that the law has not been satisfied. There is no cancelling of the curse except through the growing up of the normal relation. Blessing and curse ensue upon what we are, not upon what we were. Reparation is within the spirit itself. The atonement is educational, not governmental.”We reply that the atonement is both governmental and educational, and that reparation must first be made to the holiness of God before conscience, the mirror of God's holiness, can reflect that reparation and be at peace.The law of God is therefore characterized by:(a) All-comprehensiveness.—It is over us at all times; it respects our past, our present, our future. It forbids every conceivable sin; it requires every conceivable virtue; omissions as well as commissions are condemned by it.Ps. 119:96—“I have seen an end of all perfection ... thy commandment is exceeding broad”;Rom. 3:23—“all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God”;James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and[pg 543]doeth it not, to him it is sin.”Gravitation holds the mote as well as the world. God's law detects and denounces the least sin, so that without atonement it cannot be pardoned. The law of gravitation may be suspended or abrogated, for it has no necessary ground in God's being; but God's moral law cannot be suspended or abrogated, for that would contradict God's holiness.“About right”is not“all right.”“The giant hexagonal pillars of basalt in the Scottish Staffa are identical in form with the microscopic crystals of the same mineral.”So God is our pattern, and goodness is our likeness to him.(b) Spirituality.—It demands not only right acts and words, but also right dispositions and states. Perfect obedience requires not only the intense and unremitting reign of love toward God and man, but conformity of the whole inward and outward nature of man to the holiness of God.Mat. 5:22, 28—the angry word is murder; the sinful look is adultery.Mark 12:30, 31—“thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”;2 Cor. 10:5—“bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”;Eph. 5:1—“Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children”;1 Pet. 1:16—“Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”As the brightest electric light, seen through a smoked glass against the sun, appears like a black spot, so the brightest unregenerate character is dark, when compared with the holiness of God. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 235, remarks onGal. 6:4—“let each man prove his own work, and then shall he have his glorying in regard of himself alone, and not of his neighbor”—“I have a small candle and I compare it with my brother's taper and come away rejoicing. Why not compare it with the sun? Then I shall lose my pride and uncharitableness.”The distance to the sun from the top of an ant-hill and from the top of Mount Everest is nearly the same. The African princess praised for her beauty had no way to verify the compliments paid her but by looking in the glassy surface of the pool. But the trader came and sold her a mirror. Then she was so shocked at her own ugliness that she broke the mirror in pieces. So we look into the mirror of God's law, compare ourselves with the Christ who is reflected there, and hate the mirror which reveals us to ourselves (James 1:23, 24).(c) Solidarity.—It exhibits in all its parts the nature of the one Lawgiver, and it expresses, in its least command, the one requirement of harmony with him.Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”;Mark 12:29, 30—“The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God”;James 2:10—“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all”;4:12—“One only is the lawgiver and judge.”Even little rattlesnakes are snakes. One link broken in the chain, and the bucket falls into the well. The least sin separates us from God. The least sin renders us guilty of the whole law, because it shows us to lack the love which is required in all the commandments. Those who send us to the Sermon on the Mount for salvation send us to a tribunal that damns us. The Sermon on the Mount is but a republication of the law given on Sinai, but now in more spiritual and penetrating form. Thunders and lightnings proceed from the N. T., as from the O. T., mount. The Sermon on the Mount is only the introductory lecture of Jesus' theological course, asJohn 14-17is the closing lecture. In it is announced the law, which prepares the way for the gospel. Those who would degrade doctrine by exalting precept will find that they have left men without the motive or the power to keep the precept. Æschylus, Agamemnon:“For there's no bulwark in man's wealth to him Who, through a surfeit, kicks—into the dim And disappearing—Right's great altar.”Only to the first man, then, was the law proposed as a method of salvation. With the first sin, all hope of obtaining the divine favor by perfect obedience is lost. To sinners the law remains as a means of discovering and developing sin in its true nature, and of compelling a recourse to the mercy provided in Jesus Christ.2 Chron. 34:19—“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes”;Job 42:5, 6—“I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth thee; Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”The revelation of God inIs. 6:3, 5—“Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”—causes the prophet to cry like the leper:“Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.”Rom. 3:20—“by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the[pg 544]knowledge of sin”;5:20—“the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound”;7:7, 8—“I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet: but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from the law sin is dead”;Gal. 3:24—“So that the law is become our tutor,”or attendant-slave,“to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith”—the law trains our wayward boyhood and leads it to Christ the Master, as in old times the slave accompanied children to school. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 177, 178—“The law increases sin by increasing the knowledge of sin and by increasing the activity of sin. The law does not add to the inherent energy of the sinful principle which pervades human nature, but it does cause this principle to reveal itself more energetically in sinful act.”The law inspires fear, but it leads to love. The Rabbins said that, if Israel repented but for one day, the Messiah would appear.No man ever yet drew a straight line or a perfect curve; yet he would be a poor architect who contented himself with anything less. Since men never come up to their ideals, he who aims to live only anaveragemoral life will inevitably fallbelowthe average. The law, then, leads to Christ. He who is theidealis also thewayto attain the ideal. He who is himself the Word and the Law embodied, is also the Spirit of life that makes obedience possible to us (John 14:6—“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”;Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”). Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh:“The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the Life too with the Law.”Christforus upon the Cross, and Christinus by his Spirit, is the only deliverance from the curse of the law;Gal 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”We must see the claims of the law satisfied and the law itself written on our hearts. We are“reconciled to God through the death of his Son,”but we are also“saved by his life”(Rom. 5:10).Robert Browning, in The Ring and the Book, represents Caponsacchi as comparing himself at his best with the new ideal of“perfect as Father in heaven is perfect”suggested by Pompilia's purity, and as breaking out into the cry:“O great, just, good God! Miserable me!”In the Interpreter's House of Pilgrim's Progress, Law only stirred up the dust in the foul room,—the Gospel had to sprinkle water on the floor before it could be cleansed. E. G. Robinson:“It is necessary to smoke a man out, before you can bring a higher motive to bear upon him.”Barnabas said that Christ was the answer to the riddle of the law.Rom. 10:4—“Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth.”The railroad track opposite Detroit on the St. Clair River runs to the edge of the dock and seems intended to plunge the train into the abyss. But when the ferry boat comes up, rails are seen upon its deck, and the boat is the end of the track, to carry passengers over to Detroit. So the law, which by itself would bring only destruction, finds its end in Christ who ensures our passage to the celestial city.Law, then, with its picture of spotless innocence, simply reminds man of the heights from which he has fallen.“It is a mirror which reveals derangement, but does not create or remove it.”With its demand of absolute perfection, up to the measure of man's original endowments and possibilities, it drives us, in despair of ourselves, to Christ as our only righteousness and our only Savior (Rom. 8:3, 4—“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”). Thus law must prepare the way for grace, and John the Baptist must precede Christ.When Sarah Bernhardt was solicited to add an eleventh commandment, she declined upon the ground there were already ten too many. It was an expression of pagan contempt of law. In heathendom, sin and insensibility to sin increased together. In Judaism and Christianity, on the contrary, there has been a growing sense of sin's guilt and condemnableness. McLaren, in S. S. Times, Sept. 23, 1893:600—“Among the Jews there was a far profounder sense of sin than in any other ancient nation. The law written on men's hearts evoked a lower consciousness of sin, and there are prayers on the Assyrian and Babylonian tablets which may almost stand beside the 51st Psalm. But, on the whole, the deep sense of sin was the product of the revealed law.”See Fairbairn, Revelation of Law and Scripture; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 187-242; Hovey, God with Us, 187-210; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:45-50; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 53-71; Martineau, Types, 2:120-125.2.Positive Enactment, or the expression of the will of God in published ordinances. This is also two-fold:[pg 545]A. General moral precepts.—These are written summaries of the elemental law (Mat. 5:48; 22:37-40), or authorized applications of it to special human conditions (Ex. 20:1-17; Mat. chap. 5-8).Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”;22:37-40—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth and the prophets”;Ex. 20:1-17—the Ten Commandments;Mat., chap. 5-8—the Sermon on the Mount.Cf.Augustine, onPs. 57:1.Solly, On the Will, 162, gives two illustrations of the fact that positive precepts are merely applications of elemental law or the law of nature:“‘Thou shalt not steal,’is a moral law which may be stated thus:thou shalt not take that for thy own property, which is the property of another. The contradictory of this proposition would be:thou mayest take that for thy own property which is the property of another. But this is a contradiction in terms; for it is the very conception of property, that the owner stands in a peculiar relation to its subject matter; and what is every man's property is no man's property, as it isproperto no man. Hence the contradictory of the commandment contains a simple contradiction directly it is made a rule universal; and the commandment itself is established as one of the principles for the harmony of individual wills.“‘Thou shalt not tell a lie,’as a rule of morality, may be expressed generally:thou shall not by thy outward act make another to believe thy thought to be other than it is. The contradictory made universal is:every man may by his outward act make another to believe his thought to be other than it is. Now this maxim also contains a contradiction, and is self-destructive. It conveys a permission to do that which is rendered impossible by the permission itself. Absolute and universal indifference to truth, or the entire mutual independence of the thought and symbol, makes the symbol cease to be a symbol, and the conveyance of thought by its means, an impossibility.”Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 48, 90—“Fundamental law of reason: So act, that thy maxims of will might become laws in a system of universal moral legislation.”This is Kant's categorical imperative. He expresses it in yet another form:“Act from maxims fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.”For expositions of the Decalogue which bring out its spiritual meaning, see Kurtz, Religionslehre, 9-72; Dick, Theology, 2:513-554; Dwight, Theology, 3:163-560; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:259-465.B. Ceremonial or special injunctions.—These are illustrations of the elemental law, or approximate revelations of it, suited to lower degrees of capacity and to earlier stages of spiritual training (Ez. 20:25; Mat. 19:8; Mark 10:5). Though temporary, only God can say when they cease to be binding upon us in their outward form.All positive enactments, therefore, whether they be moral or ceremonial, are republications of elemental law. Their forms may change, but the substance is eternal. Certain modes of expression, like the Mosaic system, may be abolished, but the essential demands are unchanging (Mat. 5:17, 18; cf. Eph. 2:15). From the imperfection of human language, no positive enactments are able to express in themselves the whole content and meaning of the elemental law.“It is not the purpose of revelation to disclose the whole of our duties.”Scripture is not a complete code of rules for practical action, but an enunciation of principles, with occasional precepts by way of illustration. Hence we must supplement the positive enactment by the law of being—the moral ideal found in the nature of God.Ez. 20:25—“Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live”;Mat. 19:8—“Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives”;Mark 10:5—“For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment”;Mat. 5:17, 18—“Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished”;cf.Eph. 2:15—“having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances”;Heb. 8:7—“if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second.”Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 90—“After the coming of the new covenant, the keeping up of the old was as[pg 546]needless a burden as winter garments in the mild air of summer, or as the attempt of an adult to wear the clothes of a child.”Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35—“Jesus repudiates for himself and for his disciples absolute subjection to O. T. Sabbath law (Mark 2:27sq.); to O. T. law as to external defilements (Mark 7:15); to O. T. divorce law (Mark 10:2sq.). He would‘fulfil’law and prophets by complete practical performance of the revealed will of God. He would bring out their inner meaning, not by literal and slavish obedience to every minute requirement of the Mosaic law, but by revealing in himself the perfect life and work toward which they tended. He would perfect the O. T. conceptions of God—not keep them intact in their literal form, but in their essential spirit. Not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, he would fulfil the law and the prophets. He would bring the imperfect expression in the O. T. to perfection, not by servile letter-worship or allegorizing, but through grasp of the divine idea.”Scripture is not a series of minute injunctions and prohibitions such as the Pharisees and the Jesuits laid down. The Koran showed its immeasurable inferiority to the Bible by establishing the letter instead of the spirit, by giving permanent, definite, and specific rules of conduct, instead of leaving room for the growth of the free spirit and for the education of conscience. This is not true either of O. T. or of N. T. law. In Miss Fowler's novel The Farringdons, Mrs. Herbert wishes“that the Bible had been written on the principle of that dreadful little book called‘Don't,’which gives a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she would have understood it so much better than the present system.”Our Savior's words about giving to him that asketh, and turning the cheek to the smiter (Mat 5:39-42) must be interpreted by the principle of love that lies at the foundation of the law. Giving to every tramp and yielding to every marauder is not pleasing our neighbor“for that which is good unto edifying”(Rom. 15:2). Only by confounding the divine law with Scripture prohibition could one write as in N. Amer. Rev., Feb. 1890:275—“Sin is the transgression of a divine law; but there is no divine law against suicide; therefore suicide is not sin.”The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give no higher to an unenlightened people.“But to say that thescopeanddesignwere imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in which this course of education issues.”And this we find in the life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law, the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (Num. 19:16), equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God's holiness and his repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated“till he come”(1 Cor. 11:26).The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial, temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in external precepts respecting woman's hair and dress and speech, but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I call Man's conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God's verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what's fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian's Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men's eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.”See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel, Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195.Paul's injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:35;1 Tim. 2:11,12) is to be interpreted by the larger law of gospel equality and privilege (Col. 3:11). Modesty and subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the beginning.“In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were recognized as leaders of God's people, and Anna was a notable prophetess[pg 547]in the temple courts at the time of the coming of Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all generations. A prophecy ofJoel 2:28was that the daughters of the Lord's people should prophesy, under the guidance of the Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had‘four virgin daughters, who prophesied’(Acts 21:9), and Paul cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they prayed or prophesied in public (1 Cor. 11:5), but had no words against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching power (Acts 18:26). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (Phil. 4:3). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and in the missionary field.”The command“And he that heareth let him say, Come”(Rev. 22:17) is addressed to women also. See Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry;per contra, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.

The obligation to obey this law and to be conformed to God's perfect moral character is based upon man's original ability and the gifts which God bestowed upon him at the beginning. Created in the image of God, it is man's duty to render back to God that which God first gave, enlarged and improved by growth and culture (Luke 19:23—“wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have required it with interest”). This obligation is not impaired by sin and the weakening of man's powers. To let down the standard would be to misrepresent God. Adolphe Monod would not save himself from shame and remorse by lowering the claims of the law:“Save first the holy law of my God,”he says,“after that you shall save me!”

Even salvation is not through violation of law. The moral law is immutable, because it is a transcript of the nature of the immutable God. Shall nature conform to me, or I to nature? If I attempt to resist even physical laws, I am crushed. I can use nature only by obeying her laws. Lord Bacon:“Natura enim non nisi parendo vincitur.”So[pg 542]in the moral realm. We cannot buy off nor escape the moral law of God. God will not, and God can not, change his law by one hair's breadth, even to save a universe of sinners. Omar Kháyyám, in his Rubáiyát, begs his god to“reconcile the law to my desires.”Marie Corelli says well:“As if a gnat should seek to build a cathedral, and should ask to have the laws of architecture altered to suit its gnat-like capacity.”See Martineau, Types, 2:120.

Secondly, the law of God as the ideal of human nature.—A law thus identical with the eternal and necessary relations of the creature to the Creator, and demanding of the creature nothing less than perfect holiness, as the condition of harmony with the infinite holiness of God, is adapted to man's finite nature, as needing law; to man's free nature, as needing moral law; and to man's progressive nature, as needing ideal law.

Man, as finite, needs law, just as railway cars need a track to guide them—to leap the track is to find, not freedom, but ruin. Railway President:“Our rules are written in blood.”Goethe, Was Wir Bringen, 19 Auftritt:“In vain shall spirits that are all unbound To the pure heights of perfectness aspire; In limitation first the Master shines, And law alone can give us liberty.”—Man, as a free being, needs moral law. He is not an automaton, a creature of necessity, governed only by physical influences. With conscience to command the right, and will to choose or reject it, his true dignity and calling are that he should freely realize the right.—Man, as a progressive being, needs nothing less than an ideal and infinite standard of attainment, a goal which he can never overpass, an end which shall ever attract and urge him forward. This he finds in the holiness of God.The law is afence, not only for ownership, but for care. God not only demands, but he protects. Law is the transcript of love as well as of holiness. We may reverse the well-known couplet and say:“I slept, and dreamed that life was Duty; I woke and found that life was Beauty.”“Cui servire regnare est.”Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 56—“In Plato's Crito, the Laws are made to present themselves in person to Socrates in prison, not only as the guardians of his liberty, but as his lifelong friends, his well-wishers, his equals, with whom he had of his own free will entered into binding compact.”It does not harm the scholar to have before him the ideal of perfect scholarship; nor the teacher to have before him the ideal of a perfect school; nor the legislator to have before him the ideal of perfect law. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 134—“The moral goal must be a flying goal; the standard to which we are to grow must be ever rising; the type to which we are to be conformed must have in it inexhaustible fulness.”John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:119—“It is just the best, purest, noblest human souls, who are least satisfied with themselves and their own spiritual attainments; and the reason is that the human is not a nature essentially different from the divine, but a nature which, just because it is in essential affinity with God, can be satisfied with nothing less than a divine perfection.”J. M. Whiton, The Divine Satisfaction:“Law requires being, character, likeness to God. It is automatic, self-operating. Penalty is untransferable. It cannot admit of any other satisfaction than the reëstablishment of the normal relation which it requires. Punishment proclaims that the law has not been satisfied. There is no cancelling of the curse except through the growing up of the normal relation. Blessing and curse ensue upon what we are, not upon what we were. Reparation is within the spirit itself. The atonement is educational, not governmental.”We reply that the atonement is both governmental and educational, and that reparation must first be made to the holiness of God before conscience, the mirror of God's holiness, can reflect that reparation and be at peace.

The law is afence, not only for ownership, but for care. God not only demands, but he protects. Law is the transcript of love as well as of holiness. We may reverse the well-known couplet and say:“I slept, and dreamed that life was Duty; I woke and found that life was Beauty.”“Cui servire regnare est.”Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 56—“In Plato's Crito, the Laws are made to present themselves in person to Socrates in prison, not only as the guardians of his liberty, but as his lifelong friends, his well-wishers, his equals, with whom he had of his own free will entered into binding compact.”It does not harm the scholar to have before him the ideal of perfect scholarship; nor the teacher to have before him the ideal of a perfect school; nor the legislator to have before him the ideal of perfect law. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 134—“The moral goal must be a flying goal; the standard to which we are to grow must be ever rising; the type to which we are to be conformed must have in it inexhaustible fulness.”

John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:119—“It is just the best, purest, noblest human souls, who are least satisfied with themselves and their own spiritual attainments; and the reason is that the human is not a nature essentially different from the divine, but a nature which, just because it is in essential affinity with God, can be satisfied with nothing less than a divine perfection.”J. M. Whiton, The Divine Satisfaction:“Law requires being, character, likeness to God. It is automatic, self-operating. Penalty is untransferable. It cannot admit of any other satisfaction than the reëstablishment of the normal relation which it requires. Punishment proclaims that the law has not been satisfied. There is no cancelling of the curse except through the growing up of the normal relation. Blessing and curse ensue upon what we are, not upon what we were. Reparation is within the spirit itself. The atonement is educational, not governmental.”We reply that the atonement is both governmental and educational, and that reparation must first be made to the holiness of God before conscience, the mirror of God's holiness, can reflect that reparation and be at peace.

The law of God is therefore characterized by:

(a) All-comprehensiveness.—It is over us at all times; it respects our past, our present, our future. It forbids every conceivable sin; it requires every conceivable virtue; omissions as well as commissions are condemned by it.

Ps. 119:96—“I have seen an end of all perfection ... thy commandment is exceeding broad”;Rom. 3:23—“all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God”;James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and[pg 543]doeth it not, to him it is sin.”Gravitation holds the mote as well as the world. God's law detects and denounces the least sin, so that without atonement it cannot be pardoned. The law of gravitation may be suspended or abrogated, for it has no necessary ground in God's being; but God's moral law cannot be suspended or abrogated, for that would contradict God's holiness.“About right”is not“all right.”“The giant hexagonal pillars of basalt in the Scottish Staffa are identical in form with the microscopic crystals of the same mineral.”So God is our pattern, and goodness is our likeness to him.

(b) Spirituality.—It demands not only right acts and words, but also right dispositions and states. Perfect obedience requires not only the intense and unremitting reign of love toward God and man, but conformity of the whole inward and outward nature of man to the holiness of God.

Mat. 5:22, 28—the angry word is murder; the sinful look is adultery.Mark 12:30, 31—“thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”;2 Cor. 10:5—“bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”;Eph. 5:1—“Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children”;1 Pet. 1:16—“Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”As the brightest electric light, seen through a smoked glass against the sun, appears like a black spot, so the brightest unregenerate character is dark, when compared with the holiness of God. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 235, remarks onGal. 6:4—“let each man prove his own work, and then shall he have his glorying in regard of himself alone, and not of his neighbor”—“I have a small candle and I compare it with my brother's taper and come away rejoicing. Why not compare it with the sun? Then I shall lose my pride and uncharitableness.”The distance to the sun from the top of an ant-hill and from the top of Mount Everest is nearly the same. The African princess praised for her beauty had no way to verify the compliments paid her but by looking in the glassy surface of the pool. But the trader came and sold her a mirror. Then she was so shocked at her own ugliness that she broke the mirror in pieces. So we look into the mirror of God's law, compare ourselves with the Christ who is reflected there, and hate the mirror which reveals us to ourselves (James 1:23, 24).

(c) Solidarity.—It exhibits in all its parts the nature of the one Lawgiver, and it expresses, in its least command, the one requirement of harmony with him.

Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”;Mark 12:29, 30—“The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God”;James 2:10—“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all”;4:12—“One only is the lawgiver and judge.”Even little rattlesnakes are snakes. One link broken in the chain, and the bucket falls into the well. The least sin separates us from God. The least sin renders us guilty of the whole law, because it shows us to lack the love which is required in all the commandments. Those who send us to the Sermon on the Mount for salvation send us to a tribunal that damns us. The Sermon on the Mount is but a republication of the law given on Sinai, but now in more spiritual and penetrating form. Thunders and lightnings proceed from the N. T., as from the O. T., mount. The Sermon on the Mount is only the introductory lecture of Jesus' theological course, asJohn 14-17is the closing lecture. In it is announced the law, which prepares the way for the gospel. Those who would degrade doctrine by exalting precept will find that they have left men without the motive or the power to keep the precept. Æschylus, Agamemnon:“For there's no bulwark in man's wealth to him Who, through a surfeit, kicks—into the dim And disappearing—Right's great altar.”

Only to the first man, then, was the law proposed as a method of salvation. With the first sin, all hope of obtaining the divine favor by perfect obedience is lost. To sinners the law remains as a means of discovering and developing sin in its true nature, and of compelling a recourse to the mercy provided in Jesus Christ.

2 Chron. 34:19—“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes”;Job 42:5, 6—“I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth thee; Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”The revelation of God inIs. 6:3, 5—“Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”—causes the prophet to cry like the leper:“Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.”Rom. 3:20—“by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the[pg 544]knowledge of sin”;5:20—“the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound”;7:7, 8—“I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet: but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from the law sin is dead”;Gal. 3:24—“So that the law is become our tutor,”or attendant-slave,“to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith”—the law trains our wayward boyhood and leads it to Christ the Master, as in old times the slave accompanied children to school. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 177, 178—“The law increases sin by increasing the knowledge of sin and by increasing the activity of sin. The law does not add to the inherent energy of the sinful principle which pervades human nature, but it does cause this principle to reveal itself more energetically in sinful act.”The law inspires fear, but it leads to love. The Rabbins said that, if Israel repented but for one day, the Messiah would appear.No man ever yet drew a straight line or a perfect curve; yet he would be a poor architect who contented himself with anything less. Since men never come up to their ideals, he who aims to live only anaveragemoral life will inevitably fallbelowthe average. The law, then, leads to Christ. He who is theidealis also thewayto attain the ideal. He who is himself the Word and the Law embodied, is also the Spirit of life that makes obedience possible to us (John 14:6—“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”;Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”). Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh:“The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the Life too with the Law.”Christforus upon the Cross, and Christinus by his Spirit, is the only deliverance from the curse of the law;Gal 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”We must see the claims of the law satisfied and the law itself written on our hearts. We are“reconciled to God through the death of his Son,”but we are also“saved by his life”(Rom. 5:10).Robert Browning, in The Ring and the Book, represents Caponsacchi as comparing himself at his best with the new ideal of“perfect as Father in heaven is perfect”suggested by Pompilia's purity, and as breaking out into the cry:“O great, just, good God! Miserable me!”In the Interpreter's House of Pilgrim's Progress, Law only stirred up the dust in the foul room,—the Gospel had to sprinkle water on the floor before it could be cleansed. E. G. Robinson:“It is necessary to smoke a man out, before you can bring a higher motive to bear upon him.”Barnabas said that Christ was the answer to the riddle of the law.Rom. 10:4—“Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth.”The railroad track opposite Detroit on the St. Clair River runs to the edge of the dock and seems intended to plunge the train into the abyss. But when the ferry boat comes up, rails are seen upon its deck, and the boat is the end of the track, to carry passengers over to Detroit. So the law, which by itself would bring only destruction, finds its end in Christ who ensures our passage to the celestial city.Law, then, with its picture of spotless innocence, simply reminds man of the heights from which he has fallen.“It is a mirror which reveals derangement, but does not create or remove it.”With its demand of absolute perfection, up to the measure of man's original endowments and possibilities, it drives us, in despair of ourselves, to Christ as our only righteousness and our only Savior (Rom. 8:3, 4—“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”). Thus law must prepare the way for grace, and John the Baptist must precede Christ.When Sarah Bernhardt was solicited to add an eleventh commandment, she declined upon the ground there were already ten too many. It was an expression of pagan contempt of law. In heathendom, sin and insensibility to sin increased together. In Judaism and Christianity, on the contrary, there has been a growing sense of sin's guilt and condemnableness. McLaren, in S. S. Times, Sept. 23, 1893:600—“Among the Jews there was a far profounder sense of sin than in any other ancient nation. The law written on men's hearts evoked a lower consciousness of sin, and there are prayers on the Assyrian and Babylonian tablets which may almost stand beside the 51st Psalm. But, on the whole, the deep sense of sin was the product of the revealed law.”See Fairbairn, Revelation of Law and Scripture; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 187-242; Hovey, God with Us, 187-210; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:45-50; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 53-71; Martineau, Types, 2:120-125.

No man ever yet drew a straight line or a perfect curve; yet he would be a poor architect who contented himself with anything less. Since men never come up to their ideals, he who aims to live only anaveragemoral life will inevitably fallbelowthe average. The law, then, leads to Christ. He who is theidealis also thewayto attain the ideal. He who is himself the Word and the Law embodied, is also the Spirit of life that makes obedience possible to us (John 14:6—“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”;Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”). Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh:“The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the Life too with the Law.”Christforus upon the Cross, and Christinus by his Spirit, is the only deliverance from the curse of the law;Gal 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”We must see the claims of the law satisfied and the law itself written on our hearts. We are“reconciled to God through the death of his Son,”but we are also“saved by his life”(Rom. 5:10).

Robert Browning, in The Ring and the Book, represents Caponsacchi as comparing himself at his best with the new ideal of“perfect as Father in heaven is perfect”suggested by Pompilia's purity, and as breaking out into the cry:“O great, just, good God! Miserable me!”In the Interpreter's House of Pilgrim's Progress, Law only stirred up the dust in the foul room,—the Gospel had to sprinkle water on the floor before it could be cleansed. E. G. Robinson:“It is necessary to smoke a man out, before you can bring a higher motive to bear upon him.”Barnabas said that Christ was the answer to the riddle of the law.Rom. 10:4—“Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth.”The railroad track opposite Detroit on the St. Clair River runs to the edge of the dock and seems intended to plunge the train into the abyss. But when the ferry boat comes up, rails are seen upon its deck, and the boat is the end of the track, to carry passengers over to Detroit. So the law, which by itself would bring only destruction, finds its end in Christ who ensures our passage to the celestial city.

Law, then, with its picture of spotless innocence, simply reminds man of the heights from which he has fallen.“It is a mirror which reveals derangement, but does not create or remove it.”With its demand of absolute perfection, up to the measure of man's original endowments and possibilities, it drives us, in despair of ourselves, to Christ as our only righteousness and our only Savior (Rom. 8:3, 4—“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”;Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”). Thus law must prepare the way for grace, and John the Baptist must precede Christ.

When Sarah Bernhardt was solicited to add an eleventh commandment, she declined upon the ground there were already ten too many. It was an expression of pagan contempt of law. In heathendom, sin and insensibility to sin increased together. In Judaism and Christianity, on the contrary, there has been a growing sense of sin's guilt and condemnableness. McLaren, in S. S. Times, Sept. 23, 1893:600—“Among the Jews there was a far profounder sense of sin than in any other ancient nation. The law written on men's hearts evoked a lower consciousness of sin, and there are prayers on the Assyrian and Babylonian tablets which may almost stand beside the 51st Psalm. But, on the whole, the deep sense of sin was the product of the revealed law.”See Fairbairn, Revelation of Law and Scripture; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 187-242; Hovey, God with Us, 187-210; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:45-50; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 53-71; Martineau, Types, 2:120-125.

2.Positive Enactment, or the expression of the will of God in published ordinances. This is also two-fold:

A. General moral precepts.—These are written summaries of the elemental law (Mat. 5:48; 22:37-40), or authorized applications of it to special human conditions (Ex. 20:1-17; Mat. chap. 5-8).

Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”;22:37-40—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth and the prophets”;Ex. 20:1-17—the Ten Commandments;Mat., chap. 5-8—the Sermon on the Mount.Cf.Augustine, onPs. 57:1.Solly, On the Will, 162, gives two illustrations of the fact that positive precepts are merely applications of elemental law or the law of nature:“‘Thou shalt not steal,’is a moral law which may be stated thus:thou shalt not take that for thy own property, which is the property of another. The contradictory of this proposition would be:thou mayest take that for thy own property which is the property of another. But this is a contradiction in terms; for it is the very conception of property, that the owner stands in a peculiar relation to its subject matter; and what is every man's property is no man's property, as it isproperto no man. Hence the contradictory of the commandment contains a simple contradiction directly it is made a rule universal; and the commandment itself is established as one of the principles for the harmony of individual wills.“‘Thou shalt not tell a lie,’as a rule of morality, may be expressed generally:thou shall not by thy outward act make another to believe thy thought to be other than it is. The contradictory made universal is:every man may by his outward act make another to believe his thought to be other than it is. Now this maxim also contains a contradiction, and is self-destructive. It conveys a permission to do that which is rendered impossible by the permission itself. Absolute and universal indifference to truth, or the entire mutual independence of the thought and symbol, makes the symbol cease to be a symbol, and the conveyance of thought by its means, an impossibility.”Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 48, 90—“Fundamental law of reason: So act, that thy maxims of will might become laws in a system of universal moral legislation.”This is Kant's categorical imperative. He expresses it in yet another form:“Act from maxims fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.”For expositions of the Decalogue which bring out its spiritual meaning, see Kurtz, Religionslehre, 9-72; Dick, Theology, 2:513-554; Dwight, Theology, 3:163-560; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:259-465.

Solly, On the Will, 162, gives two illustrations of the fact that positive precepts are merely applications of elemental law or the law of nature:“‘Thou shalt not steal,’is a moral law which may be stated thus:thou shalt not take that for thy own property, which is the property of another. The contradictory of this proposition would be:thou mayest take that for thy own property which is the property of another. But this is a contradiction in terms; for it is the very conception of property, that the owner stands in a peculiar relation to its subject matter; and what is every man's property is no man's property, as it isproperto no man. Hence the contradictory of the commandment contains a simple contradiction directly it is made a rule universal; and the commandment itself is established as one of the principles for the harmony of individual wills.

“‘Thou shalt not tell a lie,’as a rule of morality, may be expressed generally:thou shall not by thy outward act make another to believe thy thought to be other than it is. The contradictory made universal is:every man may by his outward act make another to believe his thought to be other than it is. Now this maxim also contains a contradiction, and is self-destructive. It conveys a permission to do that which is rendered impossible by the permission itself. Absolute and universal indifference to truth, or the entire mutual independence of the thought and symbol, makes the symbol cease to be a symbol, and the conveyance of thought by its means, an impossibility.”

Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 48, 90—“Fundamental law of reason: So act, that thy maxims of will might become laws in a system of universal moral legislation.”This is Kant's categorical imperative. He expresses it in yet another form:“Act from maxims fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.”For expositions of the Decalogue which bring out its spiritual meaning, see Kurtz, Religionslehre, 9-72; Dick, Theology, 2:513-554; Dwight, Theology, 3:163-560; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:259-465.

B. Ceremonial or special injunctions.—These are illustrations of the elemental law, or approximate revelations of it, suited to lower degrees of capacity and to earlier stages of spiritual training (Ez. 20:25; Mat. 19:8; Mark 10:5). Though temporary, only God can say when they cease to be binding upon us in their outward form.

All positive enactments, therefore, whether they be moral or ceremonial, are republications of elemental law. Their forms may change, but the substance is eternal. Certain modes of expression, like the Mosaic system, may be abolished, but the essential demands are unchanging (Mat. 5:17, 18; cf. Eph. 2:15). From the imperfection of human language, no positive enactments are able to express in themselves the whole content and meaning of the elemental law.“It is not the purpose of revelation to disclose the whole of our duties.”Scripture is not a complete code of rules for practical action, but an enunciation of principles, with occasional precepts by way of illustration. Hence we must supplement the positive enactment by the law of being—the moral ideal found in the nature of God.

Ez. 20:25—“Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live”;Mat. 19:8—“Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives”;Mark 10:5—“For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment”;Mat. 5:17, 18—“Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished”;cf.Eph. 2:15—“having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances”;Heb. 8:7—“if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second.”Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 90—“After the coming of the new covenant, the keeping up of the old was as[pg 546]needless a burden as winter garments in the mild air of summer, or as the attempt of an adult to wear the clothes of a child.”Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35—“Jesus repudiates for himself and for his disciples absolute subjection to O. T. Sabbath law (Mark 2:27sq.); to O. T. law as to external defilements (Mark 7:15); to O. T. divorce law (Mark 10:2sq.). He would‘fulfil’law and prophets by complete practical performance of the revealed will of God. He would bring out their inner meaning, not by literal and slavish obedience to every minute requirement of the Mosaic law, but by revealing in himself the perfect life and work toward which they tended. He would perfect the O. T. conceptions of God—not keep them intact in their literal form, but in their essential spirit. Not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, he would fulfil the law and the prophets. He would bring the imperfect expression in the O. T. to perfection, not by servile letter-worship or allegorizing, but through grasp of the divine idea.”Scripture is not a series of minute injunctions and prohibitions such as the Pharisees and the Jesuits laid down. The Koran showed its immeasurable inferiority to the Bible by establishing the letter instead of the spirit, by giving permanent, definite, and specific rules of conduct, instead of leaving room for the growth of the free spirit and for the education of conscience. This is not true either of O. T. or of N. T. law. In Miss Fowler's novel The Farringdons, Mrs. Herbert wishes“that the Bible had been written on the principle of that dreadful little book called‘Don't,’which gives a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she would have understood it so much better than the present system.”Our Savior's words about giving to him that asketh, and turning the cheek to the smiter (Mat 5:39-42) must be interpreted by the principle of love that lies at the foundation of the law. Giving to every tramp and yielding to every marauder is not pleasing our neighbor“for that which is good unto edifying”(Rom. 15:2). Only by confounding the divine law with Scripture prohibition could one write as in N. Amer. Rev., Feb. 1890:275—“Sin is the transgression of a divine law; but there is no divine law against suicide; therefore suicide is not sin.”The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give no higher to an unenlightened people.“But to say that thescopeanddesignwere imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in which this course of education issues.”And this we find in the life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law, the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (Num. 19:16), equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God's holiness and his repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated“till he come”(1 Cor. 11:26).The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial, temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in external precepts respecting woman's hair and dress and speech, but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I call Man's conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God's verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what's fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian's Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men's eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.”See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel, Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195.Paul's injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:35;1 Tim. 2:11,12) is to be interpreted by the larger law of gospel equality and privilege (Col. 3:11). Modesty and subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the beginning.“In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were recognized as leaders of God's people, and Anna was a notable prophetess[pg 547]in the temple courts at the time of the coming of Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all generations. A prophecy ofJoel 2:28was that the daughters of the Lord's people should prophesy, under the guidance of the Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had‘four virgin daughters, who prophesied’(Acts 21:9), and Paul cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they prayed or prophesied in public (1 Cor. 11:5), but had no words against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching power (Acts 18:26). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (Phil. 4:3). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and in the missionary field.”The command“And he that heareth let him say, Come”(Rev. 22:17) is addressed to women also. See Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry;per contra, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.

Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35—“Jesus repudiates for himself and for his disciples absolute subjection to O. T. Sabbath law (Mark 2:27sq.); to O. T. law as to external defilements (Mark 7:15); to O. T. divorce law (Mark 10:2sq.). He would‘fulfil’law and prophets by complete practical performance of the revealed will of God. He would bring out their inner meaning, not by literal and slavish obedience to every minute requirement of the Mosaic law, but by revealing in himself the perfect life and work toward which they tended. He would perfect the O. T. conceptions of God—not keep them intact in their literal form, but in their essential spirit. Not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, he would fulfil the law and the prophets. He would bring the imperfect expression in the O. T. to perfection, not by servile letter-worship or allegorizing, but through grasp of the divine idea.”

Scripture is not a series of minute injunctions and prohibitions such as the Pharisees and the Jesuits laid down. The Koran showed its immeasurable inferiority to the Bible by establishing the letter instead of the spirit, by giving permanent, definite, and specific rules of conduct, instead of leaving room for the growth of the free spirit and for the education of conscience. This is not true either of O. T. or of N. T. law. In Miss Fowler's novel The Farringdons, Mrs. Herbert wishes“that the Bible had been written on the principle of that dreadful little book called‘Don't,’which gives a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she would have understood it so much better than the present system.”Our Savior's words about giving to him that asketh, and turning the cheek to the smiter (Mat 5:39-42) must be interpreted by the principle of love that lies at the foundation of the law. Giving to every tramp and yielding to every marauder is not pleasing our neighbor“for that which is good unto edifying”(Rom. 15:2). Only by confounding the divine law with Scripture prohibition could one write as in N. Amer. Rev., Feb. 1890:275—“Sin is the transgression of a divine law; but there is no divine law against suicide; therefore suicide is not sin.”

The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give no higher to an unenlightened people.“But to say that thescopeanddesignwere imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in which this course of education issues.”And this we find in the life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law, the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (Num. 19:16), equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God's holiness and his repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated“till he come”(1 Cor. 11:26).

The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial, temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in external precepts respecting woman's hair and dress and speech, but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I call Man's conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God's verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what's fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian's Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men's eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.”See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel, Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195.

Paul's injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:35;1 Tim. 2:11,12) is to be interpreted by the larger law of gospel equality and privilege (Col. 3:11). Modesty and subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the beginning.“In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were recognized as leaders of God's people, and Anna was a notable prophetess[pg 547]in the temple courts at the time of the coming of Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all generations. A prophecy ofJoel 2:28was that the daughters of the Lord's people should prophesy, under the guidance of the Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had‘four virgin daughters, who prophesied’(Acts 21:9), and Paul cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they prayed or prophesied in public (1 Cor. 11:5), but had no words against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching power (Acts 18:26). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (Phil. 4:3). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and in the missionary field.”The command“And he that heareth let him say, Come”(Rev. 22:17) is addressed to women also. See Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry;per contra, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.

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