HrmjmmmiM*mWM-'^y'^^^^^^^ ; i : f /^ i; i'MI ;v. ^^ [•yi",M^.w^i.W'^"^'''^.*'v'.'^'*';'W5'M': .f-CtiiiliiitiAiOUA'tURAJll ■•£«»'*- *«f^ am^i^mm^' LIBRARY BM 535 .P87 1866 Powell, Baden, 1796-1860 Christianity without Judaisl 1^ CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT JUDAISM. LIST OF THE THEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE LATE EEV. BADEN POWELL, M.A., &c. Rational Religion Examined. 1826. The Advance of Knowledge — A Sermon. 1826. Revelation and Science — A Sermon. 1833. To the Editor of th^ British Critic. 1834. Remarks on Dr Hampden, &c. 1836. Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth. 1838. Tradition Unveiled. London and America. 1839. Supplement to Tradition Unveiled. London and America. 1840 State Education. 1841. The Protestant's Warning, &c, — A Sermon. 1841. Three Articles on Anglo-Catholicism. In British and Foreign Review, Nos. 31, 32, 33. 1843-4. Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature— Articles, " Creation,'' " Deluge," Lord's Day," " Sabbath." 1843-4. Life of Blanco White. Westminster Review. Dec, 1845. Tendency of Puseyism. Ditto. June, 1846. Mysticism and Scepticism. Edinburgh Review. July, 1846. Protestant Principles. Oxford Protestant Mag. 1847. On the Study of Christian Evidences. Edinburgh Review. 1847. Freedom of Opinion. Oxford Protestant Magazine. 1848. Church and State. Ditto. 1848. Free Enquiry and Liberality. Kitto's Journal of Sacred Litera- ture. 1848. «^ The Law and the Gospel. Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature. 1848. On tlie Application and Misapplication of Scripture. Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature. 1 848. The State Church— A Sermon before the University of Oxford. 1850. Unity of Worlds— First Series of Essays— First Edition and Second Edition. 1855. On the Burnett Prizes, and the Study of Natural Theology. Ox- ford Essays. 1856. Christianity without Judaism— Two Sermons. Three Editions in 1856. Christianity without Judaism — Second Series of Essays. 1857. The Order of Nature— Third Series of Essays. 1859. On the. Study of the Evidences of Christianity, in the First Edition of Essays and Reviews. 1859. Second Edition ditto, London and American Editions, 1860; continued to Twelth Edition, unaltered. CHKISTIANITY WITHOUT JUDAISM: A SECOND SEEIES OF ESSAYS. INCLUDING THE SUBSTANCE OF SEKMONS DELIVERED IN LONDON AND OTHER PLACES. BY THE EEV. BADE:N" POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.G.S. LATE SAVILIAN PROFESSOR OF GEOMETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. SECOND EDITION, REVISED. loxdo:n" : longmans, green, & co. 1866. The right of translation is reserved. 'Atottov k(TTiv K-pKTTov 'IrjOTOvv XaXelv Kal 'lovSaf^^eLv. '0 yap 'S.piaTLavKTfxd^ ovk ets 'lovSaia/uidv kiriaTevcrev aWa 'lovoa'ia/xo? eh KpiCTTiaviar/JLOV, ws irdara yXuiaraa TTLorTeva-aaa eh Qeov orvvjJX^V' Ignatius ad Magnes. § x. " It is inconsistent to speak of Jesus Christ, and at tlie same time to follow Judaism. For Christianity hath not believed in Judaism, iDut Judaism in Christianity, that those of every tongue, having believed in God, might be imited together." •niNTED BY NEILL ANB COMrANT, EDINBURGH PEEFACE. In the Preface to tlie Second Edition of my Essays entitled " The Unity of Worlds and of Nature" I have led the reader to expect a second series, to include the discussion of some im- portant topics but imperfectly treated in the first. The present Volume is designed in part to fulfil that promise ; it includes the considera- tion of a subject of a more purely theological kind several times adverted to in the former volume, — and which it seemed advisable to put forth in a separate form, — the relation of Christianity to Judaism. The reference to this subject arose out of certain remarks on the bearing of the results of science on rehgious belief ; a topic which, in its wider extent, will form the subject of a third series of Essays. vi PREFACE. With respect to tlie more limited discussion in tlie following pages, it includes the substance of two articles in " Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literatm^e," 1848, an "Essay on the Law and the Gospel" and " On the Apphcation and Mis- application of Scripture." Two Sermons bearing the same title as the present volume were printed in 1856 for private circulation; the argument of which has been here more systematically enlarged upon. Of those two discourses I may remark, that the interest they appear to have excited, judging from the demands made on me for copies from all parts of the country, but especially from Scotland, has been a chief inducement to the publication of the present more amplified view of the whole subject. The Avhole discussion constitutes the sub- stance of several series of Sermons, which — though holding no position in the Church myself — I have had opportunities of delivering from the pulpits of friends, — formerly in seve- PEEFACE. vii ral places, but especially, of late, in one of tlie most frequented cliurclies of the metropolis ; — and I have reason to believe that my repre- sentations of the case have extensively called attention to a subject of great and increasing importance, especially at a time when opinions of a very opposite tendency are too commonly prevalent and popular. In the former Essays I dwelt upon the irreconcilable contradiction between the truths elicited by geology and the Sinaitic cosmo- gony, recited every week in our churches ; — necessitating a modified interpretation of some kind ; and this, taken in connection (as it must be) with the true nature of Christianity, as distinct from Mosaism, becomes, in my opinion, a matter of imperative importance at the pre- sent time, to be dwelt w^onfrom the pulpit without disguise or compromise. In bringing these subjects forward on various occasions for many years past, though, from the prevalence of very opposite opinions, I Vlll PREFACE. have encountered much opposition, yet, from recent instances, I feel persuaded tHat there is now at least a considerable, and, I believe, fast increasing, proportion, both of clergy and laity, who are fully alive to more liberal and enlightened views of these subjects, as bearing on the grand object of a general higher appre- ciation of the real principles of Christianity, so essential for the stability of the very grounds of religious belief at the present day. In deference to the representations of several correspondents, I have appended at the end of the volume some remarks (from which I should otherwise have abstained) on a work which has obtained some celebrity, — the late Mr H. Miller's " Testimony of the Eocks,''— the last attempt, it is to be hoped, to revive Bible-geology. 1857. ANALYTICAL TABLE OE CONTENTS. ESSAY I. INTRODUCTORY. General Statement of the Subject .... Page 3 Objects of discussion. — Appeal to Scripture assumed. — Spirit of theological discussion often opposed to physical discoverj^ — Purity of Christianity to be preserved. — Attacks on Christianity through Judaism. — Evils of Puritanism. ESSAY 11. ion and Misapplication of Scripture in , , . , , . , 27 On the App] general The principle of the literal application of every passage prevalent at the Eeformation and since. Neglect of dis- tinction between difiFerent dispensations. Literalism ex- emplified in Calvinism, Antinomianism, Bible Philosophy, Mosaic Cosmogony, Biblical Eclecticism. — Necessity for more rational interpretation. — Distinction of dispensations. — Principle of adaptation. ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. ESSAY III. THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. § i. The Primeval Dispensations .... Page 85 Older dispensations transitory. — General nature. — No primeval Sabbath. — Covenants, and " the promise." § ii. The Judaical Law .97 Early part of Old Testament introductory to the Law. — Separation of the peculiar people. — No distinction of cere- monial and moral Law.— The Sabbath. — Grounds of obe- dience.— Adaptation to human nature. — Anthropomorphisms. — Eetribution national, and to posterity. — Extension of privilege.— The Prophets.— More spiritual principles. — John the Baptist. §iii. The Ministry of Christ 117 Himself under the Law. — His teaching preliminary.— Upheld the Law, and its particular observances. — The Sabbath. — The great commandments. — New and higher prmciples hinted at. — His ministry only to Israel. — Future extension pointed out. § iv. The Teacliing of the Apostles . . . .125 At first only to the Jews. — Afterwards to the Gentiles.— Their condition. — Not under the Law. — Attempts to bring them under it. — Opposed by St Paul. — Christian liberty.— Condemnation and justification both of Jews and Gentiles. — Abrogation of the Law to the Jews. — Independence of the Gospel to the Gentiles.— References to the Old Testament^ Christian institutions not from the Law. — Admixture of Judaisms transient and incidental. ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI § V. Views of the Law and the Gospel held in the early Christian Church Page 154 Early tendency to Judaise. — The Lord's day. — Gradual corruption and superstition. — Contrast with the Sabbath. — No confusion of ideas between the two dispensations. § vi. Later Views 163 Judaisms of the schoolmen. — Adopted in Eomanism. — Progress of Judaical ideas in the age of the Reformation. — Theory of Legality. — Reformers' protests against Judaism. — English Reformers. — Formularies of Foreign Churches and the English. — Compromise. — Confusion of ideas. — Puri- tanism. § vii. General View of the State of the Question at the pre- sent Day 175 Appeal to utility. — Inapplicable to a Divine appoint- ment. — Weak grounds of argument. — Real question Scrip- tural. — The moral law of Christianity. — Practical con- siderations. — Spirit of Puritanism at the present day. — Formalism. — Not expediency but truth. — Corruptions of Christianity. — Disguises of superstition. — Low sense of Christian morality. § viii. On the Use of the Old Testament by Christians . 193 Prevalent confusion of ideas. — Applications of the Old Testament in the New. ■ — The Old Testament history. — The moral and devotional writings. — Old Testament "not contrary" to New. — Hebraisms of Christianity. — Do not affect the substance. — Types of doctrines. — Christ's office and priesthood. — His second advent. — Platonisms and Gnos- ticisms. — Lateness of the Gospel epoch. XU ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. § ix. On the Inspiration of Scripture . . . Page 208 Gifts of the Spirit. — Inspiration of writings. — Distinction between mental and verbal inspiration. — Progress of opinions on the subject. — The Bible not infallible on all subjects. — Opposing prejudices, — Legitimate authority of Scripture. Conclusion 217 Eecapitulation of the preceding arguments. — General remarks, APPENDIX. Nos. I. to XVII 225 Extracts and documents referred to. No. XVIII. On Mr H. Miller's " Testimony of the Eocks" 252 Index, 257 ERRATA. Page 152, line 2 from bottom, after James im&rt v. — " last line, afUr Heb. xii. 5; imert 1 Pet. — 159, last line, for apposed read opposed. — 160, line 2 from bottom, delete the comma after Enquiries. — 161, line 2 from bottom, after was insert a comma. — 191, line 6 from bottom, for Judaicil read Judaical. ESSAY I. INTEODUCTOEY CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT JUDAISM. ESSAY L INTRODUCTORY. Before entering on the immediate subject proposed Objects and nature to be discussed in the ensuing essays, it will be ^fthe ° "^ discussion. desirable to offer a few remarks of a general character, which may lead to a more exact apprehension of their precise nature, design, and object. The present essays are designed as part of a sequel to the former series, in which some important topics were imperfectly adverted to, but confessedly re- served for more full discussion, — which many ma}^ think they need, if only to rescue the remarks there made from objection or misconception. In the former series, those topics — of a theologi- cal nature — were, for the most part, rather viewed as INTRODUCTOEY. [Essay I. resulting from considerations of a philosophical kind, than more directly the subjects of discussion. In the present instance it is proposed to take up some of those questions on their own more peculiar ground, and apart from the considerations before introduced. The discussions here pursued are of a more purely and exclusively theological nature, and are addressed especially to those who, without entering on wider philosophical views, may be desirous to obtain some detailed explanations of the theological and scriptural points formerly adverted to only in a general way, and which involve the consideration of the real nature and characteristic tendencies of the Christian doctrine, more particularly in reference to its independence of the peculiar principles implied in Connection the System of the Old Testatment. The elucidations with former nquiries. j^gj,^ offered, though standing on their own basis, have yet a distinct relation to questions largely dis- cussed in the former series of essays, and which bear on the discrepancies with physical truth found in the representations of the Judaical Scriptures, especially in the instance of the Creation, the Deluge, and the like narratives of a physical kind, referring to tlie economy of the material world. Essay I.J INTEODUCTORY. 5 The force of the objections arising out of such discrepancies was before stated to be obviated chiefly by the argument that Christianity is not really impli- cated in those representations, which are wholly peculiar to the Mosaic religion, with which Chris- tianity has, however, been too commonly mixed up and confounded, not only in popular estimation, but even by many eminent modern theologians, among whom we cannot but notice a very common ten- dency to lose sight of distinctions between the different portions of the divine dispensations. Thus the argument requires no assumption of any abstruse Assump- tion of the or disputable kind, but merely supposes granted the Scripture general historical authority of the Books of the Old and N'ew Testament, as the authentic record of the religious systems disclosed in them respectively. It is not a question as to the abstract truth of revela- tion ; nor does it require any minute consideration of critical evidence as to the origin or authority ot those writings. The discussion lies with that class of readers who already admit the entire authority of the Bible, and who are even disposed to press it beyond all due and reasonable limits ; and it is mainly from the endea- INTRODUCTORY. [Essay I. vour to correct those extreme opinions, and to incul- cate a more moderate and enlightened view of the claims and use of the Scripture records, that the difficulty arises in obtaining a patient hearing from those whose prepossessions are perhaps strongly in an opposite direction. Ancient In respect to the particular points here adverted views lost sight of in ^q j^ [^ equally true and remarkable that the theo- moclern ' i j logy of past ages appears to have been more rational and enlightened than that which has been at least very popular in modern times. The writings of the Fathers of the ancient Church, as well as those of many of the earlier Eeformers, exhibit a clear per- ception of the broad distinction between Judaism and Christianity, which in other schools and systems, more widely diffused in modern times, seems to have been forgotten and overlooked. Distinctions, which, from the circumstances of the age, forced themselves on the notice of earlier periods, were lost sight of in later times. Modes of viewing the subject familiar to the ancient divines continued to be adhered to so long as those writers were taken as the guides of theological opi- nion or dogmatic controversy ; but with other times Essay l] INTRODUCTORY. other modes of conceiving the whole subject were adopted, and, with new objects of thought and dis- cussion, the okler forms of opinion were often re- placed by others of a far inferior stamp, dictated rather by the controversial spirit of the moment than Puritanical tlieology by more profound, calm, and enlightened inquiry; and with the freedom of Protestantism there has, not unnaturally, arisen a tendency in theological discussion to fall extensively into the hands of a less learned class of disputants, and of a body of exposi- tors more distinguished for zeal than knowledge, whence has originated a more superficial, but specious and popular style of theologising, better suited to the vulgar taste, but wanting in the deeper qualities of more critical discrimination and enlarged ideas. From such advocates, tenets so grateful to human Prevalent at the pre- nature, as many of those of the Puritanical school, sent day. could not but be expected to receive full encourage- ment and support ; and such, accordingly, has been the prevalent and popular tendency of that species of theology which has maintained its ascendency among the less educated classes, and which, taken up and enforced with the characteristic vehemence of earnest but illiterate men, is not likely to be INTRODUCTOEY. [Essay I. adequately opposed by the more calm and retiring ar- guments of the contemplative and liberal-minded in- quirer, still less by the apathy of refined indifference, which, if it make any manifestation at all, is likely, from mere fear of giving offence, to assimie the popular tone, and affect a compliance with the popular spirit. We cannot, indeed, be surprised that low and unworthy views of the spirit and character of the Christian doctrine should acquire popularity, as they address themselves with more powerful effect to the tendencies of human infirmity and ignorance, or that with such views, again, persons of higher attainments would too generally fall in, if only to avoid the trouble of inquiry and thought, and the odium of opposing popular errors. Popular in- The degree of interest taken generally in questions terest in theological ^f r^ tlieological kind has been very different in questions. ° -^ different ages. In past times, instances have not been wanting of controversies, even on the most abstruse points, in which all classes have felt deeply concerned, — which have enlisted popular feeling on either side, and have even agitated and convulsed the whole community. In the present age the case is very different ; and the natural tendency of opinion, Essay I.] INTRODUCTORY. among the better -informed classes, has been rather in the direction of indifference to such inquiries. And this has been traced to probable causes arising out of the progress of opinion and the advance of knowledge on other subjects, which has led to an increasing indisposition to the discussion of questions which reason is incompetent to solve. Theoloo-ical questions are, doubtless, viewed at present in a very different spirit from that in which they were once regarded. It is to be expected that, among the better-informed classes, and in a more inquiring, and therefore (since doubt must precede inquiry) a more clonUing age\ questions of a dogmatic nature, which formerly seemed matters of logical certainty, will be seen to be really dependent on assump- tions in themselves little capable of such definition as to render them a fit basis for that kind of reason- ing which, in times of greater ignorance and credulity, was imagined to possess such demonstrative power. But while such remarks may truly apply to those Critical discussion points of metaphysical subtlety, or doctrinal detail, [l^y^^{ which once formed the chief and material portion of Sedf ^ See Buckle's " History of Civilization," vol. i. pp. 307, 327. 10 IXTKODUCTORY. [Essay I. the body of theological discussion, jet there are numerous questions which, in the present state of knowledge, claim the attention of reasoning inquirers, to which, in former ages, little attention w^as paid, and which involve the very foundations of religious belief — besides those of another class scarcely less important, which refer to the critical examination of documentary evidence, and the philological and historical inquiries w^hich any rational search into the Scripture records must entail. But ofteu But while rational inquiry, learned criticism, and disparaged. philosophical argument are so largely applied to other departments of knowledge, where, doubtless, they find their more peculiarly congenial sphere of exercise, there is too great a tendency to neglect, and even censure, the cultivation of more enlightened modes of thought with respect to topics which so pre-eminently call for the most careful and enlarged examination — especially on the part of theologians, who are too often more interested in the support of particular systems, to which they feel such free inquiries might be dangerous, than in the pure search after truth. Theological questions, if neglected in a higher sense, will very naturally be taken up in a lower and Essay l] INTKODUCTORY. 11 more unworthy spirit, and abandoned to those of ignorant, narrow, and one-sided views ; and, instead of a critical, dispassionate, and comprehensive study of subjects having points of contact with so many branches of human knowledge, they are too com- monly pursued only in the spirit of bigoted and ex- clusive dogmatism on the one hand, or of vague and visionary speculation on the other. The unparalleled advances in physical science influence ^ ^ '^ Ithysical of which characterise the present age, alone suffice to '^^'^^o^'^^'y stamp a totally different character on the spirit of all its discussions ; and they now are, and will be to a far greater extent, influential on the tone of theology. It is now perceived by all inquiring minds that the advance of true scientific principles, and the grand inductive conclusions of universal and eternal law and order, are at once the basis of all rational theology, and give the death-blow to superstition. The influence of the advance of physical science on religion is, in truth, a very wide subject, and involves some topics, at once of great difficulty and high import in regard to the very foundation of a belief in revelation, and its received external evi- dences. These, however, are questions which will 12 IXTRODUCTOEY. [Essay I. not fall within the scope of the present discussion, but will be reserved for a future opportunity. With reference to our more immediate object, it will suffice to remark that, notwithstanding the acknowledged be- nefits to pure religion which result from the scientific enlightenment of the age, there has too commonly existed a feeling of hostility against it on the part of some very religious persons. Opposed by Theology has been too commonly beset with a spirit of a narrower kind, unwilling to acknowledge those broader and more enlightening truths ; and thus, from the first dawn of the true inductive philosophy, there has always existed, on the part of a bigoted and exclusive class of theologians, a deeply seated jealousy and suspicion of the advance of phy- sical discovery. Some better-informed theologians, indeed, of several schools, have had the wisdom to pursue a better policy; and it is now mainly the spirit of Puritanism which is arrayed in the most inveterate hostility to science. And in a more espe- cial manner has this been evinced at the present day, Geology, when the discoveries of Geology have made advances far more'formidable to its claims, and subversive of its Judaical principles, than were all the assaults made Essay l] INTEODUCTORY. 13 by the heresies of Copernicus and Galileo on the authority of the Catholic decrees in a past age. At the present time the spirit of hostility has Fallacious attempts at rather assumed the insidious exterior of a specious i-econciiia- tion. . assumption of scientific pretensions, under which the truths of geology have been so disguised and per- verted as to appear to effect a kind of reconciliation — sometimes so skilfully managed as to mislead the unwary general reader, by an artful contexture of plausible misrepresentations, into the persuasion that no real contradiction exists. But no such fallacies can hold their ground in the face of the better in- formation now so universally disseminated. On the other hand, the more liberal system, which Formula- ries of the is eminently compatible with, if not sanctioned and S^^J^^V^^ fostered by, the comprehensive spirit and formularies treniight^ enment. of the Church of England, is of a kind entirely favour- able to the progress of enlightenment ; and especially that section of her theologians who have been the most disposed to appeal to the authority of Christian antiquity for the basis of their belief have the least need to fear any collision with the representations of the Old Testament, and can best afford to dispense with that literal subserviency to the Hebrew text which 14 INTRODUCTOEY. [Essay I. the more enlio-litened knowlede^e of the ao-e so powerfully tends to shake off. Low views But the question at issue is one of wider and tlie soui'ce a^dniT^^'^^ deeper interest than any mere point of party polemics anitjV or controversial detail. It is to the low and un- worthy views too often adopted, and to the neglect and even studied and systematic disparagement of rational inquiry into the true nature and spirit of Christianity, that we must trace a large share of the difficulties which have been felt, and the objections which have been raised, against it. The spiri- If Christianity be for all times and people, its real tuality of Christi- nieanincj must be suited to all des-rees of advance. anity to be <^ "-^ presenec. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ enlightenment. Christian belief must be equally enlightened ; in an age of inquiry, it must be able to stand inquiry ; and, towards securing the permanence of its influence, nothing can be more important than the careful preservation of its purity, the rectification of erroneous conceptions of its de- sign, the clearing away of the corruptions which have fastened upon it. False Yet many who make professions of a very liberal, liberality. enlarged kind, will ask, in a contemptuous tone. Why insist on these distinctions ? One form is as good as Essay I.] INTRODUCTORY. 15 another; why dwell on dogmatic peculiarities or scrupulous questions of the purity or corruption of particular systems, which savour of a narrow, technical, exclusive spirit ? We .answer, for the very purpose of asserting more enlarged views, by showing that they are those of real Christianity when divested of the unworthy admixture of superstition and fanaticism with which human tendencies have been prone to confound, overlay, and corrupt it. The questions here discussed are not mere points Practical . evils to be 01 abstract doctrinal controversy, but have a direct obviated. and important practical bearing ; and if it be regarded as unimportant whether men hold what we may deem a mistaken, superstitious idea of Christian doc- trine, it will hardly be denied that the practical re- sults are serious evils, when we find them leading to religious bitterness and animosity, fanaticism, morose- ness, and intolerant bigotry, and a rigid adherence to formal austerities, for the exercise of which, however mistaken we may deem them, we cannot but wish the most unlimited freedom to be wanted, but ao-ainst which we cannot avoid protesting — more especially when the votaries of such principles cannot be content 16* - INTEODUCTOEY. [Essay I. merely to follow these practices themselves, but are constantly making aggressive attempts to enforce them upon others. Against such evils it is surely worth while to contend ; but we can only do so effectually by striking at the root of the mischief, in the refutation of the erroneous first principles whence it springs. Truth Ao^ain, we may admit that there are many funda- imder va- o ^ j j nous forms, j^gj^^g^]^ trutlis really included under the varied pro- fessions of external forms of belief, though in too many of those forms concealed, perverted, or frus- trated by the admixture of extraneous elements on the one hand, combined with defective or erroneous conceptions of the true nature of Christianity on the other ; but then we should only be the more anxious, by clearing away those obstructions, to bring to light, to develope and vindicate, those higher and purer elements of truth. Misconcep- Ignorance of Christianity is the stronghold of tions of Christi- objection and disbelief, — an ignorance which it has been too often the culpable policy of many of its pro- fessed supporters to encourage. And it is mainly from taking, as real Christianity, those corrupt forms in which it has been invested, and those incidental accompaniments and extraneous additions with which Essay 1.] INTRODUCTORY. 17 its essence has been mixed np, that the most serious misconceptions and objections have arisen. It has been emphatically observed by the late Corrup- tions of excellent Archdeacon Hare, that one of the most im- cimsti- anity to be portant objects with those who really desire to uphold ^^'^^°^®'^^- Christianity at the present day, must be to " endea- vour to purify it from its corruptions ; " ^ and, as he expressly contends, it is an object which ought to be attempted notwithstanding its difficulties, — compro- mise or disguise only tending to greater danger. But in the attempt to do so, the chief difficulty Offence to prejudices. arises from the offence we can hardly avoid thus giving to the prejudices of sincere but ill-informed piety ; and if the advocates of Christianity find it diffi- cult to persuade sceptics of the truth of its doctrine, they must acknowledge it a not less arduous task to convince ordinary believers of its practical simplicity. And it cannot be disputed that a more clear elucida- tion of the professed nature of the Christian doctrine, in some of its most material characteristics, is most essential to a just estimate of its claims and evidences, in which the internal character of that doctrine Life of sterling, p. 230. B 18 INTRODUCTORY. [Essay I. necessarily holds a place at least equally im- portant and significant with any external attesta- tions. Relation of With reference to these remarks, there is perhaps Christi- anity to no one of the various points of view, in which Chris- the Old ^ ' Testament, -tia^^ity may be regarded, of more immediate import- ance at the present day than that which regards the question of its relation or connexion with the Old Testament, with the several characteristic points of distinction by which it stands contrasted with the previous religious systems therein recorded, — a point which has been too extensively the sub- ject of the most unhappy confusion and miscon- ception among some religious parties, to the great obscuration of the spiritual nature of the Gospel, and the too frequent disparagement and rejection of its claims. Attacks on Among the various attacks which Christianity had Christi- anity as to sustain from the Deists of the seventeenth century confound- dailnu^ ^^^' ^^^ *^^® early part of the next, one of the most danger- ous and insidious, because the most plausible, was that originating with Morgan, and more extensively car- ried out by Chubb, grounded entirely on laying hold of the prevalent error, assumed for truth, " that Chris- Essay l] INTRODUCTORY. 19 tianity was founded on Judaism." They thus traced the whole of its doctrines and institutions to a Jewish origin, and even contended not only that it was a mere modification of Judaism, but that it " altered Judaism for the worse." Thus, fixing upon its inci- dental accessories as its essentials, and then fully admitting and truly asserting the imperfect and tran- sitory, and even, to us, objectionable nature of the Mosaic system, they involved Christianity in their rejection of Judaism. Indeed, this view was but a Alleged de- velopment practical adoption of that which had lonoj before of religious ^ ^ . ^ systems. been broached by Charron^, who contended, that as the religion of the Jews was derived from that of Egypt, so Christianity originated out of Judaism, and, in the same way, out of both of these Mahom- medanism took its rise; and thus a theory of the supposed similar origin and development of all reli- gious systems led to his rejection of them all alike. It can hardly be necessary to comment on the entire absence of real parallelism in these cases, or on the singular meaning which must attach to the term development, if we affirm that a religious system was * De la Sagesse, &c. 1601. 20 INTRODUCTORY. [Essay I. developed out of one diametriccdly opposed to it. There might, doubtless, be such a development, in the sense of monotheism being developed out of idolatry. Pro- testantism out of Popery, knowledge out of ignorance, or light out of darkness. In fact, the Mosaic insti- tution was mainly directed to putting down and de- stroying the superstitions to which the Israelites had become attached in Egypt, and, by the introduction of an elaborate ceremonial, to wean them from that idolatry to which they were so prone, but which the law denounced with its severest penalties. Judaism, again, so far from being recognised and embodied, was expressly set aside by the Gospel, as a " ministration of death " and " condemnation," which was to " vanish away," and for which a " new and better covenant " was to be substituted with re- spect to the Jewish convert, while to the Gentile the Gospel was a wJwlly neiv faith, without any develop- ment out of his previous idolatry, whicli it directly called on him to renounce. Judaism indeed professed to look to a Messiah ; but both Judaism and, still more emphatically, Christianity utterly repudiated looking to any other prophet to come o^fter the Messiah, or d^iij further Essay L] INTRODUCTORY. 21 revelation of the Divine will : thus, m whatever degree Mahommedanism might profess to recognise either, it was no parallel case of any kind of real development. But to return. In those theological controversies Practical evils of which have attracted general attention, the inte- ?|J['*^^^' rest popularly excited has often been apparently most disproportionate to the real importance of the question, or its bearing on practical objects or intel- ligible feelings. Thus, men's minds were roused into vehement alarm some years ago at attempts to revive some points of ecclesiastical ceremonial, while at present public opinion is hardly awakened to the far greater practical enormities of the invasions of puritanical intolerance, concentrated in the enforcement of Sab- Sabbatism. batism. If any theological topic can be said to come home directly to the daily life of every man, it is surely the question of this observance, and of the alleged obligations on which it is maintained. Its practical influence is constantly interfering with the pursuits, enjoyments, and even domestic and per- sonal freedom of all, and especially the working classes. Yet few are found willing to emancipate 22 INTEODUCTORY. [Essay I. themselves or others from that influence, even where they fully acknowledge the unsoundness of its foun- dation. Those who are foremost to raise an outcry against Eomanism, or the merest semblance of a leaning to its practices, passively yield to a super- stitious formalism more oppressive in its exactions, and at least equally destructive of the spiritual sim- plicity of Christianity. Broader The qucstiou, howcvcr, when regarded (as is here principles to be ex- proposcd) not with a reference to controversial party purposes, or to supposed objects of civil or social utility, but solely with a view to the truth of the broader grounds on which it rests, will be seen to be merely a subordinate part of a far wider subject, dependent on higher principles, and demanding the more extended examination which it will be the design of the ensuing essays to give. The principal object here proposed, as before intimated, is a simple matter-of-fact inquiry into the actual relation, or connexion, of Christianity with the previous dispensations announced in the Old Testament, — determined according to the ex- press announcements of the scriptural writers, and the professed design and avowed object of the re- Essay LJ INTKODUCTORY. 23 ligious systems they describe. It is, however, pecu- liarly necessary to remark, and to guard against, some very prevalent notions as to the mode of viewing and interpreting the contents of those re- cords generally. To this purport some preliminary observations must therefore be directed, which will form the subject of the next essay. ESSAY II. ON THE APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION OF SCKIPTUEE. ESSAY 11. ON THE APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION OF SCRIPTURE. The value assigned to the collection of multifarious views ot ° Scripture records united in the volume of the Bible, the spirit jfj^gg^®^^^* in which they have been regarded, and the use and application which readers of different classes have been disposed to make of them, have been extremely different in different ages, and under different forms of religious profession. Throughout the earlier stages of Christian theo- Appeal to ^ ° Scripture logical literature, we trace the predominant influence ^"^ earlier of a dogmatic authority, which admitted little inde- pendence of thought. The original form of tradi- tional teaching long kept up a powerful ascendancy, and through ages of darkness and ignorance became gradually amplified, and at length embodied into one vast scheme of ecclesiastical infallibility, claiming to be the living oracle of Divine truth, to which even the written records of the Bible were necessarily but subordinate. 28 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. These records were indeed read, appealed to, and interpreted, but wholly in a sense subservient to the dogmas of the Church, and subjected to its authority. Even in those fanciful and allegorical interpretations of Scripture in which many of the ancient Chris- tian writers indulged, we find the influence of the same servile spirit, little guided by any notions of higher principles of rational exposition or critical discrimination. At the a£?e ^^ the great epoch of the cotemporaneous revival of the Re- n ^ -n r formation, of learning and the commencement of the Eeforma- tion, the rising tendency of the age for the cultiva- tion of literature might have been expected to find a congenial resource in the freer study of the Bible. But the spirit of Protestantism was, in fact, for the most part, of a narrower character ; and even while it professedly threw open to all the written Word, it practically restricted the application of it by the rule of the most contracted interpretation, or rather by a servile adherence to the mere letter of what was held to be verbal inspiration. This was carried out by many to an extreme equally at variance with all rational principles of interpretation, and with tlie spiritual character of the Christian doctrines, Essay 1L] OF SCRIPTUKE. 29 which thus became strangely mixed up with hetero- geneous elements. The appeal professedly made by the more moderate Appeal of tlie Re- of the Eeformers was to the written Word, which ^'oimeis to Scriptixre, they held to be the sole authoritative or authentic depository of the doctrines and precepts of revela- tion. Its decisions were to be received as final, and nothing insisted on as necessary to salvation but what was directly and distinctly delivered in it according to its right sense and reasonable construction. But to follow out such inquiry into the tenor and meaning of Scripture would, of course, imply a discriminating study of the sacred volume, — would involve considerable labour, and be encompassed with many obstacles requiring much perseverance to surmount, and, after all, must (from the very nature of the principle) admit of endless diversity of result, consequent upon unavoidable varieties of interpre- tation. This, however, it was soon felt, would Corrupted into "lite- obviously but ill supply the loss of that comfortable laiism." certainty and undisturbed repose which the minds and consciences of men had been accustomed to enjoy in the bosom of an infallible church. And accordingly teachers Were not wanting who professed 30 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Esbay II. to remedy this deficiency, and were prepared with methods of religious assurance not less oracular in their pretensions, and even more easy of application. Extreme The actual text of the Bible, it was contended, views of in- spiration, ^yr^s wholly and entirely the very dictation of the Holy Spirit — every sentence, every expression, every word the very breathing of inspiration, — the entire volume one systematic complete scheme of truth, religious, civil, and social — nay, even political, historical, and scientific — delivered into the hands of the faithful, who, at the same time endowed with supernatural illumination, were enabled at once to see and to understand the whole compass and mean- Application ing of its contents, every part of which had its of detaclied texts. direct and immediate application — for nothing was to be supposed written by inspiration, but what was addressed alike to readers in all ages and under all circumstances ; not a sentence, not a word was to be • overlooked — not a passage, however apparently barren of instruction, which was not to be made fruitful — not an expression, however apparently trivial, which had not its hidden and mystical meaning discoverable at once by the gifted reader. Discrepancies were not to be regarded, for each part Essay TI.J OF SCRIPTURE. 31 must needs harmonise with every other part ; and the notion of drawincf any other distinction as to the i^ationai "^ ^ mterpreta- different ohject, design, or application of different cS-de!i!' parts of Scripture — of regarding any diversities of time, place, or circumstances, was accounted almost profane; to question the rigidly literal sense of every passage, or its immediate application in all particulars to men in all times, was looked upon as equivalent to little less than questioning its Divine character altogether. If a doctrine was to be main- tained, it sufficed to find, anywhere within the limits of the sacred volume, any passage the words of which, abstractedly taken, might apparently contain or imply it. To think of connexion with the context, or of any other considerations which might limit or elucidate the meaning, was unnecessary, and, in fact, little less than impious. If a duty was to be en- forced, a precept anywhere extracted from the sacred writings was held equally applicable to all persons under all circumstances, and in all ages. Thus, with a numerous section of the Protestant communities, a mere literal adherence to the text of the Bible constituted as complete a spiritual slavery as any which had been imposed by the die- 32 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. tation of a domineering priesthood and an infallible church ; they did but transfer the claim of oracular authority from the priest to the text ; they discarded the infallibility in a living church, only to acknow- ledge it in a' dead written record. puiitaiiism, Such was the first principle and foundation of the system which may be best generally designated by the name of Puritanism, which has exerted as per- nicious an influence over modern Christianity on the one side, as Eomanism on the other. In this mode of theologising we may perhaps trace the powerful reaction of the spirit of Biblical inquiry just emancipated from the tyranny of ecclesiastical dictation, and not as yet exercised in the more com- prehensive and rational principles of critical interpre- tation, and thus recoiling into a scarcely less servile slavery to the mere letter of the Bible — that absolute worship of the text, which has been fitly termed Bibiioiatry. " Bibliolatry." Hence, even to later times a similar spirit has been propagated, when the advance of in- telligence, and the comparative cessation of the same stirring causes of high excitement, might in some degree have been expected to be more favourable to calm and rational views, the admission of which Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 33 has been but very partially realised, even at the present day. That such should be the view taken by illiterate fanatics is no more than might be expected ; but that a mode of proceeding, little different from this in principle, has been common even among the superior class of divines, will hardly be disputed by any one at all versed in theological writings. And that it pre- vails widely, even at the present day, is as little ques- tionable by any one who canvasses with but common precision the language and arguments of hundreds of ordinary religious discourses and publications. ■'• But Acceptable to human it will not be surprising that such notions should find nature. ready acceptance with a large portion of mankind ; for, without going the lengths of fanaticism, for the individual to have open before him an unerring oracle, every word and sentence of which he may take without further examination or consideration, as ^ If the reader should think this representation overcharged, or doubt, at least, its applicability at the present day, for sufficient proof to the contrary he may be referred to the work of Dr Gaussen of Geneva, originally entitled "Theopneustia," but of which a translation has appeared, called '' ' It is Written ;' or, Every Word and Expression contained in the Scriptures proved to be from God," by Professor L. Gaussen, ISiS, in which the verbal inspiration of every passage is maintained to an extreme which justifies every assertion above made. C 34 APPLICATIOX AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. propounded immediately to himself from above, is an easy resource, wliicli relieves liim at once from all labour and perplexity in searching for the truth, — an object of all things the most desirable to human infir- mity and indolence. Plea of And in thus adopting without inquiry, as from a reverence . forinspira- sort of oracular authority, the first sense which tion. appears on the surface, or which his imagination sees there, the reader comforts himself with the reflection that he is discharging a duty of reverence to the Divine word, and indulges in self-commendation for the exercise of much spiritual humility in thus placing his trust in the inspired text, and not pre- suming to be wise "above that which is written," and assures himself that he is at least adopting a safe mode of interpretation. It would seem as if the theologian, when enter- ing upon the field of sacred research, thought it Neglect of not Only allowable, but necessary, to discard all ordinary rules. those principles of interpretation which he would in common reason have adopted in the exposition of any secular writings, and that the distinctions which in other cases are forced upon the atten- tion, between fact and metaphor — between history Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 35 and poetry — between local and national allusions and truths of universal application, were all to be laid aside when the volume of Scripture was opened, — that its contents were to be examined by some other rule, — peculiarities and allusions, allegory and matter of fact, the comiection of argument, and the reference to times, places, persons, and circum- stances, were all to be lost sight of in one undistin- guishing blind adherence to the mere letter of texts, — that the Divine will was to be recognised in the mere letter of any single passage taken promiscuously anywhere out of the multifarious writings contained in the volume of the Scriptures, new or old, Jewish or Christian, and applied with equal disregard of the context from which it was wrested, or the con- ditions of the case to which it was to be tortured. The followers of such a method brought toge- Leads to dogmat- gether, thus strangely, a mass of heterogeneous testi- ^^°^- monies to mix in a dogmatic system ; or, as an eminent writer has expressed it, "they made an anagram of Scripture." Instead of the rational, humble, and patient endeavour to discover the mean- ing probably desigoied in the " mind of the writer," it seemed to be supposed that the sense of the text was 36 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. rather to be disclosed by some mystical power iii its mere letter, addressing itself to the privileged reader. The belief in the inspired character of Scripture may doubtless modify the course to be pursued in examining its contents; but, allowing for considerable difference of opinion as to the meaning and extent of inspiration, it yet by no means follows that this con- sideration should make a difference so entire in kind as that often supposed, in the way by which we are to seek to arrive at the meaning, or make our appli- cations of the contents of the sacred books, whose instructions were all conveyed in human language, and addressed through the medium of comparison and analogy with human ideas. Fanaticism. The extreme doctrine of the enthusiast, who sees in the mere letter of every detached text a direct message from on high to himself, extravagant as it may appear when broadly avowed, is no more than what, a little modified and softened down, coincides with impressions much more generally adopted. And Adopted by we commonly find, too, the mass of mere worldly- nominal believers, niinded nominal Christians most forward to pay this sort of blind, but easy, homage to Scripture. The great majority of ordinary professing believers follow Essay 1L] OF SCRIPTURE. 37 without inquiry the same indiscriminate devotion to the mere letter of the sacred text, as a conventional and established point of religion, without a thought as to its real purport, and even with a feeling of offence and disgust at any attempt to break in upon the illusion, and to supply views of the subject more accordant with truth and reason, which they condemn as unsettling men's minds, hazarding the stability of established systems, and endangering the cause of religion and all social obligations, — and which the more zealous dogmatists no less anathematise as sub- verting the Word of God, and undermining the Gospel of Christ. That such ideas should prevail among the many Even among is indeed not surprising, when we consider the great some better deficiency of all habits of reflection or inquiry on the subject. But that the same ignorant notions should also be commonly avowed or betrayed among those of better information, and even among the ministers of religion, might excite surprise, did we not remark, that as this mode of referring to Scripture affords, on the one hand (as we have already observed), an easy means of satisfying an uninquiring faith among the many, so, on the other hand, among the better- 38 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. instructed and instructors, it supplies a scarcely less ready mode of supporting the cause of a party, of defending a peculiar dogmatic system, or of retaining a powerful and convenient hold on the minds of the multitude. But perhaps these ideas are almost unconsciously adopted in very many instances, where, from long habit, no suspicion of their rea- sonableness has ever crossed the mind. Yet there can surely be few of the most ordinary discernment, who do not, the moment it is simpily stated, admit the unreasonableness of appealing to the isolated letter of a Scripture text in a way which they would reject as utterly puerile if it applied to any other work. More ra- " It shall greately helpe ye to understande Scrip- tioual views ^° '^^; ^^- ture, yf thou marke not onelv what is spoken or cognised. '^ ./ i wrytten, but of whom, and to whom, with what wordes, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstance, consyderynge what goeth before, and what followeth after." ^ Such is the simple but pithy advice of the Ee- former. Its homeliness may be des^^ised by some ; ^ Myles Coverdale's '^ Prologue luito the Cliristian Reader," Trans, of Bible, 1535. Essay IL] OF SCEIPTUKE. 39 but its importance may be better estimated from the continual errors into which some fall from the neg- lect of it. In interpreting Scripture, to show that the authority we quote was really designed to apply to the question in hand, would seem a rule too ob- vious to require formally adverting to, were it not so often overlooked. Among persons professing to receive the Bible as the authentic record of what in general they believe is Divine revelation, it is remarkable how little attention is commonly given to the obvious diversity Distinction '^ ^ "^ between of nature and purport in those very distinct portions parts'^or^^ of which the sacred volume consists. Yet, to any tion. ' one who does but for a moment reflect on the widely remote dates, the extremely diversified character, of the contents, the totally dissimilar circumstances and occasions of the composition of the several writings, it must be obvious how essentially they require to be viewed with careful discrimination as to the variety of conditions and objects which they evince, if they are to be in any degree rightly under- stood, or applied according to the clear intentions of the writers. But manifest as these considerations are, and readily admitted when simply put before any 40 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. reader of tlie most ordinary attainments and discern- ment, it is singular to observe how commonly they are practically lost sight of in the too prevalent modes of reading and applying Scripture. In this point of view it must be allowed a matter of the most primary importance, as bearing on the whole purport and design of the Bible, to apprehend rightly the general relation, but at the same time the characteristic differences, of the Old and New Testa- ment, the Law and the Grospel, the distmctive cha- racter to be traced, and the sort of connection actually subsisting between them. ISTor does this turn on con- siderations of any nice or critical kind, demanding ex- tensive learning to appreciate, or deep study to judge of ; it implies a mere reference to matters of fact — especially as to the distinction between the Old and I^ew Testament — ^which require but to be indicated Too com- to be understood. Notwithstanding the plain and mouly over- looked, obvious tenor of these considerations, it is peculiarly worthy of observation how little they are regarded in the actual adoption of opinions on these subjects. Confused ^^ hardly any point, perhaps, at the present day, prevalent, are coufuscd and unsatisfactory ideas more commonly prevalent : not only among ordinary, careless, or Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 41 formal readers of Scripture, but even among many of better information and more serious religious views, the habit to which we have referred leads to con- founding together the contents of all parts of the sacred volume, whether of the old or new dispensa- tion, of the Hebrew or of the Christian Scriptures, regarding them, as it were, all as one book or code of religion, citing detached texts from both, and pro- miscuously taking precepts and institutions, promises and threatenings belonging to peculiar dispensations, and under peculiar conditions, and applying them universally, without regard to times, persons, or cir- cumstances. Thus it has happened that many imagine ancient institutions, or laws given in the remotest periods, and under widely different circumstances from those at present prevailing, to be now obligatory. Thus theories have been largely adopted, in accord- ance with which the authority and obligation of the Jewish law have been mixed up with those of the universal gospel, the precepts of the Old Testament with those of the N"ew, the religion of the Hebrew nation with the new and catholic religion of Christ, in ways which, to an unprepossessed mind, would appear very extraordinary. 42 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. Not a con- Sucli a mode of appealing to Scripture is some- sequence from inspi- -j-^^^gg g^g^ defended, as evincing a meritorious re- ration. ^ verence for its Divine character, and upheld as a consequence from the belief in its inspiration. Yet, in whatever sense that belief may be entertained, it surely by no means follows that insjnrcd authority may not have a reference to one object, to one party, to one age, and not to another. A precept, or an institution, or a declaration, may have been addressed to one people or time, though not in the least designed to apply generally, — without any disparagement to its Divine character. The assertion of the iiisjoiration of Scripture is one thing ; the consideration of the purposes for tuhich it is inspired is another ; while it is difficult to see how any one, in these obvious distinctions, can find ground of disparagement to the value of any portion of the Bible, or to the religious use which may be made of it by the discerning and enlightened Christian who carefully draws those distinctions as to the application of its several parts which the sacred writers them- selves clearly indicate. Some con- It wiU be instructive, perhaps, to illustrate these sequences of the literal Q]3gQj,y^tions more in detail by a reference to one or principle. fm Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 43 two remarkable instances in whicli the application of the principles here glanced at has been actually carried out in the maintenance of theological sys- tems. To take one example. The spirit of the literal The system ^ -^ of Calvin- application of all passages of Scripture, without dis- ^^^"• crimination, has perhaps never been displayed so as more fully to evince its peculiar character and ten- dency, than in the conception and support of the Calvinistic theory, — a doctrine which, if not in express form, yet in principle and spirit, appears to have been extensively adoptedin earlier times, and, though it doubtless attained its more exact and systematic development in the hands of the Genevan Eeformer, yet was certainly not locculiar to him, as it was held by others of his contemporaries, and its rudiments may be traced up to the writings of Augustine, and even earlier. The study of this remarkable system is eminently a remark- able fea- suggestive, whether considered in its orimn, its tiireinthe ^'^ ° ' history of progress, or its decline, — whether we look to the f^^f^' arguments by which it is supported, or those by which it is usually assailed and considered to be re- futed, — to the high position it once occupied, at 44 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. least in the estimation of a large section of the Pro- testant world, as the very standard of orthodox views, or to the comparative insignificance into which it has now dwindled — even when it is nominally professed, being universally modified and softened in all its harsher features. Eegarded as to its broad principle, it was an element whicli doubtless per- vaded very widely the doctrine of the early Ee- formers, and which appears a necessary consequence of the then existing views of Biblical literalism which have already been adverted to. That princii^le once admitted, the whole predesti- narian system, even in its utmost rigour, and with all its momentous and terrific consequences, stands forth in a kind of awful grandeur perfectly consistent with itself in all points, and unassailable, unless on a to- tally different ground of attack. Adopting this literal view, the Eeformer, with the text of the Bible as his only guide, was directly conducted to the one prin- ciple of arbitrary grace, as the clue to the whole Founded on sclicme of the Diviue counsels. The letter of innu- tlie letter of r> ^-i t^-i t i texts. merable isolated texts from all parts of the Bible bore testimony, not to be gainsaid, to the grand dogma of the eternal, arbitrary, irrespective, irreversible decrees •MK Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 45 by which the whole counsel of God is discovered in the scheme of grace and of reprobation predetermined everlastingly.^ The sum and substance of the whole revelation is — " He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." This at once intimately pervades and fully explains all the seeming complexity of the Divine dealings, in a way against which no exception can be taken : " Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it. Why hast thou made me thus ?" Into this everjrthing is resolvable : to allege anything against it is the impious murmuring of a reprobate soul. The great mass of ^ " Quod ergo Scriptura dare ostendit dicimus, seterno et immutabili consilio, Deum semel constituisse quos olim semel assumere vellet iu salutem, quos rursum exitio devovere." — Calvini Instit. lib. iii. c. 21, §7. ''Non enim pari conditione creantur omnes: sed aliis vita seterna, aliis damnatio seterna praeordinatur." — lb. iii. c. 21, § 5. . . . . " Demuni subnectit clausulam, ' Deum cujus vult misereri, et quern vult indurare. ' Vides ut in solum Dei arbitrium utrumque conferat ? . . . . eo admonentur homines nikil causce qucerere extra ejus voluntatem." — lb. c. 22, § 11. " Iterum quaero, Unde factum est ut tot gentes una cum liberis eorum infantibus setemee morti involveret lapsus Adse absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est ? Decretum quidem horribile, fateor : inficiari tamen nemo poterit quin prsesciverit Deus quern exitum esset habiturus homo, antequam ipsum conderet ; et ideo prcesciverit quia decreto suosia ordmarat."—Ib. c. 23, § 7. .... '' Intelligunt nullam esse peccatorum diflferentiam, mode adsit fides .... fides, hoc est Dei illuminatio, qute inter pios et impios distinguit."— 76. c. 24, § 17. 46 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. mankind probably cannot receive it : to tbe carnal mind it is foolishness ; " the rest were blinded." And upon all, except the chosen vessels of grace, lies the eternal sentence of reprobation, at once excluding them from salvation, and blinding them to the iinder- standing of its announcement. A sentence at which human infirmity may shudder — " an horrible decree," even Calvin himself was obliged to exclaim, as he ruthlessly contemplated this logical consequence of his grand principle. But the answer to all objections is simply, " "Who art thou that repliest against God ? Hath not the potter power over the clay?" The chosen are enabled infallibly thus to see and rejoice in the true light sooner or later; whether after a longer or a shorter course of sin and seeming estrange- ment, at the time appointed from all eternity they are visited, and transformed from the bondage of corrup- tion into the glorious liberty of the children of God ; they lead even on earth the life of the glorified in heaven ; or if they ever seem to fall from it, they are indefectibly restored, till they are finally translated to the kingdom prepared for them before the founda- tion of the world. If other passages of Scripture are adduced apparently hostile to this doctrine, this can Essay II.J OF SCRIPTURE. 47 only arise from the false interpretation of blinded human judgment. The broad principle is set forth with such fulness of evidence to the faithful reader, that, once adopted, it gains fresh proofs from nearly every sentence in Scripture, viewed through the me- dium it supplies. If objections be raised by natural reason or moral objection? from rea- sense, on the plea of the inconsistency of such doc- son inad- ^ -^ missible. trines with the Divine attributes, with the goodness and beneficence of the Deity, with the nature of moral obligation, they are peremptorily silenced. Eeason itself, after all, is but a part of our essen- tially corrupt nature ; all its teaching, therefore, par- takes in that corruption, and to follow its dictates, is not merely error, but sin. All such speculative objections against the positive word of Scripture are therefore rejected and dismissed with absolute scorn and contempt by the mind once enlightened in the true faith. Even the more precise and formid- able objection, that this scheme makes God the author of sin, is at once disposed of in a similar manner : for all things are determined solely by the Divine will; has not God himself said, "I create evil"?^ ' Isaiah xlv. 7. 48 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. The very distinction between sin and holiness is purely the result of the same decrees : all we know is that, by the Divine fiat, the one is coupled with blessing, the other with cursing, and that, except so far as it pleased God to remove the curse in some instances, and to af&x the blessing, all are exactly alike. Moral prin- Hencc all distinction of goodness and wickedness is ciples dis- o\vned. purely arbitrary ; all notion of moral right or wrong, moral merit or demerit in our actions, results merely from the corrupt standard of our natural reason. Hence the denial of moral distinctions or responsibi- lity in the carnal sense of the term. Hence men may sin without any conscious ill intention, in the mere blindness of the unregenerate heart. Hence it follows that the most immoral profligate, and the man of the most heroic moral virtue, are equally reprobates if uninfluenced by grace ; or, as Augustine said, " the highest virtues of the heathen were but splendid sins." Those who worshipped wood and stone thought they were worshipping true gods ; but they were sinful idolaters. The heretic, though he conscientiously thinks himself right, is a sinner in departing from the truth ; or rather his error is merely the proof of his being in a state of sin and reprobation. Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 49 Such is a striking instance of the fair and inevitable General re- tiections. results of the principle of a prostration of the -under- standing before the letter of the Bible, and an indis- criminate application of detached texts from all parts of Scripture — a practice which has always been the stronghold of theological dogmatism : and though, at the present day, we cannot but hope that a better spirit is manifesting itself among enlightened divines of all communions ; yet if we look back at the harsh schemes of narrow doctrine and illiberal exclusive- ness which have characterised various parties, we may trace their strength to the predominance of this blind adherence to a literal, immediate application of Scripture, without distinction of times or circum- stances. Nevertheless it must be owned that such systems have often had a consistency and complete- ness within themselves, which has formed their re- commendation to acceptance with many. This first principle once admitted, they have appeared to stand on unassailable ground ; fenced about with an array of texts, they defy the attacks of opponents. Built upon the literal application of peculiar Scrip- tural expressions, systems assailing the very founda- tions of morality have triumphed. Eeferring every- 50 APPLICATION AND ]\IISAPPLICATION [Essay II. thing to tlie Divine counsels, irrespectively of their just interpretation, the most revolting conclusions Antiuo- appeared obvious inferences. Laying hold of certain miauism. detached texts, without regard to the grand charac- teristics evinced in the progressive development of the Divine dispensations, the advocates of these views discarded all moral considerations as carnal, and thence contended that all moral obedience is mere bondage to "beggarly elements," the letter of the Divine law is merely the sentence of our condemna- tion. Thus the same principle, literally carried out, leads to all the monstrous doctrines of Antinomianism. Setting out from denying all moral obligation apart from the letter of the Old Testament law, and then asserting that the believer is freed from that law by faith, it followed that he was freed from all moral obligation. Unassaii- Extravagant and portentous as these and some able on tlie literal other closely allied systems, followed out to then' principle, legitimate consequences, may appear, still, so long as the first 'principle of Scripture lite-ralism is admitted, they are unassailable. They have, as Bishop War- burton once observed, no weak side of common sense on which they can be attacked. The way, and the NH Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. . 5i: only way by which we can escape these and the like monstrous inferences, is by the unhesitating adoption of the simple ground of rational interpretation, the admission of an appeal to learning, the recognition of the conclusions of natural science, to correct and guide our conception of the declarations of revela- tion, — the allowance of critical, historical, and philo- logical aid in determining the sense of passages according to the context, and the general design of the composition and tenor of the argument of which they may form a part, — the reference to distinctions of time, place, and circumstances,^ — of manners, pre- judices, and opinions, — the due perception of meta- phor and allegory, — and the broad rule of qualifying particular assertions by the general tenor of the dispensation of which they form a part. Let us but look into the works of those divines Nature of anti-Cal- who are esteemed as the "most orthodox" opponents ^JJ^jJ^^gnts^^ of fanatical doctrines of these and other kinds here glanced at, who yet profess to make their appeal to Scripture; and what are their arguments through- out, but a continual exemplification and practical acknowledgment of the rules and principles just advocated ? 52 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay IL The texts alleged by the Predestinarian, the Anti- nomian, and the like religionists, are examined, and found to bear no real testimony of the kind supposed ; because in one the expression is properly metapho- rical ; in another it refers to some peculiarity of the Jewish dispensation; in a third it is not to be strained too literally, or is to be explained and modi- fied by the context ; or, in a fourth, it is merely an accommodation of a passage in the Old Testament to the subject in hand, or containing particular declarations which are not to be unduly and exclu- sively dwelt upon. But, above all, we are to be guided by the general tenor of Divine revelation, and by the reference {valeat quantum) to what is believed to be consistent with the Divine perfections, the moral nature of man, and his relation to his Creator. Further ^VlQ^'^ is the Universal tenor of their writings on of the'laml tliis subjcct ; but it is remarkable how little they principles. often seem to apprehend the force of their own principles, — how readily they condemn, as most dan- gerous neologism and heresy, opinions of other kinds, supported by the very same modes of interpretation and criticism on which they take their stand against Calvinism. If the appeal to the same primary truths Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 63 or rational rules of interpretation be allowed, then any other doctrine to which such principles may be applicable, though supported by the most formidable array of texts, may on such grounds be equally set aside ; that is, the texts will require a modified inter- pretation. Thus, e.g., it is on no other ground than that on which some reject Calvinistic reprobation, that others discard the eternity of future punish- ments altogether ; or, again, if we are to follow a servile adherence to the letter of texts, we must unavoidably adopt the tenets of transubstantiation and unction of the sick. And when we hear some Protestant divines attacking those tenets as supersti- tious, or repugnant to reason, we cannot but observe that they seem to forget the concessions involved. Gibbon relates that at one period of his life he Conse- quences rejoiced at discovering a pJiilosophical argument "evolved. against transubstantiation, as if in one sense it needed it, or in another could be affected by it. If the mere letter of Divine dogmas (whether written or traditional) is to be implicitly followed, then the real presence, though at once a miracle and a mystery? is not more at variance with reason than other miracles or mysteries ; on the other hand, the same 54 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay IL I arguments by wliicli it is set aside, would equally condemn many doctrines retained by Protestants, not at all intrinsically more level to the comprehension, or consistent with the theories which human reason might suggest. Selden long since remarked that " transubstantia- tion is but rhetoric turned into logic," but possibly did not perceive how easily the same observation might be retorted on him, and applied to many dogmas of the Protestant theology, just as much derived from logically systematising upon the letter of the scriptural expressions. Appeal to But of all the consequences of this literal biblio- Scriptiire . , . , for science, latry, and of all the forms in which it has shown itself, one of the most pernicious in its results, as well as the most preposterous in its nature, has been the practice of looking to the Bible not only as the standard of religion, but as an equal authority on all subjects, — social, political, chronological, histo- rical, philosophical, — and as the guide not merely to religious, but to scientific truth. It seems difficult to imagine how an idea so evi- dently monstrous and unreasonable should ever have come to be entertained, till we have reflected deeply Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 55 on the extreme pertinacity with which the human mind invests everything connected, however re- motely, with religion/ in the same halo of sanctity which it attaches to the essentials of faith ; and the indiscriminating and blind zeal with which it refuses to admit distinctions between the substantial truths of revelation and its incidental accessories, — or rather denies that any part can be an incidental accessory. To those, indeed, who have been in any degree accustomed to take wider views of the design and application of Scripture, it may seem superfluous to dwell on such a topic. In the former Essays^ we have seen abundant exemplification of this prepos- terous kind of speculation in all its varied phases, even on the part of some professed philosophers. In more immediate connection with our present subject, we cannot omit recurring, very briefly, to one of the instances before largely discussed, — the Scripture and geo- contradiction between the conclusions of modern ^°»^- ^ Thus, as a curious illustrative example, in the last century, when the reality of witchcraft, so long debated, was generally given up, Wesley contended, " Giving \ip witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible:'— Jourjial, 602, 713. 2 Unity of Worlds, Essay II. § 3, and III. § 4. Also, Two Sermons on Christianity without Judaism. London, 1856. 56 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay IL geology and the cosmogony of the Jewish Scriptures. It is, indeed, a case which x^resents little difficulty or peculiarity to those whose views of the entire rela- tions of Scripture and science have been duly Necessity expanded ; but in the actual state of common pre- fer stating the case j\^(jice and prevalent narrowness of views on such subjects, it acquires a peculiar value and importance, as being (unlike some of the more refined criticisms) a case of a palpable, obvious, and imdeniahh kind, which compels the most unreflecting person to give some attention to such considerations. The case only requires to be plainly and honestly brought before the general reader to be properly appreciated. Such plain statements of the actual case, and such open indications of the nature and important conse- quences of the contradiction thus existing, were made in former works referred to ; still a brief summary may not be without its use for a con- siderable class of readers, to whose minds the subject may even yet, perhaps, not stand forth divested, as completely as it might be, of some shadow of misap- prehension or obscurity. Summary At the present day every educated person is more of tlie case. or less acquainted with the truths disclosed by geo- Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 57 logy respecting the history and mode of formation of the earth's crust, and of the several races of organised beings by which it has been successively tenanted. These disclosures are clear and unequivocal; they display to our contemplation the existing state of things as by successive changes evolved out of a longj series of antecedent staf^^es. The formation of Geological ^ ^ view. the variously dispersed beds of diversified materials did not occur at any one time, or even by any successive universal simultaneous acts, but by the gradual and local operation of varied physical agen- cies, accompanied by corresponding series of changes in the forms and species of organised beings tenant- ing the earth and the water, each partially con- tinuing during the rise and increase of the next, — some more persistent, others dying out as new forms were introduced, — and this in a continuous succession from the earliest epochs, when none but forms now extinct prevailed, down to a time when those now existing began to hold a joint dominion, while the period which is characterised as the most recent reaches to an infinitely higher antiquity than any contemplated by history or fable. And, lastly, the origin of our own race, though it has (hitherto) 58 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay H. only been traced by remains belonging to a compa- ratively very recent epoch, has not yet been fixed by any certain evidence to a particular date. These are not matters of opinion belonging to any of those portions of the science which have been open to dispute, or on which any parties among men of science, or sane inquirers of any class, are at variance. They are among the fundamental truths acknowledged by all geologists of every school, which form the acknowledged basis of the whole science, and to question which would be to question not only the whole of geology, but the very founda- tion of all inductive science. As science can point to no origin or beginning, so neither can it point to any one general or universal change — any one sud- den, simultaneous, universal cessation of one order of things, and equally sudden and universal com- mencement of another. All its revelations are of sloiv, partial, gradual changes, wrought out in one small part at a time, during a long period, while all around was unchanged. It shows nothing like any universal destructions and reconstructions — nothing like a chaos suddenly changed into a creation — nothing like anarchy at one time followed by law Essay II.] OF SCRIPTUEE. 59 and order at another — but everything everywhere, through all the innumerable periods of time to which it looks back, alike regulated by law and order. The narrative of the creation given in the Hebrew The Mosaic Scriptures, whether in the brief form of the Deca- "-^^^^i^'e. logue (Exod. XX.) or in the more expanded account into which it was afterwards amplified in Genesis (ch. i.), is delivered in terms plain, clear, circum- stantial, and detailed. Granting all possible lati- tude or advantage which any one may think derivable from possible shades of meaning in the words employed, or which a minute philology may detect in some of the expressions introduced, still the manifest entire tenor of the narrative can only convey the idea of one grand creative act, of a common and simultaneous origin of the whole mate- rial world, terrestrial and celestial, together with all its parts and appendages, as it now stands, accom- plished in obedience to the Divine fiat, in a certain order and by certain stages, in six equal successive periods expressly designated as alternations of day and night, measured and determined by an evening and a morning, and necessarily (from the very 60 APPLICATION AXD MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. nature and object of the whole representation) of the same length as the sncceeding seventh natural day, on which a peculiar blessing was pronounced, with express reference to the institution of the Sabbath among the Israelites, to enforce which is the obvious drift and intention of the whole repre- sentation, especially as introduced into the law given them from Mount Sinai. o Various at- We liavc indeed formerly witnessed elaborate at- tempts at expiana- tempts to represent geological epochs, conformably tiou. to a kind of fanciful view of the days of the Mosaic creation, as periods of thousands of years. It is now well known that there were in fact no such six epochs. Specious attempts have been made to prove, as it was termed, " the antiquity of the earth in harmony with the Mosaic record ;" but the mere antiquity of the earth is not the point in question. It is the long-continued succession of organised worlds of life by which the existing state of things has been introduced. Some, who have maintained a scries of creations, have even done more violence to the Mosaic account than those who have ex- plained it away. If it mean anything, it must mean essentially one universal creative act. Some Essay II.] OF SCFJPTUEE. 61 have fancied the six days' work to refer only to some comparatively recent act by which the iwcsent state of things received its origin. But at no recent period, whatever latitude of time ah unsuc- cessful. we may allow (nor at any period, early or late), has there ever occurred an universal destruction or chaos, or an tcniversal and sudden creation or evolution of the whole earth, with all its organic and inorganic products, out of that chaos ; there has not even been any local or partial occurrence of such an imagined prodigy. Everything has gone on from one age to another through the countless periods of past dura- tion, to the depths of primeval time, in the same unbroken chain of regular changes. Some divines have, more consistently, rejected all Perver- sions of geology and all science as profane and carnal ; and on^ither some, even while pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy of tampering with the truth — investing the real facts in false disguises, — to cringe to the prejudices of the many, and to pervert science into a seeming accord- ance with popular prepossessions. At an earlier period, some of these representations may have passed current without so clear a percep- 62 APPLICATION AXD MISAPPLICATIOX [Essay II tion of tlieir untenable character ; but at the present clay public opinion has arrived at a greater maturity of knowledge, there now exists too large an amount of general information popularly diffused to allow the public mind to be misled, and no such chimeras, whether of false science or false theology, can long maintain their ground. The Mosaic The Mosaic narrative cannot be explained away nan-ative to be taken ■|3y torturiuo; the scusc of words, or fiojurative inter- as a whole. -' o o pretations in the details. It must be taken as a ivliole ; and as a whole or continuous narrative, we manifestly see that it cannot be regarded as historical. Erroneous It may sccm a superfluous repetition, to urge such views popular, topics ou the reader's attention. They ought to be familiarly known, and among the numerous popular writers wdio have referred to the question, it ought to have received a full and free elucidation ; yet, instead of endeavours really to enlighten the public mind on this subject, we find little more than continual attempts to mislead and mystify men's thoughts, or, at the most, to compromise and gloss over the question. Each attempt of the kind, succes- sively exploded, is followed by others equally, or yet more, idle and extravagant. Essay II.] OF SCRIPTUEE. 63 The earlier attempts to square the facts to the icUeat- tempts at narrative, nave been succeeded by those to square reconcilia- tion. the narrative to the facts ; but both are equally and transparently futile. ISTothing more clearly shows the hopelessness of the whole case than the nature of the interpretations proposed, which are of a kind violating the plainest rules of common sense : they proceed by such a latitude of philology, and sanction such a total vagueness in the use of words, as, if only applied generally, would readily enable us to explain away any given statement in the Bible or in any other book ; they apply processes of interpretation of that kind by which, as Bishop Butler observes, " any- thing may be made out of anything," or, as another able critic has remarked, are of a kind at once so vague and so narrow, that they in fact treat the text " as a plaything of wax, or, rather, a half-inflated bladder, which you may press in what part you like, so it be but one part at a time, between your thumb and finger." This question involves a train of consequences import- ance of the directly bearing on the entire view commonly taken inquiry. of the nature and tenor of revelation ; and the dis- cussion, the more we consider it, must be admitted 64 ArPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. to form a remarkable epoch in the history of theolo- gical opinions — it involves a broad principle. There are still, however, some who do not seem as yet disposed to assign it this degree of importance, but thmk the difficulty sufficiently solved by the general remark, that revelation cannot really be inconsistent with physical truth, and there leave it without further question or examination. Here, however, a distinct point, not of abstract doctrine or spiritual mysteries, but connected with tangible matters of fact, is brought to light, by which a positive renun- ciation is demanded of that which has been hitherto held sacred. Here the disclosure is not, and cannot be, misrepresented as mere matter of speculation and theory, but comes with the claim of evidence, and certainty. The question is one which stands apart from all mere abstract doctrinal controversies. It presents great undeniable physical truths, directly negativing what, previously to their discovery, had been received literally as a Divine announcement. Compro- To make compromises, with the view of conciliat- ing prejudices, is as derogatory to the claims of truth as it is sure to be unsuccessful in its object. All such concessions will still be suspected ; all disguises mise vam. Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 65 will equally fail in the object. The most impene- trable panoply in which to confront error, is the nakedness of truth. The inevitable rejection of the hisiorical character The Mosaic r XI, i\/r • • narrative ot the Mosaic narrative — a character so strenuouslv ^'^^^ ^^^^°- '^ rical. insisted on under older systems — cannot but be regarded as a marked feature in the theological and spiritual advance of the present age. It is not a step which can be denied, retracted, or obliterated ] it is a substantial position gained and retained, and from which the advancing inquirer cannot be dislodged. And the more it is reflected on, and its consequences fairly appreciated and followed out, the more, I do not hesitate to express my opinion, will it be acknow- ledged as the characteristic feature and commence- ment of a great revolution in theological views. The objections felt on this subject are often trace- Does not able to the influence of supposed consequences from inspiration of Scrip- the belief in the inspiration of Scripture. But if this ^^^^'^• be insisted on in ever so literal a sense, it does not follow that a representation of the only kind intel- ligible to a particular age and people, might not be given by an inspired writer, though now discovered to be in its letter at variance with fact, and therefore 66 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. fairly to be understood as of a figurative or poetical nature, or by whatever equivalent designation we. inconsist- ^lav choose to describe it. There are, however, some ent pre- -^ ' ' .lu ices. ^^^-j^^ entertain a strange and unaccountable prejudice against the adoption of such a designation. Yet they do not imagine the inspiration of the 'parables im- pugned because they are avowedly /c^^o?is. Where, then, is the difference, if an inspired narrative, once thought to be a liistory, is found to be a parahU 1 AVhen it is discovered that a narrative is such as cannot be regarded as historical, there remains the unavoidable alternative, either that it is simply untrue, or that it is designedly fietitious, — either to be rejected, in the one case, or, in the other, to be received as a fabulous, or allegorical, or mythical composition ; or if those designations be objected to, it is for those who dislike them to propose a better. Yet when this alternative is suggested with respect to the Mosaic creation, some persons of high ortho- doxy consider this latter proposition as extremely objectionable and dangerous. It can only be inferred that they prefer the former. Principle Such are a few remarkable instances which dis- of rational tior^'^^^^" tinctly evince the necessity for more rational con- Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 67 siderations, and more enliglitened principles of inter- pretation, than the generality of believers are inclined to allow in the process of applying Scripture. In these instances every inquirer of common discern- ment cannot but see and own the necessity for such rational considerations in elucidating its true mean- ing. There are, nevertheless, those who exclaim against all such views, as involving the most dan- gerous admissions, and opening the door to every species of error. Yet, when closely examined, it is found that the broad principles referred to are no others than those which no theology beyond the lowest fanaticism can possibly dispense with. The legitimate use of the rules of reasonable cri- ticism can never be foreign to the investigation of truths professedly dependent on the right under- standing of written records. It can only be the abuse and perversion of such criticism which can be fairly open to suspicion or reproach. Eut so wholly unreflecting is the ordinary mode of Formal and unre- regarding the sacred volume, so little are professing ^^ g^^f^^^^ believers given to think on, or examine, the grounds ^^' of their reception of its contents, and so narrow the prejudice on which, rather than on any rational con- 68 APPLICATION J^D MISAPPLICATION [Essay IT viction, their veneration for the Divine word is too commonly cherished, — and, we must add, so great the ignorance in which the young (and not 07ily the young) are often studiously kept on these points — on wliich our divines are too often unwilling to allow others or even themselves the privilege of further enlightenment, — that upon the whole we can hardly be surprised at the prevalence at once of narrow and unworthy views of Christianity, and the dread felt by the many at any attempt to examine into its real doctrines in a more liberal spirit of free inquiry, or that the very agitation of any question tending, in the least, to impugn what has received the sanction of established authority and admitted con- sent, should be denounced as dangerous and here- tical. But the views thus combated as to the immediate and literal application of Scripture, whether in the more extreme or in the more modified sense, have been often defended on the plea — doubtless, in a certain sense, most true and just — that the Bible altogether is one harmonious whole — that all its parts, being no less than the dictation of one and the same Divine Spirit, cannot but conspire together to Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. 69 one end and purport, and thus from all parts alike one system of truth and duty must result. But it is no disparagement to this unity of Scrip- But this is not cou- ture to assert that we must view the whole with due trary to distinct reference to the subordination and distinctness of its ^^^.^^f several 'parts ; and it will in no way follow from this view, that a precept or institution delivered under one dispensation, or one state of things, will at all apply under another and a different stage of the development of the Divine economy of grace. But even with some in whose estimation the ex- treme views just adverted to have deservedly sunk into discredit, a very similar class of opinions main- tain their ground, which are but the legitimate con- sequences of the same literal rule, whose influence we trace so widely at the present day, if not in the same precise and rigid opinions, yet in the more widely spread, because more easy and acceptable, tenets of various modified forms derived from the same parent stock. These varieties of doctrine find a ready acceptance with those who, without much discriminating study of the Bible, preserve a deep reverence for it, and, without any very dis- tinct views, adopt habitually a religion vrhich is 70 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [EssaY II. an incongruous mixture of Christianity and Juda- ism. Opposed to A more remarkable feature in tlie case, is that evangelical principles, these Judaical views of religion, and this confusion and intermixture of the several dispensations with each other, should be so extensively adopted, not merely by the careless and formal reader of the Bible, but in an especial degree by those who profess to look at Christianity in a more enlightened sense, and who avowedly seek to receive it in no blind, formal man- ner, but in the entire spirit of its evangelical purity. With such professions, nothing surely can be more inconsistent than the adoption of the Old Testament law as the hasis of gospel obligations. Thus it happens, from a variety of conspiring causes and motives, that, among most parties of pro- fessing Christians at the present day, so unprepared are men's minds for entertaining any more distinct views of the nature or ground of Christian obliga- tions, that the very mention of such a discussion of them, or the mere intimation of the groundlessness of their appeals to the authority of the Old Testament, is altogether startling and painful to their preposses- sions ; and, especially when these questions are found Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 71 to be mixed up with certain points of supposed prac- tical duty and religious observance, which they have habitually followed, any more discriminating and explanatory view is repudiated, and men turn from the discussion with impatience, or even with disgust and offence. Again, not less must exception be taken to the Polemical o spirit to be method and spirit in which such arguments are con- avoided. ducted. The discussions arising out of these ques- tions are too often carried on in the manner of a polemical conflict, in which either combatant is merely bent upon urging such topics as may make most strongly for his own side, — ^bandying argu- ments, and parading a host of isolated texts. The truth, in any case, is surely not likely to be promoted by such a mode of proceeding. In the present in- stance, especially, the subject is one involving those Iroacler principles which must be collected from a candid and rational inquiry into the historical charac- teristics of the several portions of the Divine dispen- sations recorded in the Bible, and by looking at passages in accordance with the entire argument of which they form a part. The whole question is really one of first principles, and ought not to be approached 72 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. in a controversial spirit, but will receive its solution to each inquirer's mind in proportion as lie endeavours to look at Christianity as a whole, in its purely evan- geh'cal character as elicited by a rational examination of the New Testament. But in the professed maintenance of this entire subserviency to the very letter of Scripture, the most eminent Protestant champions have often betrayed a remarkable inconsistency with their o^\t.i avowed principle. Wliile professing to follow entirely the mere letter of the text, and the naked declarations of the Divine word, they have been really led by a favourite system, or foregone hypothesis, in entire accordance with which they have viewed the scrip- tural authorities, or selected and interpreted them just to suit their purpose, and support their adopted theory. In strenuously upholding "the Bible, and the Bible only," as the sole religion of Protestants, they have, in fact, been led by other collateral authority, and, while seeming to maintain nothing but the pure declarations of the sacred writers, have, really, moulded and systematised the tenor of those decla- rations into a conformity with certain preconceived Essay IL] OF SCRIPTURE. systems, which tliey hold to be those of the true and orthodox faith, and to deny which they would con- tend to he little less than an entire denial of Divine truth, and a disloyalty to the word of God. Many theolosfians of various Protestant schools, Protestant •^ '- _ ortho- while they insist on receiving the volume of Scrip- doxism. ture as the sole Divine word, nevertheless practically disparage that professed devotion to it, and even systematically defer, with a reverence scarcely infe- rior, to some additional authority of human interpre- ters who have acquired a prescriptive claim to the homage of their followers, and are implicitly listened to as the necessary guides to the true meaning of Scripture. And such writers, while they would pro- bably be the first and most earnest to repudiate the idea of an ecclesiastical despotism, and would dis- card, as savouring of Popery, the notion of submis- sion to ancient creeds and formularies, fathers and councils, — yet, in fact, accord just the same obedi- ence to a particular school of modern commentators, and denounce, as sinful and blind heresies, the slightest departure from the views of their favourite preachers. Here, then, we cannot fail to notice the striking 74 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay IL way in which extremes again meet. The Low Church orthodoxy, equally with the High, compels its votaries to bow down in blind homage before the idols it has erected. And such divines, while they repudiate the abomination of human traditions, and are zealous for the pure Word, yet set up their own or their teachers' comments as the only sound inter- pretation, — even as Jehu served the Lord and de- stroyed Baal, yet nevertheless sacrificed to the golden calves that were in Dan and Bethel. ^ Precon- And if cvcu the system of Calvinism, and those ceived theories, allied to it, whicli seem to repose most entirely on the letter of Scripture, be critically examined, they will be found to be in reality founded on the assump- tion of a theory little warranted by that rule of implicit subserviency to the text, but derived wholly from other sources. If, for example, it were admitted that the letter of the text declares the Divine ivill to determine the salvation or damnation of men, yet to assert that this is the sole cause is to go beyond that letter, which might consist with other reasons determining that exercise of the Divine will.^ 1 2 Kings X. " See Arclibisbop Whately's Charge, 1856, p. 41. Essay IL] OF SCRIPTUEE. 75 The notion, once adopted, of the -universal appli- Bible re- ligion. cation of all parts of the Bible, considered as one book, is not easily dispelled. Having acquired the prescription of habitual acceptance, it has been ap- plied, by those of various religious schools, in the most opposite senses, and in support of views of the most contradictory tendency. It is often adduced in support of some sort of system, or rather absence of all definite system, called " the religion of the Bible," which, it is alleged, is in fact no more than the religion of the wise and the good in all ages and of all races. Thus, passages may be cited indiffer- ently from all parts of the history, the law, the moral books, the psalms, and the prophets, which— care- fully abstracting from them all dogmatic peculiarities — may be made to announce one and the same great lesson of virtue and morality, of a rational Theism and sublime devotion, — the duties of the present, and the aspirations of the future, in which all will con- cur, and which constitute, indeed, an universal reve- lation which commends itself to the acceptance of all. This mode of extracting and collecting a number Biblical ° eclectic- of detached passages and precepts, prohibitions and ^«^^^- Often very narrow. 76 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. maxims, indiscriminately brought together without regard to time, circumstances, jparties, or dispensa- tions, and omitting everything of more peculiar ten- dency, may, no doubt, accord very plausibly with a sort of abstract moral and religious system — a kind of religion, however, which the writers of the Bible manifestly never had in contemplation. Yet this kind of Biblical electicism seems to recom- mend itself to many at the present day, with pecu- liar attraction, as it falls in easily with the desire to construct what is conceived to be a simple and intelligible scheme of religion, accordant with some favourite theories of moral and spiritual truth. Yet such a scheme, while it professes great libe- rality and freedom of selection, may not unfrequently fix upon just those tenets or precepts which are most peculiarly marked and characterised by their adax^ta- tion to the peculiarly low and dark conceptions of those earlier ages for which the ancient dispensations were intended, but which, on that very account, are so peculiarly apt to be caught at, as being so grateful to human infirmity and ignorance in all times, and from which it is the very design of the later and Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 77 more perfect announcements of the New Testament to emancipate men. And, in point of fact, it is found to be so. In- quirers and speculators on these subjects, in other respects sufficiently liberal, and even transcendental, in their views, have, by this very process, introduced into their systems, and insisted on, precisely those peculiar institutions and injunctions of the Old Tes- tament which are as acceptable to human nature, in its seeking after a religion of sense and outward form (fitly called by the Apostle " carnal ordi- nances"), as they are adverse to the spiritual charac- ter of Christianity, which seeks to elevate men above these lower conceptions. And at the present day, as in some instances in past times, we find the Sabba- tism and temporal retributions of the Old Testament among the avowed tenets of Deism} If the Bible is to be appealed to at all, it must Distinc- . tion of dis- surely be in the sense which its actual tenor, and the pensationg in Scrip- manifest designs and intentions of the several writers, t^^^e, will warrant. The actual historical purport of its different parts and portions must surely be taken ^ See Appendix XVI. 78 APPLICATIOX AND MISAPPLICATIOX [Essay II. into account. The expressions in which the Jewish lawgiver, or the prophets of the Old Testament, or the apostles and evangelists of the New, convey and clothe their doctrines, and the form of the precepts, whether given by them, or narrated as announced by Christ, must, historically speaking, be first con- sidered with reference to the current forms of ex- X3ression, and the existing ideas and prejudices of those they addressed, as well as to the entire design of the teaching either of the Founder of the religion or his followers, before any such more generalised application can be legitimately made of them. It is one thing to frame a theoretical scheme of what we imagine either a scriptural religion or a code of moral instruction, whether it be of a Puritanical tendency on the one hand, or of a Theistic on the other — and to find support for it in an indiscriminate selection of passages taken from all parts of the varied contents of the Bible promiscuously heaped together, — quite another to pursue the simple matter- inquiry of-fact inquiry, vjliat were, the actual systems and iuto facts. forms of religious institution, of doctrinal truth, and practical teaching — whether accordant or not with our notions of reason or moral fitness — announced in Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 79 the different parts of those records, — which, on the mere face of the diversity of their historical dates, might be expected to exhibit great differences of character, even if they should be found connected by any common truths, — but which, when critically examined, may be found to exhibit the marks of a more specific design, and of a wise application to the wants and capacities of particular ages or nations ? , Now, in reference to the peculiarities of these Principle of adapta- several systems or dispensations, especially the earlier, *^*^^- it may be proper to premise one consideration which affects the right interpretation of their whole design, — the admission of the principle that they were, in different ways, all professedly and avowedly charac- terised as being designed " adaptations " to the par- ticular wants, capacities, conditions, and circum- stances of the parties addressed. It is, in fact, this principle of adaptation to distinct ages and people, Suited to different which seems to constitute the main clue to the ex- races and ages. planation of those peculiarities, and without reference to which many parts of the Bible, and even the whole scheme, seem exposed to the most serious objections. 80 APPLICATION AND MISAPPLICATION [Essay II. objec. It cannot be denied that, in the Old Testament tions, 1 . , history and institutions, we find repeated instances of what cannot be reconciled to our ideas of moral right, or to what is now known to be truth and matter of fact. But if, in any declaration or institu- tion, we find that which now appears to be untrue, unjust, unworthy of supreme goodness, or at variance with the highest standard of purity and holiness, it seems impossible to accept it as really Divine. To suppose God to sanction, or even tolerate, untruth, immorality, or iniquity, for however high an ulterior purpose, would be a contradiction to His nature and a denial of His perfections. Adaptation Thus the vciy idea of " adaptation" has been con- recognised in Scrip- sidered, by many, in itself objectionable. I^everthe- less the principle rests upon the express representa- tions of the Bible itself, which professedly contains the account of progressive diselosures of Divine truth, partially and gradually made known in accordance with the condition and wants, and capacity to receive instruction, of those to whom they were addressed, who were mostly in the lowest stage of advance and enlightenment, and to whom anything higher would have been absolutely unmtelligible, and would have ture Essay II.] OF SCRIPTURE. 81 been utterly rejected iinless conformed in some degree to their prepossessions. We can, however, judge of the representations made in any part of the Bible, solely from its own statements. The error lies in attempting to judge absolutely of these things by our standard ; and the ^ difficulty arises solely from imagining these repre- sentations addressed to us. If we look to the actual case of the sacred writers, it is manifest that, to their apprehensions of the Divine nature or attributes, the various declarations, and views of the Divine deal- ings, which they disclose, involved no suspicion of inconsistency or contradiction. If we admit the principle of such adaptation to Applica- tion to past ages and a peculiar people, it becomes the more Christi- manifestly inconsistent to suppose these things in- tended to apply to other ages and other people dif- ferently circumstanced, — still less to apply univer- sally, or to ourselves, enjoying, as we profess to do, the better instruction and higher illumination of Christianity. Yet such error is too common, from the mere want of due attention to the actual facts of the case, and discrimination as to the distinct nature of the dispensation under which we live. ESSAY III. THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL ESSAY HI. THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. § I. THE PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. If we are to take the statements of the Bible accord- ah older dispensa- ing to the representations which the sacred writers ^^o^^ffj.^*^™' themselves give us of their intention, we mnst fairly regard the general nature, character, and connection of the successive Divine dispensations recorded in the Bible as they are briefly described by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, — as announcements in various measures and " portions," and under various "forms" or "aspects,"^ made in times past to the fathers by the prophets. And this, we readily perceive, fully accords with what we collect in detail from the writings of the Old Testament, and Tro\vjLL€pCO? KCU TToXvTpo'TrcD?. Hcb. 1. 1. 86 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § i. affords the only simple and satisfactory clue to the interpretation of them, and the reconciliation of the apparent differences or contradictions between them. The view presented to us is that of successive revelations, systems, covenants, laws, given to dif- ferent individuals, families, or nations, containing gradual, progressive, and partial developments of spiritual truth, and intimations of the Divine will for their guidance, accompanied with peculiar positive institutions, adapted to the ideas of the age and the condition of the parties to wliom they were vouch- safed. Thus, peculiar revelations are represented as having been made in earlier ages — each distinct from the other, though in some instances including repeti- tions of the same declarations — to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob, and, lastly, to the Israelites — first by Moses, afterwards by a succession of prophets — as well as in some instances to other people, as, e.g., to the Mnevites (if the book of Jonah be regarded as historical), — while, in con- tradistinction to all these, " in these last days" (an expression well understood by the Jews as equiva- Essay III. § i.] PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. 87 lent to the final dispensation or age), it is explicitly declared, God hath spoken unto us by his Son in an universal, permanent, and perfect dispensation. The earlier and more partial, therefore, in the language of the apostle (which, addressed as it was to the Hebrews, becomes of far greater force with reference to the Gentiles), were not made " to its," nor designed "for tcs" ^Nevertheless, even in these days, it is important to trace the history and character of these former dispensations, in order more fully to elucidate the distinct nature and independence of the last; and especially to remove prevalent misconceptions from a subject which, however plain when histori- cally and rationally considered, has been involved in much difficulty from gratuitous and often visionary theories of a doctrinal kind. When we consider the very imperfect intimations View of primeval — often mere hints and allusions — given in the leiigion. Hebrew records as to these early religious institutions and the design of them, as well as the obvious and wide differences in the circumstances of those people and times from our own, the discerning reader at once sees how little they can have been intended to be understood as containing any permanent elements ^8 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § r. of an universal religion coeval with man, as seems to have been sometimes imagined. In the plain terms of the narrative we discover nothing of the kind ; and in the comment on it which the 'New' Testament supplies, we have direct assurance to the contrary. In general, the only common principle we can discover in these records, is, that the servants of God in those ages are described as being accepted in walking each according to the light vouchsafed to him, while in other respects we see peculiar insti- tutions and announcements having reference to the peculiar ends and purposes of the dispensations, specially adapted to the condition of those to whom they were addressed. Thus we trace from the first the approach to God through sacrifices, offerings, and formal services. Supposed Some have imagined, from the fic^iirative account primeval " ^ Sabbat!.. q£ ^i^g Divine " rest" after the creation, that there was a primeval institution of the Sabbath, though certainly no precei^t is recorded as having been given to man to keep it up. But since, from the irrecon- cilable contradictions disclosed by geological dis- covery, the whole narrative of the six days' creation Essay III. § i.] PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. 89 cannot now be regarded by any competently informed person as historical^, the historical character of the distinction conferred on the seventh day falls to the ground along with it. The disclosure of the true physical history of the origin of the existing state of the earth, by modern geological research, as shown in a previous Essay, entirely overthroios the supposed historical character of the narrative of the six days, and, hy consequence, that respecting the consecration of the seventh day along with it, and thus subverts entirely the whole foundation of the belief in an alleged primeval Sabbath, coeval with the world and with man, which has been so deeply mixed up with the prepossessions of a large class of modern religionists. Yet, without reference to this consideration, even long before the geological discoveries were known, some of the best commen- tators have regarded the passage as proleptical, or anticipatory. Afterwards we find the distinction of clean and other ceremonial unclean animals introduced, and the prohibition di^tinc- ^ The evidence in support of this conclusion is briefly described above, in Essay II., and will be found fully discussed in my work, On. the Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, 1838 ; in my article, DO THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § i. of eating blood, in the covenant with ISToah,^ of which the Sabbath formed no part ; nor can we iind any indication of it in the history of the other patriarchs, — a point particularly dwelt upon by the early Christian divines, to whom any such idea of a primeval obligation was evidently unknown, and who adopted the belief of the Jews of their age, in interpreting their Scriptures.^ Some modern com- mentators have dwelt on the mention of the division of time by weeks ^ in several parts of the early " Creation," iu Kitto's Cydopoedia of Bib. Lit. ; and The. Unity of Worlds, Essays IL and IIL 1 Gen. ix. 1. ^ Justin Martyr {Dial. c. Trypho. 236, 261) says, "The patriarchs were justified before God not keeping Sabbaths," and "from Abraham originated circumcision, and from Moses the Sabbath," &c. Irenaeus (iv. 20) and TertuUian {adv. Jud. ii. 4) both declare that " Abraham, without circumcision, and without observance of Sabbaths, believed in God," &c. Eusebius {Hist. i. 4) says, " The patriarchs did not observe circumcision, or Sabbath, or distinctions of meats, any more than we do. These were first appointed by Moses." To the same effect, also, see Eusebius, Prcep. Evang. vii. 6. =» The early adoption (as Gen. xxix. 27, 28 ; Job ii. 13, &c.) of the division of time into xoeeks may be obviously and rationally derived from the simple consideration that, iu a rude state, among people whose ca- lendar demands no very nice adjustments, the first periodical division of time which naturally obtains is that of lunar months, wliile those conspicuous phenomena, the phases or quarters of the moon, correspond to a week nearly enough for the common purposes of such nations. And as to shorter subdivisions, though the recurrence of the lunar period in about 29^? days Avas incompatible with any exact sub- Essay III. § i.] PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. 91 Mosaic history, — in the history of ISToah/ &c., and, as they haA^e also imagined, even in an expression in division, yet the nearest whole nxmiher of days which could he suh- divided into shorter periods, would be either 30 or 28, of which the latter would, of course, be adopted, as admitting of division into 4, corre- sponding nearly to the phases or quarters of the moon. Each of these would palpably correspond to about a week ; and in a period of about 5i lunations the same phases would return very nearly to the same days of the week. In order to connect the reckoning by weeks with the lunar month, we find that all ancient nations observed some pecu- liar solemnities to mark the day of the ne%o moon. Accordingly, in the Mosaic law, the same thing was also enjoined (Numb. x. 10 ; xxviii. 11, &c.) ; though it is worthy of remark that, while particular observances are here enjoined, the idea of celebrating the new moon in some way is alluded to as if already familiar to them. The prevalence of this division by weeks among Eastern nations, from a very remote period, is attested by various ancient writers. Dio Cassius ascribes the invention of it to the Egyptians, and assigns the origin of the planetary names of the days. {Hist. Rom. xxxvii. 18, 19.) The application of the names of the planets to the days originated in the astrological notion, that each planet in order presided over the hours of the day. Arranging the planets in the order of their distances from the earth, on the Geocentric system, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, then, e.g., Saturn presided over the first hour of Saturday, and, assigning each planet to an hour in succession, the 22d hour will fall to^ Saturn again, the 23d to Jupiter, the 2ith to Mars, and thus the first hour of the next day would fall to the Sun, and so on. Oldendorf found the weekly division of time in the interior of Africa. (Jahn, Archceol. Bib., art. ''Week.") The Brahmins also have the week distinguished by the planetary names. {Life of Galileo, 12; Laplace, Precis cle I'Hist. d'Astron. 16.) The Peruvians divide lunar months into halves and quarters, by the phases of the moon, but have no names for the days, and besides have a period of nine days, the 1 Gen. vii. 4, kc. 92 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § r. the account of Abel's sacrifice.^ Yet it by no means follows that, because the historian adopts a particular approximate third part of a lunation, thus showing the common origin of both, (Garcilasso, Hist, of the Incas. in Taylor's Nat. Hist, of Society, i. 291, 292.) As also the Romans had their " Nundinse," or ninth day, which was a holiday even to slaves. The Greek lunar month, of alternately 29 and 30 days, was divided into decades of days. On the other hand, the Mexicans have periods of five and of thirteen days, with names to each day (Norman on Yucatan, i. 85, and Traits, of American Ethnog. Soc. i. 58.) The NeAV Zealanders have a year of thirteen lunar months, each day of which has a name, though no dis- tinction of weeks. (Captain Mundy, Antipodes, ii. 251.) In a word, the division of time into weeks appears to have been peculiar to two portions of the ancient world, India and Egypt, from the latter of which it was probably adopted by the Israelites, as from the former by some other Eastern nations. It was Avh oily unknown to China, to aboriginal Europe, or to America (Catlin, ii. 234), or any other part of the world — facts opposed to the idea of any universal primitive tradition. Allusions to a sanctity ascribed to the seventh day by the early Greek poets — such as the hftoofiaTi] 5' eireiTa kutjiXvOsv lepou rifiap of Homer, and like expressions of Callimachus, Hesiod, &c. — are quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus {Strom, v. ), and expressly described by him to have been derived from the Jews, with whose scriptures, by that time so widely diffused, so many parallelisms are found in the classic authors. Generally, however, the universal superstition of the sacredness of the number 7, combined with the equally common propensity to attach sanctity to particular periods and days, are sufficient elements out of which such ideas Avould naturally take their rise. Among the ancient Romans, festivals were held in honour of Saturn, with a reference to commemorating the Saturnian or Golden Age ; and with this idea it was unlawful, on the day sacred to Saturn, to go out to war (Macrobius, lib. i., Saturn, c. 16), and it was held unlucky to Gen. iv, Essay III. § i.] PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. 93 mode of reckoning, it was therefore nsed by the people or in the age of which he is writing ; but, were it so, this would not imply the institution of the Sabbath. In all the accounts of the early dispensations, religious truths are conveyed under figures, and obligations enforced by motives, specially adapted to the capacities and wants of the parties addressed. Thus, temporal prospects are always held out as the wimedtate sanctions ; and the mode of announcement adopted is always that in which God is represented as vouchsafing to enter into a covenant with his Covenants. commence a journey, or undertake any business, — a superstition alluded to by Tibullus {Eleg. i. 3, v. 18) :— " Saturni aut sacram me tenuisse diem." What particular feast is here referred to there is nothing to show. The supposition of some of his commentators, that it meant the seventh day of the week, is wholly gratuitous. But if it were so, the idea would be naturally and obviously borrowed from the Jews, whose customs, especially the Sabbath, are so frequently alluded to by the Roman writers, and, from their wide dispersion, must have been generally fami- liar, as, in fact, we learn from the boast of Josephus (adv. Ap. ii.) and of Philo, that ''there is no place where the Sabbath is not known," and the testimony of Theophilus Antiochus (lib. ii. ad Arist.) to the same effect, as well as others often cited, which show the strict preservation of the observance among the scattered Jews ; and it may possibly have been conformed to by others, or the occasion laid hold of as convenient for other purposes, as, e.g., we are told by Suetonius (lib. xxxii.), "Diogenes grammaticus disputare sabbatis Rhodi solitus." 94 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay 111. % i. creatures. The form is always that of a stipulation of certain conditions to be fulfilled, and certain blessings or punishments to be awarded as they are fulfilled or not, and these conditions always of a precise, formal, positive kind, not implying merely natural moral obligations. The spirit of all these covenants was that of minute positive ordinances and distinctions — ''Touch not, taste not, handle not,"^ — involving a ground and motive of obedience precisely adapted to the very infancy of the human race. Such was the very covenant with Adam in Paradise : " Eat not of the tree, or thou shalt die." The same idea of a covenanted stipulation of iJositivG observances, charac- terises all the succeeding announcements, from the covenant of circumcision with Abraham down to the more detailed and complete scheme of the Mosaic law. In all these systems the prominent feature was the practice of sacrifice, implying the idea of propitiating a wrathful Deity by the shedding of blood. Primeval Under thesc early and imperfect dispensations, if precepts • p i i notobiiga- we Only reflect on the marriages of the sons and tory as ^^^'^^'^' daughters of Adam, or on the polygamy of the Col. ii. 2L Essay ITI. § i.] PRIMEVAL DISPENSATIONS. 95 patriarchs, we must own that it is idle to look for any great principles of universal moral application, as has been imagined by some; who, for instance, find authority for capital punishment in the precept^ given to Noah,^ or for tithes in the example of Melchizedec.^ So far from perceiving any support for the idea that, because a precept or institution was from the beginning, it was therefore designed to be of universal and perpetual obligation, on the contrary, we rather see in its very antiquity a strong presumption that it was of a nature suited and in- tended only for the earliest stage of the religious development of man. One instance, indeed, is some- times appealed to in support of a reference io primitive institutions — the argument of Christ with respect to marriage, "from the heginning it was not so ;" * but the whole context shows that this was purely an argument with the Jews from their oivn 'belief, and not involving any abstract principle, or that the mere antiquity of any institution proved its general application or obligation. ^ That is, assuming it to be a jprecejot at all. It is understood by many, and with much reason, to be a mere proverbial or prudential maxim, just as in Matt. xxvi. 52. 2 Gen. ix. 6. =' Gen. xiv. 20. ■* Matt. xix. 8. mise. 96 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay TIL § i. Again, some interpret the expression/ " the law was added," as if it implied some previous law ; but, from the context, it is clearly described as " added " (cr^otfgrs^^j), not to any previous lavj, but to " the Ttie pro- 2'>^omise " — that Divine assurance of a Saviour, of which, apart from all these peculiarities of " cove- nants," we trace all along the announcement, — which was before these covenants, and to which " the fathers looked as not transitory ^'^ Christianity, by fulfilling the 'promise, supersedes all previous im- perfect dispensations (such is the express tenor of the argument in Gal. iii.), itself emphatically a " New dispensation,"* the very reverse of a recurrence to a primitive religion, as fancied by some. The pa- triarchs, and especially Abraham, are set forth as examples oi faith in the p>romise -, and in this respect Christian believers are called children of Abraham,* but manifestly not in the sense of their retrograding to an older and less perfect state of things. The whole tenor of the Divine revelations is clearly stamped with the character of advance. * GaL iii, 19. ^ Thirty-nine Articles, art. vii. ; Heb. xi. 13. * diaQvKy], Heb. viii. 13. See infrCt, § iv. ■» Gal. iii, 7. 97 § II. THE JUDAICAL LAW. The manifest desic^n of the book of Genesis was not Early part ^ of Old Tes- tament in- roductory to form an introduction to the Law for the Jews. It to teach us a primitive or universal religion, but ^J' has been well observed that " to understand Genesis we must begin with Exodus." From the actual history and circumstances of the people we can best appreciate the sense in which their ancient records are to be understood ; and when we examine them, we find that those events in the previous history are always selected and enlarged upon, which have a direct reference to points in the subsequent institu- tions, or which were anticipations of the Law, or the rudiments out of which its ordinances were framed.^ ^ I have throughout the present argument assumed the receiveil view of the Old Testament as a continuous historical account of the Israelites and their institutions. That assumption, however, it is per- fectly well known, is, intheopinionof some of the best critical scholars, open to much question ; in fact, on a discriminating examination of various parts of the narrative as it stands, the difficulties which present themselves are such as can only be accounted for (in the opinion of some acute critics) by supposing it a compilation of fragmentary do- cuments of various ages, put together without much regard to their historical connexion or authenticity, but with a religious design. My G 98 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § ii. Thus, the narrative of the six days' creation, first announced in the Decalogue, and afterwards ampli- fied in Genesis (in accordance with what has been already observed), can now only be regarded as a figurative mode, suited to their apprehensions, of enforcing on the Jews the institution of the Sabbath — the day of completion of the work of creation, on which the Creator rested and was refreshed.^ And in like manner the institutions of primeval worship (already adverted to) — the sacrifices, the distinctions of clean and unclean animals, the prohibition of blood, and afterwards the appointment of circum- cision — the choice of a peculiar people, the promise of Canaan — form the prominent topics, as exhibiting present object, however, does not demand any introduction of these topics. If they were admitted, no doubt the inferences in this Essay woukl follow cl fortiori; indeed, much of the discussion would be su- perseded altogether. But I prefer, for the general reader, to reason on the admitted view of the case, and not to mix up my conclusions with assertions which might be disputed. In immediate connexion with the views here alluded to, some very important critical elucidations of many parts of the Old Testament system, especially as bearing on Christianity, will be found in an acute ca-itical work, A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Christianity, by R. W. Mackay, M.A. (London, 1854), though I am far from assenting to all the author's opinions. Also many valuable elucidations, the result, evidently, of extensive reading and critical research, will be found in a work entitled Time and Faith, London, 1857, 2 vols. ^ Exod. xxxi, 17. Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. 99 the first rudiments of the Mosaic religion, and ap- proximations towards the system of the Law. The object of the Law was declared to be, in the Separation of the first instance, to separate the people of Israel, by P^'cuiiar peculiar marks and badges, from all other nations, as a people chosen for the high ends and purposes of the Divine counsels.^ This was to be effected especially by such distinctions as those of circumcision, the prohibition of intermarriages or any participation with idolaters, and by all their exclusive usages and ceremonies. Among these the chief was the marked singu- The Sab- bath a larity of the Sabbath, which, along with the Passover, badge of separation. was appointed earlier than the rest of the Law,^ and was enjoined expressly '^ for a perpetual covenant^' and as "a sign between God and the children of Israel for ever,"^ which they were always to remeiiiber to keep up. And the same idea is repeated in many other passages, all showing both the exclusive an- ^ See especially Exocl. xix. 5, xxxi. 13-17 ; Deut. xiv. 1, xxvi. 16 ; Ezek. XX. 9-12. 2 This is doubted by some. Thus Mede computes that the march of the Israelites out of Egypt commenced on a Sabbath, and hence argues that it was not yet instituted. {On Sahbath, p. 239.) 3 Exod. xxxi. 16, 17. 100 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § ii. nouncement and peculiar object and application of the institution to the people of Israel always men- tioned among the most essential characteristics of the Law.^ And this is further manifest in the con- stant association of this observance with others of the like peculiar and positive nature, — as with re- verencing the sanctuary,^ keeping the ordinances,^ solemnisinoj the new moons * and other feasts.^ And, obviously with the same view, it was expressly made one of the most special and primary obligations of proselytes who joined themselves to the Lord, as " taking hold of the covenant" thereby.^ Nature of As to the nature and mode of the observance, it consisted in a rigid cessation of every kind of labour, as we see in the express literal precepts against kindling fire,'^ or preparing food.^ A man was put to death for gathering sticks.^ Buying and selling were also unlawful.^'' They were not to follow their own pleasure, nor speak their own words. ^^ ^ As, particularly, Ezek. xx. 10 ; Neli. ix. 14, &c. 2 Lev. xix. 30. ^ Ezek. xlv. 7. * Isa. i. 13, Ixvi. 23. " Hos. ii. 11. « Isa. Ivi. 6. " Exod. xxxv. 3. « Exod. xvi. 5, 22. • ' Num. xv. 32. " Nell. x. 31. " Isa. Iviii. 13. Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAIC AL LAW. 101 To these a multitude of more precise injunctions were added by the traditions of the Eabbis/ such as the prohibition of travelling more than twelve miles — afterwards contracted to one mile, and called a Sabbath day's journey, — and not only buying and selling, but any kind of pecuniary transaction even for charitable purposes, or so much as touching money .^ We see also the extension of the same peculiar Sabbatical year. idea of a seventh period of rest, in the institution of the Sahhatical Year, or the injunction of a fccUoio, or cessation of tillage for the land, every seventh year. Not only were the labours of agriculture sus- pended, but even the spontaneous productions of the earth were to be given to the poor, the traveller, and the wil4 animals.^ This prohibition, however, did not extend to other labours or trades, which were still carried on. There was, however, in this year, an extraordinary time devoted to the hearing of the Law read through.* As Moses predicted,^ this institution was afterwards much neglected.^ ^ Twie and Faith, i. 93. ^ See Vitringa, De Synagogd, translated by Bernard, p. 76. ^ See Lev. xxv. 1-7 ; Deut. xv. 1-10. * See Deut. xxxi. 10. ' Lev. xxvi. 34. » 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. 102 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § ir. Closely connected with this was the observance of the year following seven sabbatic years [i.e. the hftieth year), called the year of Jubilee. The observance of the Sabbath is always expressed and regarded not as of one day in seven, but spe- cifically of the seventh day of the weelz as such, in commemoration of the rest after the creation/ though in one respect, also, it is afterwards urged as reminding the Israelites of their deliverance out of Egypt.2 (fnhe^Liw These distinctive institutions and peculiarities nkis^orthe Constituted at once their security and unity as a people of , , , Israel people, and supplied their motives of obedience. The Law tliroughout is a series of adaptations to them and their national character and position ; yet ^ The Jewish Eabbis have always understood the institution of the Sabbath to belong to the particular day of the cessation of the crea- tion, enjoined on the people of Israel, as they say, " that they might fasten in their minds the belief that the world had a beginning, which is a thread that draws after it all the foundations of the Law or prin- ciples of religion." — Rabbi Levi of Barcelona, quoted by Patrick, on Exod. xix. The same idea occurs in a Jewish form of prayer, quoted also by Patrick. See Abp. Sumner's Records of Creation, i. 87. The early Christian writers all regard the institution as wholly pecu- liar to the Israelites. Justin Martyr, in particular, expresses himself pointedly to the effect that "it was given to them on account of their lawlessness (avofxtau) and hardness of heart." — Dial, cum Tryph. 235. « Deut. V. 15. Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. 103 by many theologians it is, very strangely and unac- countably, spoken of as something general, as *'a preliminary education of the human race," as a part of the general system of instruction and advance of man- kind. But the plain history discloses nothing but the separation of one single people for a specific purpose. We see continued exemplifications of wise adapta- tion to the Jewish national mind and state of pro- gress in the entire mode of the delivery of the Law, amid terrors, signs, and wonders, and especially in the announcement of the Decalogue from Sinai, while its consignment to tables of stone is expressly stated to be for a memorial or " testimony" ^ to the covenant, of which these precepts constituted some of the more primary stipulations, but are in no other way distinguished in character from the rest of the body of laws. And throughout the whole Law we trace equal adaptations in the form and manner of the precepts and injunctions — all minute and literal, not rising to any broad principles, which the Israelites at that time would have been in- capable of comprehending. 1 Exod. xxxi. 18, xxxiv. 29. 104 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § ii. anrmoraf "^^^ distinction adox^ted by many modem divines, between the "ceremonial" and the "snored" law, appears nowhere in the books of Moses. ISTo one portion or code is there held out as comprising the rules of moral obligation distinct and apart from those of a ijositive nature. In the low stage of advancement of the Israelites, such a distinction would have been imintelligble to them ; and " the Law" is always spoken of, both in the Old Testa- ment and in the New, as a wliole, without reference to any such classification ; and the obligations of all parts of it are indiscriminately urged on the same grounds, and as of the same kind. The moral In particular, what is termed the moral law is law not the Decalogue, certainly in no way peculiarly to be identified with the Decalogue, as some have strangely imagined. Though moral duties are specially enjoined in many places of the Law, yet the Decalogue most assuredly does not contain all moral duties, even by remote implication, and on the widest construction. It totally omits many such, as e.g., beneficence, truth, justice, temperance, control of temper, and others ; and some moral precepts omitted here are introduced in other places. But many moral duties are hardly Essay III. § ir.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. 105 recognised ; e.g., it is difficult to find any positive . prohibition of drunkenness in the Law. In one pas- sage only an indirect censure seems to be implied.^ The prohibition in respect to the priests,^ and the ISTazarite^ vow, were peculiar cases. Equally in the Decalogue and the rest of the Law, we find precepts referring to what are properly moral duties, scattered and intermixed with those of a positive and formal kind, and in no way distin- guished from them in authority or importance ; but both connected with the peculiarities of the dispen- sation, expressed in a form, accompanied with sanctions, and enforced by motives precisely adapted to the character and capacity of the people, and such as formed part of the exact stipulations of the covenant. Practical duties were urged more generally on the Grounds of obedience. Israelites, in some passages,^ on the consideration of the national blessings they enjoyed, in others on more particular grounds — such as long life promised as the motive for filial obedience,^ the recompense for ^ Dent. xxix. 19. 2 l^^. ^9^ 3 jy^y^^^ yj_ 3^ * As, e.rj., Deut. xi. 21, 22, iv. 31, &c. ^ Exod. xx. 12. 106 THE LAAV AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § ii. beneficence and equity/ the appeal to the dread of Divine vengeance,^ and the remembrance of benefits conferred. In general, their reward was to be found in obedience : to keep the statutes and ordinances was to be " their wisdom and their righteousness ;" and the great maxim and promise was, " He that doeth these things shall live in them."^ Law adapt- The law Conformed to many points of human in- ed to human nature. firmity. It offered splendid rites and ceremonies to attract popular reverence, and wean the people from their proneness to the gross ceremonies of idolatry. It indulged the disposition, so powerfully inherent in human nature, to observe " days, and times, and seasons," by the Sabbaths and feasts, and by occasional fasts — originally only a symbol of ordinary mourning, but afterwards invested Avith a religious character.* It commended avenging and sanguinary zeal, especially in the pimishment of blasphemers.^ It sanctioned the " lex talionis" — "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" ^ — that most perfect idea of retributive ^ Prov. xix. 17 ; Ps. xli. 1, xxxvii. 25, &c. 2 Exod. xxiv. 17 ; Deut. iv. 24 ; Isa. Ixvi. 16 ; Deut. iv. 31. ^ Deut. iv. 6, vi. 25 ; Lev. xviii. 5. * Isa. Iviii. 5 ; Joel ii. 12. 5 Lev. xxiv. 14 ; Deut. xiii. 9. ^ Exod. xxi. 23, 24. Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. 107 justice to the uncivilised mind ; and in general it con- nected the idea oi inmislimGnt with that of vengeance and satisfaction, — the most congenial to a barbarous apprehension. If it restricted marriages within certain degrees of kindred, it at least connived at polygamy/ and allowed a law of divorce suited " to the hardness of their hearts."^ On the other hand, it visited the violation of conjugal fidelity in the severest manner — punishing fornication in married persons with death by stoning.^ It fully recognised and upheld slavery.* The Law altosjether was established with a resrard ^iie Law ° ° carnal. to the infirmity and blindness of the people, " in con- sideration to transgressions"^ It was altogether a dispensation marked by physical influences and ex- ternal manifestations ; and characteristically enjoined ^ Exod. xxi. 10 ; Deut. xxi. 15 ; Juclg. viii. 30, &c. Besides the repeated mention of polygamy in the Old Testament, it is referred to by Josephus as practised in his time, and still later by Justin Martyr, who says that the Jewish doctors allowed a man four or five wives. See Neande}''s Life of Christ, transl. p. 252. 2 Matt. xix. 8. 3 Deut. xxii. 22 ; Lev. xx. 10. 4 Lev. XXV, 44, &c. ' Gal. iii, 19. Though the meaning of this expression has been dif- ferently viewed, this appears to me to be the proper force of the adverb Xapiv here used by the apostle. From its etymology it must be sup- posed to imply "because of" ma favourable or indulging sense. It seems to correspond to irpo's in Matt. xix. 8. 108 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § ir. bodily observances, meats and drinks, outward puri- fications, " carnal ordinances," not as adjuncts, but as essentials. The religious festivals were expressly to be observed with literal feasting} Anthropo- AVhilc it prohibited idolatry, it represented the inorphic represejita- J)qI\^j under liumau similitudes, with human passions and bodily members, as, c. g., w^eary and resting from His work, angry, repenting, and jealous of otlier gods, and designated more particularly as " Jehovah," the national " God of Israel." It is not one of the least remarkable of these anthropomorphisms, that (as in former instances) the disclosure of the Divine pur- poses is made under the figure of Jehovah entering The cove- into a covciiant with his people, — an idea specially adapted to a nation of the lowest moral capacity. All points of duty were proposed under the form of precise stipulations (just as in other times religious vows, temperance pledges, subscriptions to creeds, &c. have been adopted), to keep a stronger hold on those incapable of higher motives. The immediate appeal to Divine sanctions sensibly present, and the en- forcement of moral duties under the form of a ' See Deut. xiv. 26, xxvii, 7 ; Neli. viii. 10, 12. nant. Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. 109 positive engagement, were precisely calculated to influence those wlio had no apprehension of pure principles of moral obligation, or of a higher spiritual service. The covenant, as such, was entirely under the Temporal retribu- sanction of temporal rewards and punishments, — the ^^^"• enjoyment of the land of Canaan with its fruits, plenty, prosperity, and long life.^ The blessings and cursings were placed in sensible contrast before the gross apprehensions of the people f the punishment of sin was to be by diseases, by famine, pestilence, and the sword, and by subjection to their enemies.^ The denunciations of the Law are constantly repeated in the prophets,* and are throughout confirmed by repeated instances in their history, repeated special visitations, terminated at length by national rejection. Again, obedience was to be rewarded, and sin to Retni^u- tion to be visited, by blessings or judgments on t\\Q posterity posterity; of the offender^ — not merely in the sense of the ^ Exocl. XX, 12, xxiii. 26 ; Lev. xxv. 17, xxvi. 3 ; Numb. xiv. 20 Deut. v., vi., y\\. passim, i. 35. ^ Deut. xxviii., xxix. ^ Exod. XV. 26 ; Lev. xxvi. 16, 25 ; Deut. vii. 15, xxvi. 7, kc. r * Isa. li. 19 ; Jer. xxix. 18 ; Ezek. vi. 11, xiv. 21, &c. ^ Exod. XX. 5. 110 THE LAAV AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay HI. § ii. ordinary consequences of good or bad conduct in the parents naturally influencing the fortunes of the children, but by what were expressly represented as peculiar providential interpositions. And in con- nexion with this was another striking peculiarity of the covenant, — that obedience and disobedience were both regarded as national, for which national rewards and judgments were to be awarded, the luliole loeople, in the aggregate, being represented as possessing a collective and common responsibility. These pecu- liarities were obviously connected with the absence of those higher motives and sanctions which would be derived from the doctrine of a future state, which QlQdAj formed no part of the covenant, even supposing it true that it was believed by some pious and en- lightened individuals, and in later times hinted at by the prophets. We may observe further, that throughout the Old Testament, in all narrated events, and re]3resentations of the conduct of individual actors in them, every- thing is regulated and estimated, not according to abstract moral principles, not by any standard of moral merit or demerit, such as we should adopt at the present day, but always according to the bearing Essay III. § ii.] THE JUDAICAL LAW. Ill of the event, or the conduct of the individual, in question, upon the fortunes of the chosen people of Jehovah, upon the advancement of His cause, the support of His law, the bringing about of His coun- sels, and the discomfiture of His enemies. It is only on this principle that we gain any clue to the religious import attached to a number of events in the history — to many of the details of the wars and policy of the judges and kings, — or to the praise often awarded to individual conduct otherwise the most equivocal or even highly blamable, or the condemnation of parties not otherwise apparently offenders. Such difficulties, of constant occurrence, can only be solved by the principle that, under that system, whatever forivarded the advancement of the Mosaic dispensation, the dominion of Jehovah, loas EIGHT ; ivhatever op- posed or hindered it, WRONG. The obligations of the Law were strongly declared to be perpetual^ and the covenant everlasting — expressions which cannot now be taken literally. Again, one of its most marked features was, that its Extension of pri- privileges might at all times be extended to strangers ^'^^^s^s- ^ As, e.g., Exod. xxxi. 17 ; Lev. xvi. 34, xxiv. 8 ; 2 Kings xvii. 37, 112 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § ii. by their undergoing the initiatory rite. This was, in later ages, extensively realised.^ The pro- 'pi;^^ prophecics of the future extension of the pliecies. ■*■ ^ Mosaic religion might, in a first sense, apply literally to this extension of proselytism — the coining in of remote nations to the Jewish church and worship, resorting to its temple, adopting its rites and offer- ings, and keeping its festivals and Sabbaths, — as we know was in fact largely fulfilled before the intro- duction of the Gospel.^ These predictions are, however, also figuratively interpreted of the spread of the Gospel, and the glories of the spiritual Zion. If so, all the particulars in the description must be interpreted by the sa7ne analogy. If Israel and the temple be metaphorical, then tlie sacrifices, new moons, and Sabbaths ^ must be so likewise. If these latter are taken lite- rally, we can only understand the whole lite- rally, or we violate all rules of interpretation and analogy. ^ See Exod. xii. 48 ; comp. with Isa, Ivi. 6, and Dent. xxix. 11. « Isa. Ivi. 3, Ixvi. 11, 12, 19-23 ; Micah iv. 1 ; Zech. viii. 21 ; Amos ix. 11 ; comp. Acts ii. 5, &c. ^ Especially as in Isaiah Ixvi. 23. See note in § iv. j>. 141. :Essay III. § II. J THE JUDAICAL LAW. 113 Tlie precision and formality of the Laio were in More spi- ritual prin- some degree extended and spiritualised by the _pro- ^ipies. ■plicts} The weightier matters of the Law are pre- eminently insisted on by them. The words of EzekieP have been understood as positively abro- gating the punishment of the posterity for the sins of the father ; and Isaiah ^ strongly decries the sacrifices and Sabbaths. They also gave intimations that the Law was to come to an end, or rather to be superseded by a better and more spiritual covenant.* Malachi, the last of the prophets, connects the two dispensations — looking backwards to Moses, and for- wards to Christ and his forerunner.^ John the Baptist was the minister of an inter- John the Baptist. mediate or preparatory dispensation. He accordingly recognised all existing obligations, but reproved hy- pocrisy and formality, and urged repentance and its practical fruits. ^ He more especially announced the kingdom of heaven as at hand ; and his mission, as more fully expounded by the fourth evangelist, was ^ As 1 Sam. xv. 22 ; Ps. xv. ; Hosea vi. 6 ; Micah vi. 8, ix. 13, &c. « Ezek. xviii. 3. ^ Tsa. i. 13, &c. * Isa. ii. 2 ; Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25. ^ Mai. iv. 2-6. « Luke iii. 10-14 ; Matt. ii. 7. H 114 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay HL § ii, to point to Jesus as " the Christ/' who should bring that kingdom in,^ " the Lamb of God," who should " take away the sin of the world." Note on § il Some views have "been "broached "by critical Avriters, wliich throw light on the subject of the legal sacrifices, and the whole nature of the Law. Thus it is, in the first instance, contended that the general idea of human sacrifice was clearly one familiar to the apprehensions of those who wrote and those who originally read the Old Testament. This is supported by the well-knoAvn instances of Abraham and of Jephthah (which was clearly a sacrifice according to Lev. xxvii. 29, and was so understood by Josephus), and the interpretation of which as a devotion of his daughter merely to perpetual virginity is treated by Ewald (Hist, of Israel, ii.) as wholly untenable ; the sacrificial hanging of the sons of Saul, and the slaughters committed by Samuel, by Elijah, and others, indicated by the phrase ''before the Lord," and especially the massacre commanded by Moses, of the idolatrous Israelites (Exod. xxxii. 27), which, however obscurely narrated, is believed by some critics to have been of a sacrificial nature, implied by the phrase "con- secrate yourselves " {ver, 29). The same idea is mentioned by Micah (vi. 7). The redemption of the firstborn (Exod. xiii. and xxii. 29) implies that, in the first instance, if unredeemed, they would be put to death. Hence, the rite of circumcision seems to be regarded as the sacrifice of a part for the whole. (Exod. iv. 24.) The payment of redemption money for a child was remitted if it died Avithin a month — the law being satisfied by its death. The extreme difficulty of reclaiming the people from idol-worship, which included the sacrifice of children, as in the case of Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 6), is evident throughout the whole history, notwith- standing the obscurity and confusion in which so many parts of it are John i. 27, 29. i Essay III. § ii.] NOTE ON § 11. 115 involved. (Ps. cvi. 37.) The prophet Ezekiel clearly refers to human sacrifices as practised in his time (xxxiii. 25), which constituted one of the gross sins he reproved— as more particularly the sacrifice of children (xx. 26) ; indeed his representations would imply that Israel was, even then, wholly given to idolatry, and knew nothing of a better worship. The book of the Law was unknown in the time of Josiah, in whose reign a copy of it was singularly found in the temple (2 Kings xxii. 8) ; and throughout much of the history no reference is made to the existence of the Mosaic worship, while idolatry is constantly brought under our notice. The remarkable declaration of the prophet Jeremiah (vii. 22), that God did not ordain the sacrifices at the time of the delivery of Israel out of Egypt, has been appealed to by some as an admission that the Law was really a compilation of later date, and that in fact the Israelites Avere for many ages absolute idolaters, to whatever extent some few more enlightened and pious individuals may have maintained a purer doctrine and worship ; and that it was not till a much later age that that purer system was really established, and that then it began to be an object with the compilers of traditions to make out for the purer system of religion an antiquity which was, in truth, quite fabulous. This was after the return of the small remnant, and the rebuilding of the temple, when, under Ezra, it is believed the present canon of the Old Testament (or at least a great part of it) was collected, and much of it, on this hypothesis, in fact, composed. Thus the ideas really be- longing to a later age were ascribed to one much earlier. By this view, it is attempted to explain the ap]3arent contradictions in various parts of the history, and account for the sanguinary and barbarous character of so many of the events. Without reference to any such theories of the origin or composition of the early Jewish history, it is, at all events, sufiiciently evident, on the very face of the narratives, that the Israelites were, even to a late period, in a state little removed from absolute barbarism, and were, as a nation, in the lowest and most puerile state of intellectual and moral enlightenment — "a hard-hearted and stiff-necked generation." Indi- vidual exceptions there doubtless were ; but the whole series of deeds of violence and bloody atrocities which distinguish the narrative of their national existence, as well as the equally sanguinary character of their laws and religious rites, and the fearful enormities and cruelties all described as sanctioned by Divine authority, sufficiently prove one 116 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § tiling, — how utterly inapplicaljle is the whole system, or any part of it, to a more advanced state of things, or to the general acceptance of the world, even were it not expressly declared to be exclusively peculiar to the Jews, and even with them, having served its purpose, to have come to its end. It is beyond the scope of the present remarks to go into the discussion of another point which many raise out of the facts iust referred to, viz., the difficulty of believing that such a system was of Divine apjoointment. It will suffice here merely to observe that the whole state of things (the barbarism and savage ignorance) to which it applied, it will hardly be denied, if a Providence be admitted at all, were matters of Divine appointment or permission ; and such a people VferQ incapable of any better or more spiritual system. The objections to the system enjoined, apply equally to the condition of the people and the whole course of the Divine govermneut. 117 § III. THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. Whex we proceed to consider the actual ministry of The minis- try of Christ during his sojourn on earth, in his teaching Christ pre- liminary. we find no rejjecd of an old dispensation to substitute a new, but a gradual method of preparation, by spiritual instruction, for a better system. St Paul declares that, in his human capacity, Christ was emphatically " under the Law."^ Hence he observed it himself, and enjoined it on those he addressed. During his ministry on earth, tlie king- dom of heaven was still only '' at hand," and " to conie."^ Serious misconceptions often arise from applying his instructions without remembering this distinction, and that he was addressing tJiose under the Lcao still in force. To the Jews in general he inculcated moral and spiritual duties, not any change in existing obligations, but reform in motives and practice. He censured severely the hypocrisy and ostentation of the Pharisees 1 Gal. iv. 4. » Mark i. 15 ; Matt, vi, 10 ; Luke xvii. 20, xxii, 18. 118 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iii. and tlieir followers, their excessive minuteness even in matters ordained, and their " making of none He upheld effect " the Divine law by human additions.-^ Yet the Law. he offered no disparagement to the Law as such. While he insisted on its weightier matters, he would not have its lesser points neglected.^ He enlarged its spirit, yet acknowledged its letter as the rule still in force on the Jews. His own example was emphatic. His plain declaration implies none of those refined distinctions which have been sometimes drawn as to the meaning of the terms '' destroy " and " fulfil."^ To quiet the apprehensions of the Jews as to his having a design hostile to the Law and the prophets, he assures them that his very aim was to obey it in every particular; "to fulfil," in their phrase, "all righteousness ;" * and so his Jewish followers were exhorted to "keep the commandments" if they "would enter into life;"^ and doing so, they were '' not far from the kingdom of God,"^ though not yet in it. Not the least of the commandments was to be broken, no part of their force to fail, during that age or dis- 1 Mark vii. 13. « i^^^^ ^i. 42. 3 Matt. V. 17. •! Matt. iii. 15. = Matt. xix. 17. ^ Mark xii. 31. Essay III. § in.] THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. 119 pensation,^ which was to introduce "the kingdom of heaven." Thus far in general ; in more special instances we He upheld particular find him upholding the authority of the existing o^serv- church and its teachers, and the appeal to its tri- bunals.2 He recognised the Mosaic law of marriage and divorce ; and though he limited the latter more strictly,^ it was to repress the abuses of it which then prevailed, in repudiation for every slight cause* by the summary act of the husband ; but this only under an express reference to what was the origi- nal design of the institution, from the authority of the books of Moses, and as recorded by him in the primeval narrative — and all this, it must be remembered, while polygamy was still in exist- ence.*^ He referred to fasting as an existing rite under the Law, though sternly reproving the hypocritical ^ Matt. V. 18. 2 jyjatt. xxiii. 1, xviii. 17. '^ Matt. xix. 3. * The expression, Trape/cTos Xoyov iropveia^ (Matt. V. 32), puts the case of fornication out of consideration — as, indeed, obviously must have been the case, it being by the Law a capital crime. In Matt. xix. 9, for the common reading, ei fxn, Griesbach adopts firi simply, which makes it stronger in the sense above. ^ See note p. 107. 120 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iii. and ostentatious performance of it.^ In the same terms lie censured formality and ostentation in alms- giving and prayer,^ and tauglit that offerings at the altar were not to be omitted, though reconciliation was of more importance.^ He particularly and repeatedly reproved the Pha- risaical moroseness in the observance of the Sab- bath ; himself wrought cures on it, and vindicated works of charity and necessity/ yet only by such arguments and examples as the Jewish teachers themselves allowed, and their own scriptures afforded authority for ; but he did not in any way modify or abolish it, or substitute any other for it. At the same time he fully asserted his power to do so. He declared himself "Lord also of the Sabbath," i.e., he had iwiver to abrogate it partially or wholly, if he thought fit ; but he did not at that time use such power. And more precisely he added,^ " The Sabbath was made for the man {hia rhv uvQ^wrtov), not the man for the Sabbath" (o civ^^wzog) ; it was ^ Matt. vL 18 ; comp. Isa. Iviii. 5. ' Matt. vi. 1-5. 3 Matt, V. 23. * Matt. xii. 1 ; Luke xiii. 15 ; John v. 9, &c. » Mark i . 27. Essay III. § in.] THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. 121 an institution enjoined by way of adaptation to the case of those to whom the precept was given, but of no inherent eternal obligation in itself. He defeated insidious questions by an appeal to the Law itself: "What is written?"^ and taking occa- sion from a point disputed among them, he enforced the two great cominandmeiits'^ as the sum of the Law The great command- and the prophets, and in general urged obedience on ^^^^uts. the very principle and promise of the Law itself — " Do this, and thou shalt live."^ In his public discourses and addresses he took the Decalogue as the text of his instructions to the Jews,* and made many enlargements upon it, giving them new precepts expressly in addition to it, not as Pinfolding anything already contained or implied in it, but expressly contrasting his own teaching with what " was said of old." But we find no modification or softening of the Laiu, no repeal of mu p)art and retaining another, as is often imagined. ^ Luke X. 26 ; Mark x. 3, &c. ^ Matt. xxii. 37, comp. with Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18 ; Matt. vii. 12 ; Tobit iv. 15. ^ Luke X. 28 ; Rom. x. 5 ; Matt. xix. 17 ; Gal. iii. 12, comp. with Lev. xviii. 5 ; Ezek. xx. 11 ; Neh. ix. 29. * Mark x. 19 ; Matt. v. 21, &c., xix. 16, &c. 122 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iir. The precepts of Clirist addressed to the Jews as referring to the Law still in force, must be understood subject to those conditions, and not as the full dis- closure of the Gospel. The two great commandments and the princixjle of love fulfil the whole of the Law and the Prophets — but not therefore the whole gospel : since charity cannot justify, and it is only " by faith" that " we stand." New and Christ's teaching during his ministry was plainly liisflisr principles but jpreliminary and jprejoaratory to the establishment hinted at. of the new dispensation. His discourses were simply practical, yet with an obvious peculiarity of adap- tation to the ideas of the Jewish people. He in- culcated a more spiritual kind of obedience. He taught by instilling motives and principles rather than laws and precepts, realities rather than forms. "The mysteries of the kingdom" were veiled in parables to the multitude, explained to the disciples in private, and understood only by those who " had ears to hear."^ During his ministry " the kingdom of heaven suffered violence," ^ the gates were not yet thrown open ; the more enlightened partially ' Matt. xiii. 9-17. ^ Matt. xi. ]2. Essay III. § iii.] THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. 123 gained an insight into it, and the strong in spirit forced an entrance. He pointed to the necessity of a new beginning from first principles,^ for becoming as little children, holding out the prospect of a progressive enlighten- ment,^ urging the Jews especially to search their own scriptures ^ (those in which " ye think ye have eternal life") in support of his claims, and insistmg especially on a new and higher "regeneration" than that acknowledged by the rabbis."* He repeatedly declared his mission to be only to Christ's ministry the House of Israel. In some few instances, indeed, ?^^^ {° ' ' Israel. Gentiles came to him; but no distinct instruction was given, except in the one remarkable case of the woman of Samaria, which is peculiarly important as being the only distinct reference, in Christ's teach- ing, to the new dispensation as extending to the Gentiles, and the termination of the old with respect to the Jeius.^ The first three Gospels detail the pre- paratory instruction given to the Jews ; but the foiirth Gospel alone points out this characteristic of the ' Matt. ix. 17, xviii. 1. = John viii. 31. 3 John V. 39. 4 John iii. 3. ' John iv. 21. 124 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § in. new dispensation even at its commencement.^ It annonnces the necessity of regeneration ; ^ points to the bondage under which the Jews lived, and from which Christ was to set them free ; ^ and alone records the declaration of the universal extension of an independent spiritual religion, announced to the woman of Samaria. According to the whole system disclosed in the 'New Testament, it is clear that Christ's kingdom could not properly begin till after his death and resurrection.* In the first three Gospels its exten- sion to all nations, though more than once hinted at in his discourses,^ and m.^uQQ,i\j figurecl out in several of the parables, was not positively announced till the final charge was given to the apostles.^ ^ John i. 17. ^ John iii. 2. ^ John viii. 32. 4 Li;ke xxiv. 46. « Matt. viii. 11, &c. « Matt, xxviii. 19 ; Mark xvi. 16 ; Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts i. 8. \ 125 § IV. THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. The Apostles, when tliey succeeded to tlie work The apostles whicli their Master had bequeathed them, in the '^^^^'^f^g^j^o first instance followed closely in His steps ; their aiwie!^^'' views at first were wholly restricted to the en- lightenment of their own countrymen. It was not without extreme surprise and reluctance that they could admit the idea of an extension of such privi- leges as were offered in the Gospel beyond the pale of their own nation or religion. Their minds and convictions were but gradually and partially opened and enlightened to the true view of the case. Their preaching in the first instance was confined to Jews and proselytes, who continued under the Law and in the worship of the synagogue, simply adding the belief in Jesus as the Messiah, and joining in Chris- tian communion. The discourse of Stephen^ evinces, liowever, a wider spirit. The Apostles themselves conformed to the Law in ' Acts vii. 48. 126 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv, all particulars ; even St Paul did so, while lie claimed the liberty of doing otherwise, and blamed St Peter for inconsistency in deviating from it even in one point. ^ The case of One of the most marked peculiarities and im- proselytes. . / ^ n portant provisions of the Mosaic law was (as before seen), that its privileges were vouchsafed to those of other nations who submitted to the initiatory rite, which admitted them at once to all the conditions of the covenant. All others it regarded as reprobates and children of wrath. Of this permission many of the Gentiles had availed themselves, especially about the period of the introduction of Christianity; to these the Apostles addressed themselves as to the other Jews. In fact, Christianity was long confined chiefly to Jews — Hebrew or Hellenistic — and con- verts from among those of other nations who had previously conformed to the Law, and were familiar with its ordinances. In addressing such parties, the appeal would be naturally made to the Old Testa- ment, as furnishing proofs of Christianity such as on their own principles must be convincing to them while they still acknowledged its obligations. Acts xxi. 24 ; GaL ii. 11. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 1 27 The first great step was the announcement of the Distinction of Jew and abolition of the separation between Jew and Gentile, ^o^^g ^wav commenced in the commission to Peter to convert Cornelius^ — a commission hesitatingly received, and requiring confirmation by a heavenly vision. Of the preaching to the Samaritans nothing is recorded ; but it was doubtless accordant with the words of Christ to the Samaritan woman, and could involve little reference to Jewish obligations. With regard to the actual Gentiles the case Case of the Gentiles. was very different. Very many of the more edu- cated among the heathen of that age had begun to feel the emptiness and the abomination of the rites of idolatry, and were thus anxious inquirers after a higher and purer faith, which large numbers of them found, to a certain extent, in becoming hearers at least, or external proselytes, of the Law, for which ample opportunities were afforded in the Jewish synagogues existing in every city. Yet there was the full and embarrassing conviction on their minds, that such a religion did not offer all they wished. They felt that they were still aliens and ' Acts X. u. 128 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. outcasts, unless tliey fully conformed to the terms and rites of the covenant ; and to this many objec- tions would oppose themselves. The preach- It was from this embarrassment that the preaching mgof St P^^^- of the Apostles, especially of St Paul, relieved them. From the universal spread of the Israelites, the Gen- tiles were for the most part already acquainted more or less with the Hebrew belief and usages. Hence, that in the Apostles' teaching there should be con- tinual allusions to such ideas would not be surprising. But the material consideration was, that these were not the things insisted on. The great truth pro- claimed to them was, that witliout the Laiv they might be admitted, by the direct way of a simple faith in Christ, to all those high spiritual privileges, and to that acceptance, in a spiritual service, of which even the privileged Jew was not really and effectually a partaker, unless he followed them out in the same spirit of faith and by acknowledgment of the same Eedeemer. Thus they were called to salvation, " not through the Law, but through the hearing of faith."^ The iGal. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 129 Apostle did not go forth preaching to them the Hebrew scriptures, or urging on them the obliga- The Gen- tiles not tions of the Hebrew law. Of these the Gentiles lender the Law, acknowledged nothing, and indeed might clearly see that they conld not ap^oly to them in any way. In the original teaching addressed to those who were purely Gentiles or heathens, there is no in- stance of any reference being made to Old Testa- ment authority, to the Lata as ^:)re?mwi(X7^?/ to the Gospel, or to any supposed primitive religion, as to a sort of prior but forgotten obligation, as some seem strangely to imagine. The appeal was not to the Jewish scriptures, which would have been irrelevant, but to the light of nature (in all the few cases re- but under ^ ^ Nature. corded), to the natural evidences of a Supreme Being, to the moral law of conscience, and then directly to the fact of Christ's resurrection and its consequences. Such was the tenor of St Paul's discourse at Lystra and at Athens,^ and such the purport of his whole elaborate argument in the beginning of the Epistle to the Eomans,^ where he positively and pointedly makes his appeal to the Gentiles not on the ground ' Acts xiv. 17, xvii. 22. ^ Rom. i. 19, ii. 14, &c. I 130 THE LAW AND THE GOSrEL. [Essay III. § of the revealed Imv, but solely on tliat of natural reason and conscience. And, just as he referred the Jews to their scriptures, so, to enforce his argument with authorities to the heathen, he quotes their own poets. ^ The omission of any reference to pxvious ohliga- tions (which, if they had existed, were certainly unknown) is emphatic. Any supposed universal law given to the Patriarchs would clearly have required to be revived ; but no intimation or even allusion of the kind is to be found in the records of the apos- tolic teaching. In the conception of the enlightened Gentile convert, there neither was nor could be any reference to what might be recorded in the earliest portion of the Hebrew scriptures as in the slightest degree revived under the Gospel, or as in any way different in its application from what was contained more specifically in the Law. The Gentile knew nothing of any such earlier or general obligations ; he embraced the Gospel as standing on its own ground, and in essential independence of all previous dispensations, though, from its Jewish origin, the Ian- Acts x\ni. 28 ; 1 Cor. xv. 33 ; Tit. i. 12. i Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 131 giiage of its announcement niiglit "be unavoidably mixed np with some references to Jewish pecu- liarities. Such a reference, for example, was manifestly no Gentile Sabbath. requisite for any revival of a primeval Sabbath, had it been contemplated, as imagined by some ; but, it is needless to say, no such intimation can be found. The only allusion to the subject at all is addressed to the Hebrews;^ and the turn of the allusion is figurative and obviously quite different, and to this effect : — There is a rest, — a figurative sabbath (ca/S- /Sar/fl/xo's), — for the people of God ; but it is not the rest spoken of after the creation,'^ nor that of the land of Canaan;^ therefore it is another rest, eternal and heavenly. The very natural belief of the Jews, that the Gen- Attempts to bring tiles w^ere incapable of justification except throufrh them conformity to the covenant of circumcision, at a very ^^^^' early period led to attempts to impose the Law on Gentile converts*, until the question was finally settled by the apostolic decree, in which certain observances » Heb. iv. 4. 2 Ihid. 3 Ihid. ver. 8. * Acts xv. 20, 28. 132 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IL § iv. only are retained and prescribed, and these merely enforced as being practically " necessary " from the circumstances of the times ; and among the few points whicli are enforced upon them, the total omission of the Sabbath, and of all other legal dis- tinctions, as of meats, &c., is emjphatie^ as well as the absence of any recognition, whether generally, of the Law as such — even in respect to its several precepts, — or of any previous dispensation, or of any part of it, or an enlarged or modified view of its precepts to be made the rule of Christian obedience. But so inveterate were tlie prepossessions of the Jews, that attempts of this kind were continually made, resisted by whicli Called forth the special censures of St Paul, St Paul. and the strongest arguments against these notions, so destructive to the real spirit of the Gospel — such as form the main purport of his Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians, of material portions of that to the Eomans and the second to the Corinthians,^ and of scattered declarations in nearly all. Christian Heucc, the expression Christian " liberty " (often liberty. singularly misinterpreted) obviously applies only, by ^ As, e.g., 2 Cor. iii. 7, &c. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 133 way oi contrast, to the particular instance of Judaising ; while the assurance, " ye are not under the Law, but under grace *' (the necessity for which arose solely from the same cause), is most carefully guarded against any such misapplication as would sanction sin, or any tendency to the preposterous doctrine of Antinomianism. ^ N"o such language need have been used with respect to Gentile converts, but for such attempts at enslaving them. The Apostle addressed distinctly both those " under the Law " — the Jews — and those " not under the Law " — the Gentiles. The Jews generally were still under it, though they might have been released from it ; but the Gentiles could not he released from that to wliicli they had 7iever been suhjeet. To say that they were free from the law of the Hebrews was indeed true, but suj[)erfinons. They needed not to be told so ; what was to bring them under it ? Certainly not the Gospel. The Gen- tiles did not pass from under the Law to the Gospel, but from a state of ignorance and idolatry to one of enlightenment and Christian hope. Christianity, as addressed to the Gentiles, was a transformation from ^ Rom. vi. 1, 14. 134 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Kssay IIL § iv, the condition of nature to that of grace. By nature, they ^Ye^e children of wrath ; by grace, the sons of God by adoption.^ The strong feeling of the Jews with respect to the distinction of circumcision appears, however, very reasonable. It was more than mere national preju- dice ; it arose out of the belief in the Divine authority of the covenant, which involved all the other obli- gations of the Law, and to them seemed not to be abrogated without the loss of that distinction. Hence the difficulty of the argument with them. It is, however, conducted with consummate skill by the Apostle, directing his reasoning with admirable ef- fect, so as at once to bear on the case of the Gentiles, and with equal force on that of the Jews, in a way which they must acknowledge as conclusive on their own principles. 2 He maintained, himself, a compliance with the or- dinances yet subsisting : " to the Jews he became a Jew," as " under the Law ; " to the Gentiles as " without the Law : "^ but this was no deceptive assumption, since he actually tvas in one sense both. ' Epli. ii. 3, &c. As in Rom. xi. 13, kc. 3 1 Cor. ix. 20. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 1.35 The distinction of meats, clean or unclean, of days to be kept holy or not, remained actually in force to the Jewish Christians until their convictions became sufficiently enlightened to see the designed abolition of those distinctions. To the Gentile it was equally clear that they were not obligatory on him, while his service was a spiritual one in faith. Under no such obligation originally, he did not now incur it ; and (if it were needed) a still more positive declaration of his freedom from such ordinances is made by St Paul, who places the Sabbaths in exactly the same predica- ment as new moons and distinctions of meats, and distinctly declares all alike to be shadows.^ Even among those who had conformed to the Law, in sabbaths and meats each might judge for himself;^ there was no moral immutable obligation, no natural or eternal distinction ; but neither party was to judge the other. Each acting in faith was accepted in doing so ; to act otherwise would be sin.^ But each was exhorted to mutual charity, — a line of con- duct pre-eminently recommended by the Apostle's own example.* But there was no compromise of ^ Col. ii. IS. " Rom. xiv. 5, 6. ^ Rom. xiv. 23. * 1 Cor. x. 23, viii. 13, kc. 136 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. essential truths. We cannot but be struck with the contrast of the Apostle's liberality of sentiment with liis strenuous assertion of Christian freedom, — his anxiety to avoid tempting a weak brother to offend, and his stern refusal to give way to those who sought to impose the obligations of the Law on the Gentiles, his charity in practice contrasted with his firmness in teaching, his conciliation in conduct contrasted with his uncompromising boldness in doctrine. Coudemna- ^^^^ ^^^^ essential and fundamental doctrine of tion and r\i • • n t i jiistifica- "Christ crucified"-^ was preached alike to Jew and tion. Greek, as the author of salvation equally to those under the Law and those without it.^ To both parties it was argued that they stood equally condemned in the sight of God. The Gentiles were expressly shown to be in this state of condemnation from their own moral depravity, not from any sentence of a covenant which their remote forefatliers had broken, as some have fancied. Setting aside the total unrea- sonableness of such an imagination, nothing can be more clear or positive than the argument of St ' 1 Cor. i. 23. 3 Rom. xv. 8, 9. i Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 137 Paul, that they stood condemned expressly witlwut any such revealed laiu, and solely hy their violation of the laiu of eonsciencc written by natural light in their hearts.^ Still less were they to be awakened (ac- cording to the modern phrase) by any terrors of the law of Sinai given to the Jews. On the other hand, the Jew stood condemned because he had transgressed the law of revelation, which he acknowledged to be " holy, and just, and good," in which he believed himself justified. St Paul therefore expressly argues that he was not only not justified, hut 'positively condemned by that very law in which he trusted and made his boast, which he " approved" and " served with his mind," yet, in truth, "with his flesh he served sin."^ The difliculty was to convince the Jew that he stood condemned hy his oivn law, that " by it he had the knowledge of sin," that " the strength of sin was the law," but the victory in Christ. Thus the Law itself bore testimony to the Gospel : » Eom. ii, 15. 2 Rom. vii. 25, &c. Such, at least, appears to me to te the real and plain tenor of this chapter, so often imagined difficult to rescue from the eager grasp of the Antinomian. 13S THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. in this sense it was that the Apostle did not " make void the law through faith, — but established" it.^ Practical Botli being thus alike imder condemnation, though obligations of both. j^y different laivs, it followed that both were to be accepted and justified on another, a new and common ground — that of faith in Jesus Christ; and the grand point thus was, that the line of separation was removed, all distinctions were merged and lost in the greater privilege now conferred by the Gospel. There was no distinction of parties ; God was just (both to Jew and Gentile), and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus.^ " Of the twain was made one new man ;" ^ Christ was to be all and in all. Christ redeemed the Jews " from the curse of the Law;"* the Gentile "from all iniquity," and "from this evil world." ^ Both were called to repentance and faith, but on different grounds ; both led, though by different ways, to moral duties. To the Jew, love was "the fulfilment of the Law,"^ Christian charity " the end of the commandment."^ St James, writ- Rom, iii. 31. - Rom. iii. 26. Eph. ii. 11-22 ; 1 Cor. vii. 19 ; Gal. vi. 15 ; Col. iii. 11. Gal. iii. 13, iv. 5. ' Tit. ii. 14 ; Gal. i. 4. Gal. V. 14 : Kom. xiii. 8. '1 Tim. i. 5. J Essay HI. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 139 ing to the Jews, enjoins "the pure service/' ^ "the royal law according to the Scripture." ^ But to the Gentiles, without any such reference, it was simply " the things just, and pure, and true," ^ in accordance with natural morality, to " live soberly, righteously, and godly,"* to walk " honestly,"^— but all this based on the high and peculiar motives of Christian faith. To the Jews, the grounds of Christian oblicjation Appeal to the Old were often represented and enforced by analogies Testament. drawn from the Old Testament. Thus the Gospel itself is, by analogy, and with especial reference to the words of the prophets, called a covenant,^ not implying that there was really any covenant, but only that it stood in the same relation to Christians as the covenant did to the Jews, since it is expressly distinguished (indeed the whole argument of the Apostle turns on the distinction)'' as not really a 1 i. 27 {dpn^XKeial. 2 i|_ g_ 3 Phil. iv. 3. 4 Tit. ii. 12. 5 Rom. xiii. 13. e Heb. viii. 6 ; comp. Jer. xxxi, 31. ^ Gal. iii. 18. The word oiaQnK^], rendered " covenant" or " testa- ment,'' indifferently, in our version, signifies, generally, any legal act or deed, whether of one party, as a will or "testament," or of two, as a covenant. But the guiding principle iii interpreting the words of the Apostle 140 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § IV. The Jews gradually released I'rom the Law. covenant, BUT A fkee promise and gift, not the act or deed of tioo jyctrtics, as a compact, but of one, as a gift or a testament. To the Jewish disciples, in the first instance, the Apostles neither insisted on the observance of the Law, nor on any abrogation of it, though at a later period we find the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, more especially, gradually and cautiously must be that which he himself lays down in the broad emphatic truth, that the very nature of Christianity and its privileges is that of a " free gift." This appears to be clearly the main drift of the confessedly somewhat involved and difficult passage referred to (Gal, iii. 18, &c.) The Law was a covenant " in the hands of a mediator," that is, Moses (Dent. v. 5; Lev. xxvi. 46), acting between Uvo parties. But ''God is one" [party], and acted as one in giving the promise, which was the oiaQmn of one party, as a deed of gift, not of two, as in a compact. The whole nature and terms of the Gospel are opposed to the idea of a covenant. The tenor of it is altogether at variance with such an idea, which would destroy the very principle of free justification by faith. The whole metaphor in Heb. ix. 16 seems to me manifestly to justify the rendering of 5ta67j/cr/ in that place, as in our version, by '' testa- ment," though I am well aware that some commentators prefer another rendering. Many persons ignorantly reason on the "covenant," so rendered in several places in our version, as if Christianity were, like the Law, an agreement between God and man, a compact of duty and reward, which it essentially is not. Some even still more blindly con- found it with the " covenant," as they term it, made by the sponsors in baptism, which is obviously a totally different thing, a simple promise, made to the Church, that the child shall be taught his obligations, or a pledge that the adult individual recognises them as the condition on which baptism is granted. Essay III. § iv.J TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 141 pointing out to them its transitory nature, and that, liaving fulfilled its purpose, it was to cease.^ Thus the Jew was to be brought gradually to see his de- liverance from the " bondage"^ of Sinai, effected by his increasing faith and knowledge, supported by the arguments from Abraham^ and the prophets,* "the Law being his schoolmaster to bring him to Christ."^ The Law ceased at no one time, but to each indi- vidual as his belief and enlightenment progressively emancipated him.^ It was never formally rescinded ; it died a natural death. Wherever the cessation of the Law is spoken of, it is as aivlwlc, without reference to any distinction of La^asV^ moral or ceremonial, letter or spirit. We find no such qualification as, that " the Law, as being of Moses, was abrogated, yet, as the law of the Spirit, still binding," as some have represented it ; the whole tenor of the aro-ument and lano'uasre of St o o o Paul is utterly opposed to any such idea. It was 1 E.g., Heb. vii. 18. - Gal. iv. 25 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6-14 ; Heb. xii. 18. 3 Gal. iii. 6 ; Eom. iv. 1. * Hab. ii. 4. s Gal. iii. 24. ^ Rom. xiv. 1-6. The Rabbis held that distinctions of meats, and even the Law itself, were to cease when the Messiah came, as also the Sabbath, arguing expressly from Isa. Ixvi. 23. (R. Samuel, in Talmud, in Titulo Niclr. Cited by Grotius, de Ver. v. 9, 10.) Abroccti 142 THE LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. an entire system which passed away, to give place to a new one based on a different ground. Abolition But if all this had been otherwise, it would little inditferent to the concern %is Gentiles. The Law shoidd be contemplated Gentiles. as a national and loccd, rather than as a temporary dispensation ; for, had it not been temporary, it would still have been restricted to one ijeople ; the Gentiles would have had no part or concern in its continuance (unless as becoming proselytes to it), nor had they in its cessation. Christianity, as addressed to the Gentiles, was not founded on Judaism. It does not imply any suhstittction of one ohligation for another ; it stands simply on its own ground ; the essential character of its institutions is independent. Its few observances were, in fact, at first adopted along witli those of Mosaism, by the churches " of the ck- cumcision," who formed so large a part of the early Christian community ; and consequently could not be a suhstitidion of the one for the other, or any kind of continuation of one in the other. Judaisms From the circumstances of the case the teaching of in the apostolic the Apostles would necessarily exhibit a large infusion teaching. ^ of Judaical ideas ; and we accordingly find them in- troducing a multitude of adaptations of passages from Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 143 the Old Testament, — of references to existing pre- judices, even superstitions, — ^besides maxims, and pro- verbial sayings,^ and forms of expression habitual among the Jews, which sometimes, mistaken for orighial sentiments, lead to serious misconcej)tions. Hence the important use of the Old Testament in illustrating the meaning of so many passages in the ^NTew. The reasonings of the Apostles would naturally be built upon opinions currently received, and on appeals to the Jewish scripture, of undeniable force to those who recognised its authority, and the in- troduction of analogies and applications of the inci- dents and language of the Old Testament,^ for the instruction of converts who could only be convinced through such association of the new truths with the old. It is in this way only that the Apostle Paul Analogies from the sanctions any use of the Old Testament scriptures o^f^'^esta- by Christians, in the practical and typical accom- modation of passages to points of Christian in- struction. ^ It was thus that to Timothy the Old ^ E.g., Rom. xii. 20 ; James v. 20 ; 1 Pet. iv. 8, &c. 2 E.g. Rom. vii. 1 ; Epb. vi. 1 ; 1 Pet. iii. 10 ; 1 Tim. v. 18. 2 Rom. XV. 4; 1 Cor. x. 1, &c. 144 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. Testament was still to be " X3rofitable/' but only when applied " tlirougli faitli in Jesus Christ." ^ And thus St Peter (the very apostle of the cir- cumcision) commends the use of the prophetical writings only as preparatory and auxiliary to the higher and progressive enlightenment of the Gospel.^ Types in The more we consider the nature of the precise tlie Old ^ Testament, points of analogy dwelt upon, the more we perceive the independent, spiritual characteristics of the Gospel to which they point — as in the typical application of the temple to the body of Christ, and thence to the community of Christians;^ of Jerusalem, to that which is above ;* the laver, to regeneration f the altar and sacrifices, primarily to the death of Christ,^ and thence, in a lower sense, to almsgiving,^ to praise,^ to the reasonable service of Christians ; ^ the priesthood, primarily to the person and office of Christ, though in a secondary sense to all Christians ^^^ cir- 1 2 Tim. iii. 15. ^ 2 Pet. i. 19 ; 1 Pet. i. 11. 3 1 Cor. iii. 16. " Gal. iv. 26 ; Heb. xii. 22. ^ Tit. iii. 5 {Xovrpou) ; Exod. xxx. IS, &c. 6 Heb. xiii. 10, x. 1, &c. ' Heb. xiii. 16 ; Phil. iv. 18. " Heb. xiii. 15. » Rom. xii. 1 ; Heb. xi, 20. '» 1 Pet. ii. 9. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHIXG OF THE APOSTLES. 145 cumcision, to purity of heart ; ^ the anointing, to grace ;^ the Sabbath, to the rest reserved for the faithful.^ In after-times, the same desire of adaptation. Abuse of such appli- without apostolic warrant, and carried often to ex- nations. travagant lengths, led to a larger use of the Old Testament among Christian writers, and the spirit of allegorising and evangelising all parts of it. The Apostles' arguments and representations misunder- stood from want of consideration of the circumstances, appeals ad Jiominem taken 2^ositivehj, and concessions taken for demands, in modern times have become subjects of endless mistake and confusion. Most of the first converts, if not livinf:^ under the Appeals to the Okl Law, were yet familiar with the Old Testament, from Testament ' '^ ' mthe the number of Jews resident in all their cities. Thus writings? St Paul, writing to the Gentile Ephesians, after 1 Deiit. X. 16, XXX. 6 ; Jer. ix. 4 ; Kom. ii. 29 ; Col. ii. 11. 2 1 John ii. 20. 3 Heb. iv. 9. It is worthy of remark, as a single instance evincing the common neglect of New Testament authority in subjects of the kind here discussed, hoAV universal, in popular elementary religious works, is the clearly erroneous statement that circumcision was the type of baptism ; whereas in the New Testament several types of baptism are mentioned, but circumcision is not among them, and the antitype of circumcision is mentioned, but it is not baptism. K 146 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § iv. having enforced^ the institution of marriage on purely Christian grounds, confirms it^ by a reference to the Hebrew scriptures,* as Christ had done.'* To the Corinthians^ he upholds it on purely moral grounds. And, again, in exhorting to filial obe- dience,^ after first putting it on the clear ground of right, he adds — but only as a confirmatory quotation, to enhance its force — that it was also enforced by the precept of the Mosaic law, which, he remarks, is the first of the commandments to which, under that dispensation, a promise of temporal blessings was annexed, — in neither case making the Old Testament commandment the lasis of the obligation. In the same way, to Timothy, he refers to the existing be- lief, " Godliness hath the promise of this life as well as that to come ;"^ and more generally, to that emi- nent convert (who had been so sedulously brought up in the knowledge of the Old Testament), he writes that the Law may still be good if used and applied with due discrimination.^ Its proper application was 1 Eph. V. 22. ' Ihid. 31. » Gen. ii. 24. * Matt. xix. 5 ; Mark x. 7. « 1 Cor. vii. 2. •" Epli. vi. 1, 2. ' 1 Tim. iv. 8. ^ Ibid. i. 5, 8, &c. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 147 to tlie condemnation of gross sinners ; but as a Chris- tian convert he was rather to look from it to more elevated principles — not to " the commandment," but to "the end" of it, which "is charity." So, again, in speaking to the Eoman converts as those " who know the Law,"^ having given the comprehensive principle of Christian love, he adds, as confirmatory of it, " For he that loveth another hath fulfilled tlw Laiu,'"'^ and then instances the different precepts which are all comprehended in the saying of the Law, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The Christian principle, thus, included and super- seded all the precepts even of the Law. In the Apostles' teaching we find no dependence christian institii- recognised of the one system on the other, — no such tions not ^ -^ from the idea as that of a transference of Old Testament ^^^^'* ordinances to Christianity, or the fulfilment of one in the observance of the other, as imagined by many, the Christian institutions being essentially grounded on independent principles. We perceive no carrying on of the priesthood in the Christian ministry, no continuation of sacrifices in the Lord's Supper, or of ^ Rom. vii. 1. * Rom. xiii. 8. 148 THE LAW AND THE G0SPP:L. [Essay III. § lv. the Sabbath in the Lord's day. Charitable col- lections were made on the first day of the week/ precisely because it was not the Sabbath, on which they were deemed unlawful by the Jewish converts.'-^ Yet, from a misconception of points of analogy in such cases, often directly at variance with the express words of the Apostles, opinions have prevailed, on these and the like points, tending not a little to per- plex and impair the simplicity of the Gospel. Christian ^^ the orioiual Christian institutions were inde- torms mde- ^ pendent, pg^^^-jg^^ ^nd simple. We must carefully distinguish, from the more essential and permanent, some minor ordinances of a purely temporary and occasional character, which certainly bear a more formal ap- pearance, but were evidently adopted for the sake of peace and union, and especially for the great ob- ject of mutually conciliating the Jewish and Gentile converts, or from a wish not abruptly to violate ex- 1 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 2 The Jews considered it unlawful to touch money on the Sabbath. Vitringa, transL 75-167.) But the next day, Cocceius observes, they regarded "non ut festum, sed ut epydaifjiou' not as a feast, but as a worJiing day. (Vitringa, 77.) Again, the pln-ase /xta twu aa(3[3dTwv is generally understood to be, according to the Jewish mode of naming the days of the week, the expression for the first day. Yet some render it, " upon one of the days of the yveeV."— Tracts for the Times, ii. 1, 16. Essay III. § IV. J TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 149 isting customs, — as, e.g., the injunctions in the apos- tolic decree/ already referred to, and some of those given by St Paul to the church at Corinth ^ and to Timothy.3 The same may be said of the practice of fasting. Particular instances. Though retained by the Apostles on some occasions, yet there does not exist a single precept or hint for its general adoption by Christians ; much less is there any sanction for other ascetic observances, which soon claimed an availing merit utterly at variance with the spirit of the Gospel. So far as they had begun to prevail, they met with unequivocal censure * from St Paul. Of other institutions of Christian worship, very little can be collected from the ISTew Testament. At first the disciples met daily for prayer and com- munion.^ In one instance afterwards some think it may he iinplied that they assembled peculiarly on the first day of the week,^ though the inference is a very doubtful one ; and in the latest period of the New Testament age " the Lord's day " is spoken of once. ^ Acts XV. 2 As throughout 1 Cor. v.-vii. ^ i rpj^^_ ^_ ^^^ . 4 Col. ii. 18-23 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3, 8. » Acts ii. 26. « Acts XX. 7. See Jahn's Bibl. Aniiq. § 398, and Beylin's Hist, oj Sahh. ii. 25. 150 THE LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IH. § iv. but wliolly without explanation/ — though that ex- pression is understood by some in a totally different sense. Thus the evidence for this observance from the New Testament amounts to little or nothing. 1 Rev. i. 10. The term rendered "tlie Lord's day" in the authorised English version (i) KvpiaKj] hfxipa), was in after ages iised to signify the first day of the Aveek, on which the resurrection of Christ was com- memorated. It has been inferred that it was used by the author of the Apocalypse in this sense. See Twie and Faith, ii. 440, 607. Others, however, have held that it means simply " the day of the Lord," the substantive being merely exchanged for the adjective, as in 1 Cor. xi. 20, Tov KvpiaKov SeTirvov (the Lord's Supper), which would make it merely synonymous with n ijixipa tov Kvpiov, the day of the Lord (1 Thess. v. 2, and 1 Cor. v. 5). See Heylin's Hist, of Sahhath, pt. ii. 34. Such a use of the adjective became extremely common in the following ages, as we have repeatedly in the fathers the corresponding expressions, "Dominicse crucis," the Lord's cross ; '^DominiciB nativi- tatis," the Lord's Nativity (TertulKan, De Idol. 5) ; Xoylwu Kvp^uKwu, the sayings of the Lord (Euseb. Hist. iii. 9). According to this view, the passage would mean, " In the spirit I Avas present at the day of the Lord," the Avord ''day'' being used for any signal manifestation (possibly in allusion to Joel ii. 31), as in John viii. 56, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." And the peculiar use of the Avord nixipa, as referring to a period of ascendancy, appears remarkably in 1 Cor. iv. 3, where avQpajTrlvn^ vfiepa^ is rendered "man's judgment." We must class with very visionary interpreters those Avho can see anything really bearing on the question in the circumstance of our Lord's appearance on the eighth day after his resurrection (John xx. 26), or in the disciples being then assembled, Avhen Ave knoAv that they Avere all along abiding together in concealment for fear of the Jews. Nor, again, Avill their being in like manner together (Acts ii. 1) on the feast of Pentecost appear remarkable, on the same grounds, even supposing the computation admitted which makes it fall on a Sunday, Avhich is ope to question. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 151 The institution of the ministry and form of church The minis try from government were derived, not from the temple and *^'^ ^y"^* ^ -f gogue. priesthood, but from the constitution of the syna- gogues, which were actually the churches of the Jewish converts. Yet, it has been a favourite theory with a section of Anglican divines to maintain an analogy, or rather continuous identity, of the Levitical with the Chris- tian priesthood, — derived originally from Jerome and others of the fathers, and first, perhaps, put forth in circumstantial detail by Archbishop Usher ; but seen at once to be utterly overturned by the mere examina- tion of simple matters of fact, by which the whole ecclesiastical system is shown to have originated out of the synagogal, not the sacerdotal, — the bishops, elders, and deacons mentioned in St Paul's epistles being simply officers of the synagogue so called.^ Certain regulations also were com iccted with the ex- traordinary gifts,^ — as temporal visitations^ and the power of inflicting them,* and the anointing of the ^ On this point, see Vitringa, de Synagogd, of which valuable work an excellent abridged translation has been published by the Rev. J. L. Bernard : London, 1842. See especially pt. ii. ch. xi. p. 208. » Mark xvi. 17. ' 1 Cor. xi. 30, &c. * 1 Cor. v. 5. No tem poral or 152 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § iv. sick/ clearly peculiar to tlie first stage of the Gospel system. But with respect to any temporal inflictions, the broader principle always laid down, and indeed judgments. ^ direct consequence of the higher and eternal sanc- tions held forth in the Gospel, is, that they are not judgments, hut trials.'^ Under the Law, temporal bless- ings and judgments were awarded, because it did not teach 2CRJ future state; national blessings and judg- ments, because it made one nation the people of God. Under the Gospel, no retribution can be temporal, because all is referred to the future state ; no bless- ings or judgments can be national, because it makes all nations the church and people of God. Judaicai In general, there may have been in all the primary elements incidental, forms of the Christian institutions much of a Judaicai element perhaps unavoidably mixed up. All that this shows is, that such peculiarities, so far as they existed, were adaptations to the Judaicai spirit natu- rally so prevalent in the early communions, but that they cannot be regarded as intended to be of essen- tial import or permanent application to other people and future ages, and under a wider diffusion of a ^ James . 14, comp. with Mark xvi. 18, and vi. 13. 2 As in Rom. v. 3, viii, 18-28 ; Heb. xii. 5 ; .1. 7-21, iv. 12, &c. Essay III. § iv.] TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 153 religion from whose spiritual essence tliey are so manifestly alien. Christianity, as indeed it is hardly conceivable it should have been otherwise, was at first communi- cated and established in the way of adaptation in its outvKircl form to existing ideas and conditions. Thus it won its way at first according to the economic dis- jDensations of Divine grace, while its spiritual essence asserted its internal influence over the disciple who had the capacity to receive it ; and under Avhatever outward aspect, the words of Christ were verified, " the kingdom of heaven is within you." 154 V. VIEWS OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL HELD IN THE EARLY CHURCH. Early ten- jj^ tlie earlv aijes of the Christian Church we find a dency to ^ o Judaism, pj^gy^iej^t tendency to engraft Judaism, in a greater or less degree, on Christianity; and the steps hy which such a system advanced and gained ground, and the extent to which it was carried, are not diffi.- cult to trace or to explain. But the peculiar turn which has been given to somewhat similar ideas in modern times is, apparently, much less easy to justify or account for on any rational principles. Appeals to The Constant appeals of the Apostles to the Old the Old ^^ loxf^L^ Testament, in their arguments with the Jews, were doubtless of the most primary importance and con- vincing cogency with those they addressed. To the Gentiles they would not have been so ; yet the pecu- liar character and result of the appeal was, no doubt, felt to be precisely that of valuable testimony extorted from an adverse party, and brought to support our cause, and, therefore, in constantly exhibiting which a sort of triumph was felt. Essay III. § v.] VIEWS OF THE EAELY CHURCH. 155 Hence the more general introduction, in the early Churcli, even among the Gentiles, of the Old Testa- ment scriptures, and the prominence given to them, which continued by custom long after the original occasion had ceased. But, for the Gentile converts, with the broad dis- Not pushed to tinction between themselves and the Jewish churches f^ ^^- treme. before their eyes, this reference to the Jewish scrip- tures could not by possibility degenerate into such inconsistent notions of their application as would suppose Gentile Christians brought under the obli- gations of the old precepts. Without direct Judaising, however, the gradual adoption of some Judaical forms in Christian worship, though not supposed obligatory as such, naturally arose out of the synagogal model on which all the first churches were framed ; and it would not be a matter of surprise if, occasionally, Judaical ideas had been mixed up with Christian doctrines, institutions, and practices even to a greater degree than we find was the case. In the minds of the early Christians there were no confu- sion of great questions as to whether Judaism was to be obiiga tions. superadded or not to Christianity, in whole or in 155 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § V. part; but there neither was nor could be the smallest confusion of thought between the two. To their apprehensions Christianity was one thing, Judaism another ; but there could be no such idea as the re- cognition of the obligations of the one as implied in, or as a part of, the other. The Lord's The Jewisli converts continued, along with their clay. other peculiarities, to observe the Sabbath, which, it is hardly necessary to say, the Gentiles did not. From an early period, it seems probable that both Jewish and Gentile churches had begun to hold reli- gious assemblies on the first day of the week.^ But it is from Justin Martyr^ (a.d. 140) that we first learn ^ The well-lvnoA\Ti letter of Pliuy to Trajan (about a.d. 100) mentions the Christians assembling together for worship on a stated day : — " Soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenc[ue Christo quasi Deo dacerer—Ejoist. xx. 97. * Ti/v oe Tov vXiov VfJLepav KOivy Travre^ tjju crvvcXevcriv iroLOVixeda, eireLOi] irpuyri] eaTiv vfiepa, evy 6 Qeos, to (tkoto^ kul tijv v\i]v n-peij/a'!, KOCTfxov eTTonjce, Kol 'li]crov^ ILptaTO^ 6 hp-eTepoi 2wt?;/) t»7 civtij vp.epa eK veKpwv dj/e/i; ^wi/res — (ev ^ kuI v ^wj; n/xwv Essay III. § v.] VIEWS OF THE EAELY CHURCH. 157 the regular establishment of this practice, as well as its professed ground and object ; as being the day on which the work of creation/ according to the existing ave-reiXev ol avTOv, Kal tov Qavanrov avTov [ov Tii/es apvovin-UL], &C.), 7rw5 v/j.e2i ovvnaofMeda X^TJaraL x^P'-^ avTov, &c. — Ignatius, ad Magnesi- anos, § ix. ; Jacobson's Patres Apost. ii. 322 : Oxford, 1840. NoAv, some commentators strangely assume that after KvpiaKrtv the ■word v/uLcpav is to be understood, imagining it to refer to the Lord's daj^, put in contrast with aa^f^uTc'^ovTes in the former clause. Neander, in his History of Christianity, translated by Mr Rose (i. 336), refers to this passage, adopting this supposition, on which the translator remarks (in a note) very tndy, though somewhat laconically, that he can only find '' something of the kind " in the passage. But taking the passage simply as it stands, the defect of the sentence is the Avant of a substantive to which avTov can refer. This is, in some degree, stipplied by KvpiaKt] ^w?;, " the life of the Lord," thus having a personal meaning expressed by the adjective, as in many other instances. The word ^w^, meaning our Lord's life, as emphati- cally including his resurrection (as in Eom. v. 10, &c.), presents precisely the same analogy to the spiritual life of the Christian as is conveyed in Col. iii. 3, 4, and many other passages. Thus, upon the whole, the meaning is simply this : — " If those who lived under the old dispensation have come to the newness of hope, no longer keeping Sabbaths, but living according to our Lord's life (in which, as it were, our life has risen again, through him, and death [which some deny], &c ), how shall we be able to live without him ? " . . . In this way (allowing for the involved style of the whole) the meaning seems simple, consistent, and grammatical, without any gra- tuitous introduction of words understood. It offers an instance of that species of contrast Avhich the early fathers were so fond of drawing betAveen the Christian and JeAvish dispensations, and betAv^een the ucav life of the Christian and the ceremonial spirit of the LaAv. Ignatius concludes Avith the passage cited as the motto of this Avork. 1 A.D. 360, Athanasius {Ecc. Hist. xii. 32) says, *'As it Avas com- manded at fii'st to keep the Sabbath in memory of the completion of 158 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § v. Jewish belief, was held to have been begun, and on which also the new spiritual creation was commenced by the resurrection of Christ. Other writers ^ adopt more fanciful analogies, referring to the IMosaic crea- tion, yet always distinctly such as to exclude all idea of any reference to the Sabbath, which would have been an entire confusion of ideas between the day of the commencement of the creation and that of its cessa- tion. Gradual In the course of the first few centuries many cor- coiTuptious of observ- ruptions had crept in ; and about the third century a nee. ^ we for the first time trace some increasing precision in the formal observance of the Lord's day, implied in certain expressions of Tertullian, Dionysius of the creation, so do we honour the Lord's day as the beginning of the new creation." Gregory Nyssenius {Orat. in S, Pasch,), ''As God rested on the seventh day from His work of creation, so on the day of the resurrection the Son of God truly rested from all his works. ^ In the spurious Epistle of Barnabas (which, as generally allowed to be a composition of the second or third century, may be taken as evidence of views then held) the writer makes out a comparison of the six days of the creation with six ages of the world, followed by a seventh of rest under the Gospel, to which is to succeed an eighth of final triumph; and "therefore," he adds, *'we keep the eighth day with joy, on which also Jesus rose from the dead " {E2). i. 15) : — "Ayofjcev Tijv VfxepavTiiv dyc6y)v els ev(ppo <=> J ' England. Article, the obligations of "those commandments which are called moral" — (an obvious Latinism for '' moral commandments" simply,) — the Church of England introduces the Decalogue into her com- munion service witli a prayer for its observance, and teaches it also in her Catechism, but, in doing so, it ought to be specially remembered, though too commonly forgotten, also gives her own interpretation of it ; and thus we ought, consistently, to accept the Decalogue in the service in the sense which the Church herself puts upon it in the Catechism. N"ow, after rehearsing the Commandments, the learner is there expressly taught their import and meaning by a special exposition in what is called our duty towards God and towards our neighbour. In these exposi- tions, each Jewish commandment receives its appro- priate Christian sense ; and the meaning annexed to the Fourth Commandment, and the duty stated to be 170 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vi. inculcated in it, is simply this : — " To serve God truly all the days of my life ;" — not one day in seven, but every day ; not on the day of the Divine rest after the work of Creation, according to the Judaical belief, but throughout our whole lives by a perpetual Sabbath of rest from sin, and working out ric^hteousness. Throughout the Prayer-book there is not the slightest reference made to the observance of the Lord's day ; its services are daily. Sundays, in- deed, are reckoned in the calendar, and have certain services appointed for them, ]jreciscly on tliG same footing as other festivals and holy days, and even in a lower degree than some of the latter. The existing authorised formularies were de- signed to be comjjTclunsive} and are characterised on these points by the omission of topics of dispute. While the Decalogue was inserted to satisfy one party, the Christian exposition of it, in which its Judaical tendency is neutralised, must be assented to by all. ^ See title to Thirty-uine Ai'ticles. i Essay III. § vi.J LATER VIEWS. 171 Yet we cannot but notice among tlie larger por- Confusion of ideas. tion of the Protestant testimonies, whether of public formularies or of individual opinion, indications of that primary confusion of thought which seems all along to have led them to imagine some previous obligation of Old Testament ordinances on the Gen- tiles, which was at length ahrogatecl or liacl ceased, instead of the simple admission that no such obli- gation liacl ever existed. This idea seems to have more or less hampered all their expositions and arguments. Thus in many such statements we find the idea of a change or siibstitution made by the Christian Church of the Lord's day for the Sabbath, inculcated, as if it were possible for any Immaii authority to change a divine ordinance, or as if the Christian Church, by any known declaration, had ever pre- tended to make such a change. The notion of the complete identification of the Puritanical Sabbat- Lord's day with the Sabbath seems to have been i^^"- first formally propounded in this country by Dr Bound (1595) — a divine of great authority among the Puritans— from whom it was adopted by the Westminster Assembly in their Confession, and 172 THE LA^Y AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § vi. tlience lias become a recognised tenet of tlie Scot- tisli and otlier Presbyterian communions in Great Britain, and imported by tliem to America, tbougli as wholly unknown to the Continental Protestants as to the old unreformed Church. Various 111 later times this idea has been variously modi- forms of SaLbatism. fied. Soiuc Sabbatists, acting up to the command- ment in strictness, consistently keep holy the seventh day of the week. Many adopt the distinction of the Jeiuish Sabbath, though we can find but one Sabbath mentioned in the Bible ; and speak of the Christian Sabbath — an institution wholly without warrant from the Christian Scriptures. Some insist on the devo- tion of a seventh part of time, when the whole life is too little. Some turn away from all such dis- tinctions as mere questions of words and names. This, however, is mere ignorance or evasion of the real question. It is, indeed, wholly unimportant by what name we choose to designate anything, pro- vided that we are not misled by the 7iamc to mistake the thing. But though it is perfectly clear that the autliorised formularies of the Church of England recognise no other Sabbath than a continual service and sanctifi- JEssAY III. § VI.] LATER YIE\yS. 173 cation of tlie wliole life, in agreement vritli the ideas of the Fathers before referred to, yet it is true, that among the divines of most approved reputation in Opinions of English tlie English Church, there has been all along a divi- divines, sion of opinion on the subject, not unconnected, pro- bably, with the continued straggle between the Puritanising and the Catholicising extremes of the Eeformation. Most of them, however, even those most opposed to the Puritanical views, to a greater or less degree^ seem intent rather on endeavour- ing to moderate between opposing opinions, and attempting a middle path of compromise, than on grasping firmly broad princixules, and maintaining a clear consistency in their own views. Whether from real confusion of ideas, or from hesitation and cau- tion, the wish to conciliate, or the fear to offend, the most eminent WTiters of the Church of England, with few^ exceptions, where they in any instance evince or avow a clear and consistent view of the relation of the Gentile Christian to the Old Testament law on the one hand, or of the origin and authority of the Lord's day on the other, almost invariably neutralise and nullify their state- ments by some admission of a confused and con- 174 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § vi. tradictory kind respecting the Decalogue and the Sabbath/ or else by referring to pleas of utility and policy. ' For instances see Appendix XIII. and XV. 175 § VII. — GENEKAL VIEW OF THE QUESTION AT THE PRESENT DAY. We have here all along viewed the question of the Appeal to utility. alleged obligations of the Old Testament law on Christians in a purely Scriptural point of view — as a question of theological principles, not of mere practical expediency. !N'ow, it is readily manifest that with a very large portion of those who dis- cuss the subject at the present day, it is avowedly taken up almost entirely in this last point of view. Thus, many observe that the Mosaic Law is far more complete and exact as a code of reli- gious obligations, and more precisely adapted for popular guidance and instruction than the "New Testament, and thus think it desirable to adopt it. Others think that it is to be taken as a sort of preparatory or initiatory system, through which the disciple may then pass on to Christian faith. They hold that the restraints of the Law are most useful and salutary to the onany, from which the privileged few may doubtless be exempted; 176 THE LAAV AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § vir. that tlie Law was intended for a sort of preparatory discipline of the human race — and that this is as needful now as formerly — more especially that as the Law was a dispensation of severity and wrath, — so those terrors of the Law are equally neces- sary now to awaken men to the mercies of the Gospel. innppiic- It lias, however, only to be asked, Was all this a able to a > J Diviue'ap^- Dwine appointment ? If so, what right can we pos- sibly have to model its application according to our ideas of the necessity of the case or our conceptions of utility ? Some On the other hand, those who are opposed to the idea of the oblif^ations of the Law often aro^ue their case upon very weak grounds. They often go into elaborate reasonin<]^, to show that such or such in- stitutions are in their nature ceremonial and not moral ; — or that they would be burdensome or im- practicable for general adoption, and therefore that on these accounts they cannot be supposed generally obligatory. But the real question is, were all this otherwise, were the injunctions in question ever so simple, rational, or applicable, were they intended to apply to us ? argue on \^'eak grounds. Essay III. § vii.] GENERAL VIEW. 177 If tlie question be one of Divine obligation, it is The real question not the supposed excellence or utility of an insti- Scriptural. tution which would make it obligatory, on the one hand, any more than its inconvenience or inutility would annul it, if it were really enjoined, on the other. There are, ao^ain, many who labour to prove the Q^^estiou of ' ^ ' J J- abolition precise period and circumstances of the abolition of to Gentiles! the Mosaic Law ; thus, as far as Gentile converts are concerned, taking needless trouble to prove the abrogation of obligations, of which they cannot show the previous existence. Others, contending for the repeal of some parts of the Law, labour to defend the excejjtions before they have established the ride. The "onus prohandi" clearly lies on those who would impose the obligation, not on those who contend that it never existed. But the slightest appeal to Gospel authority at The Old Testament once 7mts an end to all such questions. If we take t° ]-® , ^ ■^ -'• judged of the New Testament as our guide, the Law is at ^^^^^^ an end, even where it was once obligatory : To the Jewish convert it has ceased ; to the Gentile Chris- tian it is simply a matter in which he has no concern. The question, whether to the Jew it were abolished or M 178 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay III. § vii. continued in force, "by the coming of the Messiah, is to the Gentile a question of no imjDort. ITothing in the Gospel, he is assured, can bring him under its obligation ; and if he -put any interpretation on the Sabbath, it is to regard it, like the rest of the Law, as typical of better things, as shadowing a perpetual Sabbath of that spiritual service which must be offered in spirit and in truth, which knows no distinction of days, but consists in the devotion of the whole life, looking^ to an eternal rest hereafter. Distinction But a distinction has been urged by many, who of the moral ^^'^- strongly assert the eternal obligation of what is called " the moral law," which they strangely imagine is founded on the Old Testament, and even more preposterously contend is in some way identified with the Decalogue, and, though delivered to the Jews exclusively, is yet addressed to all mankind ; and this confusion of ideas is worse confounded by mixing up this notion of morality with the claim of the Gospel and the "liberty" which it proclaims.-'- The The morality of the Gospel is grounded on a Christian moral law. totally distinct basis from that of the Law. But, 1 2 Cor. iii. 17. Essay III. § vii.] GENEEAL VIEW. 179 that it includes many of the same f receipts, and that this coincidence should be dwelt upon by Christ and His apostles in their teaching to the Jews and those habitually conversant with the Jewish scrip- tures, is what naturally arises out of the circum- stances of the case. In the ISTew Testament, not only is a far higher moral standard set up, but in several passages there is a clear reference made to the obligations of natural morality. Still, though properly moral principles are referred to, the grounds of those moral duties and virtues are always expressly connected with the ^peculiar motives of Christian be- lief. Thus the reference to things "honest, just," &c.,^ is obviously connected, by the context, with the doctrinal views just before discussed. The same may be constantly observed in other passages.^ Throughout the fuller development of Christianity floral in the apostolic writings, the enlarged statements of chdstkn°^ , . „ . .^ . . T doctrines. doctrinal views of justification, regeneration, and a future life, are always so expressed as to enforce motives for the practical duties which are expressly ^ Phil. iv. 8. 2 As, e.g., Eom. xii. 1 ; Eph. iv. 25, &c. ISO THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vii. exhibited as the proper results, fruits, and conse- quences of faith, and not ^^ founded ttpon any abstract moral principles, however conformaUe to them. Whatever difference of opinion may exist on the question of principles of moral sense implanted in our nature, it is on all hands admitted that, when we turn to the pages of the New Testament, in ]Joint of fact all those duties which can come under the denomination of moixd, on any theory, are distinctly included and laid down even in dii'ect precepts — nowhere, indeed, exhibited in any one code or sum- mary, but much more implied and involved in the whole spirit and tenor of the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles. This, then, to all believers may suffice to furnish a simple, unassailable basis of Christian moral obligation. Moral It is, uo doubt, true also that some of the same duties not moral duties (though by no means all of them) were enjoined in particular precejpts of the Mosaic Law and the prophetical books. But those who receive the Gospel simply as the universal, final, and com- plete dispensation, will surely acknowledge the obli- gation of moral duties, not hecause some of them may be found prescribed in the Old Testament, or the from tlie Old Testa- ment. Essay III. § VII.] GENERAL VIEW. 181 Decalogue, but hecause they are conformable to the spirit and principles of the 'New. But with respect to one instance, often mis- Observance of a day taken, we may observe that the distinction between JJota,7/ior«/ moral and positive precepts is sufficiently clear. On any intelligible view of the principles of moral obligation, it is perfectly clear that a x^recept to consecrate any portion of time is in its nature a positive, not a moral injunction, — that on no onoral grounds can we regard one clay as more sacred than another ; and practical reasons for devoting set por- tions of time to religious j)urposes cannot apply to one seventh, more than to any other portion of time. If so, just in the same way it might be argued, e.g., cleanliness is a virtue ; hence the ablutions and puri- fications of the Law are moral precepts perpetually binding. The plea of expediency is often urged ; but it Exj^e- must be acknowledged that no moral or religious ^^^^ utility, benefits, however great, can justify a disregard of truth, a corruption of Christianity, or the encourage- ment of superstition. The plea of civil and social benefits derivable from formal observances has been the favourite argument with many who take up the 182 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vii. question ratlier on tlie ground of external policy than of religious truth, — and especially as maintaining a convenient hold on the minds of the multitude, « which they are desirous to secure even by legislative coercion. In a word, their Sabbatism is precisely that of the legislators and philosophers of the heathen world, who by the very same arguments upheld their religious festivals.-^ Nor can we fail to trace precisely the same spirit in the Jewish Eabbis, who, well knowing human nature, avowed the maxim, doubtless most acceptable to the many — '' the Sabbath weigheth against all the commandments."^ National Such, howcvcr, are the views which, in one form peculiarity intiiis or another, have become very general among our respect. countrymen, who, under the narrow prepossessions of an exclusive education, are commonly surprised and scandalised when they find in other Christian coun- tries those tenets wholly unknown in which they ^ Thus Seneca speaks of the practice of all legislators to enjoin pub- lic festivals and periods of relaxation as essential to the good of the state {De Tranq. Anim.) ; and Plato, carrying the matter higher, says, ''The gods, pitying mankind born to painful labour, appointed, for an ease and cessation of their toils, the recurrence of festival seasons observed to the gods," — De Leg. ii. 787. 2 Midrash, in Exod. xxvi. ESSAY III. § VII.] GENERAL VIEW. 183 have been kept studiously blindfolded by religious teacbers, many of whom, too, know better. Increased intercourse and information, however, it may be hoped, is now opening the eyes of many to their peculiarly national prejudices on these subjects, — an object to which nothing seems more likely to contribute than attention to the simple matter-of- fact view of the whole question here attempted to be followed up. In the earlier steps of the Eeformation, its scrip- Pnritan- ^ ^ ism. tural ]Di'lJ3ciples were by some carried out to a pernicious and fanatical extreme scarcely less hostile to the purity and simplicity of the Gospel than those of Eomanism. The appeal to Scripture was con- verted (as was before observed) into an indis- criminate Bibliolatr}^, which has thus in the minds of many become inseparably associated with the idea of Protestantism. Thus arose the tendency to mix up the obligations of the Old Testament with those of the jSTew. Thus it is, in the large admixture and leaven of Mosaism, that the moroseness of the puritanical spirit has ever found the most congenial field in which to display its unhappy tendencies, which we find in the practical results of a narrow. 184 THE LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IH. § vii. sanctimonious piety, than which nothing appears more at variance with the free spirit and reasonable service of the Gospel, or more productive of a dis- position of bitterness and uucharitableness, so utterly opposed to its precepts. Such is the unhappy confusion of ideas as to Judaical ordinances, introduced from entirely over- looking the first original question, How can the Old Testament law become applicable to Gentile Christians at all ? Fanaticism Fanaticism and superstition are clearly distino-uish- and super- -^ jo stition. ^-^Yq^ Fanaticism is an undoubting, boldly avowed conviction of Divine impulse, which hurries on its votary unhesitatingly to follow out its suggestions to any extreme consequence, however preposterous or revolting. Superstition, on the contrary, is ever acting from a lurking dread of some obligation un- known, and is always seeking disguise. The fanatic knows no misgiving; the superstitious is always afraid of his own religion. And it is not one of the least remarkable features of Puritanism, that, in its original principle fanatical, it combines with that fanaticism the most stcjjerstitious notions of religious formalism. Essay III. § vir.] GENEKAL VIEW. 185 The same spirit of formalism and superstitions Ancient and nio- observance which had corrupted ancient Christianity jj^^aiisin^ still showed itself, only under an altered form. Where the ancient Church had imposed its penances, its fastS; and its solemn seasons, the modern puri- tanical communions did but substitute their pro- hibitions of innocent amusements, their unsocial austerities, and their gloomy Sabbaths. The old Church, by its numerous festivals and solemnities, had fully gratified the natural desire for observing '' days and seasons, and months and years." When all these were swept away by puri- tanical reforms, except one, it was a natural conse- quence, that upon that one the whole spirit of formal and rigid observance should be concentrated, and an especial Divine sanction for it sought in texts of the Old Testament, when the authority of the Church had been discarded. At the present day, among the modern disciples Modem Puritan- of this school, though they, perhaps, have modified ^^^^^• or cut off some of its other more rigid peculiarities, yet this favourite tenet of the Sabbath is upheld in full force ; and they find, on this point, numerous and zealous coadjutors in those professing quite 186 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vii. opposite sentiments in other respects, — with whom a supposed plea of utility is usually urged as the motive by which they can justify the maintenance of a formal Judaical ordinance, into which they would metamorphose the simple weekly commemoration of Christ's resurrection ; and which is easily imposed on the ignorant and unthinking as an institution of per- petual and Divine obligation. And we cannot but perceive that there is thus too often enforced upon the young and ignorant a slavish superstition, from which they may, perhaps, afterwards free themselves only by a reaction so violent as to produce a per- manent aversion to all religious ordinances. Prevalence Among the generality of mere worldly men there of cornipt religion. ig Jess of irrcUgion than of loiv and corrii^pt religion ; few reject Christianity, compared with the many who debase it into mere formalism and superstition. A religion of a certain kind is almost universally up- held ; but it is a religion of mere prepossession, party, custom, or conventionalism ; or if it advance to any- thing like more rational principles, it is a recognition of utility rather than of truth, or else a mere ad- herence to what is established, feeling a dread, above all things, of unsettling men's minds by any attempts Essay III. § vii.] GENEEAL VIEW. 187 at inculcating more enliglitened or more spiritual views, and coupled with a grave and philosophical censure of extreme opinions, and high approbation of a steady adherence to the safe middle path — between truth and falsehood. It has sometimes been made an objection to Chris- Formal observance tianity that it, in fact, encourages wickedness, by ^JJlg^^^^J^^. holding out to the sinner the easy terms of mere chan'^e. repentance and faith ; yet practically it is the most difficult thing to induce men to accept those terms. Human nature will cling to external means ; an un- easy conscience will seek relief, not in a practical and spiritual change, but in formal observances, cere- monial services, and morose austerity. Moral cor- ruption is palpably manifest in an immoral life ; but religioiis corruption escapes detection under an ex- terior of sanctimonious rigour, displays itself more especially in affecting violent offence at the irreligion of others, and thus gains credit for exalted piety and goodness. The tendencies to Judaism, arising from mistaken Tendencies of human views of Scripture and a want of due recognition of nature. Christianity in its primitive simplicity and purity, as disclosed in the apostolic writings, are powerfully 188 THE LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vii. seconded and upheld by the tendencies of human nature; and tliougli there is no foundation for Sabhatism in morality or Christianity, there is a deep-seated foundation for it in the formalism and superstition so congenial to the human heart. Of all corrupt notions, that of relegating re- ligious duties to certain fixed periods or days is one of the most grateful to human nature, but most radically hostile to Christian principles, though often defended on the plea that what is left to be done at any time will never be done ; whereas the true argument is, that it is to be done at all times. Those who are not religious habitually, will seek to be so occasionally ; those who do not keep up continual holiness, will seek periodical sanctity. Those who do not make their lives holy, can punctiliously keep daijs holy. It is easier to sanctify times and places than our hearts ; human nature cliuQ-s to relig[ious formalism, and especially to Sabbatism, as an easy mode of compounding for a worldly, if not irre- ligious life. False value Thosc wlio discard or overlook the precise rounds attaclied to ^ ^ forms. Qf evangelical religion, to substitute those of a general morality, practical expediency, or vague Essay III. § vii.] GENEEAL VIEW. 189 devotional sentiment, are fond of appealing to equally varied arguments ; — Thus, formal observances are often defended as being the safeguards of Icttcr things : but this is too often quite fallacious ; the external observances soon become siibstitiUccl for the better things, and the votary a slave to them, and superstitiously afraid to omit them. Forms habitu- ally insisted on, become substances. Men come to worship the ceremonies, instead of worshipping- God through them ; and thus, to many, a creed, a priesthood, the sacraments, the Sabbath, are in fact their deity, — " These be thy gods, Israel !" We must, however, carefully consider the con- Conse- quences of sequences. To defend observances, admitted to be cailr^T*^' in themselves untenable, on the ground of the prac- tical good done by their influence, is a dangerous topic to take up ; — it may prove more than is wished. If the henefit resulting is to be the measure and standard by which to regulate the acceptance of any tenet, we must then maintain as most salutary doctrines some of the tenets commonly denounced by Protestants as among the worst and darkest superstitions of Eomanism. i Judged of onlyhj their practical results, how many 190 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vir. siicli practices might be vindicated ! How power- fully (for example) has the preservation of purity been aided by the worship of the Virgin ! How many acts of restitution and reconciliation have flowed from auricular confession ! what extensive beneficence from the desire to compound for sins by alms ! how many noble endowments from the design of delivering souls from purgatory ! In a word, every argument for Sabbatism, from its supposed practical benefits, may find an exact parallel of equal force in support of what are condemned as the worst superstitions of dark ages and an idolatrous church. Disguised Superstition is always uncandid and seeking dis- Sabbatism, guise ; and thus the lurking spirit of Judaism often takes shelter under the pretext of upholding a decent observance of the Lord's day. And, in many in- stances, even those professing clearer and more purely and peculiarly evangelical views, yet ^practically fall into ideas and observances exactly equivalent to those of avowed Sabbatism, and, while they professedly disclaim the Old Testament obligation, yet uphold the observance of the Lord's day (losing sight alto- gether of its original intention) in a way which prac- tically differs in nothing from that of the Sabbath. Essay III. § vii.l GENEEAL VIEW. 191 Thus an observance which formed no part of the Christianity of the 'New Testament, is too often made the very essence of that religion, — the degree of sabbatical rigour and moroseness the very test and standard of true piety ; thus the profession of at variance •^ '^ ^ withChris- the Gospel is often identified with an institution ^i-'^^^^P^'in- ■^ ciples. altogether alien from its precepts, and at variance with its express spirit and character, and in fact nowhere spoken of in the New Testament, except in the way of great qualification and disparage- ment, even in reference to those who were still legally subject to it, and of entire repudiation with reference to those who had never been under its dominion. The considerations of utility and expediency, so often urged, can have no proper place in a question of Divine obligation. We must recollect that the real question is one of j^rinciple ; and the view here taken of it leads to the condemnation of a Judaicil, unevangelical formalism, — the unhappy and supersti- tious misconception, that it is sinful to do on a SunclctTj anything ivhich it is not sinful to do on another day. If there be one cause more than another to which ^^^^^^^^ ot Cnris- the common miserably low sense of Christian mora- rXt^^' 192 TITS LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § vii. lity may be traced, we may without hesitation ascribe it to the vulgar adoption of the mere text of the Jewish Decalogue unaccompanied by any Christian interpretation, which is too commonly made the only basis and code of moral and religious obligation, in complete misapprehension of the teaching of Christ to the Jews, and in the most direct contradiction to the doctrine of his apostle Paul to the Gentiles, — as well as in the equally singular neglect of the exposi- tions of the Catechism of the Church of England, on the part of those who profess such unlimited respect for her teaching. 193 § VIII. — ON THE USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY CHRISTIANS. In thus vindicating pure Christianity from an erro- Prevalent confusion neous and superstitious admixture of Judaical obli- of ideas. gations, arising from the misuse of the Old Testa- ment, it may be proper, before concluding, to advert briefly to some points in which a reference to the ancient Scriptures may be legitimately made by the Christian inquirer, and be found eminently useful. The common notions, on the subject of the rela- tions of the Old Testament to the New, are often ex- tremely confused and irrational. Because the Gospel originated in Judea, and in its first announcement had a special regard to existing belief and practice, it has been supposed by many that Christianity is founded in Judaism. Because Christ recognised the obligations of the law under which, in His human capacity. He lived, and made its commandments the text of His discourses to the Jews, — and because the Apostles, as well as other Christians in all ages, have N 194 THE LAW AXD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § viii. made their appeal to tlie Old Testament for important ,branclies of evidence as well as elucidation of tlie Xew, it seems therefore to have been imagined that it was republished, as it were, and included as an integrant part of the Christian revelation. But in fact we might rather say Judaism was founded on Christianity, as it is represented as having been designed to be a type of it, and to the Jew the preparation for it. " If ye believe in Moses," said Christ to the Jews, " believe also in me." Many modern Christians seem to reverse the appeal, and understand it as if He had said, " Ye believe in me ; believe also in Moses." Moses predicted Christ ; and his law was to be understood by the Jews as " a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ ;"^ but it is reversing the order of things, for those who have embraced the Gospel to go back to the Law, — to improve perfection — to light a candle at noon- day. General If the ISTcw Testament be the authentic record of views of the relations of Christianity, it must be apparent that on this subject the Old kTtlrJ New ^^® c^^^ obtain information from no other source than 1 Gal. iii. 24. Essay III. § viii.J USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195 these recorded declarations of the authorised teachers of Christianity. But even these, nnder the influence of some of the theories already referred to, have been often interpreted in a sense widely remote from that which a due consideration of the circumstances under which they were delivered would seem to warrant. A consistent Gentile Christian knows nothing of The Oki Testament the Old Testament, of its x^recepts, or of its doctrines, ^^^erstood except from the reference to it which is made by his the^Slw. teachers in the New. We can understand it solely as they have represented its claims and meaning ; or be guided by it only so far, and in such a sense, as they have taught us to apply it. The frequent practice, ado]3ted both by Jesus Christ himself, the evangelists, and apostles, of appropriating to the purpose imme- diately in hand passages from the Old Testament which, except from such application, would not appear to have any, or at most only some verbal, or accidental, resemblance to the case, is one which cannot warrant such a practice among us at the present day ; much less support the authority which some would give to the Old Testament law as apply- ing to Gentile Christians. Christ and his apostles, in fact, refer to the Old 196 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § viii. Testament solely as an argument potent with those they addressed, as calculated to confirm some more extended precept, as an illustration of some Christian truth, or as suggesting some analogy by which a Christian sense may he put upon the expressions or incidents of the ^Mosaic or prophetical writings. ^ In doing so, the Apostles doubtless make frequent use of these allusions as a vehicle of much real Christian instruction. But the essential truths must not be confoimded with the particular forms of adap- tation in which the religion and laws of a peculiar national system were conveyed. Eeal instruction may be deducible, but it is not always that which lies on the surface. The practice of the ancient fathers in giving a figurative and " evangelised" sense to all parts of the 1 *'Hoc prsecipue consilio scimus et Christum et Apostolos sape adliil»uisse e libris Hebraicis sacris, aliquas sententias aut historias ; nou vero id egisse ut caeteri omnes homines Judaeorum cunctas opiniones domesticas studiosissime arriperent, quibus populi hiijus omnis historia non sine superstitione solebat consecrari, atque religio ilia Trvev/xaTos kuI d\»j6eias per reverentiam in irruyxa a-roLx^la impediri Ista quK hie breviter observamus si qvus omnia neglexerit commiscebit inspirationem atque oiKovofiiav divinara cum ipsa catholica revelatione : atque non solum difficilis atque molestus ad alios interpres, sed etiam impotens religionis Christianae defensor faeiit."—Semler, Inst it. B rev. § ix. ; see also § xxsdi. pp. 7, 8. Essay III. § vrii.] USE OF THE OLD TESTAMEXT. 197 Old Testament was often carried to an extreme of ^dsionary interpretation. But it was, at all events, less unreasonable than that of the Puritans in apply- ing literally all parts of the Old Testament to Christians. The one transformed Judaism into Christianity ; the other, Christianity into Judaism. The use of the Old Testament history is im- P^ Old •^ Testament portant even to Gentile Christians, as enabling them ^^^^°^'- to trace the progressive course of the Divine dis- pensations, as well as their relation and dependence. Yet this can only be understood in the light in which it is expressly put by the jSTew Testament writers. The Old Testament has even been appealed to as that part of Scripture from which we especially learn the providence of God in the moral government of the world ; whereas its entirely exchisive character — its sole reference of everything to the one object of the dispensation of the chosen people — and the marked peculiarities of adaptation in all its repre- sentations to a peculiar stage of moral and intellectual advance — altogether clearly show that to convey any such general views of the moral government of the world at large was as wholly alien to its real design, as it is impossible fairly to extract from its declarations. 198 THE LAW AKD THE GOSPEL. [Essay IIL § viii. Doctrinal The doctriuctl statements of the Old Testament statemeuts. respecting the Divine nature, personality, attributes, and dealings with men, are always conveyed under forms essentially adapted to the apprehensions of the Jews, and the peculiarities of their dispensation. And it is only by carefully abstracting from those peculiarities, by the light of the ISTew Testament, that the Christian can in any way make use of them gene- rally in the expression of his faith, or the language of his worship. In all applications of moral or practical in- struction from the Old Testament, the same cau- tion requires to be yet more scrupulously observed — the' precepts given to the Jews were wholly con- veyed in a form, and were of a nature, adapted to their national and temporal dispensation, and can only be applied by us in a Christianised sense. ^ Similar remarks may be made with respect to the use of the devotional portions of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms, some parts of which are wholly inapplicable to any Christian purpose in their literal ^ As, e.g., 1 Cor. ix. 10. Moral and flevotional parts. Essay IIL§ viii.] USE OF THE OLD TEtSTAMiilNT. 199 sense, and necessarily require a modified interpreta- tion.^ Our Lord referred the Jews to their own Scrip- instances of applica- tures — " in which yc think ye have eternal life" — ^^°^^- not to rest in them, but to look there for proof of his mission, — "they are they which testify of me."^ So the applications which the apostles make, invariably give a Christian turn to the meaning of the Old Tes- tament in the passages they cite, which would other- wise convey no such signification. "These things are written for our admonition,"^ says St Paul, when he adduces the examples of the Israelites' disobedience, to w^arn his converts against similar disloyalty to Christ So, when he applies a passage in the Psalms to Christ, he adds that in this w^ay "whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our learning :"* of course to be applied in a like Christian and enlight- ened sense, " that we through patience and comfort ^ of the Scriptures might have hope." The same is eminently the tenor of St Paul's Admoni- •^ tiou to Timothy. 1 As Ps. cix. 5, &c. 2 joim v. 39. ^ 1 Cor. x. 11. •i Rom. XV. 4. ® 'wapdK\i](Tiersons at all. And yet I believe that perhaps those who follow them in the observance of the ceremonial law, if they believe in Christ at the same time, will be saved. "^ II. The following is the account referred to (note, p. 160), of an ancient Judaised Christianity which exists at this day, probably exactly as it was first planted in the fourth century :— "In the Highlands of Ethiopia, Major Harris found a so-called Christian kingdom, a national estabhshment dating from the earliest ages. By this Church saints and angels are invoked, the Virgin and St Michael are made scarcely subordinate deities, a crowded calendar of saints receive honours, and half the year is composed of fasts and festivals. It enjoins, also, confession to the priest, whose curse is dreaded by the people as the last calamity, while they confidently rely on the almsgiving and penances he imposes as an expia- tion of sin. Its most extraordinary peculiarities are certain usages and ceremonies, either borrowed from the Jews or retained from the old Ethiopic faith. Their * Dial. p. 263. Ed. Paris, 1636. Also on many points ilhistrative of the subjects liere discussed, the reader is referred to Bishop Kaye's account of Justin Martyr, 1836. APPENDIX. 227 clmrclies, wliicli generally are small and mean, resemble precisely the Jewisli temple ; tliey are divided into tlu^ee parts ; the innermost is the holy of holies, and may be entered by the priest alone. The service is in a dead language, and dancing is one of the ceremonies. They keep in the same manner and with equal strictness the seventh day and the first — the Sabbath of the Jews, and the Lord's day of the Christians. They observe the Levitical prohibitions as to unclean animals ; they wash their cups and platters as a religious duty; they will not eat or drink with pagan or Moslem; nor taste of flesh that has not been slain in the name of the Trinity. They practise circumcision; not asserting it to be obli- gatory, yet rigorously imposing it on every pagan con- vert to Christianity. They allow of concubinage. They are all baptized once every year, commemorating the baptism of Christ at the Epiphany by a religious pro- cession to the river, into which men, women, and children enter in a promiscuous and shameless crowd. Easts, of extraordinary frequency, are observed with unexampled strictness; two every week, on Wednesday and Friday : while, reckoning all the holy-days together, one entire half of the year is thus occupied. "While the Ethiopic Church thus presents us with the singular spectacle of a barbarous and ferocious people retaining Jewish practices and the Christian name, in another quarter of the globe, in the mountains of Armenia, we find another Church — the ISTestorian — almost identical in belief and usage ; all, or nearly all, of the Levitical institutions being adopted. 'The Sabbath,' says Br Grant, 'is re^^arded with a sacredness among the moun- 228 APPENDIX. tain tribes wliicli I have seen among no other Christians in tlie East. I have repeatedly been told by JN'estorians of tlie plain, that their brethren in the mountains would imme- diately kill a man for travelling or labouring on the Sab- bath ; and there is abundant reason to beheve that tliis was formerly done, though it has ceased since the people have become acquainted with the practice of Christendom on the subject.' While they do not hesitate thus to com- mit murder, they will by no means touch swine's flesh, and they are very careful to avoid ceremonial impurity."^ [It is, however, on Sunday that they keep their Sab- bath; for although Dr Grant, in his second or third edition above quoted, speaks of " the Sabbath" merely, in his first he calls it "the Christian Sabbath" (p. 184), and in both editions applies to it the unambiguous title of " the Lord's-day." In both, moreover, he goes on to .state that "the I^estorians have also the ' 2^i'6P''^i'''^^ion before the Sabbath,' commencing about three hours before sunset on Saturday, when all labour should cease, except what is necessary to prepare for spending a quiet Sabbath : but the rule has in a measure fallen into disuse." In Badger's Nestoiians and their Rituals (Lond. 1852), vol. i. p. 229, it is expressly said that " Sunday is observed ivith the greatest strictness by the !N'estorians ; none will work or travel on that day ; it is generally spent by them in attending the services of the Church, in village conferences, and in rural amusements." — Ed.] ' From The Oxford Protestant Magazine, 1847. APPENDIX. 229 III. The celebrated edict of Constantine has been differently interpreted. It certainly contains no reference to the Cliristian religion or its ordinances. It simply enjoins that " on the venerable day of the sun, the magistrates and citizens, and all business, shall be at rest (quiescant)." The labours of agTiculture, however, may be continued, as the season may require. In the same year, also, he made a decree for the better regulation of the heathen sacrificial ceremonies. Also, to conciliate both Jews and Jewish Christians, he upheld and protected them in the observance of the Sabbath, for which he is much commended by Eusebius.^ The former edict relative to Simday has been sup- loosed to have been called for by the great and incon- venient increase of festivals amono- the Eomans." IV. As indicative of the state of opinions among the great branches of the reformed Church, the celebrated Augs- burg Confession stands pre-eminent. In reference to our present subject, it first makes some allusion to the con- troversies which had existed, bearing on the extent of the authority of the Church to change ordinances. ^ Vit. Const, iv. 18, ^ See Time and Faith, vol. ii. p. 570< 230 APPENDIX. Afterwards, speaking of points ordained by tlie au- thority of the Church, this formulary proceeds : — " Such cases are, the observance of the Lord's day, Easter, Pentecost, and other like festivals and rites. For those who judge that by the authority of the Church, instead of the Sabbath, the observance of the Lord's day was instituted as essential, are greatly in esrror. "The Scripture has abrogated the Sabbath; Avhich teaches that all the Mosaic ceremonies, after the reve- lation of the Gospel, may be omitted. And yet, since it was necessary to appoint a certain day, that the people might know when to assemble together, it appears that the Church appointed for that end the Lord's day, which seems, on this ground, to have been the more acceptable, that men might have an example of Christian liberty, and might know that the observance neither of the Sabbath nor of any other day is necessary. " There have been great disputes on the change of the law, — on the ceremonies of the new law, — on the change of the Sabbath ; all which have arisen from the false per- suasion that the worship of the Church ought to be similar to the Levitical."^ Notwithstanding the plainness with which all idea of Sabbatism is here repudiated, it yet cannot but be noticed, how much of the prevailing confusion of thought re- mains in the reasons and grounds assigned; that the Mosaic ceremonies " may be omitted," when the question ' Confessio Augustana, 1531, § vii. ; Sylloge Confessionum, p. 156. Ed. Oxford, 1827. APPENDIX. 231 is, what should enforce tliem? — or how the Gentiles could have anything to do with them? — or could have any ground for imagining that Christian worship ought to resemble the Levitical. The real fundamental " false persuasion" which might have been referred to, is that of not seeing the distinction between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. All that is here said, might well apply to Jewish converts. The original form from which the above is cited, was that adhered to by the Lutherans. But in 1540, an altered version was made to suit the views of certain other parties. In this version the passage quoted re- mains the same, with the exception of the sentence be- ginning, "The Scripture has abrogated," &c., which here stands thus : — "The Scripture allows that the observance of the Sabbath may now be a matter of liberty ; for it teaches that the Mosaic ceremonies, after the revelation of the Gospel, are not necessary; and yet,"^ &c. — an assertion, certainly, of the safest nature. The Palatine, or Heidelberg Catechism (1563), after stating "the Decalogue" to be "the law of God," in answer to the question, " What does thefoiu'th command- ment enjoin?" — replies : — "First, that the ministry of the Gospel and of the Sylloge Confessionmn, p. 230. 232 APPENDIX. School should be preserved; that, as well as at other times, so particularly on festival days, I should stu- diously attend divine assemblies, — should diligently hear the word of God, — should partake of the Sacra- ments, — should add my prayers to the public prayers, — and, according to my ability, should contribute some- thing for the j)oor. "Lastly, that through all my life I should abstain from wicked actions ; yielding to the Lord, that, by the Holy Spirit, he will do His work in me ; and thus that I may, in this life, begin the eternal Sabbath."^ VI. The Eacovian Catechism, after quoting the fourth com- mandment, puts the questions following : — " Q. AYhat think you of this precept 1 ^^ A. That it is taken away under the New Covenant, as well as other ceremonial observations. " Q. Did not Christ institute that we should celebrate the day commonly called the Lord's Day, instead of a Sabbath? " ^. Ey no means : since the Christian religion, as it taketh away other ceremonial observations, so also the difference of days. (See Col. ii. 18.) But, forasmuch as we see the Lord's Day to be of old celebrated by Christians, we permit the same liberty to all Christians. "^ It is here remarkable how, even in the freedom which Sijllorje Confessiomm, p. 388. = Ed. Amsterdam, 1652, p. 91. APPENDIX. 233 this formiTlaiy asserts, there still lingers the fundamental misapprehension of dwelling on the abolition of an ordi- nance which, to the Gentile, never was in force, or of introducing the Decalogue at all. VII. The French Protestant Catechism, while it regards the Decalogue in general as obligatory, yet makes the fourth commandment peculiar, and as not to be taken literally ; and holds that the ceremonial part of it is abolished by the coming of Clirist, — that it is typical of spiritual rest ; yet that it has a reference to the observance of ecclesiastical ordinances, and the relief of servants from labour.^ A similar view is upheld at the present clay by one of the most able French Protestant writers, Athanase Coquerel, who maintains that there is "no specific time — no consecrated day — assigned in the Gospel." ^ YIII. On the other hand, the formal expression of that prunary confusion of ideas which has so peculiarly beset the whole conception of the Divine Law in modern theology, may be fully traced in the Helvetian Confession, a.d. 1536. ^ See La Forme des Prieres et le CatecMsme, iLc, annexed to the French New Testament. Ed. Leyden, 1687. ^ Christianity, cfcc, p. 380; transl. London^ 1847. 234 APPENDIX. It first (§ XII.) recognises the natm^al moral law written in the hearts of men, and then the Divine written law, in the two tables of Moses ; and this is distinguished again into " the moral law, comprehended in the Decalogue," the ceremonial, and the judicial or political. But " this law is not given to men that they may he justified hy its observance ; but that rather by its indi- cations they may acknowledge their infirmity, their sin, their condemnation," and thus be led to faith in Christ. " . . . . Thus far the law is abrogated, that it no longer condemns us, or works ^vrath in us. " . . . . We know that the Scripture of the law is useful, if it be expounded by the Gospel : thus the reading of it is not to be abolished."^ It may be readily understood how this kmd of dogma- tising prepared the way for the deeper subtilties, and Judaical aberrations and enormities of the AYestniinster Assembly. IX Calvin states the case of the Sabbath as follows : — " As the truth was delivered in types to the Jews, so it is made known to us without a figure : — 1-5^, That during our whole lives it may be our aim to rest con- stantly from our own works, that the Lord may work in us by His Spirit. 2nd, That each one, as he has oppor- tunity, may exercise himself diligently in private, in * Sijlloge Confess., pp. 42, 43. APPENDIX. 235 pious meditation on tlie works of God ; and at the same time, that all may observe the la^vful order appointed by the Church for hearing the word, ministration of the sacraments, and public prayer. Srd, That we may avoid oppressing those subject to us. In this way, we avoid the frivolities of false prophets {nugce pseudo-pro- phetarum — in the French translation, mensonges des faux docteurSj *lies of false teachers'), who in later times have instilled Jewish ideas into the people, asserting that nothing was abrogated, except what was ceremonial in the commandment .... while the moral part remains ; that is, the observance of one day in seven. Wliat else is this than to dishonour the Jews by changing the day, and yet, in our minds, to ascribe to it the same sanc- tity; thus retaining the same typical difference of days as was held among the Jews ? And truly we see how they have profited by this doctrine. Those who thus adhere to the Jewish institution, go thrice as far as the Jews themselves in the gross and carnal superstition of Sabbatism ; so that the rebukes which we read in Isaiah apply as much to those of the present day, as to those whom the prophet addressed."^ Eeza, his follower, allowing that assemblies for worship on the Lord's day were of apostolic origin, adds, that there was yet no cessation of work required; for that would not be so much to abolish Judaism, as to put it off 1 Calvin. Institutions, lib. ii. c. 8, § 34. [In a pamphlet of 92 pages, entitled The Whole Doctrine of Calvin about the Sabbath and the Lord's Bay (Edinb. 1860), Mr E. Cox lias collected from the voluminous writings of this Reformer all that they contain on the subject, and has appended extracts from Luther, Melancthou, Zuinglius, Beza, Cranmer, and Knox.— Ed.] 236 APPENDIX. and change it to another day. Again, speaking of Con- stantino's decree against work on the Lord's day, he men- tions, as an almse of his intentions, " that this degenerated at length into mere Judai sm. "1 X. Among the Lutherans, Chemnitz charged the Eomanists with superstition, because they taught an inherent sanctity in the Lord's day and other festivals; and, while he would prohibit such labours as interfere with Divine service, yet he thinks it "a Jewish leaven" to prohibit such as do not so interfere. ^ Bezge Nov. Test, note on Rev. i. 10. [The entire note may be seen in Mr Cox's publication just mentioned, p. 88, \vliere the following additional extracts from Beza are given :— " We pronounce it superstitious to believe that one day is more holy than another, and that resting from daily labours is in itself pleasing to God. Nevertheless we keep holy one day in seven, as the Lord has commanded— that is, we devote it entirely to the holding of assemblies and hearing the word of God, but without any Jewish ceremony or foolish superstition ; on which account, also, we follow the custom of the ancient Church, in choosing for that purpose, not the Sabbath, but the Lord's Day."— 6'o«/e55io Christiaiice Fidei, per T. Bezam, cap. v. § 41. (Vezel. 1560.) "This we may truly affirm, that ignorance of the difference between the Law and the Gospel has given occasion to the most and the greatest of the errors by which the Christian religion is at this day disturbed," —Id. cap. iv. § 23. For ample discussions of the opinions of the Reformers concerning the Sabbath, see Dr Patrick Fairbairn's Typology of Scripture, vol. ii. pp. 130, 47.5 (3d. ed., Edinb. 1857), and Mr Qox's Literature of the Sab- bath Question, vol. i. p. 382 (Edinb. 1865). Dr Fairbairn is on the Puritan side, Avhile Mr Cox leans more to the Reformers. See also the Bampton Lectures of Dr Hessey, 1860, Lect. vi.— Ed.] APPENDIX. 237 And of tlie same commimion Bucer sa.js, "To think that working on the Lord's da}^ is in itself a sin, is a superstition, and a denying of the grace of Christ." Again, the Confession of the Swiss Churches declares, "We do not conceive one day to be more holy than another, nor rest from work in itself pleasing to God."^ XI. Heylin and others have collected a number of testi- monies of the early English Eeformers and divines, which, though they differ considerably (as we might expect, from the then state of opinions) in respect to the extent to which they upheld the observance of the Lord's day, yet all agree in makmg an entire distinction between it and the Sabbath ; which is the more remarkable when we perceive that fundamental confusion of idea which pervades the greater part of their views, in imagining some kind of abrogation of the one, or transference of the obligation to the other. Indeed, even the earlier decla- rations of the Continental Eeformers are by no means wholly free from the same confusion. But we see it ^ For these and many other similar testimonies see Heylin's History of the Sabbath (ed. 1636), ii. ISO, et seq. For the last quotation he does not give any precise reference. It is manifestly not the same as the Helvetian Confession of 1536. [It is from The Latter Confession of Helvetia, drawn up by the ministers of Zurich in 1566. The original words are — " Neque enim alteram diem altera sanctiorem esse credimus, neque otium per se prohari existimamus : sed et Dominicam, non Sab- batum, libera observatione celebramus " (cap. xxiv.) A translation of the whole chapter may be seen in HalFs Harmony of Confessions, p. 382: Lond. 1812.-ED.] 238 APPENDIX. more extensively brought out in the English theologians, from the obvious wish to conciliate the more powerful contentions which then prevailed in this country from thje increasing spiiit of Puritanism. The strongest of all the testimonies cited — that of Tyndal — is not altogether devoid of this perplexity. "As for the Sabbath," he says, "we be lords over it, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, as we see need ; or we may make every tenth day holy- day only, if we see cause why. Neither was there any cause to change it from^the Saturday, save only to put a dif- ference between us and the Jews. !N"either need we any holy-day at all, if the peoj^le might be taught without it."^ XII. The " iJ^ecessary Erudition," drawn up by the leading bishops and divines of the Church of England, and put forth by authority of Henry YIIL, thus expresses the case : — " As touching this (the fourth) commandment, there is a notable difference between this and the other nine. Thus, St Austin saith all the other nine be merely moral commandments, and belonged not only to the Jews, and all other people of the world in the time of the Old Testament, but also belong now to all Chris- tian people in the New Testament. Eut this precept of the Sabbath, as concerning rest from bodily labour on the seventh day, is ceremonial, and pertained only to ^ Atisicer to Sir T. More, p. 2S7. APPENDIX. 230 the Jews in the Old Testament before the coming of Christ, and pertaineth not to us Christian peo]3le in the N'ew Testament. " llSTeyertheless, as concerning the spiritual rest which is figured and signified by this corporal rest, — that is to say, rest from the carnal works of the flesh, and all manner of sin, — this precept is moral, and remaineth still, and bindeth them that belong unto Christ ; and not for every seventh day only, but for all days, hours, and times. For at all times we be bound to rest from fulfil- ling our own carnal will and pleasures, &c " Furthermore, besides this spiritual rest, which chiefly and principally is required of us, we be boimd by^tliis precept at certain times to cease from bodily labour, and to give our minds entirely and wholly unto God to hear the divine service, &c " AVhich things, although all Christian people be bound unto by this commandment, yet the Sabbath day, which is called the Saturday, is not now prescribed and appointed thereunto, as it was unto the Jews, but instead of the Sabbath day succeedeth Sunday, in the memory of Clmst's resurrection, and also many other holy and festival days, which the Church hath ordained from time to time, which -be called holy days, not because that one day is more acceptable to God than another, or of itself more holy than another, but because the Church hath ordained that upon those days we should give ourselves wholly Avithout any impediment unto such holy works as be before expressed, &c " Men must have a special regard that they be not over scrupulous or rather superstitious in abstaining 240 APPENDIX. from iDodily labour upon the lioly day. For notwithstand- ing all that is afore sj^oken, it is not meant hut we may ujDon the holy day give ourselves to lahoiu' for the speedy performance of the necessary affairs of the prince and the commonwealth, &c and in other cases," &c.^ As to the existing formularies of the Church of Eng- land, what was observed before respecting the Catechism is sufficiently conclusive. The only other passages which ever are or can be appealed to as in any way supposed declaratory of the opinion of the English Church on the point of Sabbatical observance are : — First, the Thirteenth Canon ; which puts Sundays and all other holy-days on precisely the same level ; refers to public religious duties and acts of charity, &c., but makes no reference whatever to any notion of consecration or desecration of the day, or to abstinence from any secular pursuits or amusements whatever ; and secondly, a passage in the Homily " Of the time and place of prayer ; " where, though some ideas of a Sabbatical tendency are inculcated, all express refer- ence to the precise ground of such observance, and still more any assertion of the divine obligation, are studiously avoided. The Homilies generally notoriously exhibit a strong leaning to the puritanical side of the Eeformation, and were, beyond question, designed to conciliate that section both of the clergy and laity. They were, no doubt, in this sense eminently '■'■ necessary for the times'^ in which ^ A Necessary Erudition for any Christian Man, d-c. 1543. Kepriuted among Formularies of Faith put forth by Authority dur- ing the Reign of Henry VIII. Oxford, 1825. P. 306. APPENDIX. 241 they were composed : whicli is all that is asserted of them in the declaration of conformity. XIII. The forcible declarations against Sabbatism of Fryth, of Archbishop Crammer's Catechism (1548), of Bishop Hooper, and of Bishop Sanderson, as well as other eminent divines of the following age, still evince more or less of the same absence of clear fundamental ideas. Though entirely rejecting and repudiating the Jewish Sabbath, yet they mostly refer to an obligation of some kind, which they think has been transferred from one day to another. They, indeed, condemn the Judaical observ- ance, but draw refined distinctions between the Law, as not binding Christians "by virtue of its delivery" {ex vi x)ycecepti), but by reason and the like.^ Dr F. White, Bishop of Ely, expresses himself some- what equivocally, thus : — " God's allowing six days of the week for a man's own work, concludeth not a necessity of keeping holy the first day of the week, rather than the sixth or the seventh : every day of the week and of the year is the Lord's, and the Sunday is no more the Lord's by the law of the fourth commandment than the Friday, for the Lord's day of that fourth commandment is the Saturday. "2 Bishop Nicholson says, rather paradoxically, " They sin ^ See Heylin, part ii. Archbishop Bramhall is perhaps more decided against Sabbatism. Works, fol. 1677. P. 912. « Treatise of the Sabbath Daij. 1635. P. 279. Q 242 APPENDIX. against this (the fourth) commandment, who Judaise either in their opinions of the Sabbath, or their observ- ance of it." ^ Hooker, among festivals ordained by authority of the Church, includes the Lord's Day ; so far maintaining a clear and consistent plea for its observance. He also urges distinctly the Apostle's censure of Jewish Sab^ baths ; but he then immediately resorts to the notion of the schoolmen, and speaks of "the Church" having " changed the Sabbath into the Lord's Day." ^- Yet, afterwards referring to the idea of the Sabbath, he allows much latitude in the observance, on the plea of necessity and expediency.^ Bishop Jeremy Taylor * clearly discards all idea of a succession of the one institution in the j:>Zrtc<3 of the other : yet he conceives that this is hecause the Sabbath is abrogated. But for the most complete specimens of learned quib- bling, and halting or compromising between opposite opinions, the reader should look at the erudite discussion of the eminent and learned Bishop Andrewes, in his elaborate folio volume on the Ten Commandments (1642). ^ Quoted in Dr W. F. Hook's treatise ou The Lord's Daif. P. 83, "^ Ecc. Pol. V. § 70. ^ jjj^ § 71^ ^ Ductor Dubitantium, B. ii.,. cli. ii., nile Q, §§ 53-56. APPENDIX. 243 XIV. The following extracts will exemplify views held by some university theologians in the early part of the 1 7th century, when the Puiitanical doctrine was gaining much popularity. In 1628, Dr Eobinson, afterwards Archdeacon of Gloucester, maintained as his thesis in the Divinity dis- putation at Oxford, " That recreations on the Lord's day were not at all prohibited by the Word of God." So again, in 1634, the same thesis was defended by Mr Lockey, student of Christ Church. But far more remark- able was the " determination " given, ex cathedra, after the disputation at the University Act, 1622, by Dr Prideaux, then Eegius Professor of Divinity,' of which the following is a summary : — " Isf. That the Sabbath was not instituted in the first Creation of the world, nor ever kept by any of the ancient patriarchs who lived before the law of Moses; therefore no moral and perpetual precept, as the others are. " 2ncl That the sanctifying of one day in seven is ceremonial only, and obliged the Jews; not moral, to oblige us Christians to the like observance. " 3rd. That the Lord's day is founded only on the authority of the Church, guided therein by the practice of the Apostles ; not on the fourth commandment " (to assert which he elsewhere called "a scandalous doctrine"), " nor any other authority in Holy Scripture. Published in 1626 Avith liis Lectures. 244 APPENDIX. '' nil. That the Church hath still authority to change the day; though such authority be not fit to he put in practice. " htli. That, in the celebration of it, there is no such cessation from the works of labour required of us as was exacted of the Jews : but that we may lawfully dress meat, proportionable unto every man's estate, and do such things as be no hindrance to the public service appointed for the day. " Wi. That, on the Lord's day, all recreations what- soever are to be allowed which honestly may refresh the spirits, and increase mutual love and neighbourhood amongst us ; and that the names whereby the Jews did use to call their festivals, whereof the Sabbath was the chief, were borrowed from a Hebrew word which signi- fies to dance and to make merry, or rejoice. And, lastly, it appertains to the Christian magistrate to order and appoint what pastimes are to be permitted, and what prohibited, — not unto every private person, much less to every person's rash zeal, who, out of a schismatical stoicism (debarring men from their lawful pastimes), doth incline to Judaism." XY. Isaac Barrow ^ entirely denies the primeval Sabbath ; admits that the precise institution applied only to the Jews ; yet, on general grounds of expediency and reason, contends for a practical obligation of nearly the same kind . ^ Expos, of the Decal. ; Worhs, x. 568. Ed. Oxford. APPENDIX. 245 It will not he necessary to descend to later times, nor instructive to quote writers who, for the most part, either had formed no clear opinions on the subject, or did not dare to avow them. But it may be remarked, that perhaps no single writer has done more towards keeping up the Sabbatical idea in the public mind, even while professedly opposing it, than Paley. The power, vigour, and clearness of his style have made him generally popular, and the modera- tion of his tone has recommended his views to multitudes who would turn away from more extreme religious de- clamation. After demolishing, one by one, the usual arguments from Scripture, and proving to demonstration that the Christian is under no Sabbatical obligation whatever, in a religious sense, he then goes round to the side of expediency, and upon its miserable principles, step by step, reinstates in their position all the conclu- sions in the sense of practical utility, which he had before subverted in a theological view. Thus his prac- tical conclusions are eagerly embraced, and his authority quoted by those who do not like to avow the Sabbatism they really entertain. It would be, of course, superfluous to refer to the writings of Archbishop Whately, or the less expanded, occasional remarks of Dr Arnold. At the present day, from the incidental discussion which has arisen on certain practical points relative to the observance of Sunday, a considerable impulse has been given to the theological examination of the ques- tions here treated ; which, however, has been, for the most part, restricted to the special question of the Sab- 246 APPENDIX. bath, or of the Lord's day. Among the numerous vahi- able AYorks which have advocated the more liberal and Christian view, it may be right here briefly to refer the reader to the larger and more important work of Mr E. Cox, entitled Sabbath Laics and Sabbath Duties : Edinb. 1853 ; to the equally elaborate work, The Sab- bath, ^'c, by Sir AY. Domville, Bart., in two vols. (1855), the first volume of which appeared some years earlier, anonymously; as well as to a smaller pamphlet by the same author, in which he discusses a portion of the question. To these may be added a work, or rather collection of a series of pamphlets, originally published separately, entitled Ten Letters on the Sabbath Question, by A. B. Clifford, 1856, in which the subject is discussed in an eminently forcible and popular manner, and supported by numerous quotations and authorities. A variety of smaller tracts, too numerous to specify, evince the zeal wdth which the subject is now taken up. I may name one, — Facts and Fallacies on the Sabbath Question, by H. Fulton. Dublin, 1856. XYI. One of the most remarkable and significant features of the case of Sabbatism at the present day is the fact (suffi- ciently natural, it being an unchristian idea) that it is upheld by some who reject Christianity. Thus, in a recently published work of this school (the " Religious Thoughts and IVIemoranda of a Believer in Mature," London, 1855), the writer exults in the Sabbath APPENDIX. 247 as valuable for tlie diffusion of his views (page 5), and asks, " Shall we ever hear those Sabbath bells call us to a higher and purer worship!" "Sunday my own day, the poor man's day" (page 15). "The Lord's day, the beautiful fiction upheld by the weak against the strong" (page 20), &c. &c. And another advocate of the same view appears in the author of a recent deistical work on " Intuitive Morals," &c. (vol. ii. p. 161), where, after fully acknowledging the absence of J^ew Testament authority, the Sabbath is expressly upheld as a matter of natural moral obligation. To which it may be added, that one of the most cele- brated deists of the seventeenth century, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, amid the many strange incoherencies of his system, expressly upheld the Sabbath as an obligation of natural religion. It may be also observed, as eminently in point, that some of the same school maintain the doctrine of tem- jooral retributions, and exactly on the same ground as the Judaical law did — because they do not teach any future state. The Old Testament, indeed (setting aside as they do the types and prophecies of Christ), becomes precisely a system of deism. XA'II. EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE TO DR HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE SABBATH. LONDON, 1636. The celebrated work of Dr Heylin is perhaps less known to the generality of readers than it deserves to be. Hence 248 APPENDIX. a short extract from the very forcible remarks, which, in the somewhat quaint style of his time, he addresses to his reader at the commencement, may be usefully brought before many readers of the present work whose prepos- sessions may require similar conciliation. *' A PREFACE TO THEM WHO, BEING THEMSELVES MISTAKEN, HAVE MISGUIDED OTHERS IN THESE NEW DOCTRINES OF THE SABBATH. " IlTot out of any humour or desire of being in action, or that I love to have my hands in any of those publike quarrels wherewith our peace hath beene disturbed ; but that posteritie might not say we have beene wanting, for our parts, to your information, and the direction of God's people in the wayes of tnith ; have I adventured on this Story. A Story which shall represent unto you the constant practice of GocVs Church in the present business, from the Creation to these dales : that so you may the better see, how you are gone astray from the paths of truth, and tendries of Antiquity, and from the present judgment of all men and Churches. The Argu- ments whereto you trust, and upon seeming strength whereof you have beene hitherto emboldned to presse these Sabbatarian doctrines upon the consciences of poore people, I purpose not to meddle with in this Discourse, aXXr}e7-petuall ; as punctually to be observed, as any other of the first or second table : I doubt not but it will appeare by this following History, that it was never so esteemed of by the Jewes them- selves; no not when as the observation of the same was most severely pressed upon them by the Law and Fro2:)hets, nor when the day was made most burdensome unto them by the Scribes and Pharisees. Lastly, whereas you make the Lord's day to be an institution of our Savior Christ, confirmed by the continuall usage of the holy Apostles, and both by him and them imposed as a per- petuall ordinance on the Christian Church ; making your- selves beleeve that so it was observed in the times before, as you have taught us to observe it in these latter dayes : I have made manifest to the world, that there is no such matter to be found at all, either in any Writings of the Apostles, or Monument of true Antiquitie, or in the practice of the middle or the present Churches. What said I, of the present Churches 1 So I said indeed ; and doubt not, but it will appeare so in this following Storie : the present Churches, all of them, both GreeJce and Latine, together with the Protestants, of what name soever, being farre different, both in their Doctrine and 250 APPENDIX. tlieir practice, from these new conceptions. And here I cannot chuse but note, That whereas those who first did set on foot these Doctrines, in all their other ^jr^cifi'se^ to subvert this Churchy did beare themselves continually on the authoritie of Calvin, and the example of those Churches which came most neere unto the Plat-forme of Geneva : in these their Sabbath speculations, they had not onely none to follow; but they found Calvin, and Geneva, and those other Churches, dhectly contrarie unto them. However in all other matters they cryed up Calvin and his Writings, making his Bookes the very canon, to which both Discii^line and Doctrine was to be conformed : yet, hie magister nan tenetur ; here, by his leave, they would forsake him, and leave him fairely to himselfe ; that they themselves might also have the glory of a new invention. For you, my Brethren, and beloved in our Lord and Saviour, as I doe willingly beleeve that you have entertain'd these Tenets upon mis-persuasion ; not out of any ill intentions to the Church, your Mother ; and that it is an errour in your judgements onely, not of your affections : so, upon that beliefe, have I spared no paines, as much as in me is, to remove that errour, and rectifie what is amisse in your opinion. I hope you are not of those men, Cluos non persuadebis, etiamsi persua- der is, who either hate to be reformed, or have so farre espoused a quarrell, that neither truth nor reason can divorce them from it. 'Eom would I gladly you should be of their resolutions, Qui volunt id verum esse cpiod credunt, nolunt id credere quod verum est ; who are more apt to thinke all true which themselves beleeve, than be perswaded to beleeve such things as are true indeed. APPENDIX. 251 Pirst, for the Sahhath, I shall shew you that it was not instituted by the Lord in Paradise, nor naturally imprinted in the soide of man, nor ever kept by any of the ancient Fathers before Moses' time : and this, not generally said, and no more but so, but proved particularly and successively in a continued descent of times and men. Next, that being given unto the Jeives by Moses, it was not so observed or reckoned of as any of the Morall Precepts; but sometimes kept, and sometimes not, accordmg as men's private busi- nesses, or the necessities of the State, might give way unto it ; and finally, was for ever abrogated, with the other ceremonies, at the destruction of the Temxjle. As for the Gentiles all this while, it shall hereby appeare, that they took no more notice of it, (except a little, at the latter end of the Jeicisli State,) than to deride both it and all them that kept it. Then, for the Lord's day, that it was not instituted by our Saviour Christ, commanded by the AxDOstles, or ordained first by any other Authoritie than the voluntarie consecration of it by the Church to Religious uses : and being consecrated to those uses was not advanced to that esteeme, which it now enjoyes, but leisurely and by degrees ; partly by the Edicts of secular Princes; partly by Canons of particular Councels; and finally by the Decretals of severall Poj^es, and Orders of superiour Prelates : and being so advanced, is subject still, as many Protestant Doctors say, to the Authoritie of the Church, to be retained or changed, as the Church thinks fit. Finally, that in all ages heretofore, and in all Churches at this present, it neither was nor is esteemed of as a Sabbath-day, nor reckned of so neere a kinne to 252 APPENDIX. the former Sabbath, but that at all such leisure times, as were not destinate by the Church to GocTs publike ser- plce, men might apply their minds, and bestow their thoughts, either about their businesses, or upon their ^:>Zea- sures, such as are laivfull in themselves, and not ^jrohibited by those Fowers under which they lived Xor would I you should thinke it any blemish to your reputation, should you desert a cause which with so vehement affections you have erst maintained : or that the world would censure you of too deepe a folly, should you retract what you have either taught or \^Titten in the times before. Eather the world and all good men shall praise both your integrity and ingenuity, in that you thinke it no disparagement to yeeld the better unto truth, whensoever you find it. Being men, conceive it not impossible but that you may be in crrour ; and having erred, thinke it your greatest victory that you are conquered by the truth : which being mighty will prevaile, and either here or elsewhere enforce all of us to confesse the great powers thereof." XVIII. ON MR HUGH MILLEr's " TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS." In the preceding Essays, especially in the second, at the risk of being thought to recur needlessly to a topic long since exhausted, I have once more repeated a statement of what I believe to be the only sound and rational view of the relations of the Bible to geology, viz., that they have no relation at all. Having, twenty years ago (in APPENDIX. 253 my work on "The Connection of I^atural and Dmne Truth," 1838), pointed out in detail the radical fault of all BiUe-geology ivJiatsoever, in the fundamental misconcep- tion of seeking philoso2Dhy in revelation, — or imagining that Hebrew prophets or Christian apostles should be expected to declare, or recognise in any way, or conform to, the truths of modern inductive science, — it is a work of supererogation, which I decline undertaking, to refute over again those perversions alike of science and of Scrip- ture which are still from time to time revived. In my former Essays I had adverted to some of the Biblico-geological theories of the late ^Ir Hugh MiUer ; whose posthumous work on the same subject has ob- tained celebrity with a considerable class of readers. But especially in consideration of the melancholy cir- cumstances attending his recent death, I had resolved to abstain from any remarks on the contents of that book. A few general observations before made^ would, I con- ceived, bear a sufficient application to the tenor of all such arguments, and render more particular allusions needless. But, from representations made since from several quarters, I feel.it incumbent on me, however re- luctantly, to add a few very brief observations on the tenor of his work alluded to, "The Testimony of the Eocks," Edinburgh, 1857. The author was, doubtless, in many respects a remark- able, but greatly overrated, man. Having raised himself from a humble station by the unaided force of a naturally strong and inquiring mind, he, with untiring energy, ^ Essay II. pp. 12, 55-65. 254 APPENDIX. worked out the details of geology, and even extended its boundaries by original researches. But the deep-rooted early prepossessions of a dark and narrow Judaical theo- logy fettered all philosophical ideas, and led him to a corresponding narrow estimate of the higher bearings of his science. The purely geological portion of the work is character- ised by the well-known acuteness, accuracy, and descrip- tive talent of the author. He is here in his pro^oer province ; the illustrations, both verbal and pictorial, are excellent. Eut there is a melancholy contrast in those portions, little connected with the former, wliich bear on theological views. Both the author, it must be fully admitted, and his predecessor in the same field, Dr Pye Smith, have been useful jnoneers amid popular prejudice. They were both in positions which, though of a different kind, enabled them to command a hearing from a numerous class whose prepossessions would have prevented their listening to more purely philosophical expositions. Guarding their statements by scriptural interpretations, however puerile, they at length enabled even the religious dogmatists to admit that the world was not formed in the momentary manner, or at the recent period, vulgarly believed, nor even in six literal days. But then those " days" were to be explained ; and among the various interpretations proposed, the author speaks with approbation of the hypo- thesis of Kurtz ^ (borrowed without acknowledgment by the author of The Genesis of the Earth and Man), to the ' Page 160. APPENDIX. 255 effect that Moses was favoured with a series of visions representing the stages of Creation in a kind of " drama:" while yet the author hestows unmeasured censure on those who regard the narrative as a myth or parable!^ But his own views are hut little less fanciful. After having abandoned the various visionary systems of catas- trophes and creations, the author returns to the idea of immensely long periods; and, following the division adopted by geologists, of palaeozoic, secondary, and ter- tiary formations (between which, after all, there is no real, physical discontinuity'^), by a wild effort of imagination he conceives these periods as intended to be described in the Mosaic " days" as the epochs of plants, reptiles, and mam- mals ! — when, nevertheless, in the earliest of these deposits which have remained unfused, animal life abounded ! From such very transparent disguises, it is but one step to the naked avowal of the truth, — if, indeed, they are really anything more than a tacit confession of it, — that nothing in geology hears the smallest resemblance to any part of the Mosaic cosmogony, torture the interpretation to whatever extent we may. On the other parts of the author's remarks it is need- less to dwell in detail. He refers to my writings;^ but, in reference to Natural Theology, a little more examina- tion of them might, possibly, have helped to better views of the great argument of universal order which he, with some confusion of thought, disparages* as being upheld by some " as itself a final cause !" 1 Page 381. 2 See Unity of Worlds, Essay III. § 1 p. 361, 2d edition. 3 Page 380. * Page 207. 256 APPENDIX. He devotes (p. 267) upwards of eighty pages to the attempt to prove that, by the magnificent imagery of a miraculous universal deluge, Moses really meant to describe a petty natural local inundation in some part of Central Asia. At the same time, he expatiates on the large collec- tion which he exhibits of early traditions, or myths of all nations, descriptive of a deluge, — which some speculators regard as rather suggestive of the derivation of the Mosaic narrative from a common origin ; while to the existing popular helief an inspired teacher might give a religious turn and application, as in the case of the cos- mogony, and, indeed, of all or any previously existing ideas on physical and extraneous subjects. Without dwelling on these or the like arguments, it will suffice here to add, that on the whole, in these speculations of Mr H. Miller, the very last possible re- sources of Eiblical interpretation must be regarded as thoroughly exhausted. They are the very ghost of de- funct Biblical geology : and even those who cannot per- ceive the essential and inherent irrationality of all idea of mixing up the deductions of science with the language of Scripture, must now admit that all such attempts haue practically failed j and they must henceforth be content to allow geology uninterruptedly to extend the domain of natural order, through the infinity of past time, while they may learn that the cosmogony of the Mosaic laiv, with that dispensation of which it is a part, has passed away and been superseded : the one, by an inductive philosophy ; the other, by a spiritual religion. 1857. INDEX. Adaptation, 79, 102, 106, 122, 145, 197, 217. Advent, second, 204. Ethiopian Church, 160, 226. Allegorical interpretation of Scripture, 28. Andrewes, Bishop, 242. Anthropomorphism, 108. Antinomianism, 50, 52. Apostles' teaching, 125, 196. Apostolic Constitutions, 159, 160. Aquinas, Thomas, 163. Arnold, Dr., 212, 245. Athanasius, 157, 162. Atonement, 203. Augsburg Confession, 229. Augustine, 162, 238. B Baptism, 145, 202. Barnabas, Epistle of, 158. Barrow, Dr, 168, 244. Bellarmine, 164. Beza, 167, 235, 236. Bible. See Scripture. Bibliolatry, 32, 183. Bound, Dr, 171. Bramhall, Archbp., 241. Brerewood, 160. Bucer, 167, 237. Buckle on Civilisation, 9. Burton, Dr, 206. Butler, Bp., 63. Calvin protests against Ju- daism, 164, 167, 234, 250. Calvinism, 43-53, 74. Canons, 240. Catechism of Trent, 164. of Church of England, 169, 192. Heidelberg, 231. Eacovian, 232. French Protestant, 233. Ceremonial and moral law, 104. Change in the day of the Sab- bath imagined, 171, 242. Charron, de la Sagesse, &c., 19. Chemnitz, 167, 237. Christ's ministry under the Law, 117, 193 ; was only to Israel, 123 ; his communi- cation to woman of Samaria, 123 ; his priesthood, 203 ; his second coming, 204. Christian ministry, 147, 151. Christianity, misconceptions of, 16, 20, 68, 81 ; attacked throuoh Judaism, 18 ; its in- dependence, 5, 81, 130, 147, 178. Chrysostom, 163. Chubb, 18. Circumcision, 99, 145, 227. Clemens Alexandrinus, 92, 159. Clifford, A. B., 246. Coleridge, S. T., on inspiration 212, 213. K 258 INDEX. Collections for poor, 148. Condemnation and justifica- tion, 136. Constantino's decree, 160, 229, 236. Coquerel, Athanase, 233. Cosmogony, Hebrew, 56, 59, 88, 98, 254. Covenants, 93, 108, 139. Coverdale, 38. Cranmer, Abp., 241. Creation, 56, 59, 88, 98, 254. Cox, R, 235, 236, 246. Decalogue, 103, 121, 165, 169, 192, 243. Deists, 18, 246. Deluge, 256. Development of religion, 19, 20, 217. Dio Cassius, 91. Dionysius of Corinth, 158. Dispensations to be distin- guished in Scripture, 5, 39, 68, 77, 85, 197, 217. Divorce, 107, 119. Domville, Sir W., 246. Dort, Synod of, 168. E English Church, doctrines of, 13, 169, 172, 201, 211, 219, 238. Eeformers, 168, 237-241. Divines, 173, 241-245. Eusebius, 90, 160, 229. Expediency and utility ap- pealed to, 175, 181, 189, 244, 245. F Fairbairn, Dr P., 236. Fanaticism and superstition, 184. Fasting, 119, 149, 227. Fathers of the Church, 6, 90, 102, 107, 156, 162, 223. Festivals, Jewish, 108, 244. , Romish, &c., 164, 185, 239. Formalism, 185, 221. Formularies of the Church of England, 13, 169, 172, 201, 211, 240. Fulton, H., 246. Future state, 110, 247. G Gaussen, Dr, on inspiration, 33. Gentile converts, 123, 127, 134, 155, 162, 173, 184, 197, 219, 231. Geological evidence, 12, 55, 88, 252. Gibbon, 53. Gnosticism, 205. Gregory Nyssen, 158. Grotius, 168. H Hare, Archdeacon, 17. Hebraisms, 142, 145, 201, 206. Heidelberg Catechism, 231. Helvetian Confessions, 233, 237. Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury, 247. Hessey, Dr, 236. Heylin, Dr, 168, 237, 247. Hilary, 159. Homilies, 240. Homilist quoted by Heylin, 163. Hooker, 242. Human sacrifices, 114, note. Ignatius, 156, note. Inspiration, 30, 42, 65, 200, 208. INDEX. 259 Interpretation of Scripture, 27, 66, 162, 196, 204. John the Baptist, 113. Josephus, 107. Judaising, 20, 131, 134, 154, 163, 184, 193, 225, 226, 230. Judgments, national, 110, 152. Justification, 136. Justin Martyr, 90, 102, 107, 156, 162, 225. K Kurtz, 254. Laodicean Council, 159. Law of Moses, Genesis an in- troduction to, 97 ; its object, 99 ; abrogation, 141, 230, 233, 234, 335. Legality, theory of, 165. Liberty, Christian, 132, 178. Limborch, 168. Literalism, 29, 35. Lord's Day, 148, 149, 156, 161, 190, 229, 230, 235, 238, 249. Luther protests against Ju- daism, 167. M Mackay, R W., 98, 202. Macnaught, Rev. J., on inspira- tion, 214. Marriage, 107, 119. Miller, Mr Hugh, 252. Milton, 168. Moral law, 104, 111, 138, 165, 176, 178, 234, 251. N National blessings and judg- ments, 110, 152. Nature and Grace, 129. Necessary Erudition, 168, 238. Nestorians, 227. Nicholson, Bp., 241. Old Testament appealed to, 40, 41, 70, 139, 143, 154, 175, 183, 197, 217 ; critical view of, 97 ; use of, 193. Paley, 245. Parables, 66. Patriarchal religion, 87. Paul, St, 126, 128, 199. Peter, St, 200. Pharisees, 120. Physical science, its influence on theology, 11, 54, 88, 252. Plato, 182. Platonisms in New Testament, 205. Pliny, 156, note. Polygamy, 107, 119. Prideaux, Dr John, 243. Primeval Sabbath, 88, 249, 251. precepts not obligatory as such, 94. Progress, Christian, 219. Promise, the, 96, 140. 'Prox^hecies, 112. Proselytism, 111, 126. Protestant theology, 7, 73. See Eeformers. Providential government of the world, 197. Puritanical Sabbatism, 171, 173, 204, 240, 243. Puritanism, 7, 12, 21, 32, 183, 185, 197. 260 INDEX. K Eabbis, 102, 141, 182. Eacovian Catechism, 232. Eecreations, 244. Eeformation, the, 28. Eeformers protest against Ju- daism, 6, 167, 229-242, 249, 251. Eelations of Old and New Tes- tament, 18, 40, 177, 193, 217. Eobinson, Dr, 243. Eomanism, 164, 185, 190, 204, 236. Sabbath, supposed primeval, 88, 249, 251 ; Judaical, 99, 120, 252 ; metaphorical, 112, 170,172, 232, 239; no Gen- tile Sabbath, 131, 135, 156, 231, 251. S abbatical year, 101. Sabbatism, 21, 131, 159, 165, 171, 181, 220. Sacrifice, 94, 114, 147, 202 ; of Christ, 203. Schoolmen Judaise, 163. Science and theology, 11, 54, 88, 252. Scripture, as viewed under dif- ferent systems, 27, 72. Second coming of Christ, 204. Selden, 54. Semler, 196. Seneca, 182. Seven, the number, 92, Smith, Dr Pye, 254. Spirit, gift of the, 208. Sunday. See Lord's day. Superstition, 184, 190. Swiss Confessions, 234, 237. Synagogue, 151. Taylor, Jeremy, 242. Temporal sanctions, 105, 109, 152. Tertullian, 90, 159. Time and Faith, 98, 160. Transubstantiation, 204. Tyndal, 167, 238. Types, 144, 202. Verbal inspiration, 33, 211. Vitringa, de Synagoga, 101, 148, 151. W Warburton, Bp., 50, 161. Waterland, Dr., 202. Weeks, division of time into, 90, note. Westminster Assembly, 171, 234. Whately, Archbishop, 74, 245. White, Bp., 241. Wilson, T., 210. Witchcraft, Wesley on, 55. Worship, public, of early Chris- tians, 149 ; corruptions of, 158, 220. PKINTEI> BY NEILL AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH. DATE DUE nn. ifiifJ* ^^^ »^- t^ CAYLOUD rniNT*oiNy.».A. 1 1012 01002 2368 ■^-X-,' V '^iii <; ', . ■■;< Afvv/j-cvj'fit^-r'/uv^'' »■-