ARGUMENT FROM THE DECALOGUE.
We commenced this essay with the design of showing that the Sabbath is
a necessary part of the immutable law of God--that law which is "holy,
and just, and good;" which is "spiritual;" to which nothing is opposed
but that which is carnal. Hitherto, we have rested none of our proofs
upon the fact, that it was incorporated in the Decalogue; that it is
one of the TEN WORDS "which God spake in the Mount, out of the midst
of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great
voice; and he added no more." Deut. v. 22. For to assume that the
Decalogue, as such, is the moral law, and that the Sabbath, because it
makes a part of it, is therefore everlastingly binding, may not be
satisfactory to some of our readers.
That the Decalogue, as such, held a peculiar aspect towards the Jews,
different from that which it holds towards any others, is freely
admitted. It made a part of their civil code; it was incorporated with
their political laws, and, therefore, temporal penalties were annexed,
which were inflicted by the civil magistrate. Offences against the
most of its precepts were punishable by death, Sabbath-breaking not
excepted. Hence some contend that these precepts ought not to be
called, by way of eminence, "_the_ Moral Law;" that the fact of their
having been graven upon stone, and given under circumstances of
greater pomp and glory than the other precepts of the Old Testament,
constitutes no solid argument for their being so called. The greater
glory of their promulgation from the Mount of God, is supposed to be
sufficiently accounted for, by considering them as the _Constitution_,
or _Grand Platform_, upon which was based the whole of that system
which was peculiar to the Jews. The Decalogue, therefore, is supposed
to bear about the same relation to the other precepts spoken by Moses,
as _constitution_ bears to _statute law_. This view is thought to be
favored by those passages which call the stone tables "the tables of
the Covenant." Heb. ix. 4. Hence, as they say, the Covenant being
abrogated, the tables of the Covenant are set aside also; on the same
principle that when a political government is dissolved the
constitution is of no farther use.
Upon this seemingly plausible argument we offer the following remarks:
1. Admitting that the Decalogue is the grand constitution of the
Jewish polity, and that it has an excellence over the other precepts
spoken by Moses, precisely like that of constitution over statute law;
still we think it could not, in the nature of things, be any thing
less than a code of morals. There was a necessity of the strongest
kind, that it should embody all the essential elements of the moral
law. For, as obedience to statute law must proceed from constitutional
principles, so the obedience of the Israelites to the whole system of
Moses must proceed upon moral footing. Any other obedience than
this--any obedience which is of an inferior kind, God does not
require, and cannot, consistently with his holy nature. No matter what
is the nature of the precepts He gives, obedience to them must be upon
moral principle. A love for the great principles of righteousness must
regulate it all; for this only is the pledge that they will rigidly,
and without deviation, conform to any system that He enjoins upon
them. Therefore, the Moral Law, or rather the essential elements of
it, go before all the other laws He gave to the children of Israel. If
they will keep this law, which they promised to do, Exod. xix. 8, it
is a pledge that they will keep all the rest.
2. Though the covenant character of the Decalogue is abolished, by
reason of the Sinaitic Covenant being entirely abrogated, the moral
character of it remains untouched, and just the same as it was before
a covenant was based upon it. Hence, though we are under no covenant
obligation to its precepts, we are under a moral obligation to them.
The Jews were under a covenant obligation to the Decalogue, brought
upon them by the transaction at Sinai. But Jews and Gentiles were
alike under moral obligation to its precepts, antecedently to the
covenant made at Sinai. Let men learn to distinguish between covenant
obligation and moral obligation, and they will have no difficulty on
this point.[3]
3. If the covenant character of the Decalogue is abolished, and all
covenant obligation destroyed along with it, of course those temporal
penalties which were annexed to its precepts are also abolished. But
the moral penalty, the death of the soul, remains to be inflicted upon
every impenitent transgressor. Hence the Sabbath-breaker, as well as
the idolator, the profane swearer, and the adulterer, though not
obnoxious to death, as the despiser of Moses' law, is yet obnoxious to
the curse of God, and must inherit it by being punished with
everlasting destruction from His presence, and from the glory of His
power.
What is it then? Not only do the ten commandments possess a moral
character, independent of their inscription upon the stone tablets, as
the grand constitutional platform of the Jewish Theocracy; but they
possess this moral character BECAUSE they compose this constitution.
For the constitution, as we have already proved, could not, in the
nature of things, be any thing else than a summary of moral precepts.
Therefore, as the Sabbath is one of these precepts, it is a part of
the moral law, and remains of everlasting force and obligation.
In our defense of the ten commandments, we do _not_ "contradistinguish
them from the rest by calling the former exclusively _the_ moral law,
and all the other divine instructions of the Jews, through Moses,
_the_ ceremonial law." We not only admit, but strongly insist, that
moral duties are inculcated elsewhere besides in the Decalogue. "When
the Jews are told, Exod. xxii. 22, _Ye shall not afflict any widow or
fatherless child_, we need no scholastic definitions to enable us to
recognize this as a part of the moral code."[4] But we _do_ suppose
that the Decalogue comprises the _elementary principles_ of the moral
law. We suppose, that whatever moral duty is inculcated elsewhere, it
is deducible from one or other of the ten commandments. We can hardly
imagine a single condition in which it is possible for man to be
placed in this life, or a relation that he sustains, which is not
cognizable by this code.
Our doctrine receives strength from the prominence given to the
Decalogue in the New Testament. No small degree of honor is put upon
it by the Savior, in his Sermon on the Mount, an important part of
that celebrated discourse being occupied with expositions of its
precepts, and applications of them to the conduct of men, as the
subjects of God's moral government. Again, when the young man came to
Christ, and asked, "What good thing shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life," he was told to keep the commandments. That by these
were meant the precepts of the Decalogue, is evident from the Savior's
immediately beginning to quote those precepts. Matt. xix. 16-19. The
fact that they were enjoined with reference to _eternal_ life, proves
conclusively that their bearing was not merely upon the conduct of men
as citizens of the Jewish commonwealth, but upon their conduct as
moral and accountable creatures.[5] Again, when the Apostle inculcates
those duties which are the mark of love to our neighbor, he quotes the
precepts of the second table of the Decalogue. Rom. xiii. 9. It is
evident, also, that Paul refers particularly to the Decalogue as the
law which convinced him of sin. Rom. vii. 7. For he cites the tenth
precept of it, as showing him that strong desire after things
forbidden is sin. This is the commandment which, being powerfully
applied to his heart, made sin to revive, and he died: ver. 9. Hence
he includes the Decalogue, when he speaks of that law which is
"spiritual, and holy, and just, and good:" vs. 12, 14; to which the
carnal mind, refusing subjection, is therefore enmity against God.
Rom. viii. 7. One more example. Paul writing, not to Jews, but to
converts from among the Gentiles, recognizes the usual arrangement of
the Decalogue, and its validity as a rule of duty under the Gospel,
when he says, concerning filial obedience, that it is the first
commandment which has a promise annexed to it. Eph. vi. 1, 2. In the
following verse he states what the promise is, presenting it as a
motive to obedience. This proves that no commandment had been changed
or dispossessed of its place.
In asserting the importance of the Decalogue, the reader will observe
that we do not particularly insist upon the manner and circumstances
of its promulgation. We dwell not upon the fact of its having been
written with God's own finger upon stone, while Mosaic institutions
were engrossed by Moses himself upon parchment. We dwell not upon the
thunderings, lightnings, thick clouds, the loud blast of the trumpet,
and the voice of Jehovah from the midst of the fire; all which
conspire to throw around the ten commandments a glory not belonging to
the ceremonial precepts. These things we pass, aware that men will
evade the argument from them, by the supposition that they prove
nothing more than that kind of superiority which the constitution of a
state has over statute law. We can hardly refrain, however, from
observing, as we pass, that as the ark was the throne of God, Exod.
xxv. 22, Num. vii. 89, xvii. 4, Ps. xcix. 1--it is difficult to
conceive how righteousness and judgment were the habitation of his
throne, Ps xcvii. 2, if the "ten words" which were there deposited
were not designed to be an expression of His perfections, and the
eternal rule of right to His creatures.
But we think we have placed the morality of the Decalogue upon grounds
that cannot be successfully disputed. Having thus secured it, we
advert to the foregoing circumstances, not as direct proof of the
truth of our argument, but as so much collateral evidence. There is
one circumstance, however, which ought not to be passed over lightly.
The tables of stone were deposited in the ark, and covered over by the
mercy seat. On the great day of atonement, when the High Priest
entered into the Most Holy, he sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice
upon this mercy seat, and upon the floor before it, thus making an
atonement for the sins of the people. But did this blood in reality
atone for the sins of the people against that law which was concealed
under the mercy seat? No. Not only was it no atonement for moral
offences, Heb. x. 4, but it was not even an atonement for their
political violation of this code. For such violation, in regard to
most of its precepts, was a capital crime, and could not be expiated
under that covenant. The whole process, therefore, was typical or
prefigurative of the grand atonement made for the sins of the world by
Jesus Christ, the High-Priest of our profession. Heb. iii. 1. The
argument derived from it in favor of the Decalogue is, that what the
law by its offerings could not do, God, sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.
Rom. viii. 3. For Christ enters into the Most Holy, even unto Heaven
itself, with his own blood, and makes a real atonement for sins. In
other words, the legal sacrifices could not reach to sins against the
Decalogue, but Christ's sacrifice did, and therefore the superiority
of the gospel over the law is fully established. But the whole
argument for the superiority of the Christian sacrifice becomes null
and void, on the supposition that the atonement had reference to any
other law than the Decalogue.
Now if the Decalogue, as a whole, has a claim to be called a summary
of the moral law, the Sabbath derives in this way no small degree of
authority, For it is a very important part of the Ten Words, standing
right in the very heart of them, and bound up along with them; so
that, whatever dignity and excellence the rest have, this has also. We
are, therefore, driven to the conclusion, that when the Savior says,
"One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law," the
Sabbath is alluded to as much as any other precept. That when the
Apostle teaches, the law is not made void through faith, Rom. iii. 31,
he means, among other things, that the Sabbath is not made void by the
gospel, but rather established. That when he says "the law is
spiritual," Rom. vii. 14, he means that the Sabbath law, as well as
all other precepts, is spiritual; and that none reject it but those
who are "carnal, sold under sin."
But we shall hear it objected, that the fourth commandment is not
transferred to the New Testament, and re-enacted there, while all the
other commandments are. This, however, is taking a wrong view of the
case, altogether. The truth is, that no moral precept is re-enacted in
the New Testament. What necessity is there for re-enacting laws which
never expired? The very notion of re-enacting implies their previous
expiration. Wherefore, if those precepts of the moral law which we
find in the New Testament are there for no other reason than because
they are re-enacted, it follows that they must have expired with the
Old Covenant. If they expired with it, they were peculiar to it, and
must have had their origin in it. If they were peculiar to it, and
originated in it, then all obligation to obey them was merely covenant
obligation, while moral or natural obligation is supposed to have had
no existence. But this conclusion is an absurdity, and if carried out
still farther, leads to multiplied absurdities.
Whatever laws are enacted in the New Testament, are altogether new and
peculiar to that covenant of which Jesus is the mediator. They
emanated from him in his character of Head of the Church. Baptism is
one of them. It is, however, a new institution, peculiar to the New
Covenant, and was not brought over from the old. The Lord's Supper is
another, yet it is a new Covenant ordinance entirely, and therefore,
like baptism, is to be observed only by believers. But as for the
_re-enacting_ of laws, it is a thing altogether unknown in the New
Covenant, and inconsistent with its nature.
The notion of the necessity of re-enacting the Sabbath in the New
Testament, arises altogether from supposing that it is a covenant
institution or church ordinance. But if it is a church ordinance, it
can be binding upon none but believers; on the same principle that the
ordinances of the Mosaic church were binding upon none but Jews. Is
any one prepared to take this ground? We think not. Those who
acknowledge the necessity of any Sabbath whatever, consider the
observance of it a duty devolving upon men irrespective of their
connection with the church, binding them in the isolated and
individual capacity, even though church privileges were altogether out
of the question. Were an individual abiding in some lone cavern of the
Rocky Mountains, or roaming the uninhabited and trackless wastes of
the earth, far, far from scenes of busy life, the law of God still
binds him "to remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy."
The truth is, the Sabbath is not properly an ordinance of either of
the covenants. It originated in neither of them, but was in existence
long before any covenant was revealed to man. Hence, after the Old
Covenant was abrogated, it remained just what it was before. So that
if, in the history of the New Covenant, or what is commonly called the
New Testament, there was not one word of allusion to the Sabbath in
particular, it would not affect the argument in the least.[6]
But is it true, that the Sabbath is not sanctioned by the New
Testament? What means our Savior's course in regulating the manner of
its observance, in vindicating it from Pharisaic austerities,
determining what is lawful to be done, &c., Matt. xii. 1-13. It can
mean nothing else than sanctioning it, as a precept of the moral law,
as we have already shown in our remarks upon this text, p. 10. But
even if this express sanction were wholly wanting, inasmuch as it is a
part of the moral law, as we have clearly proved, it stands firm,
unaltered, and unalterable, receiving, from the very nature of the
case, all the sanction of the New Covenant. It is impossible for the
New Covenant to affect it in any other way than to strengthen and
uphold it.