THE MORAL AND CEREMONIAL LAWS.
At Mount Sinai, God proclaimed the moral law, speaking it with his own voice and writing it with his own finger. By his directions, the two tables on which the law was written were placed in the ark of the covenant, which was made on purpose to receive it. Ex. 25:10-22; Deut. 10:1-5. And the ark, containing the law of God, was placed in the second apartment of the earthly sanctuary—the most holy place. Ex. 14; Heb. 9. The top of the ark was called the mercy-seat, because that man who had broken the law contained in the ark beneath the mercy-seat could find pardon by the sprinkling of the blood of atonement upon this place. The whole system of ceremonial law was ordained to enable man to approach again to this broken law, and to typify the restitution of the pardon to their inheritance, and the destruction of the impenitent. The law within the ark was that which demanded an atonement; the ceremonial law which ordained the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices for sin, was that which taught men how the atonement could be made. The broken law was beneath the mercy-seat; the blood of sin-offering was sprinkled upon top, and its pardon was extended to the penitent sinner. There was actual sin, and hence a real law which man had broken; but there was not a real atonement, and hence the need of the great antitype of the Levitical sacrifices. The real atonement, when it is made, must relate to the law respecting which an atonement had been shadowed forth. In other words, the shadowy atonement related to that law which was shut up in the ark, indicating that a real atonement was demanded by the law. It is necessary that the law which demands atonement, in order that its transgressor may be spared, should itself be perfect, else the fault would in part, at least, rest on the Lawgiver, and not wholly with the sinner. Hence the atonement, when made, does not take away the broken law; for that is perfect, but is expressly designed to take away the guilt of the transgressor. In the New Testament we find the great antitype of all the offerings and sacrifices—the real atonement—as contrasted with the Levitical one. The death of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the great sacrifice for sin, was the antitype of all the Levitical sacrifices. The priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenly sanctuary is the great antitype of the Levitical priesthood. Heb. 8. The heavenly sanctuary itself is the great original after which the earthly one was patterned. Heb. 9:23; Ex. 25:6, 9. And the ark of God's testament in the temple in Heaven, Rev. 11:19, contains the great original of this law. And thus we see under the new dispensation a real atonement, instead of the shadowy one; a High Priest who needs not to offer for himself; a sacrifice which can avail before God; and that law, which was broken by man, magnified and made honorable at the same time that God pardons the penitent sinner. We shall find the New Testament to abound with reference to the essential difference between these two codes, and that the distinction in the New Testament is made as clear and obvious as it is made by the facts already noticed in the Old Testament. Thus the one code is termed "the law of a carnal commandment," Heb. 7:16; and the other, it is affirmed, "We know that the law is spiritual." Rom. 7:14. The one code is termed "the handwriting of ordinances," which was "contrary to us," and which was nailed to the cross and taken out of the way, Col. 2:14; the other code is "the royal law," which James affirms that it is a sin to transgress. Chap. 2:8-12. The first is a code of which "there was made of necessity a change," Heb. 7:12; the second is that law of which Christ says, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:18. The one law was a "shadow of good things to come," Heb. 10:1, and was only imposed "until the time of reformation," Heb. 9:10; but the other was a moral code, of which it is said by John, "Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. The one is a yoke not able to be borne, Acts 15:10; the other is that "law of liberty" by which we shall be judged. James 2:8-12. The one is that law which Christ abolished in his flesh, Eph. 2:15; the other is that law which he did not come to destroy. Matt. 5:17. The one is that law which he took out of the way at his death, Col. 2:14; the other is that law which he came to magnify and make honorable. Isa. 42:21. The one was a law which was disannulled "for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof," Heb. 7:18; the other is a law respecting which he inquires, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we established the law." Rom. 3:31. The one is that law which was the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, Eph. 2:14; the other is that law, the work of which even the Gentiles are said to have written in their hearts, Rom. 2:12-15, and to which all mankind are amenable. Rom. 3:19. The one is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, Eph. 2:15; the other law is the commandments of God, which it is the whole duty of man to keep, Eccl. 12:13, which are brought to view by the third angel, Rev. 14:12, which the remnant of the seed of the woman were keeping when the dragon made war upon them, Rev. 12:17, and which will insure, to those who observe them, access to the tree of life. Rev. 22:14. Surely, these two codes should not be confounded. The one was magnified, made honorable, established, and is holy, just, spiritual, good, royal; the other was carnal, shadowy, burdensome, and was abolished, broken down, taken out of the way, nailed to the cross, changed, and disannulled, on account of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. Those who rightly divide the word of truth will never confound these essentially different codes, nor shall they apply to God's royal law the language employed respecting the handwriting of ordinances. That the ten commandments are a perfect code of themselves, appears from several facts: 1. God spake them with his own voice, and it is said, "He added no more," Deut. 5:22, as evincing that he had given a complete code. 2. He wrote them alone on two tables with his own finger, another incidental proof that this was a complete moral code. 3. He caused these alone to be placed under the mercy-seat, an evident proof that this was the code that made an atonement necessary. 4. He expressly calls what he thus wrote on the tables of stone, a law and commandments. Ex. 24:12. The precepts of this law are variously interspersed through the books of Moses, and mingled with the precepts of the ceremonial law. And the sum of the first table is given in Deut. 6:5; and that of the second, in Lev. 19:18; but there is only one place in which the moral law is drawn out in particulars, and given by itself with no ceremonial law mixed with it, that is in the ten commandments. The four Gospels were written for a totally different end from that of all other biographies, and needed a totally different style, therefore, from that of other narratives—a style specially adapted to that end. Hence, the words to be recorded must be selected by the biographer by the over-ruling intellect which held that end in view, that the record might be made with infallible accuracy. Therefore, men of the literati, who had definite ideals of their own floating in the mind, could not draw the character perfectly. But peasants, in the main unlettered, and who had no pattern to imitate in the terrestrial lineage of man, were the only proper masters for the work. And, mind you, they were Jews, and yet they drew him not for the Jews alone, but for all nations—they lived in a remote age, and yet his portraiture stands for all time. Criticism has inspected their majestic figure for 1800 years, with the keenest eye and under most searching lights, but without detecting the slightest blemish. The telescope has detected spots in the sun at high-noon, but the acutest inspection has never found one spot upon the face of God's Anointed. Fishermen have done what no other men ever did. They have drawn a living man of their own acquaintance, all that the living God can be, the one perfect on earth as the other is perfect in Heaven. They have made parchment talk as angel and man never could, and given us a mediator between God and man, as majestic as the Jehovah on whom he lays his divine hand, and as lowly as a little child who takes our human hand in his.