THE LAW OF TEN COMMANDMENTS.
By A. S. H.
We present the following brief extract from Farrar’s Life of Christ, as worthy of the consideration of Christian people of all denominations. In speaking of Christ’s sermon on the mount, as contrasted with the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, he says:— “And yet the new commandments of the Mount of Beatitudes were not meant to abrogate, but rather to complete, the law which was spoken to them of old from Sinai. That law was founded on the eternal distinction of right and wrong—distinctions strong and irremovable as the granite bases of the world. Easier would it be to sweep away the heaven and the earth than to destroy the least letter, one yod—or the least point of a letter, one projecting horn—of that code which contains the very principles of all moral life. Jesus warned them that he came, not to abolish that law, but to obey and to fulfill; while at the same time he taught that this obedience had nothing to do with the Levitical scrupulosity of a superstitious adherence to the letter, but was rather a surrender of the heart and will to the innermost meaning and spirit which the commands involved. He fulfilled the old law by perfectly keeping it, and by imparting a power to keep it to all who believe in him, even though he made its cogency so far more universal and profound.” A. S. H.