THE LAW AND THE GENTILES.
By J. H. Waggoner
In my article entitled, “The Law and the Gentiles,” it was my intention to use some extracts from Alexander Campbell’s “Christian System,” but I did not have the book with me when the article was published. The reasonableness of the following extracts will strike every reader. I copy from the fourth edition, Bosworth, Cincinnati, 1870. The subject is that of patriarchal worship, and how far it was affected by the Jewish dispensation. “Family worship was, then, the first social worship; and during the first ages of the world, for at least two thousand five hundred years, it was the only social worship, of divine authority. Though other institutions have been added, this has never been superseded. Having its foundation in the matrimonial compact, the most ancient of all religious and political institutions, and this being founded on nature itself, it never can be superseded. While the forms of this worship have always been adapted to the genius of the various revelations of God vouchsafed to mankind, it has continued through all the changes of six thousand years, and will continue till the day when men, like the angels of God, shall neither marry nor give in marriage.” “Family worship, so long as it continued the only social worship, underwent no material change; and this is the period which is properly called the patriarchal age of the world.” Having thus affirmed that the patriarchal system of worship is perpetual, because it was founded upon natural relations, he proceeds to show what were the peculiarities of this unrepealed system of worship. “The moral and religious institutions of the patriarchal or family worship, which continued from the fall of Adam to the covenant of circumcision, were the Sabbath, the service of the altar, oral instruction, prayer, praise, and benediction. With the addition of circumcision in the family of one single patriarch, for special purposes, these were the parts of that system which continued for two thousand five hundred years.” “The religious observance of weeks or Sabbaths in commemoration of creation, and prospective of an eternal rest, to arise out of the sacrificial and typical institution, was religiously observed to the giving of the law, or to the erection of the Jewish institution. Thus the law of the Sabbath commences with the words, Remember the Sabbath. The righteous always remembered the weeks, and regarded the conclusion of the week as holy to the Lord. Hence, even after the apostasy, which issued in the neglect of family worship, in consequence of the sons of God intermarrying with the daughters of men, and which brought a flood of water upon the world of the ungodly—we find Noah religiously counting his weeks even while incarcerated in the ark. In the wilderness of Sin, before the giving of the law, we also find the Jews observing the Sabbath. And to facilitate the observance of it God wrought three special miracles during the peregrinations of Israel. He gave two days’ portion of manna on the sixth day—none on the seventh—and preserved from putrefaction that portion laid up for the Sabbath.” After noting instances of worship of various persons mentioned in the book of Genesis, and in Job, he continues:— “From these gleanings from the book of Genesis, one may learn that the family worship institution, which was divinely instituted in the first age of the world, embraced the observance of the Sabbath, the service of the altar, oral instruction, prayer, intercession, thanksgiving, and benediction. It contemplated no other bond of union than the marriage covenant, and the relations springing out of it. Doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, were enforced in all its maxims, and in the example of those whom God honored and approved.” Mr. Campbell has surely been sufficiently cautious in his expression when he says one may learn this “from these gleanings from the book of Genesis,” for, as far as the Sabbath is concerned, the statement of Gen. 2:3 is definite and certain as to the revelation of the duty of its observance to the head of the human race. At the close of the week of creation God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. To sanctify is to set apart for observance, or to make known the duty to observe. The day could not be set apart for observance and man, who was to observe it, be left ignorant of the duty. An essential part of the act of setting it apart to be religiously observed was to inform man that it was so to be observed, and this information carried with it the force of explicit precept or law. This, and this only, meets the meaning of the word sanctified. All that may be learned from Genesis, either as to principles or to particular facts, justifies the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Campbell. Certainly all the families of the earth were amenable to God before the flood, and before the calling of Abraham. Both Noah and Abraham were called because they paid more regard to God’s revealed method of worship than did others. And the calling of Abraham, and laying special duties upon him, did not supersede the general duties to which he and all others were under obligation, nor release others from those duties. And thus Mr. Campbell continues on another page:— “In calling Abraham, and in making him the father of many nations, and the depositary of still more precious promises and revelations, God did not supersede the family worship. He only added to the stock of religious knowledge, strengthened the faith, and enlarged the hopes of that single family. The family institution continued without the slightest change, except in one particular specified in the covenant of circumcision, as respected the single family of Abraham, for four hundred and thirty years after the charter concerning his seed and that concerning the Messiah were secured to this renowned patriarch.” “The Jewish institution commenced and continued about one thousand five hundred years before the reign of Heaven began. It was not substituted for the family worship but added to it; affecting, however, the patriarchal institution in some respects, as far as concerned the single family of Abraham. The individual families of the Jews, as such, had still their family worship,—still the worship of God was heard in the dwellings of the righteous; and, like Joshua, every good Israelite said, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’” “In four hundred years the family of Abraham had, in the line of Isaac and Jacob, in fulfillment of the first promise, grown up into millions. Not less than two millions came up out of Egypt under the conduct of Moses. The Heavenly Father, in progressive development of his plan of blessing all nations, leaves all the world under the family worship institution, and erects the whole progeny of Abraham, that came up out of Egypt, into one great national institution.” This is the only rational view that can be taken of the facts gathered from the book of Genesis. It is only absurd to suppose that the whole world were sinners in the absence of law, as some now presume to teach; and that God chose the seed of Abraham and made known his law to them alone, leaving all the nations beside them without any rule of life and actually, therefore, without any accountability to God. And Mr. Campbell’s conclusion that all the nations or families of earth were left amenable to the original revelation of God’s will or law, is fully sustained by Paul in his letter to the Romans. And this leads, unavoidably, to the conclusion that all the nations of the earth were under obligation to keep the Sabbath. It is more than a mere conclusion, at least so far as Mr. Campbell’s statement is concerned; for he says directly that at the erection of the Jewish system all the families or nations outside of Abraham’s posterity were left under that system of worship which contained the Sabbath of the Lord, which system, as it grows out of natural relations, will continue till men, as angels, neither marry nor give in marriage. These natural relations were no more interfered with by the gospel than by the Jewish system. So far from it, the gospel was designed to restore and to bring man back to those natural and moral relations which he had disregarded. For sin consisted in disregarding these original relations. No one can take any other view unless he loses sight of the remedial nature of the gospel, which, indeed, is its real nature—its very essence. For if the gospel is not a remedy, what is it? We think the remarks of Mr. Campbell will commend themselves to every thoughtful, candid mind. J. H. WAGGONER.