GOD'S LAW IN HUMAN SOCIETY.
By A. E. Dunning
Disraeli, pleading for his race, once wrote, "The life and property of England are protected by the laws of Sinai." The sentence suggests more truth than its words can convey. The decalogue is so thoroughly woven into the texture of our language, thought, and life, that we cannot conceive of government or society without it. No government can perfectly enforce its commands, for no human court can try men's intentions. Yet these tables of granite are the foundation of all our statutes, and from them, as the source, spring all our bulky records of law and precedent. By them, at the last day, as the statute-book of the righteous Judge who looks on the heart, every man will receive according to his deeds. The first table, as it is called, defines our duty toward God; the second, our duties toward men. But every obligation of man to men is a duty toward God, and no one can perfectly serve men who does not fulfill every duty to God. The two tables are one; "the second is like unto" the first. So it is an unimportant question whether the fifth commandment belongs to the second table or the first. It has been aptly compared to a door in the stone dwellings still found in the land of Bashan, hewn out of the solid rock, where door, partition, and hinge are a single stone, opening from one apartment to another. It belongs to both, and both are one. On the one hand, no one can be true to his heavenly Father who does not obey and love father and mother, since they together represent God to the child. Nor can anyone be a good citizen who is not first an obedient son or daughter. On the other hand, the unspoken command to parents is not less plain. If they stand in the place of God to their children, interpreting his fatherly relation to them, it is their duty to treat their children so as to deserve "honor." Thus the ten commandments declare:— 1. The right of God to our supreme love, worship, and service. 2. The right of the home to faithful obedience of children to their parents; to wisdom and love of parents in training their children. 3. The sacredness of human life. It is the breath, or spirit, of God quickening the image or representation of himself which he has created. To injure it wantonly is to profane him who created it. This law forbids murder, suicide, cruel treatment, and unrighteous anger towards others. Security of person is the first condition of society. This shows the limitations of the law. Man's life is precious because of what man is. So the law of Moses made death the penalty of certain crimes. So our statutes provide for taking the lives of those who wantonly destroy human life. So515we have the right to self-protection, even if it requires the taking of life. Under the divine law neither rights nor duties conflict. But these limits must be jealously guarded. It is the person made in God's image who is sacred. To destroy it, whether it is just begun and yet unborn, or in its full maturity, is an awful crime. To destroy life suddenly or gradually, by act or intention, is to make one's self the enemy of man, and to call down the vengeance of God. The Spirit of obedience to the sixth commandment is true reverence for man. 4. The sacredness of marriage. It was the divine intention that one man and one woman should live together throughout life (Matt. 19:4-6). This intention, after the first pair fell into sin, could not be realized except by degrees. Therefore God permitted men to live by rules which were not the final declaration of his will, but which were suited to the condition of men at that time (Matt. 19:7, 8). But there is a divine idea to be realized in marriage, which is necessary to the exaltation of human society into the kingdom of God; as there is a divine idea in the relation between parents and children, and in the unfolding of every human life. Therefore marriage is sacred. To violate its sanctity is to strike at the root of all that is valuable in society. This law forbids the husband or the wife to give or allow to others the peculiar love and service which each owes to the other because of their marriage vows. By implication, also, it forbids to the unmarried as well as the married all irreverent treatment of one's own body, or indulgence in thoughts inconsistent with pure married life. As disobedience to this law is the grossest sin, so willing and constant harmony with it opens the way to the noblest, sweetest joys possible on earth. 5. The sacredness of property rights. The sanctity of person declared in the law of God extends to the things which belong to that person. The eighth commandment forbids us, except in the case of gifts, to take the property of another without giving him in return a fair equivalent. It includes in its prohibition every unjust advantage which men take of other men to get hold of their property, or withhold what is their due. It condemns gambling of every sort, giving or taking unfair prices for goods or service, withholding just taxes, and all misuse of trusts. The New Testament rendering of the eighth commandment is, "Owe no man anything, save to love one another." 6. The sacredness of reputation. The happiness and influence of each one depends largely on the general confidence of society in him. To rob one of any portion of it which is his due is to destroy wantonly his choicest possessions. The ninth commandment forbids every form of misrepresentation which will injure another; and, since there is hardly any form of falsehood which does not directly or indirectly harm others than ourselves, it forbids by implication all untruthfulness, whether by word or act or look. The New Testament interpretation of this commandment is, "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor; for we are members one of another." 7. The sacredness of the persons, property, or reputations of others must not be violated in our thoughts. The tenth commandment forbids all desires to possess that which we cannot attain without doing wrong to another. That is covetousness. All sin is trespass on the rights of God or men. Every wrong done to men dishonors God, in whose image and for whose glory they were made. Therefore the apostle says, "All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The unity of the law of God is plain to anyone who interprets it as based on the sacredness of God. Man is his creature; to invade his rights in any way, whether of person, of family, of property, or of reputation, is to strike at the sacredness of God. All sin begins in desire. So every desire cherished to wrong another is an act of enmity to God. As the whole law is fulfilled through a controlling spirit of love to men, so the whole law is broken by a single cherished wish to gain anything by wronging another. The announcement of the ten commandments by the voice of God was accompanied by the most impressive, awe-inspiring manifestations of the Divine Presence that we can conceive. In the bleak solitudes of Sinai the voice ceased amid thunderings and lightnings and the mighty sound of the trumpet from the smoking mountain. The people were so terrified that they recoiled and retreated from the place. Yet Moses assured them that God was not displaying his power to frighten them, but to test them, and to inspire that reverential fear of him which would hold them back from breaking his law. Such fear in the sense of God's presence is the strongest safeguard against temptation. God has given these commandments to men with the intention that men shall obey them, and not merely that they may be sorry that they do not keep them. Upon the disobedient he has pronounced awful penalties; to the obedient he has promised glorious rewards. The new covenant does not destroy the law, but promises help to keep it perfectly. When it is written on the hearts of men, that is, revealed in their instincts and affections, then will the image of God shine gloriously in them, and heaven will have begun on earth.—A. E. Dunning, D. D., in Congregationalist.