Moral and Positive Law

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 8, 1885

Moral and Positive Law.

(Concluded.)

Is God as careful in regard to the positive law under the new dispensation as under the old? I answer most unhesitatingly, He is. Dr. Owen says: "All things concerning the church under the gospel are no less perfectly and completely ordered and ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ than they were by Moses under the law." Dr. Payne declares it to be "a reflection upon the infinite wisdom to say they (the New Testament laws) are obscure, but they may be explained away if left to the mercy of man to explain them."

Dr. Witherspoon: "It is a very dangerous thing for us to make a comparison between one duty and another; especially with view of dispensing with any of them, or altering their order and substituting one in another place."

The great Dr. Owen, from whom I have already quoted, in his "Communion with God," says: "Christ, marrying his church to himself, taking it to that relation, still expresseth the main of their chaste and choice affections to him to lie in their keeping his institutions and his worship according to his appointment. The breach of that he calls adultery everywhere, and whoredom; he is a jealous God, and gives himself that title, only in respect of his institutions, and the whole of the apostasy of the Christian church into false worship is called fornication (Rev. 17:5), and the church that leads others to false worship, the mother of harlots. On this account, those believers who really attend to communion with Jesus Christ, do labor to keep their hearts chaste to him in his ordinances, institutions, and worship. . . . They will receive nothing, practice nothing, own nothing but what is of his appointment. They know that from the foundation of the world he never did allow, nor never will, that in anything the will of the creatures should be the measure of his honor, or the principle of his worship, either as to matter or manner. That principle, that the church hath power to institute and appoint anything, or ceremony, belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or manner, beyond the orderly observance of such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars that have so long a season spread themselves over the Christian world; and it is a design of the great part of the Revelation (of John) to make this discovery."

These writers say further that no law derives its authority from the judgment (or the inclination) of those to whom it is given.

Dr. Waterland observes: "The law presumes that when a man has done an ill thing (or neglected his duty) he either knew it was evil, or ought to have known it. Ignorantia juris non excusat delictum—Ignorance of the law does not excuse the offense. Even though conscience be pleaded for the omission or corruption of a positive institute, he would not, they being judges, be exculpated." Heineccius says, "Conscience is not the rule, but it applies the rule to facts and cases which occur. He who follows an erroneous conscience sins on this very account that he follows it rather than the will of the legislator."

The morality of our conduct does not depend upon our understanding, for our knowing or being ignorant of a thing is not the reason why it is right or wrong, any more than the nature of an action does upon the will; because the willing of a bad action to a good end cannot render it innocent. Divine law is the rule of our conduct, and every departure from it is sinful. Let it be remembered that in the positive department of Christianity there are no prohibitions; the divine command or inspired example is given, and all that is not conformable thereto is disorderly—prohibited; it is an act of will worship. In my judgment the following scriptures prove the propositions laid down.

In his sermon on the mount, Christ says: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven." Dr. Wayland and others say that "least" in this passage means farthest from the kingdom of Heaven. Again he says, "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Again he said, "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their . . . lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Again, "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Again, "If a man love me he will keep my words." We gather from these scriptures the necessity of obedience.

The two positive institutions of the New Testament are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both are commanded, and both are to be scrupulously observed according to the law instituting them. In every case where there was a departure from the law, the violators of it were properly instructed, and the ordinances were properly administered.

Paul found twelve Ephesians who had been improperly immersed. He did not say, Brethren, your intentions were good, you meant to do right, and according to your conscience you did do right, and as you are satisfied, why, your baptism is as valid as any administered in Jerusalem under our Lord's eye. No; Paul, carrying out the idea that to "obey was better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams," said: You are not baptized properly, and even though you have a faith, which I do not question, you ought to be baptized, and the twelve were baptized. "The free spirit," "an enlarged catholicity," and a hundred other euphuisms under which disobedience to divine law is hid in these times, did not prevent Paul from displacing the spurious by a genuine baptism.

The same apostle found the Corinthian church in error with regard to the observance of the Lord's Supper. They, acting according to the prompting of this "free spirit," this "enlarged catholicity" about which we hear so much now, had entirely set aside the Lord's Supper by a feast of their own. He rebuked them severely, and in restating the law under which the supper was originally instituted, he gives the sole object of the ordinance—the remembrance of Christ, and the expression of the belief that he will come again.

We see too in the bodily afflictions sent upon these Corinthians because of their prostitution of this ordinance, a manifestation of that jealous spirit which induced the Lord to destroy Nadab and Abihu and Uzzah and other violators of the Mosaic law. Paul said to the Corinthian brethren, For this cause (your sinfulness with respect to this supper) many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep.

Will not every true lover of Christ earnestly labor to know and do the will of Christ? We are not to do everything that Christ did. He does not demand that of us. We are not to be circumcised, or to wear such garments as he wore, or to recline at our meals. But what he has commanded us to do, we fail to do at our peril. As, for instance, in baptism, it becometh us, as him, to fulfil all righteousness, or, as John Wesley says, so beautifully, "Let our Lord's submitting to baptism teach us holy exactness in the observance of those institutions which owe their obligations merely to a divine command. Surely thus it becometh all his followers to fulfil all righteousness."

Christ's laws cannot without guilt be changed by adding to or subtracting from. This, however, has been done. The Catholic Church claims a right to do this. Archbishop Kendrick claims for her "the right to regulate at her just discretion whatever regards the administration of the sacraments." John Calvin claims that the church has a right to have rites dissimilar from the scriptural ones. Hear the Right Rev. the Catholic Bishop of Strasburg in a letter addressed to the Protestant clergy. He is showing up the inconsistency of Protestants in declaring the Bible to be their only rule of faith and practice. He says: "It would be all up with your baptism unless you establish it by tradition and the Roman Catholic Church."

My brethren, there is no limit to one's departure from truth and scriptures when once we set aside the positive instructions of Christ, making void the commandments of God, by traditions of men.

Let us adopt Martin Luther's rule, to which, however, he did not always adhere: "Whatever cannot be proven by Scripture, that I will not accept." Conformity to Christ's plan is as important for man as it was for Christ to prescribe it. If certain definite things are commanded, then these definite things are to be done. To change Christ's law, or to observe as ordinances that which he did not command—what is that but to dethrone Jesus, and to say that the age, culture, expediency, indifference, non-essentialism are all to be greater factors in our lives than simple obedience?

Let us set our faces as flints against all innovations. Let men cry bigotry, narrow-mindedness, illiberality, and charge us with all conceivable uncharitableness; no matter, for our Master we would bear even more than that. Let us agree with all, as far as agreement consists with fidelity to our Lord, and even where we differ let there be no unkind word, no hard feeling. We are brethren still. But let it cost what it will, be true to Jesus. Love Jesus more and it will be easier to obey him. Love always tries to be obedient. God grant that with honest hearts we may study to know and to do the will of him who gave himself a ransom for us. May we always observe all things which he has commanded. Then with David we may exclaim, "I esteem all thy commandments concerning all things to be right, and hate every false way." And at life's close the Master will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Amen.—C. C. Chaplin, in Christian Repository.