THE first of these articles was taken from the Christian Union of January 1, 1870, and is written by John M. Stearns, counselor at law. The second article, entitled, "Where did Moses Get that Law?" we find without any clue to the author's name. But these two articles are richly worth the thoughtful perusal of all candid people. We commend this little tract to the attention of all who wish to understand the character of God’s perfect law.
THE DECALOGUE AS A LEGAL SYSTEM.
What is usually termed the ten commandments, or the decalogue, is a complete system of law and government. But though written by the finger of God on the tables at Sinai, it was not for the first time enacted then and there. It had antecedents and authority from the creation, more or less distinctly noted in the sacred narrative.
Allegiance of man to God was the law of Eden; and paying homage to other beings than the Deity was rebuked and punished. The crime of Cain was a profane use of the forms of worship, while envy of his brother, and covetousness of his fortune, induced the crime of murder; and lying and falsehood were brought in to conceal this crime. At least four of the distinct commands of the decalogue were violated by Cain, and such violations directly or incidentally appear in the Sacred Record.
The institution of marriage was established by God in Eden, was respected by the antediluvian patriarchs, and the violation of this law is noted as a chief sin of the victims swept away by the flood. They were exceedingly wicked, and took wives of all that they chose, and God determined their destruction.
Noah and his wife were saved from the waters of the flood. And God said to him, "Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." His sons, also, respected the primitive institution of marriage. They had each one wife, as St. Peter tells us that Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house, wherein eight souls were saved from the flood.—Even the name and person of God carried with them the idea of his character and government. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him;" that is, he obeyed God in his conduct and life.
The right of property—as sacred to its possessor as the person by whose labor, industry, and care, it was accumulated and preserved—is recognized as early as the days of Cain and Abel. Abel’s offering was the firstling of his flock. If the rights of property were thus sacred, the commandment against theft had even then force and authority. Abraham, and Lot, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, accumulated estates.
Idolatry became a characteristic of the age of Nimrod. The recent destruction by the flood had taught men the force of divine authority. This sentiment of respect for government above man was sought to be appropriated by this mighty hunter of the East, to sustain his personal and despotic authority. So he caused a vast and high tower to be erected in the plains of Shinar, designing that the tower of Babel should stand, in the place of God, to protect the people against a future flood. Thus the followers of Nimrod, constituting a primitive nation, established idolatry as an incident of national power, until God, offended with their impiety, confounded their language, and vindicated what he afterward wrote as the second commandment of his law.
The Sabbath, as instituted by the example of God in creation, was still a subsisting institution in the days of Moses. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," showed that this sacred institution subsisted as a religious tradition of by-gone ages.
That honor to parents, as enforced in the fifth commandment, was not a new idea, is evident from the entire domestic history of the patriarchs. Witness the respect shown to Noah by his two more worthy sons; the deference of Isaac, in the matter of his marriage, to the wishes of his father; the burial of Abraham and Isaac by their respective children; the care and sustenance of Jacob by Joseph his son; the dying scene of this distinguished patriarch; his funeral obsequies, and the funeral march to a distant and foreign land, to the cave of Machpelah, where his mortal form was placed beside the dust of his father. All these testify how the fifth commandment thus controlled God's chosen servants.
These ten simple commandments had been the subsisting laws by which God had sought to govern the human race for twenty-five hundred years before their special consecration and enactment amidst the fires and thunderings of Sinai.
They were, in fact, the rescripts and digest of God’s moral law. Taking these two tables as a whole, they embrace the most complete and perfect system of law that the world has ever known. No virtue known to the moral world herein fails of approval and commendation; and no vice or crime of which man was ever guilty escapes condemnation. These laws are definite and precise in their requirements, and still universal in their application.
The law libraries of the world, with their mixed dialects, and ancient lore, and mammonth tomes, innumerable reports, and multitudinous variety of discussions by men of judicial acumen and giant learning, do not give us one idea of crime or virtue, right or wrong, of the propensities or delinquencies of human life, beyond what is embodied in these sacred tables. Notwithstanding the ridicule sought to be thrown on a resolution of one of the early Legislatures of Connecticut, that God's law should be the law of the colony until special laws should be enacted by the government, or to that effect, it is believed that few cases arise claiming adjudication from our courts of law that would not be better determined by a careful respect to the commands of the decalogue. These simple aphorisms, so to speak, throw a searching light on the incidents and character of crime, and afford the safest criterion to discriminate between the false and the true. Virtue and purity of life have a standard for their justification against false charges and un-toward appearances.
This decalogue, as a whole, is one of the most convincing proofs of divine revelation and the divine government. Human wisdom and human learning are entirely inadequate to the production of so perfect a system of law and government; so definite and yet so universal; so brief, and yet so comprehensive!
WHERE DID MOSES GET THAT LAW?
An infidel, wishing to examine into the truth of the Christian religion, inquired of an elder of the Presbyterian church as follows:
"What books, sir, would you advise me to read?"
"The Bible," said the elder.
"I believe you do not understand me," resumed the unbeliever, in his turn; "I wish to investigate the truth of the Bible."
"I would advise you, sir," repeated the elder, "to read the Bible." And, he continued, "I will give you my reasons: Most infidels are very ignorant of the Scriptures. Now to reason on any subject with correctness, we must understand what it is about which we reason. In the next place, I consider the internal evidence of the truth of the Scriptures stronger than the external."
"And where shall I begin?" inquired the unbeliever.
"At the New Testament?" "No," said the elder; "at the beginning—at Genesis."
One evening, the elder called and found the unbeliever at his house or office, walking the room, with a dejected look, his mind apparently absorbed in thought. He continued, not noticing that any one had come in, busily to trace and retrace his steps. The elder at length spoke: "You seem, sir," said he, "to be in a brown study. What are you thinking?" "I have been reading," replied the infidel, "the moral law." "Well, what do you think of it?" asked the elder. "I will tell you what I used to think," answered the infidel. "I supposed that Moses was the leader of a horde of banditti; that having a strong mind, he acquired great influence over a superstitious people; and that on Mount Sinai, he played off some sort of fire-works, to the amazement of his ignorant followers, who imagined, in their mingled fear and superstition, that the exhibition was supernatural."
"But what do you think now?" interposed the elder.
"I have been looking," answered the infidel, "into the nature of that law. I have been trying to see whether I can add anything to it, so as to make it better. Sir, I cannot. It is perfect."
"The first commandment," continued he, "directs us to make the Creator the object of our supreme love and reverence. That is right. If he be supreme Benefactor, we ought to treat him, and none other, as such. The second forbids idolatry. That certainly is right. The third forbids profaneness. The fourth fixes a time for religious worship. If there is a God, he ought surely to be worshiped. It is suitable that there should be an outward homage, significant of our inward regard. If God be worshiped, it is proper that some time be set apart for that purpose, when all may worship him harmoniously and without interruption. One day in seven is certainly not too much, and I do not know that it is too little. The fifth defines the peculiar duties arising from the family relations. Injuries to our neighbor are direct breaches of the law of nature. They are also, in fact, the rescripts and digest of God’s moral law. Taking these two tables as a whole, they embrace the most complete and perfect system of law that the world has ever known. No virtue known to the moral world herein fails of approval and commendation; and no vice or crime of which man was ever guilty escapes condemnation. These laws are definite and precise in their requirements, and still universal in their application."