Faith Requires Obedience to the Law.
By M. E. Cornell
WHAT a fatal mistake some have made in teaching that the moral law is made void by the faith of Christ! "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid : yea we establish the law." Rom. iii, 31. A repentance by godly sorrow for past transgression of the law of God constitutes the very foundation of genuine faith. A faith which does not acknowledge the importance and the perpetuity of the moral law must be defective. A true believer in Jesus Christ once said, "I consent unto the law that it is good," "I delight in the law of God," &c. Rom. vii, 16, 22. In a letter to the Bishop of Jerusalem, Charlotte Elizabeth says, "In the course of your ministerial experience, my lord, among professing Christians, and especially in attending the death-beds of such, you have doubtless met with many instances where the individual, on being interrogated as to the ground of his hope, has answered, that he had lived honestly and uprightly; had committed no murder, never stolen, never wronged his neighbor; had gone to church, said his prayers at home, and, in short, kept the commandments as well as he could. You have labored to show him the utter worthlessness of such a plea before God; assuring him that an expectation so founded must be quenched in darkness : but while holding before his mental eye the one sole hope of a sinner, the sacrificial atonement and justifying righteousness of Christ, you never told him that he ought to have broken, or ought then to determine on breaking those commandments, or at least wholly to forget them, in order that Christ might be all in all. No, you told him that the fruit of saving faith is love, and the fruit of love is obedience, and the rule of obedience, those laws which God has given us. That in the act of keeping the commandments, we render the cheerful service of an affectionate, grateful child, not the exacted toil of a hired laborer." In speaking of "Israel's Ordinances" on another page the same writer says: "The Sabbath was first. If a converted Jew is firmly persuaded in his own mind that the day which we all admit to be the seventh of the week is still the Sabbath to him; if he pleads, as well he might, that the fact of Jesus' resting in the grave from the great work of redemption on that 'high Sabbath' is rather a confirmation of its sanctity than a token of its abrogation, . . . God forbid that I should wound the conscience of such a brother by forcing upon him the breach of his Sabbath, and the substitution of mine! It is quite clear that the first-day was adopted by the Gentile church, very early; and that it was a day much observed by the Jewish church also; but while I cannot find one word in the whole Bible indicating that it was God's will to alter his original Sabbath, as observed in this day by the whole house of Israel, I never would "make sad, the heart of the righteous whom the Lord hath not made sad," by compelling him to trample under foot what he knows to have been an ordinance given to his fathers, so far as the day is concerned, and to hallow in its place another day of our selecting. To hallow it as we do, alas! To join us in listening to the fourth commandment, in praying that our hearts may be inclined to keep that law; and then stepping into our carriages, or into hired vehicles, and exhibiting how obediently we cause our servants and our cattle to rest as well as we. I would to God that our dear brother Ewald could convince the Christian church that the ten commandments are not abrogated! The manner in which the poorest of your people observe their ancient Sabbath is a deep reproach to us, who so impiously, so vauntingly profane ours." This author continues, "In the Journal of our dear Hebrew brother, the Rev. F. C. Ewald, as quoted in the 'Jewish Intelligence,' of August last, I meet with the following passage: There was an interesting Jew with me nearly the whole day; he is earnestly seeking the truth, but cannot see how the law of Moses could have been abrogated. I explained to him the meaning of the words 'Law of Moses,' by telling him that if he attentively read the five books of Moses, he would find that they contain a threefold law; that is, the moral law, as expressed in the ten commandments; the civil law; and the ceremonial law. The two latter have been abrogated by God himself. But the moral law has not only not been abrogated by Jesus, but more fully developed; and this moral law, Christ declared should remain forever." Martin Luther declared that without the law there could be no church government. Taking it away, takes away the gospel. That the decalogue is the logic of the gospel, &c. Life of Luther, pp. 215-217. The apostle Paul, while speaking of the ten commandments, says, "I had not known sin but by the law." Rom. vii, 7, and, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Rom. iii, 20. Now, inasmuch as the "knowledge of sin" is necessary before the gospel can take effect, and that knowledge can only come by the law, it follows, that taking away the law makes void the gospel. If then, the death of Christ did not confirm and establish the law, He must have died in vain. And we can but conclude that the Antinomian doctrine is one of the most fatal errors ever preached to man. Oh that the true light upon the "First Principles" may shine out in these last days. With all my soul I cry, "It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void thy law."