Moral Law Ever the Same.
By Robert Patterson
It is contended, "that the morality of the Old Testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring indeed, the observance of charity to the covenant people, but allowing Israel to hate all others as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy." But let it be noticed, that this is no text of Scripture, nor does our Lord so quote it. He does not say it is so written, but, ye have heard it said by them of old time. The first part is God's truth: the second is the devil's addition to it, which Christ clears away and denounces. It were easy to quote multitudes of passages from the Old Testament, commending Israel to show kindness to the stranger, and a whole host of promises, that in them all the families of the earth should be blessed; any one of which would sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the morality of the Old Testament was geographical, and its charity merely national. But the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of world-wide benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of Christ himself, was uttered by him as the sum and substance of the teachings of the Old Testament, conclusively confutes this dogma. The Golden Rule was no new discovery, unless its author was mistaken, for he says: "Therefore all things that ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." He declares the very basis and foundation of the whole Old Testament religion to be those eternal principles of godliness and charity, which he quotes in the very words of the law: "Then one of them which was a lawyer asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." The law and the prophets then taught genuine world-wide benevolence, Christ being witness; and the moral law of the Old Testament is the moral law of the New Testament, if we may believe the Lawgiver.—Dr. Robert Patterson, in "Fables of Infidelity."