Forbes on Article VII: Of the Old Testament

Among certain schools of the Reformers there was a, great dislike of accounting the Gospel a law truly and properly so called”, implying thereby that Christ our Redeemer was not truly a lawgiver. Also many denied the proposition that the Old Testament, promising pro perly and directly carnal and temporal goods, promises also, in the figure and symbol of these, spiritual and eternal good things. The Anabaptists held that the Old Testament was abrogated, and refused to accept its authority to confirm truth, or to refute error. In this they renewed the errors of Basilides, Carpocrates, and the Manichaeans. The Family of Love held that its promises of happiness were wholly exhausted by the temporal blessings of this life ; and the Brownists that Christians were necessarily tied to the judicial pre cepts of Moses, ” Which laws were not made for the Jews’ state only, but for all mankind, especially for all the Israel of God b.” A strong Antinomian spirit pre vailed among many of the extreme schools of the Re formers, and it is against these, in their various phases, that the Seventh Article of religion is directed.

The Article speaks of that fresh light that was hed upon the world by the Advent of Jesus Christ as n teacher of additional truth from heaven. Such, in deed, were the yearnings of heathenism. The wisest of these, almost in the spirit of prophecy, announced that “One who cared for us” should come “to be our

b Barren’s ” Discovery of the False Church,” 1500, p. 96.

instructor, and to remove man’s ignorance,” “in re spect of his relations to God and man c.”

The Church is one and the same, substantially and formally, under the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. One and the same object of faith, even Christ, hath been believed in from the beginning even until now, and so shall be believed unto the end of the world ; with this difference, however, that, as time has gone on, the same faith hath been more and more explicit. St. Augustine very well says, ” Before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared lowly in the flesh, just men had preceded ; believing in Him as about to come, as we believe in Him as having come. The times vary, but not the faith ; for the words themselves vary with the time when they are variously declared. ’ About to come’ has one sound, ‘come’ has another; ‘about to come’ is changed into ‘come:’ and the same faith joins those who believed that He was about to come, with those who believe that He has come. We see both enter by the one gate of faith, that is, by Christ d.”

Thus St. Paul, quoting David, says : “we having the same spirit of faith0.” In short, it must be laid down with the author just quoted, “No one, save by this laith which is in Christ Jesus, either before His In carnation or since His Incarnation, has ever been reconciled to God f.”

c J’ide Alcibiades Deuleros, Plat. Op., t. in. p. 124, Ed. Bekkcr. London, 1826. d In Tract XLV., in Joann. Evang., p. 598.

•= li Cor. iv. 13. f Ferraris, Bibliotheca Canonica.

. The first great province of the identity of the Old and New Testaments lies in the matter of direct doc trine. In the letter, and still more in the spirit of the Old Scriptures we find the Gospel. Truths, that never could be arrived at by the unassisted reason of man, are in germ there. The nature and personality of the One God, His existence in more Persons than one, His government by the Holy Angels, His eccle siastical Election, His training and discipline of the chosen people, the scheme of redemption by suffering for us in our nature, which He took, the outpouring and unction of the Spirit, the use of water for lustra tion, the outpouring of Blood for Atonement, the re wards and punishments of the future state, and final Beatitude in the sight and presence of God, all are found in embryo in the Law, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms; in life, and strength, and fulness, in the Gospel.

Again, the Old Testament History is most important in symbolizing to us the fortunes of the present dis pensation. Not only are the historical personages allegories, as the Apostle bears witness in the case of Abraham and Sarah, but the historical events are ana logies of what takes place now. The polity of the synagogue, for example, enables us to understand some of the fortunes of the Church of Christ. The law of reward on obedience, of punishment on transgression, holds in the same sense, but in a higher measure now. The overruling of man’s disobediences to an eventual good, obtains among us now just as it did in the de-

portation of Joseph to Egypt, when the sin of his bre thren was by God’s goodness made the means of pre serving life. Hearts under the rejected Gospel are hardened just as was Pharaoh’s. Men fail when least they watch themselves, just as Moses, the meekest of mankind, failed from want of meekness. And so with regard to communities and institutions. We get les sons of great importance as to states and branches of the Church from the fortunes of the Jewish theocracy. Judah and Israel have their types among us now. Schism and its punishment and merciful overruling, and the duty of striving for unity, are what Samaria teaches us. The danger of sin and worldliness in high places, the misery of corruption and unfaithfulness in those who sit in Moses’ seat, is what is taught us by her sister Judah.

Furthermore, the ordinances and rites of the old Law have their distinct places and value under the Gospel. At their best they derived what value they had from the power of the future Incarnation. They testified to the faith of the offerers, they were proofs of obedience to God’s commandments, of adherence to His institution, and so they irapetrated such grace as was competent to Jew or proselyte of righteousness; in short, it was the opus operantis as against the opus operation of the Gospel. But with the manifestation of the truth the shadow passed away. When Christ came, and the Church was set up on earth, the old rites lost their spiritual power. But they now assumed a new office. They ceased to be in any sense sacraments, they became

symbols. This we learn from their treatment by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He developes their symbolical character as types of the great mys teries of redemption, and thus their importance is an everlasting importance. The blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, no longer sanctifieth even to the purifying of the flesh, but the narration of these things in the inspired Word of God, represents to us many of the aspects of the eternal sacrifice of Christ, and supplies us with copious topics of devout meditation. The High-Priest has ceased to ofier for rejected Israel, and his office has passed away ; but the record of his consecration, func tions, and death, supply us with types of the corre spending actions of the Great High-Priest and Apostle of our calling, and enable us to dwell in trustful love on that which in its fulness can never be realized by finite mind.

Another important instance of the connection be tween the old and the new covenant is Prophecy. Its importance in the evidential department of the science of theology can hardly be exaggerated. It supplies a proof that almost amounts to demonstration, e.g, the prophecy, in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, of circumstances in the siege of Jerusalem, is known to us with absolute certainty, from the fact of the Septuagint translation having been made before the event. The details are so minute that it cannot be reduced to the notion of a happy conjecture. There is no escaping its weight. Again, those which connect the times of the

Messiah with the cessation of the autonomy of Judah, are corroborated by the external proofs we have that, not only in Judcea but through the world, at that epoch a deliverer was expected. Lastly, the prophecy of the seventy weeks, counted back from the event, fits in so exactly with the epoch of Ezra’s mission to restore the Jewish polity in the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and fails so entirely to find a fancied fulfilment when counted from the later period to which the Book of Daniel has been attributed, that we are driven to accept at once the authenticity of the original prophecy, and the providential fulfilment of the thing prophesied. Moreover, this form of evidence increases in value, whereas that from miracle becomes depreciated by time ; for we see not the miracles ; wre know of them only by the report of others ; but enemies of the Gos pel, the Jews, are witnesses to the fore-existence of the prophecies; their growing fulfilments in the kingdom of Christ we see with our own eyes.

In comparing Judaism with Christianity, two points have been always noticed, 1. That the first was inferior to the other; 2. That there was an interdependence of the two. The Fathers recognised Christianity as em phatically the law of liberty, as opposed to the bondage of the Law g ; and therefore it was inconsistent to call on the name of the Lord Jesus and at the same time to Judaize, for it was not Christianity that believed in Judaism, but Judaism that believed in Christianity, so- that every tongue believing in God should be harmo-

? Iron. iii. 12. 4. n.

nious h. On the other hand, they held their connection in the sense of the Article. ” We shall refer to the cause of the difference of the two Testaments, and again to their unity and consonance1.” “We acknowledge in this sense a separation, by reformation, by amplifi cation, by advance ; as the fruit is separated from the seed, so the Gospel is separated from the Law, while it is produced from the Law ; a different thing from it, yet not foreign to it ; diverse, yet not contrary k.” So that the new covenant is nothing but the old in its pro gress, in its pure Ideal, in its last consummation : and St. Clement of Rome ” sees but one Church since Abra ham. The Church of the promise is become, by a natural and necessary transition, the Church of the fulfilment. All that was before Christ, in a sense, continues and be longs to the present Church. Jewish priests and Chris tian presbyters are the same institution, and have both a sacrifice to offer. In short, St. Clement is the most marked, representation of Church continuity. His lead ing idea was, We Churchmen are the true Israelites, sons of Abraham and heirs of the promise; Abraham and Jacob, Moses and David, belong to us alone1.”

[…]

1 Iren. iii. 12. n. 12. k Tert. ad Marc. iv. 11.

“The doctrinal traditions of the Jewish necessarily passed into the Christian Church. Christ Himself had recognised them, taught out of them, and referred His disciples to the authority of those who sat in Moses’ seat, who were their organs. And if He sharply denounced their arbitrary interpretation of the Law, and reproached them for making God’s Law of none effect by their own inventions put forth as traditions of the ciders, those were perversions of individuals or almost of whole

The statement in the Article is a very remarkable one, if we regard it by the light of the existent con troversies. It is in so many words a reassertion of the doctrine of the Schoolmen against the notions of Luther and Melanchthon. Luther said : — ” The School men understood the abolition of the Law to mean that the Mosaic ordinances respecting the civil precepts con cerning the commonwealth and secular matters, which they termed judieiaUa, as well as the laws touching

schools ; the dominant teaching was independent of them, and was con firmed and employed in the addresses of Christ and His Apostles

Thus the religious consciousness of Judaism, in which the Apostle?, the early Christian teachers, and most of the first believers had been brought up, flowed in unbroken stream into the Christian Church, and the Jewish became the Christian tradition. There was no violent break or formal renunciation ; Christianity claimed to be, not a reformation, but a fulfilment of Judaism, expectation passing into possession, the wor ship of a Redeemer who had come instead of a looking for a future one, the Law spiritualized into the Gospel, and a world-religion and universal Church opening its gates to every nation, instead of a mere fellowship of blood and race, a Church (ecclesia) instead of a synagogue. The Christians were conscious of being in communion with the principalities up to that time, and if they threw aside as having no significance for them, the pharisaic tradition about the use of the ceremonial law, they claimed for themselves all its real benefits : the sacred books, the doc trinal tradition, the moral law as expounded by Christ, and even the ritual law in its principles, with a priesthood, altar, and sacrifice divested of their formal, typical, and carnal character. The Psalms were their manual of prayer and praise, baptism took the place of circumcision, the Paschal feast was transfigured into the Eucharistic celebration of sacri fice and communion, and the Jewish priesthood, with its descent from father to son after the flesh, when brought to an end by the destruction of the Temple, was replaced by the spiritual succession of the teaching and priestly ministry among Christians. Thus the Christian conscious ness and life were an outgrowth of the Jewish.” — (Dollinger, ” First Age of the Church,” vol. i. p. 222.)

rites and ceremonies, were, 011 account of the Death of Christ, pernicious, and were therefore abolished, but that the Ten Commandments, called moralia, still claimed the Christian’s obedience.”

Luther, in terms, denied this; he taught the abo lition of civil laws, ceremonies, and moralia at once, especially the last, as these alone accuse the conscience before God, and terrify it; and that the Ten Com mandments have no right to accuse or alarm the con science wherein Christ reigns by His grace; even Christ hath abolished the right of the Law when He became a curse for us m. Melanchthon, of whom it ha& been said by the most eminent living divine in Ger many, that he wanted iron in his spiritual nature, less consistently, while maintaining rightly that the be liever, even if the moral law made no claims upon him, would fulfil it, being freely and inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit, — yet he asserts, ” The law is abro gated, not that it should not be fulfilled, but that it may be fulfilled, and may not condemn even when it is not fulfilled V

“The life of the Saviour is in every relation an organic unity ; and everything in Him, — His suffer ings, His works, His doctrine, His conversation among men, His death on the Cross, — were in a like manner calculated for our redemption. It is the merits of the entire undivided God-man, the Son of God, whereb}r we are won again to God. His three offices of pro phet, priest, and king, are alike necessary- Thus, by

m Luther, Gal. ” Loc. Tfteol.

Notes

• Sec Bp. Anclrewes’ Sermon on the Nativity, on Psalm ii. 7, p. 289, Anglo -Catholic Library.
• Dollinger, ” The First Age of the Church,” vol. ii. p. 134. Eng. Tr.