Maclear and Williams on Article VII: Of the Old Testament

The olde Testament is not contrary to the newe, for both in the olde and newe Testament euerlastyng lyfe is offered to mankynde by Christe, who is the onlye mediatour betweene God and man, being both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be hearde whiche faigne that the olde fathers dyd looke onlye for transitorie promises. Although the lawe geuen from God by Moyses, as touchyng ceremonies and rites, do not bynde Christian men, nor the ciuile preceptes theiof, ought of necessitie to be receaued in any common wealth : yet notwith- standyng, no Christian man what- soeuer, is free from the obedience of the commaundementes, whiche are called morall.

i. Connection. The Sixth Article treated of the Bible as a whole, and of the Canonical Scriptures as pos- sessed of dogmatic authority. The present Article deals with the relation of the Old Testament to the New. Upon this point there was much difference of opinion in the Sixteenth Century. Many of the Anabaptists, not only on the continent but even in England, held that there was no connection between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments1. They taught that the prophets wrote only

for the people of the old Dispensation ; that their doctrine pertained only to their own time ; and that the moral Law was not binding on Christian men1. They thus denied that the Jewish system was vitally connected with the Christian, and affirmed that the men of old time looked for no more than transitory promises, and had not even the faintest expectation of a life beyond the present2.

ii. History and Language. The original title of the Article in 1553 was “The Old Testament is not to be re- fused,” and the Article consisted only of the first two clauses. The present third clause formed a portion of the old Nineteenth Article, which was entitled, ” All men are bound to keep the moral commandments of the Law.” This was transposed to its new position as the concluding clause of the Seventh Article in 1563.

iii. Analysis. The Article consists of three parts : —

(1) It states that “the Old Testament is not con- trary to the New,” and gives the reason for this view;

(2) It affirms that they are not to be listened to, who pretend that “the old fathers did look only for transitory promises”;

(3) It declares that though the Law given to Moses does not bind Christian men as regards rites and ceremonies, and although ” the civil pre- cepts thereof ought not of necessity to be re- ceived in any commonwealth; yet notwith- standing, no Christian man whatsoever is free from obedience to the Commandments which are called Moral.”

iv. Proof of the first Statement :— The first State- ment thus put forward may be proved (a) from the testi- mony of the Scriptures themselves, and (/3) from that of the early Fathers.

i. The testimony of the Scriptures.

(a) The Authority of the Old Testament is dis- tinctly acknowledged in the New. Our Lord Himself repeatedly quotes the Old Testament, and He said to the Jews of His day, Ye search the Scriptures^, i.e. the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, and these are they which bear witness of Me (]o\m v. 39);

(b) Christ is ever represented as the Centre and Meeting-point of both Testaments2, and while the Old Testament points onward to Him as destined to come, the New Testament proclaims Him as actually come3;

[…]

2 Comp. Heb. i. i, i where God, Who of old time spake unto the

fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners is declared to have spoken unto us at the end of these days in His Son. The teaching of the Old Revelation was conveyed iro\v/j.€ p<2s Kal iro\vTp6ira)s, mullifariam multisque modis (Vulg.), in successive portions, and in varying fashions according to the needs and capacities of those who received it,

” The former revelation was given of old time, in the infancy and growth of the world: the Christian Revelation at the end of these days, on the very verge of the new order which of ne- cessity it ushered in.” Bp Westcott on Heb. i. i.

3 Or as S. Augustine puts it in well-known words ” Novum Testamen- tum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamen- tum in Novo patet. ” ” Ante adventum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi,” writes the same Father, “quo humilis venit in carne, pnecesserunt justi, sic in Eum credentes • venturum quomodo nos credimus in Eum qui venit. Tem- pora variata sunt, non fides… alium sonum habet ‘venturus est,’ alium sonum habet ‘venit’; eadem tamen fides utrosque conjungit, et eos qui venturum esse, et eos qui Eum venisse crediderunt.” S. Aug. Tract, xlv. in Joann,

i IS

(c) The Old Testament Dispensation proved, in the words of S. Paul, a tutor* to bring men to Christ, and this it did in two ways, (i) by prophecy, (2) by types and symbols. (1) By prophecy: —

(a) The first promise of a Saviour is the starting-point of all sacred History, and irradiates the gloom of the Fall (Gen. iii. 15). In terms the Promise was quite in- definite. Neither the time, nor the method, nor the precise mediating cause of man’s deliverance was made known. It was not revealed whether the Promised Seed should be one or many, the collective race or a single deliverer2. But in process of time it was restricted through one of the sons of Noah to the race of Shem (Gen. ix. 26, 27); through Abraham to a particular nation, that of his descendants, the Jews (Gen. xii. 2, 3)3 ; through one of the sons of Jacob to a particular tribe, that of Judah4 (Gen. xlix. 9. 10).

(/3) Hitherto no personal trait of the destined Deliverer had been given. This began with

1 ‘0 […] yeyovev eh XpiaT&v Gal. iii. 24; ” iraiBayuiyds, qui nos continuit in disciplina ne ela- beremur.” Bengel.

this was only finally and perfectly fulfilled in the Son of Man.

3 The specific promise — “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ” — refers primarily to the nation descended from Abraham as a whole ; its perfect fulfilment is seen only in Him, who in His sacred humanity is the perfect Flower of the nation.

4 The uncertainty of the meaning of the word “Shiloh” here is shewn by the alternatives given in the margin of the Revised Version.

Moses, for when the people terrified at the thunderings and lightnings which accom- panied the giving of the Law asked that he would be their mediator, Moses predicted the coming of a greater Prophet and a mightier Lawgiver1 (Deut. xviii. 15 — 19). About the same time the unwilling testi- mony of a heathen seer centres the hopes of the world definitely in Palestine, and the witness of Balaam confirms the promise of the Hebrew Lawgiver (Num. xxiv. 17). When the sceptre rises from Judah, and David sits upon his throne, he himself speaks of the coming of a greater King, of ■whose dominion there shall be no end (Ps. ii.; xlv.; lxxii.; ex.)2. (7) With Isaiah a new class of predictions comes before us. He indicates the birth of the Messiah from a Virgin (Isai. vii. 14), and describes the chief scenes of His open- ing Ministry (Isa. ix. 1, 2), and foreshadows a most vital aspect of His character and work under the image of “the servant of Jehovah3” (Isa. xli. 8 sqq., xlii. 1 sqq.).

1 This promise received partial ful- truth that the expected King is God’s filment in the successive members of vice-gerent.

the great race of prophets whom God 3 This is a most vital aspect of the

sent to His people. But not even the character and work of the true Mes-

greatest of them was “like unto,” i.e. siah. The title “Servant of Jehovah”

the equal of, Moses. For the expec- is applied to our Lord by S. Peter

tation of a prophet in our Lord’s Acts iii. 26; iv. 27, 30. “In the last

time see Matt. xvi. 14; Mark vi. period of his long ministry Isaiah’s

15; Luke ix. 7, 8, 9; John i. 21, 25; prediction of the promised Messiah,

vii. 40, 41. not as an unoccupied Sovereign of

2 See Westcott’s Introduction to the man, but as the Servant of God,

New Testament, p. 87 ; Davison On toiling, misunderstood, insulted, suf-

Propheiy, p. 205. We have in Ps. fering, yet eventually triumphant, was

ex. the most vivid presentation of the an inspired picture which could not

When the nation goes into captivity, the very sadness of the exile serves to correct the idea of the promised Messiah, and ” the Son of David ” gives place in the writings of Daniel to the Son of Man (Dan. vii. 13).

(S) Meanwhile another voice, not jubilant and glad, but sad and mournful begins to be heard. It speaks of triumph, but of tri- umph through suffering; of the coming of a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, of His being bruised for our iniquities, of His being stricken for tJie transgressions of His people (Isai. liii. 3 — 10). Zechariah a- gain predicts that the Messiah shall be smitten (Zech. xiii. 7)1, and Daniel de- scribes Him as cut off, but not for Himself (Dan. ix. 26), while the Psalmist foretells that the kings of the earth shall set them- selves, and the rulers take counsel together a- gainst the Lord and against His Anointed (Ps. ii. 2), and how men shall part His gar- ments among them and cast lots upon His vesture (Ps. xxii. 18), and give Him gall for His meat, and in His thirst give Him vinegar to drink (Ps. lxix. 21)2.

(2) By types and symbols : —

(a) Thus from Moses to Malachi the Hebrew

but leave its mark on the mind of The passage is directly predictive of

Israel.” Liddon’s Advent Sermons, the Messiah’s sufferings; for it is the

ii. p. 332. King suffering, and suffering for His

1 Zech. xiii. 7 represents the judg- people, that is set before us. Comp.

ment of God as falling for the sake of Dan. ix. 26.

the people on the King, the Shepherd 2 See Davison On Prophecy, p. 289;

of the people. Whom He has brought Cardinal Newman’s Grammar of As-

into close fellowship with Himself. sent, p. 441.

Scriptures are, as it were, “one long-drawn sigh of sorrowful hope1.” But while the prophets intimated that the expected Messiah should triumph and yet should die, Moses intimated the same fact by a system of symbolic sacrifices and typical ordinances, which he was commanded to institute2. And the same Scriptures, which portray the attributes of the one true God in the purest and most spiritual form, and enounce the simplest and sublimest code of human duties, contain the most minute and elab- orate directions respecting the slaughtering of a lamb or other victim, and set forth with equal earnestness the equal necessity of presenting the Burnt Offering, the Sin Offering, and the Peace Offering3. Again these Scriptures, while they describe the form of the one everlasting Essence under the veil of attributes that are themselves unfathomable, prescribe day by day, and year by year, a series of visible and im- pressive services4, which by their constant repetition and recurrence proclaimed their own ineffkacy, and testified that they were

1 Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. devotee with the minutest prescrip-

p. 258. tions of outward service and ritual,

• See Pearson On the Creed, p. and, on the other hand, the Book of

332 ; Butler’s Analogy, Pt. ii. c. v. Psalms, which expresses in language

3 See Archer Butler’s Sermons, that the highest Christian devotion is

Series i. p. 265. glad to accept as its own, the inward

• “The nation may be said to pos- yearning of the soul that turns away

sess an outward worship just in order from all outward forms as empty and

that it may transcend it and look worthless, and is content with nothing

down upon it… Hence the last out- short of the deepest inward union

come of the life of the nation was, on with God.” Caird, Evolution of

the one hand, the Levitical Law which Religion, i. pp. 388, 389, ed. 1893. hedged round the life of the Jewish

possessed only of a shadow of the good things to come1 (Heb. x. i).

(/S) Now we cannot believe that the vast or- ganization of Judaism was instituted to be a preparation for nothing2, that its complex mode of worship pointed on to no adequate fulfilment of what was typical and tran- sitory. The very nature of the sacrifices of the old Dispensation enshrined a mystery greater than any that can be escaped by denying their predictive import. “Judaism with a typified atonement may be a miracle or a chain of miracles, but Judaism without it is a greater miracle still3.”

Thus ” Expectation ” is the inward spirit of the Old Testament4, and the Scriptures thereof point onwards to One who is revealed in the New, and in both Testaments “everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.”

1 “The iteration, the inefficacy, the transitoriness of the services of the Law which culminated in that of the Day of Atonement, followed from the fact that it ’ had a shadow only of good things to come.’ It could provide nothing more than symbolic, and therefore recurrent, offerings, which in different ways witnessed to an idea they were inadequate to fulfil.” Bp Westcott on Heb. x. i.

[…]

3 “The Hebrew Scriptures them- selves and the people and polity which

form their singular subject, intimate a wonderful future, and point altogether to it, and are wholly inexplicable unless on the supposition of it. This at once distinguishes it from every other ancient writing of the same kind; among all national literature this makes the Jewish unique.” Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. p. 256.

ii. The testimony of the early Fathers.

The testimony of the early Fathers may be thus arranged : —

(a) Ignatius affirms that “the prophets preached the Gospel, hoping in Christ and waiting for Him1”;

(b) Justin Martyr says that ” in the Books of the Prophets we find Jesus Christ foretold as born of a Virgin, healing diseases, crucified, dead, rising again, and ascending into heaven2.”

(c) Irenaeus declares that “the Law began in the time of Moses, and ended with John the Bap- tist, when Christ came to fulfil it3” ;

(d) Origen writes, “the same Providence, which heretofore gave the Law, afterwards gave the Gospel, not being willing to retain the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, but destroying their city and temple4 ” ;

(e) Tertullian testifies that “the Church mingles the Law and the Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, and thence drinks in faith5”;

(f) S. Augustine speaks of the Old Testament as “a Prophecy of the New, so that the holy Patriarchs and Prophets had the hope of eternal salvation therein6.”

[…]

4 Origen, Contr. Ce/sum, vii. 26. xv, 1.

v. Proof of the second Statement that “the old Fathers did not look only for transitory promises.” This may be shewn

(1) From the language of our Lord ;

(2) From that of the Epistle to the Hebrews ;

(3) From the words of the Old Testament itself. (a) The language of our Lord: —

Besides constantly quoting the Old Testament Scriptures to establish truths of eternal import:

(i) He expressly asserts respecting them These are they1 which bear witness of Me (John v. 39) ;

(ii) He says to the Jews, If ye believed Moses, ye would believe on Me, for he wrote of Me- (John v. 46);

(iii) He affirms respecting Abraham, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and lie saw it and was glad3 (John viii. 56) ;

(iv) After His Resurrection He spends an entire Easter afternoon in interpreting to the two on the road to Emmaus in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself ‘(Luke xxiv. 27).

1 ‘Exctvai […] the very Books of the Old Covenant, which the Jews so diligent- ly studied, “testify of Me.” “The scriptures witnessed of One whom the Jews rejected ; they pointed to a life which the Jews would not seek. There is a deep pathos in the simple coordina- tion : and, …and.” Bp Westcott on John v. 39.

[…]

Christ. Westcott, in loe.

3 ‘HyaWiaaaro, exulted, rejoiced with the joy of exultation in his eager desire, in his confident hope to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. When this was we cannot exactly say. “All conjecture,” remarks Bp West- cott, ” must be uncertain, but there is nothing unnatural in the supposition that the faith shewn in the offering up of Isaac may have been followed by some deeper, if transient, insight into the full meaning of the promises then re- newed. Such faith was in itself, in one sense, a vision of the day of Messiah.”

Thus Abraham and Moses, the representatives respec- tively of the Patriarchal and Legal Dispensations, are declared, the one to have ” exulted ” in anticipation of the coming of our Lord, and the other to have ” written ” of Him. This involves on their part not hope only in the transitory promises of this life, but implicit belief in the Divine Promise respecting the future, and thus S. Paul could justly tell Timothy that those Scriptures of the Old Testament, which he had known from a child, were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith ivliich is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. iii. 15).

(/3) The language of the Epistle to the Hebrews : — The writer of this Epistle,

(a) After describing the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, says, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth1. For they that say such things2 make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own3. And if indeed they had been mindful of that country, from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a

1 “The three thoughts risein natural succession, (a) They saw the promises in their actual fulfilment : (b) they welcomed the vision with joy though it was far off : (c) they confessed what must be the true end of God’s counsel.” Bp Westcott on Heb. xi. 13.

2 Comp. Gen. xxiii. 4; xlvii. 9. The language of the patriarchs ” shewed that they continued to the last to look for what they had not attained. As ’ strangers ’ (&voi, comp. Eph. ii. 12), they acknowledged that they were

in a foreign land ; as ’ sojourners ’ (irapewlSrifioL, comp. I Pet. i. I ; ii. 11), that they had no permanent pos- session, no rights of citizenship. At the same time they kept their trust in God. Their natural fatherland had lost its hold upon them. They waited for a ‘city’ of God’s preparing.” Bp Westcott and Vaughan in loc.

3 Ilarpis. Rare in the lxx. this word is found in John iv. 44, and the parallels, but here only in the Epistles.

better coimtry, that is, a heavenly: wlierefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city1 (Heb. xi. 13—16);

(/3) Again he says that Moses accounted the

reproach of Christ”2 greater riches than the

treasures of Egypt: for he looked3 unto the recompense of reward (Heb. xi. 26);

(7) Once more, after speaking of the terrible sufferings of many of the saints of the Old Testament, he says that they were tortured, not accepting their deliverance : that they might obtain a better resurrection than the earthly life, which they might have retained by the accept- ance of the offered deliverance (Heb. xi. 35).

Now they who ” desire a better country, that is, a heavenly”; they who “despise the pleasures of sin and choose through life rather to suffer ill-treatment with the people of God”; they who “have their eye fixed on the recompense of reward ” ; they who ” endure torture, not accepting the deliverance placed within their reach, that they may obtain a better resurrection,” must certainly have looked for more than transitory promises, even for those of life and immortality4.

1 IU\iv, a Divine Commonwealth. Paravit illis civitatem. See the Addi- tional Note on this word, Bp West- cott’s Appendix to Heb. xi. 10.

2 Toy bvaSiaphv tov Xpicrrod (Heb. xi. 26) = the reproach of Christ. “This reproach, which was endured in the highest degree by Christ Jesus (Rom. xv. 3) was endured also by those who in any degree prefigured or represented Him, those, that is, in whom He partially manifested and manifests

Himself, those who live in Him and in whom He lives.” Bp Westcott in he.

3 ‘AW/SAtire yap els tt)v fu<r6airo- Soaiav, aspicicbat in rcmimcrationem . Vulg. The imperfect has a special emphasis. It was the habit of Moses to look away from the things of earth to the Divine recompense for suffering and reproach.

(7) The witness of the Old Testament itself. In the Old Testament we find eminent saints testifying again and again that they looked for more than transitory promises. Thus

(a) We find the patriarch Job1, when everything was against him, and he was the most miserable of all objects, saying,

/ know that my Redeemer liveth, And that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth ;

A nd after my skin hath been thus destroyed,

Yet from my flesh shall I see God :

Whom I shall see for myself,

And mine eyes shall behold, and not another’1 (Job xix. 25 — 27) ; There are difficulties connected with this pas- sage, but this much is clear that Job is convinced of the future adjustment of the contradictions of this life, and sees God Him- self appearing as his God or Vindicator, and redeeming him from the unjust ban pressing heavily upon him ;

(/3) Again we find the patriarch Jacob not only sketching out the fortunes of his sons in the far-

Professor Mozley, ” an instance of a gleam of a future life,” “of truth breaking forth in a sudden inspiration before it settles into a doctrine.” Lectures, p. 50.

[28

off future, but predicting the coming of the

Shiloh, unto whom should tlie obedience of tlie peoples be (Gen. xlix. 10);

(7) Joseph, again, when he too comes to die, does not concentrate his thoughts only on the present, but warns those around him that they were not to find an abiding home in Egypt, and he charges them to carry his bones into the land of promise (Gen. 1. 24, 25)1;

(8) David also in a well-known Psalm says

Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol ;

Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption (Ps. xvi. 10) ; It is possible that the Psalmist, when he wrote the words, did not understand them in all the fulness of their meaning, yet so far as he him- self is concerned, he clearly conceived that there was hope for him beyond the grave2;

(e) Once more Isaiah speaks of God as swallowing up death for ever, and wiping away tears from off all faces (Isai. xxv. 8), and still more clearly he says

Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust ; For thy dew is as the dew of herb s%,

1 ” The Faith of Joseph was national resurrection has illuminated them, at once and personal. He looked To us they must speak of that ’ eternal forward to the independence of his life,’ which is begun here, and is to kindred : and he claimed for himself be consummated hereafter.” Prof, a share in their future.” Bp West- Kirkpatrick on Ps. xvi. 10.

cott on Heb. xi. 22. 3 Or “the dew of light” or ” the

2 ” The doctrine of a future life is light” ” The dew is God’s fertilizing involved in the Psalmist’s faith, though gift from heaven, eliciting the riches this truth could only be apprehended of the earth… Coming down from the gradually and through long struggles. light of heaven God’s energy bedews For ourselves the words must bear the the earth, so that the earth in conse- fuller meaning with which Christ’s quence gives forth the shades, i.e.

[29

And the earth shall cast forth the dead1 (Isai. xxvi. 19).

These passages, and others too numerous to cite2, sufficiently prove that the old fathers, judging from their own language, looked beyond the present to a future and abiding reward, and an adjustment of present contradic- tions.

iii. The Mosaic Laiv.

vi. The last clause of the Article affirms that the Moral Law of the Mosaic Covenant is binding upon all Christian men. It rightly regards the Jewish Law under a threefold division, (1) the Ceremonial Law; (2) the Civil Law ; and (3) the Moral Law.

(a) The Ceremonial Law : —

This was a system of types and symbols preparatory for and pointing on to the coming of the Messiah, Who was to fulfil them all. This our Lord did. He fully satisfied every requirement of the Law, and, by His life of perfect obedience and His atoning death upon the Cross, became the Author of a new covenant between God and man, based upon the one all-sufficient sacrifice, and oblation, which He offered once for all for ” the sins of the whole world,” the adequacy of which He attested when from His Cross He exclaimed rereXearat, It is finished (John xix. 30). Now, therefore, that the great Antitype has come, the ancient typical sacrifices have vanished away (Heb. viii. 13)3.

the souls of the departed which it of the earth shall awake, some to ever- hides.” Orelli’s Old Testament Pro- lasting life, and some to shame and fluey, p. 303. everlasting contempt (Dan. xii. i).

1 Or the Shades, Heb. Rephaim. 3 Compare also Gal. v. 4, the argu- See Rev. Version, Margin ment of the whole of which Epistle is

’-’ Compare the words of Daniel, directed against the observance of the Many of them that sleep in the dust old Jewish Ceremonial Law.

M. 9

13°

9. The Political or Civil Law :—

This was framed for the special circumstances of one particular nation, when Jehovah condescended to become the exclusive sovereign of the Jewish people. Under such immediate Divine Rule offences against religion became offences against the state1, and acts of treason which were punishable with death. But this cannot be the case now. Our Lord sits indeed upon His Mediatorial throne, but His is a spiritual dominion and the weapons of His subjects are not carnal. Hence the civil portion of the Mosaic Law is no longer binding and civil punishment cannot be inflicted for religious offences. Forgetfulness of this led the Brownists, the fathers of the Independents, and after them many of the Puritans, to hold that we ” are tied unto all the judicials of Moses,” and that idolaters, including ” contemners of the Word and prayers,” should be put to death according to the Mosaic Law2.

(7) The Moral Law : —

This is of permanent obligation as being founded on the eternal principles of justice and truth. It is not a code of enactments, given for the temporary guidance of a single nation, but a principle of morality for the direction and guidance for all time of rational and accountable beings. The Moral Law, which is God’s will3, is like

1 Retribution is inherent in the Society. The Pilgrim Fathers enacted

nature of things; it is inevitable ; it is some portion of the Mosaic judicial

in Hegel’s words ” the other half of law, and put it in force in their new

crime.” ” Jussisti enim, et sic est, ut American settlements with extreme

[…]

animus.” S. Aug. Confess, i. 12. Cf. 3 ” The Divine Will bears no arbi-

Lilly On Right and Wrong, p. 127. To trary relation to the Moral Law. God

teach this truth to the race through a did not create absolute morality ; it is

selected nation in its infancy was part coeternal with Himself”; “theshadow

of the purpose of the negative and does not depend on the mere arbitrary

repressive legislation of the Mosaic will of the substance for its shape, but

Covenant. on the nature of the substance.” See

• See Rogers on the Articles. Parker Mansel’s limits of Religious Thought,

Himself, holy and perfect, because it reflects His character. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ shows that the Law is not an abstraction merely, but inseparably connected with a living Personality. Think not, He says, that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets ; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil (Matt. v. 17), and He affirms, Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt, v. 19). Moreover He illustrates His position in reference to the Moral Law by His comments on the Sixth and Seventh Commandments. Of the former He affirms that it forbids not only the murderous deed, but the angry word1, and of the latter that it forbids impurity not merely in act, but also in look and thought2. Thus so far from teaching that under the New Dispensation the Moral Law is done away, He shows that it is still more binding on the Christian than ever it was on the Jew, and that from obedience to it no Christian man whatsoever is free3.

p. 146 ; Ward, The Catholic Revival, quoting J. H. Newman, p. 217. ” The Moral Law is based upon Nature as God made it, Nature as the expression of an absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the Universe.” Thus ” Christus non tra- didit Prrecepta moralia Positiva, sed Naturalia ilia magis explicavit”; and ” in its ethical aspect Christianity does not offer a system of morality, but a universal principle of morality which springs out of the Resurrection.” See Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 7 ; Tertull. De Virg. Vel. § 1.

1 Matt. v. 21 — 24.

3 “The standard of Mohammed- anism, by contrast to Christianity, may be described as a standard de- liberately adapted to the average moral level of the men to whom it was meant to appeal. ’ If one had to express in a short compass,’ says Professor Mozley, ’ the character of its remarkable founder as a teacher, it would be that that great man had no faith in human nature…’ ‘Human nature is weak,’ he said. ..The method of Christ is in striking opposition. He, before Mohammed, said ’ The flesh is weak’; but from the starting- point of this acknowledgment He proceeds by a quite different path. No book exhibits so profound a con- tempt for majorities, so startling a refusal to consider the conditions of success on the average, as the New Testament. Jesus Christ makes His appeal to the best.” Gore’s Bamplon Lectures, pp. 206, 207, Ed. 1891.

Notes

• “Multi nostris temporibus in- penitus habent, omnia qua? in illo veniuntur, inter quos Anabaptistse posita sunt ad prisca majorum nos- prsecipue sunt collocandi, ad quos trorum tempora referentes.” Reform. si quis vetus Testamentum alleget, Leg. Eccl. de Heresibus, c. 4. illud pro abrogato jam et obsoleto
• Herein they renewed the errors 2 See Alley, Poorc Mans Librarie, of Basilides, Carpocrates, and the ii. 97 ; Homilies, 2nd Part of Faith, Manichieans. p. 38, Camb. Ed.
• “Still with all its uncertainty as to the mode in which this End shall be effected, the promise had within it a principle of Hope and Encouragement, and the materials of a religious trust fitted to keep man still looking to his Maker.” Davison On Prophecy, p. 55. The words foretell that man shall over- come the powers of evil, through him- self suffering in the conflict. And
• Archer Butler’s Sermons, Series i. pp. 261, 262. On our Lord’s claim to be the fulfilment of these predictive rites, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, pp. 79, 1:7.
• Ep. ad Phil., c. v. ; ad Magn., c. 5 ” Ecclesia Legem et Prophetascum x. Evangelicis et Apostolicis litteris mis-
• Iren. Adv. Ha-r., Bk. iv. cap. 4. 6 S. Aug. Contra Faust. Manich.,
• See Bp Browne On the Articles, pp. 194, 195.
• ” The Book of Job, whatever date be assigned to it, and whether its contents be regarded as history or parable, is throughout a very hymn of immortality. If this world were all, all was lost for Job ; God was a terrible enigma ; chance was God ; Provi- dence was but a name. But Job in the depth of his anguish knows that his Redeemer liveth, and that from his flesh he shall see God.” Lid- don’s University Sermons, Series i. p. 1 13. ” In Job we have,” writes
• ” His God, or Vindicator, is living and not subject to death — and the satisfaction which God grants him is, that he will behold Him after death — the God who now hides Him- self from him, and will not suffer him to approach Him.” — Orelli’s Old Testament Prophecy, p. 185.
• Matt. v. 27, 28. Thus our Lord proclaimed the proper essence of morality ; goodness, He taught, is goodness of will, dependent not on any extrinsic effects, but upon the man’s direction of himself to the realisation of a conceived or imagined belief. Cf. Green’s Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 149.