From his right hand went a fiery law for them.
Yea, he loved the people."

VI. The moral law was given in a way altogether peculiar. God never made to man in like manner any other communication. In the midst of the grand and awful appearances already alluded to, it was spoken by the Almighty in an audible voice from the top of Sinai, in the hearing of all the people. No other part of the law of Moses was thus uttered by Jehovah. Deut. iv. 33; v. 4, 22. Without any variation it was also twice written on tables of stone by the finger of God himself. Ex. xxxii. 15, 16; xxxiv. 1; Deut. x. 4, 5. The Lord would have it graven on a rock. These tables were long preserved in the ark of the testimony, covered with the divine glory. Ex. xxv. 16, 21; xxxvii. 1-9. Moreover, great preparations were, by divine command, made by the people for the space of two days together. They cleansed themselves and their raiment from all pollutions that they might come and stand before the Lord. Ex. xix. 10, 11. Every man seems to have been anxious to make himself ready for that great and dreadful day of hearing the law; a day more great and dreadful than ever any shall be, except that of judging men according to the law.

Besides, a strict injunction was given them to beware of touching the mount, or offering to ascend it,—a fence was placed around it, which was not to be violated on pain of death. Ex. xix. 12. "If so much as a beast touch the mountain, it was to be stoned, or thrust through with a dart." Heb. xii. 20. And even after God had descended upon the mountain, and the people had been brought out of the

camp to meet with him, Moses was again called up to receive a new and more imperative prohibition of the transgression of the appointed limits. "Go down," said God, "charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them." Ex. xix. 21, 22. No marvel that our Saviour said to the Jews, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me." John v. 46.

VII. At the giving of the moral law, it was not called by the name of the "Ten Commandments." Nor is it so denominated in any part of the Hebrew Scripture. It is more than once spoken of as the Ten Words. Ex. xxxiv. 28; Deut. iv. 13; x. 4. Yet the English version renders the Hebrew in these cases Commandments; but the original requires it should be Words; for we have not the word commonly rendered Commandments. Sometimes the Moral Law is called the Covenant, or the words of the covenant.

Ex.

xxxiv. 28; Deut. iv. 13; 1 Kings viii. 21; 2 Chron. vi. 11; Jer. xxxi. 32-34. Very often in Scripture the Decalogue has the name of the Law and sometimes of the Commandments. It is also often called the Testi

mony.

CHAPTER V.

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE LAW.

is

I. HE law of God is unbending, uncompliant. THE law of This is the nature of all law. The law of gravitation in nature yields nothing to circumstances. The good man and the bad man alike feel its force in the prosecution of their benevolent or nefarious designs. A law that would yield to the caprices of men would be of no service either to direct them or to set forth the character of the lawgiver. divine law may be broken, but it will not bend. We could have no confidence in the unchangeable character of God, if we found his law varying from time to time. He is a Rock, and his work is perfect. "I am the LORD, I change not." Mal. iii. 6. Domat: "There are no natural and immutable laws but those which come from God.”

The

II. The law of God is one and not many. There is no conflict between its several precepts. The same authority enacts, the same benevolence pervades, the same sanctions attend each commandment. It is for this reason that an apostle says, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." James ii. 10. The law is a chain of

many links. Break which link you please, and the chain is broken. Hare: "All God's commandments hang together: they are knit and woven together like a fine net, wherein you cannot loosen a single stitch without danger of unravelling the whole. . . . There is no letting any one devil into our souls, without the risk of his going and fetching seven other devils wickeder than himself." Although, by its peculiar form, the law seems to require only a few leading duties and to forbid a few atrocious sins, yet even this arrangement is found to be useful. Calvin: Anger and hatred are not supposed to be such execrable crimes when they are mentioned under their own proper appellations; but when they are forbidden to us under the name of murder, we have a clearer perception how abominable they are in the view of God, by whose word they are classed under such a flagitious and horrible species of crime, and being influenced by his judgment, we accustom ourselves more seriously to consider the atrociousness of those offences which we previously accounted trivial.”

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III. The law requires compliance with its demands as obedience to God. It is not an accidental conformity to the letter of the law that will satisfy its claims. Men may avoid, for good reasons, the violations of its rules of temperance, honesty, and truth; but without any reference to the authority of the divine lawgiver. For their sobriety and uprightness they have their reward in health, thrift, and respectability. Men find infractions of the commandments oftentimes inconvenient and troublesome. To avoid vexation they outwardly conform, but this is not obedience to God. In all this they are consulting their

own profit and advantage and not at all the glory of Him who made them.

Domat: "It is for God himself that God has made man. It is that he may know him, that he has given him an understanding; it is that he may love him, that he has given him a will; and it is by the ties of this knowledge, and of this love, that he would have men to unite themselves to him, that they may find in him their true life." This makes them like God.

IV. The law comprehends all conceivable moral acts. "Thy commandment is exceeding broad." Ps. cxix. 96. It enjoins all duties, binding on any rational creature. There is no form of sin which it does not forbid. Scott: "The breadth of the commandment shows the scantiness of man's best righteousness, and recommends the righteousness of the Redeemer, as alone commensurate with its holy and extensive requirements.' All admit that the law of God extends to overt acts.

The great error of many is that here they stop. Nor can it be denied that the law claims to regulate our speech. What would a rule of moral conduct be worth if it allowed all men the unbridled use of their tongues? "The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity." James iii. 6. The law goes further. It prohibits all wicked thoughts. It is spiritual. Rom. vii. 14. Calvin: "If a king prohibits by an edict, adultery, murder, or theft, no man, I confess, will be liable to the penalty of such a law, who has only conceived in his mind a desire to commit adultery, murder, or theft, but has not perpetrated either of them; because the superintendence of a mortal legislator extends only to the external conduct, and his prohibitions are not violated unless the crimes