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and of Rationalists in our own day. To meet this ad-
verse criticism it will be sufficient to indicate a few
general principles that should not be lost sight of, and
then to treat a few points in greater detail.
It has Always l^n freely admitted by Christians that the Mosaic Law is an imperfect institution; still Christ came not to destroy it but to fulfil and perfect it. We must bear in mind that God, the Creator and Lord of all things, and the Supreme Judge of the world, can do and command things which man the creature is not authorized to do or command. On this principle we may account for and defend the conmiand givenl>y God to exterminate certain nations, and the permis- sion given by Him to the Israelites to spoil the Egyp- tians. The tribes of Chanaan richly deserved the fate to which they were condemned by God; and if there were innocent people among the guil^, God is the absolute Lord of life and death, and He commits no injustice when He takes away what He has given. Besides, He can make up by ^fts of a higher oraer in another life for sufferings which have been p^atiently endured in this life. A great want of historical per- spective is shown by those critics who judge the Mo- saic Law by the humanitarian and sentimental canons of the twentieth century. A recent writer (Keane,
- 'The Moral Argument against the Inspiration of the
Old Testament in the Hibbert Journal. October, 1905, p. 155) professes to be very much shocked by what IS prescribed in Exodus, xxi, 5-6. It is there laid down that if a Hebrew slave who has a wife and children prefers to remain with his master rather than ^o out free when the sabbatiqal year comes round, he IS to be taken to the door-post and have his ear bored through with an awl, and then he is to remain a slave for lite. It was a sign and mark by which he was known to be a hfelong slave. The practice was doubt- less already familiar to the Israelites of the time, as it was to their neighbours. The slave himself probably thought no more of the operation than does a South African beauty, when her lip or ear is pierced for the lip-ring and the ear-ring, which in her estimation are to add to her charms. It is really too much when a staid professor makes such a prescription the ground for a grave charge of inhumanity against the law of Moses. Nor should the institution of slavery be made a (ground of attack against the Mosaic legislation. It existed everywhere and although in practice it is apt to lead to many abuses, still, in the mild form in which it was allowed among the Jews, and with the safe- guards prescribed by the Law, it cannot be said with truth to be contrary to sound morality.
Polygamy and divorce, though less insisted on by Rationalist critics, in reality constitute a more serious difficulty against the holiness of the Mosaic Law than any of those which have just been mentioned. The difficulty is one which has engaged the attention of the Fathers and theologians of the Church from the begin- ning. To answer it they take their stand on the teaching of the Master in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew and the parallel passages of Holy Scripture. What is there said of divorce is applicable to plurality of wives. The strict law of marriage was made known to our first parents in Paradise: *"They shall be two in one flesh^* (Gen., ii. 24). When the sacred text says two it excludes polygamy, when it says one flesh it excludes divorce. Amid the general laxity with regard to marriage which existed among the Semitic tribes, it would nave been difficult to preserve the strict law. The importance of a rapid increase among the chosen people of God so as to enable them to de- fend themselves from their neighbours, and to fulfil their appointed destiny, seemed to favour relaxa- tion. The example of some of the chief of the ancient Patriarchs was taken by their descendants as being a sufficient indication of the dispensation granted by God. With grpecial safeguards annexed to it Moees adopted the Divine dispensation on ac-
count of the hardness of heart of the Jewish people.
Neither polygamy nor divorce can be said to be con-
trary to the primary precepts of nature. The primary
end of marriage is compatible with both. But at least
they are against the secondary precepts of the natural
law: contrary, that is, to what is required for the well-
ordering of human life. In these secondary precepts,
however, God can dispense for good reason if He sees
fit to do so. In so doing He uses His sovereign author-
ity to diminish the right of absolute equauty which
naturally exists between man and woman with refer-
ence to marriage. In this way, without suffering any
stain on His holiness, God could permit and sanction
polygamy and divorce in the Old Law.
Christ is the author of the New Law. He claimed and exercised supreme legislative authority in spirit- ual matters from the beginning of His pubhc life until His Ascension into heaven. In Him the Old Law had its fulfilment and attained its chief purpose. The civil legislation of Moses had for its object to form and preserve a peculiar people for the worship of the one true God, and to prepare the way for the coming of the Messias who was to oe bom of the seed of Abraham. The new Kingdom of God which Christ founded was not confined to a single nation, it embraced all the nations of the ^ulh, and when the new Israel was con- stituted, the old Israel with its separatist law became antiquated; it had fulfilled its mission. The ceremonial laws of Moses were types and figures of the purer, more spiritual, and more efficacious sacrifice and sacra- ments of the New Law, and when these were instituted the former lost their meaning and value. By the death of Christ on the Cross the New Covenant was sealed, and the Old was abrogated, but until the Gospel haa been preached and duly promulgated, out of deference to Jewish prejudices^na out of respect for ordinances, which after all were Divine, those who wished to do so were at liberty to conform to the practices of the Mo- saic Law. When the Gospel had been duly promul- gated the civil and ceremonial precepts of the Law of Moses became not only useless, but false and super- stitious, and thus forbidden.
It was otherwise with the moral precepts of the Mosaic Law. The Master expressly taught that the observance of these, inasmuch as they are prescribed by nature herself, is necessary for salvation — "If thou wouldst enter into life keep the commandments ". — those well-known precepts of the Decalogue. Ot these commandments those words of His are especially true — "I came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it." This Christ did by insisting anew on the great law of charity towards God and man, which He ex- plained more fully and gave us new motives for prac- tising. He corrected the false glosses with which the Scribes and Pharisees had obscured the law as revealed by God, and He brushed aside the heap of petty ob- servances with which they had overloaded it, and made it an intolerable burden. He denounced in un- measured terms the externalism of Pharisaic observ- ance of the Law, and insisted on its spirit being observed as well as the letter. As was suited to a law of love which replaced the Mosaic Law of fear, Christ wished to attract men to obey His precepts out of motives of charity and filial obedience, rather than compel submission by threats of punishment. He promised spiritual blessings rather than temporal, and taught His followers to despise the goods of this world in order to fix their affections on the future joys of life eternal. He was not content with a bare observance of the law, He boldly proposed to His disciples the infinite goodness and holiness of God for their model* and urged them to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. For such as were specially called, and who were not content to observe the commandments merely, He proposed counsels of consummate perfec- tion. By observing these His specially chosen fol- lowers, not only conquered their vices, but destroyed
