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highest condition of morality and religion, are and must be at varinace with Moses. This prepares us for our next inquiry,
Is our Confession correct or incorrect in its comprehension of the law of Moses? It is incorrect: the compilers of our Confession fell into a serious error when they took for granted that Moses legislated for a perfect condition of moral and religious life among the Jews.
Our Confession is incorrect in its view of the purpose of the law of Moses. The compilers of the Confession, and those who uphold it as it is, take for granted that Moses legislated for a perfect condition of social and religious life, whereas he legislated so as to restrain, as far as circumstances permitted, the evils of a semi-barbarian social condition and a foreshadowing religious state. This error of the compilers vitiates the whole teaching of the Confession on the question of marriage. The purpose of Moses is not so easily discerned as many commentators suppose.
Some imagine that he legislated on the question of marriage to promote the physical vigour of the race, which is not unlikely.
Others suppose that conjugal love destroys natural affection, and that Moses legislated for the defence of natural affection. How they come to the opinion that conjugal love destroys natural affection they do not tell us, and it is difficult to conceive. They may with as much propriety tell us that the love existing after marriage between husband and wife destroys the love they had for one another before marriage. Will or can any man in the exercise of his common sense believe that the love which man and wife cherish to one another destroys the love which drew them into the relation of husband and wife?
Others assert that it was to protect family purity.
Others, again, suppose that it was to widen the circle of human affections.
Perhaps it was a purpose profounder than any or all of these, embracing what is true in them, and a great deal more — a purpose which, when understood, will be seen to be worthy of God. It was a purpose evidently foreshadowing better things to come; for, viewed in itself, the legislation of Moses was, as declared by Peter, a yoke which “neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.”
The Confession is incorrect in its interpretation of the law of Moses, for it makes Moses teach that affinity is the same as consanguinity—in other words, that relationship in affinity is as near in blood as relationship in consanguinity; and this is the opinion clung to by the upholders of the Confession in its entirety. But this is a doctrine which contradicts the common sense of mankind, and could not have been the doctrine of Moses. It is a doctrine as absurd as, and requires to be placed side by side with, the doctrines of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiaion—doctrines which require man to believe in opposition to his common sense and rational dictates.
