SERMON VI – William Elbert Munsey

SERMON VI.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL (DISCOURSE I.).

” Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea we establish the law.” — Rom. 3:31.

      THE student of Christian theology is perplexed and con- founded upon the very threshold of his studies, by artifi- cial, arbitrary, and useless distinctions. For illustration, he reads of the “law of Christ “as distinguished from “angelic law ” and ” Adamic law ; ” of the ” Law of Love,” as distin- guished from the “original law of perfect purity;” of the ” law of Faith,” ” the evangelical law of liberty,” ” the Law of the Gospel,” as distinguished from the ” moral law ; ” of the ” Evangelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Re- deemer,” as distinguished from the ” anti-evangelical, Christ- less, remediless law of our Creator.” He learns from one, that the moral law, meaning the law under which Adam was placed, is repealed or annulled, and that man is released from its claims. He learns from others that moral law is not repealed, but that its claims are met by Christ, therefore set aside. Who are these ? They are not Antinomians, for they do not leave us without law ; they place us under what they term the ” law of the Gospel,” a ” milder law,” called “the law of Christ.” When the stu- dent wishes to know what the Gospel is, some tell them it is all the doctrines, precepts, promises, and threatenings con- tained in the New Testament ; others tell him it is all the doctrines, promises, precepts, and threatenings contained in both the Old and New Testaments. This is the doctrine of some Armenian divines — Methodist divines. Such a doc- trine, if believed, gives the theological and Bible student loose and distracted ideas of God’s government, incorrect ideas of His law, inferior notions of the standard of perfec- tion, and in many instances loose notions of duty. The law of God is one — never differing — is universal and perpetual in its obligation. We are under this law. We un- derstand by law, the rule given by God for the government of free moral beings, that rule of action, which is connate with the existence of every intelligent creature God has made, usually called the moral law — I do not mean the deca- logue. I wish to establish the truth of this position, and show the relative position of law and Gospel. I. Let us examine the origin and nature of the moral law. What must be the origin and nature of any law governing moral beings as such ? It is necessary, we know. How is law made ? Follow the argument. God is the idea of in- finity in its interminable applications, in its indivisible one- ness. The spirituality and simplicity of His being, the in- discerptibility of His essence, infinite in every’ quality of its character and emanation of its nature, is the grand idea that God can only have. He is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omni- potent, Immutable, Eternal and Infinitely wise. Every one of these perfections logically requires the others. Combined they form a being of such infinite majesty, “the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him.” He is here ! Entering into the unity of His being are the absolute and infinite qualities of Holiness, Justice, Goodness, and Truth. These constitute what is called His moral nature. What a symmetrical embodiment of inimitable beauties ! what an equilibrium of perfect qualities ! Holiness, without a spot or blemish ; Justice, without partiality and compromise ; Infinite Goodness, and Infinite Truth. These qualities, like suns, full orbed and blazing, woven together with their own bright beams, enter into the unity of His essential being, and constitute what is called His moral nature. Examine that nature. What is its essence ? Ask the angels ; ask the re- deemed on earth ; ask John upon his throne judging one of the twelve tribes of Israel — “God is love” says he; It is love. God is not a phlegmatic and callous abstraction ; not an immovably severe and awfully majestic being, without affection and feeling, but a God whose nature in the highest sense is love — love, active and positive. God has a fixed and determinate constitutional nature. Every thing which He makes, or which is the offspring of His mind, bears the impress of His determinate nature. He created intelligent beings. His fixed and determinate nature, with certain limitations and modifications, fixed and determined their natures ; their fixed and determinate natures sustain fixed and unalterable relations to their Author and to each other ; these fixed and unalterable relations give birth to fixed and unalterable laws governing the created with reference to their Author, and to each other — laws springing from God by a logical spontaneity as the transcript of His nature, the expression of His will. The moral law is an expression of God’s will, and God’s will is God’s nature. It has its origin in the nature and fitness of things. It is not arbitrary, for it arises out of relations, yet relations when properly traced rest finally and primarily in the nature of God. Here is the ultimate upon which we repose at last ; here is the point of ” necessity,” and to search for the fitness of things lying aback of it is to search for something beyond necessity, which something is essential to the existence of that which is the necessity itself. This process of reasoning being true, what principles must necessarily constitute the structure of a code of laws for the government of moral beings, if such being there be ? The principles of His moral nature as a matter of course. The law accepted in God’s nature must be the law given to govern the nature of His creatures. It must be one like His moral character — not contrary to it. Now let us copy the few beams of God’s moral nature which struggle through the darkness and throw it in sym- metrical ambrotype upon a canvas. This kind of reasoning has its philosophical and metaphysical subtleties, but some light will scintillate through the darkness sufficient to illu- minate our picture. The perfections of God’s moral nature are Holiness, Justice, Goodness, and Truth — its essence is Love. The law for the government of moral beings, or moral law, being necessarily a copy of His moral nature, must then be Holy — requiring perfect purity of character. It must be inflexibly and immutably just — recognizing the Divine right of the Law-giver to make laws, the obligation and duty of its subjects to obey, defining its sanctions and apportioning them according to merit. It must be the Truth — an exact representation of the whole nature of God, and certain and veracious in its retributions. It must be Good — embodying the Divine benevolence and excellency, to make it admir-ed and elevating, and to promote the hap- piness of the subject in the same ratio with his obedience. Its essence and actuating principle must be Love to the ut- most compass of its requirements, and the utmost boundary of its applications. To epitomize it : The law must be Holy, Just, Good, and Truthful. It is the grand law of Love — ex- act transcript of God. Let us reason from another source. God created angels, men, and probably centuplicated millions of intelligent beings, who tenant every star and sphere in the universe of created existence. To all these He sustains the relation of Creator, for He made them ; Preserver, for he upholds their dependent being ; Benefactor, for they are the beneficiaries of His care and bounty ; Governor, for they are the subjects of what is undeniably His own empire. Out of these rela- tions naturally arises a rule governing the conduct of the created to the Creator ; the preserved, to the Preserver ; the beneficiary, to the Benefactor; and the subject, to the Governor ; and be this rule what it may it is law — the whole or part of moral law. All these intelligent beings being of like nature, and placed in communities as far as we know, and having the same Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, and Governor, sustain intimate relations to each other, out of which naturally arises a rule governing their conduct towards each other ; and be this rule what it may, it is law — the whole or part of moral law. Now, from the intimate relations existing between the creature and God, the creature and his fellow, reasoning a priori, what must be the nature of this law ? It must be holy — for what naturally arises out of a dependent and friendly relation, could not possibly require anything contradictory of the relation, but in conformity with it ; and the relation itself being of Divine ordination, must be holy. It must be just — for the relations being equal, its claims must be im- partial ; and the relation existing, its claims must exist ; and conformity to the claims must produce happiness, and non- conformity must produce misery. It must be good — for, arising out of the harmony of relations, it must be excellent, benevolent, and elevating. It must be truth — for if it is the result of relations it must be the exact representation of them, and if law at all it must be reliable in its sanctions. Its essence and actuating principle must be Love — for a holy creature sustaining such relations to God naturally loves Him, and cheerfully obeys Him ; and a holy creature sus- taining such relations to his fellows, naturally loves them, therefore never does them harm, but good. To epitomize it, the law is holy, just, good, and truthful. It is the grand law of Love. Let us see what its character is as revealed in the Bible. Paul says in Romans : ” The law is holy, and the command- ment holy, just, and good.” The Psalmist says: “Thy law is the Truth.” The law according to these Scriptures, is holy, just, good, and truthful. Now what is revealed as its essence ? Paul says : ” Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Christ says: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; ” and ” thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Again, we arrive at the same result. Reason as we may ; from the character of God ; from the nature of man’s relations; from the express revelations of the Holy Scriptures ; and we discover it is the same law of Love — holy, just, good, and truthful. Reason from the nature and certainty of its rewards j the nature and certainty of its punishments, as revealed in the Bible, seen in human history, and in human experience, we arrive at the same result. II. The moral law is immutable. It is unchangeable in its principles and requirements from its very nature. It is a perfect and accurate transcript of the perfections of God’s nature. It is this from necessity, as I have already shown you. It could not, therefore, change unless God’s nature changed. And the idea of change with reference to God would be fatal to His perfection, therefore, annihilate Him, annihilate His government, annihilate every living and exist- ing thing. Wild anarchy would rush upon anarchy, and the columns of God’s universe careering would topple every ma- terial and spiritual entity into nothing, and uncreated night would shroud universal emptiness with utter darkness. The moral law is immutable because it arises out of de- terminate relations, whose character is made by God acting out in creation His own nature. God cannot repeal it, 01 give any other, without contradicting His nature, conse- quently destroying Himself. God ” cannot lie ” — and His law is but the truth of every relation out of which it springs in living expression. The relation an intelligent creature sus- tains to God and its fellow, is not fictitious, but real, hence a truth. The law proscribing duty arising out of such relation, if it be a natural spontaneous result, is but the character of the relation duplicated, therefore it is truth ; and truth from its very nature cannot change, without losing its entire charac- ter as truth, therefore its existence. In the Eastern Continent, there is a vast desert belt, five thousand and six hundred miles long, with a woof of rocky plains and sterile knolls, woven into a warp of burning sands, and hung around the broad shoulders of torrid Africa, bind- ing it to the globe, and lapping over one-third of Asia. This huge desert stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to Central Hindostan in Asia. Amid its sterility are many beautiful oases, which lie like kisses upon its swarthy cheeks, and many verdant valleys smile along the streams with which its parched face is dimpled. Near the centre of this arid zone, lying in the fork of the Red Sea, is the Peninsula of Sinai. The mountains of Sinai, situated in the Peninsula, are intricate, confused, and cluster- ing peaks of limestone, sandstone, red and gray granite, un- relieved b}r verdure, rent with a thousand gorges, and pro- miscuously piled, precipitately and sublimely, in rugged grandeur to the maximum height of nine thousand three hun- dred feet. The scenery looks as if a tremendous explosion from the centre of the earth had blown out the granite ribs of the globe, and piled them endwise and pell-mell, tower- ing into grotesque, daring, and splintered peaks, breaking into a thousand badly-balanced and salient crags. Surrounded by mountains of granite, in the very heart of this system of mountains, is a small plain called Rahab, about two miles long, and averaging three-fourths of a mile wide. Here the children of Israel encamped when the law was given. Lying south of this plain, and separated from all the other mountains of this region by little verdant and odor- iferous valleys running entirely around it, is a lofty ridge about two or three miles long. The northern end of this ridge rises in perpendicular cliffs like a castellated wall, surmounted with three grand turrets or peaks, fifteen hundred feet high — right out of the plain of Rahah, and stretching nearly across the plain, and separated from the outside moun- tains by the little valleys before mentioned. This northern end of the ridge is visible from every part of the plain, and is called Horeb. It was here the Divine glory sat enthroned in the sight of all Israel during the days of the giving of the law. The southern end of this ridge is broader than the northern end, and is about two miles from the northern end, or Horeb, and is hidden from a spectator in the plain of Rahah by the intervening peaks of Horeb. It is called the Mount of Moses. This peak is higher than Horeb, and sits propped on awful and frowning buttresses of red granite, capped with gray granite fantastically piled into a kind of diadem and worn with the oddest dignity and uniquest grandeur. While the Lord manifested His glory to Israel from the top of Horeb, on the northern end, it is here where He probably manifested Himself to Moses, and where Moses communed with Him. And there it stands — Sinai stands — to-day, unchanged, and precisely as it was when the foot of God trod its solitary peaks more than three thousand years ago. Since then, cities have sprung up out of the wilderness, became emporiums, then perished, and their ruins now are the study and wonder of archaeologists. Kingdoms and empires have arisen and passed away. Civilizations have successively played their parts, run their cycles, and given the way for newer and higher forms. Forty years afterwards the children of the fathers who stood and trembled under the quaking mount, passed over the Jordan, and took possession of their Canaan. For fifteen hundred years they were a great nation with a thrilling and eventful history, and now dena- tionalized, are scattered all over the world without a head — the ruins of their ancient capital buried twenty to fifty feet beneath the modern city, where swaggering Turks play a travesty upon government, a caricature upon religion, and a parody upon civilization. Since then Christ has come and changed the philosophy and religion of the world, and the wheels of time have rolled thirty centuries nearer the Judg- ment. But still Sinai stands uninhabited and uninhabitable, save by a few monks and hermits, as the Holy of Holies, of na- ture’s temple, walled in forever from the curious world by mountains of granite, and there it will be at the Judgment. Grand old Sinai ! Sublime in its solitude ! Isolated from the world. The clink of machinery, the whistling of the loco- motive, the roar of battle, were never heard among its gray old peaks. They have stood there silent since God spake from their summits, save when the nimble-footed lightning has danced over their granite boulders, and heaven’s thun- ders have rumbled among their crags. But there was a time when God manifested Himself there. It was about the middle of May fourteen centuries before Christ was born. The children of Israel, numbering six hundred thousand, besides women and children, were encamped in the plain of Rahah, and in the mouths of the valleys breaking into the plain. One morning the clouds began to gather around the peaks growing denser and blacker every moment. From the turbid and inky embankment great pieces and murky fleeces of cloud folded off, and lapped around the spurs and envel- oped the ravines, till finally every peak was hidden, and the summit of the mount seemed changed itself into angry agita ted cloud, instinct with latent tempests, and lifting itself high above the surrounding mountains. The sun rising in the east flung its splintered pencils against the coliginous walls of the dreadful pile, leaving a kiss of fire burning upon the cheek of every cloudy fold which rippled from bottom to top — the long shadow falling duskily away to the west, and spreading a night of horror over the neighboring fast- nesses. By and by the lightning began to shimmer — the electric flashes trembling on the face of the cloud, the cloud looking blacker between the flashes ; the lightnings every moment becoming more frequent, till the cloud was woven into an electric plexus by the thousand electric shuttles, drawing lightning threads, flying, crossing, decussating, piercing the darkness, and blistering every rock, hissing through every stony cranny, and licking along every defile. Great thunders springing from peak to peak, and rolling along the gorges, the whole desert roaring in echo. Such a dreadful prelude appropriately heralded Divinity. And now the Great God, the legislative Jehovah, descended in fire from heaven, and as His royal feet struck Sinai’s granite top, the moun- tain reeled and quaked and smoked like a furnace — the smoke curling and rising volume after volume, ascending the sky, and marking and covering the track of descending Deity. God, the law-giver, was upon His throne. A trumpet as terrible as the trumpet of Judgment which will awake the dead, announced His presence. A trumpet summoned hu- manity to receive the law, the same trumpet will resummon humanity to be judged by the law. Still sounded the awful trumpet, and its thunder blasts shook the mountains. Moses trembled — the people fled from the mount. Inexorable law was king this day. If man has not a mediative Moses to ascend the mount, man is undone. But louder, and still louder, sounded the trumpet, and its thunder tones forming words, shaped themselves into a curse : ” Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” And the dreadful curse, sig- nificant of law’s aspect to a sinner, like a red-hot bolt from heaven’s artillery went roaring down the centuries.