bodied, varying endlessly with different times, circum- stances, and conditions of moral creatures, are determined by the infinitely wise, and righteous, and absolutely sovereion will of God. Hence there is no room for any puzzling distinctions, as far as concerns this discussion, between the ceremonial and the moral law. To the creature the revealed will of God is always an ultimate
~ and absolute rule of right. Obedience is always a moral
obligation. Disobedience to positive precepts, the reason of which is withheld, is no less a sin than disobedier to so-called moral precepts, some of the reasons of which are known. The Mosaic Institute may be viewed in three different aspects.
(a.) As a national and political covenant, whereby, under his theocratic government, the Israelites became the people of Jehovah and he became their God, and in which Church and State were identical. |
(b.) As a system of prophetic symbols or types of Christ and his glorious work of sacrifice and intercession, setting forth more clearly than was previously done the provisions of the Covenant of Grace.
(c.) In another aspect it was a legal covenant, because the moral law, obedience to which was the condition of life in the Adamic Covenant, was now prominently set forth in the Ten Commandments, and made the basis of the new covenant of God with his people. Even the ceremonial system, in its merely literal aspect, and apart from its symbolical, was also a rule of works; for “cursed was he that confirmed not all the words of the law to do them” (Deut. xxvii. 26).
Hence it is, that considered as commandments, the so- called ceremonial law was as much moral as any other, and just as absolutely immutable. .Not one jot or tittle of it could pass away until the entire righteous purpose
,
IMMUTABILITY OF THE LAW. 59
of God in it was fulfilled. The Jews, at the time of
Christ, did not make the distinction between the or- dinances of God as moral or ceremonial, as binding for their own sakes, or as binding only for God’s sake. The word ‘“ law” in Paul’s epistles stands for the entire genus “divine law.” The law of God, as a whole, condemns the sinner. Salvation by the law, as a whole, is impossible. By the whole law is the know- ledge of sin. The whole law is a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ ; and he is the end, the complete fulfilment, “* the whole law, for righteousness to every one that believeth. And the law (ceremonial as well as moral) is In its essential principles, and in respect to the divine purpose in the appointment of its variable forms, ab- solutely immutable.
2. The penalty is an essential element of the ee There can exist no law, or authoritative rule of conduct, for voluntary and morally accountable agents, to which a penal sanction is not attached; and the reason of the penalty is just as intrinsic and immutable as the reason of the precept. As we have seen that the reason of the precept is the intrinsic rightness of the thing commanded,
so the reason of the penalty is the intrinsic demerit of
the thing forbidden. As the chief end of the precept is the glory of God, that is, the manifestation of his ex- cellence through the exercise of his attributes as they are concerned in commanding; so the chief end of the penalty is his glory through the exercise of his attri- butes as they are concerned in punishing. As the moral principle involved in every precept cannot be compro- mised, so the divine judgment of the ill-desert of sin involved in all penalty cannot be relaxed. The precept
and the penalty alike express the infallible judgment of
the divine intelligence, on a question of moral obligation founded on the divine nature.
CHAPTER Wis
Penalty shown to be an es- sential part of law.
60 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
cuarten Fiske admits that the penalty is an essential part
— of the law, and he defines it as “suffering to be inflicted Admis. by the lawgiver upon the sinner, proportionate to the sions and * : . 5 inconsist. Cegree of his sinfulness, and to express the lawgiver’s encies of hatred of sin and estimate of its intrinsic ill-desert.” At
ae the same time he maintains that the ultimate end of God in ordaining or in executing the penalty, is the good of the universe, and that its “sole value is its efficacy to enforce the law and maintain its authority, and so ulti- mately help to promote the great benevolent end of moral government.” This also is plainly self-contradictory. If the penalty expresses God’s judgment of the intrinsic ill-desert of sin, then the reason of punishment is the penalty itself, as an expression of immutable moral obli- gation. But if the sole value of the penalty is to enforce law, and thus benefit the universe, it is plain that the ill-desert of sin is not intrinsic or. moral, but that it simply is a matter of policy resulting from the character of its consequences.