One cannot read the words, " I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts," without thinking of the tables of stone which occupy so prominent a place in the history of the Sinaitic covenant. And the writing on the heart suggests very forcibly the defects of the ancient covenant, in so far as it had the fundamental laws of life written on stone. Writing on stone may be very durable. The slabs on which the Ten Words are inscribed may abide as a lasting monument, pro- claiming what God requires of man, saying to successive genera- tions : Eemember to do this and to avoid doing that. But while the stone slabs may avail to keep men in mind of their duty, they are utterly impotent to dispose them to perform it ; in witness whereof we need only refer to Israel's behaviour at the foot of the mount of lawgiving. At the very time the tables were being prepared, they danced around their golden calf; at the very moment Moses was descending with the two tables in his hand, with the Ten Words written on them, the first of which said, " Thou shalt have none other God before me," they had chosen
JEREMIAH xxxi. 31-34 139
another God ; insomuch that the legislator in disgust dashed the tables to pieces, as if to say, What is the use of making laws for such a people ? Manifestly the writing on the heart is sorely wanted in order that the law may be kept, not merely in the ark, but in human conduct. And that, accordingly, is what Jeremiah puts in the forefront in his account of the New Covenant, on which restored Israel is to be constituted. How the mystic writing is to be achieved he does not say, perhaps he does not know ; but he believes that God can and will achieve it some- how ; and he understands full well its aim and its certain result in a holy life.
^J You may adjust your social relationships according to the most democratic principle ; you may define, in terms of economic science, the relations of Capital and Labour ; you may abolish slums and build garden cities ; but until there is drawn up and ratified between God and man, and between man and man, a new covenant of the spirit, your scheme for a new heaven and a new earth will never be realized. It is here that religion is indispensable, for no covenant will endure which ignores the spiritual nature of man. It is here that the voice of Jesus Christ may be heard, saying to capitalist and to workmen, " Apart from me ye can do nothing." It is here that the voice of the Eedeemer may be heard saying to His Church, as He recalls it to a deeper appreciation of its character and mission : " This cup is the new covenant in my blood; this do ... in remembrance of me." This, surely, is our supreme business as Christians, to make this new covenant of the Spirit possible, by writing it on our own hearts, and afterwards to write it on the life and soul of our day.
Till earth becomes a temple,
And every human heart Shall join in one great service,
Each happy in his part. And God shall be our Master,
And all His service own, And men shall be as brothers,
And heaven on earth be won.1
2. Under the New Covenant knowledge of God will become universal. — In ancient Israel as now, men learned what they could about God from human teachers. But the truths which
1 E. J. Barson,
140 THE NEW COVENANT
• they learned, though inculcated with great industry, were, in the great majority of cases, not really mastered, because there was no accompanying process of interpretation and adjustment within the soul. It was to be otherwise in the future. "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me,
. from the least of them unto the greatest of them." In the New Covenant the Divine Teacher, without dispensing with such human instruments as were wanted, would do the most im- portant part of His work Himself. He would make truth plain to the soul, and would enamour the soul of truth by such instruction as is beyond the reach of human argument and language, since it belongs to the world of spirit. " Ye have an unction from the Holy One," said St. John to his readers, " and
» ye know all things." "Listen not," says St. Augustine, "too eagerly to the outward words : the Master is within."
No polemic against the priesthood is intended here. The prophet does not mean, with a stroke of his pen, to abolish an ancient Order to which he himself belongs. A much profounder idea underlies his words. He will have us distinguish between that knowledge of God which is esoteric and technical, the possession of a class, and that which is the instinct of every renewed nature, i.e., between the ceremonial and the moral in religion. We shall never be in a position to claim independence of each other in our spiritual experience. It is " with all saints," i.e., in the communion of the Catholic Church, that we come to know the love which passes knowledge. Moral sense must be trained ; even conscience must be educated. But the education of con- science is one thing, and the imposition of creed or code is quite another. The one develops that individuality which the other tends to repress. The latter is excluded here. When he says, " They shall all know me," it is probable that the prophet does not consciously overlook the limits of his age. By " all men " he means all Jews. But the relative Universalism he asserts pre- pared for the absolute Universalism which is characteristic of the gospel age. Christianity is aggressive and world-subduing, because it is the religion not of the letter but of the spirit. English customs and ideals can hardly cross the Channel. They can no more take root in Eastern lands than the Mosaic Law