Mark xii. 28 — 30. And one of the Scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and 'perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first command- ment of all ? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, 0 Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
IT is no uncommon thing for those who plainly declare the truth, to be beset by cavillers and ob- jectors. Our blessed Lord, who spake as never man spake, endured continually this contradiction of sinners against himself. He had been captiously in- terrogated by Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees, and had put them all to silence. But he was again attacked by one of the Scribes, who either was, or
thought himself, more subtle than any of those who had preceded him, and had already been confounded. It was a matter of controversy at that time whether were the greater, the rites of the ceremonial, or the commandments of the moral, law ; and he applied to our Lord to give his opinion on the subject. The question being one of primary importance, our Lord referred to Moses, to whom all the disputants were ready to appeal, and by whose judgment they would consider the case as decided, and told them from him what they must consider as determined on the point a.
But this point is of as much importance as ever : and therefore I will endeavour to shew,
I. What is the first and great commandment of all — It is that which stands first in the Decalogue, and
is marked with a solemnity peculiar to itself.
There is but one God, who is Lord of heaven and
earth —
[The heathen worshipped many gods: and even the better informed amongst them thought that there were two great prin- ciples or powers, the one the author of all good, the other the author of all evil. But, in opposition to all such errors, our Lord informed him, that there was One eternally self-existent Being, from whom all other beings emanated and derived their exist- ence : and that, as He was the One source of all, so he was the Lord and Governor of all, inspecting, controlling, order- ing all things both in heaven and earth.
We are not to understand this as militating against the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. If we so separated these Persons as to make their actions independent of each other, then we should indeed do, what the Jews are ready to impute to us, worship three Gods. But we acknow- ledge and maintain the unity of the Godhead, as much as they : yet, as God in many passages of Holy Writ has shewn us, that there is in that unity a distinction of persons, one called the Father, the other the Son, and the other the Holy Ghost, and that each of these persons has his own proper office in the economy of redemption, we admit that distinction, and look to each of those Divine Persons to accomplish, in us and for us, his proper office. Still we deny, as strongly as the Jews themselves, a plurality of Gods, and maintain, as Moses has here asserted, " The Lord our God is One Lord."
a Deut. vi. 4, 5. VOL. XII. L