VII. PERJURY. The more solemn an oath is, the greater is the sin of perjury. If .to swear by God's Name is a method of arriving at truth appointed by God him1<elf, to swear by his Na.me falsely subverts the purpose of the command and insults the majesty of God. VIII. IBBEVEBENCE. Not only deliberate perjury but any kind of irreverence is for- bidden by this injunction. "The Christian man ..• will endeavour to recognize with faithful respect that holy Name wherever it meets him in his walk of life. As it is an .appellation of the most high God, he will never utter it hastily or thoughtlessly. He will surely not use it at all except he have occasion to speak of it seriously and carefully. It is needless to say how totally he will refrain from such wanton profanation as that of garnishing his common speech by using the Name or referring to the doings of the Most High; still less how impossible it would be for him to allege the sacred Name, literally or by implication, in support of falsehood; nay, how impossible it would be that he should assert what is false at all, seeing that the Name of God is all around him, and that the most secularly sounding asseverations are nothing else than allega- tions of that Name. He will be much on his guard in prayers, lest, while he utters the sacred Name and the words which belong to it, his mind should wander away from the thoughts which ought to accompany it, and he should break the co=andment. He will not shrink from the seemly reverence which the Church orders to be paid to the Name of Christ" (Moberly, 'The Law of the Love of God'). Vers. 18, 34.-We have the testimony of our Lord (Matt. xxii. 9) and of the Apostle St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 9; Gal. v. H) that to obey the injunction, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," is to fulfil all the commandments of the second table of the Law; and for that reason St. James calls it a. royal law (Jas. ii. 8). Here, therefore, the Levitical Law culminates in its highest point, so far as our duties towards men are con- cerned. Lest the Jew should confine the idea. of thy neighbour to his own kindred and race, an equal love is specifically commanded for the stranger that dwelleth with you. Not -0nly, Thou shalt love thy Jewish neighbour us thyself, but also Thou shalt love the stranger that dwelleth among you as thyself. The force of the comparison, as th!lself, may be studied in Bishop Butler's sermon' Upon the Love of our Neighbour.' But though the Law culminates in the two kindred commands, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God;• "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" Christianity does not. Christianity goes beyond the highest point to which the Law soars. Not only does it name the neighbour and the stranger as those whom we a.re to love, but also the enemy. •• Ye have heard that it bath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for .them which despitefully use you, and persecute you ; •that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 43-45). The motive in the gospel is also higher than the Law. In the Law the motive in the case of the stranger is human sympathy a.rising from common suffering, "for ya were strangers in the lsnd of Egypt." In the gospel it is the desire to be like God in his deal- ings with men, " fur he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. v. 45), "for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful " (Luke vi. 35, 36). Ver. 19.-The moral meaning of the command, "Thoo shalt not aow thy field with mingled aeed," receives an illustration from the parable of the "man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also" (Matt. xiii. 24-26). God's servant must sow of the best ; If the tares are mixed with the good seed, it must be the enemy's doing, not his. One of the preparations made by the Jews for an approaching Passover was to go over the fields near Jerusalem, and root up plants that had grown from mingled seeds. llut in the spiritual sphere this is not to be done. If the enemy has succeeded in introduc- ing the tares, they a.re for the sake of the wheat to be let to grow together until the harvest (Matt. xiii. 30). 208 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [cu. x.u:. 1-37~
Ver, 32.-Respectfor old age is not on.ly inculcated as a preservative against the rule- of brute force, but as a part of the fear of God, the parent's relatictn to the child repre- senting that of God to his creature.
Ver. 37.-Moral commandments have a doul,le sanction. They are to be obeyed. (1) because they carry their own sanction with them, (2) because they are commanded In the latter respect all Divine injunctions stand on a level. All transgressions of what is commanded are equally sin, but they are not equal sins. A man who steals is not guilty of an equally heinous sin with the man who commits murder but he jg. equally guilty of sin, because both murder and theft are forbidden. .All God's statutes and all his judgments are to be observed without exception, in order to be righteo~ according to the righteousness of the Law. "For Moses describeth the riahteousneu- which is of the Law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by th;m n (Rom. x. 5). " This do, and ye shall live" (Luke xi. 28).