For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. Sermons I. THE GROUND OF THIS COMMANDMENT. God, who had spoken to Israel as to those whom he had brought out of the house of bondage, and who had bidden Moses speak of him to the captives as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, now takes the thoughts of his people as far back as it is possible for them to go. They are directed to think of the great work of him who in six days made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is. "All the earth is mine," he had bidden Moses say in Exodus 19:5; and of course the Israelites, whatever their other difficulties in the way of understanding God's commandments, had no question such as modern science has thrown down for us to ponder with respect to these alleged days of creation. Though indeed, as is now generally agreed, no difficulty is found in this question when we approach it rightly. God's thoughts are not as our thoughts; his ways are not as our ways; and so we may add his days are not as our days, seeing that with him one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The great matter to be borne in mind by ancient Israelites - and for every Christian the consideration remains whether he also should not very strictly bear it in mind - was that by this seventh day of rest after creation, God gave the great rule for the consecration of his people's time. It is to a certain extent correct to say that this precept is a positive one; but it is not therefore arbitrary. God may have seen well to give the precept in such emphatic way, just because the need of setting apart one day out of seven is in some way fixed in the nature of things. It is a question worth while asking, why creation is set before us as having occupied six successive periods. Why not some other number? May not the periods of creation have been so arranged with a view to the use of them as a ground for this commandment? God sanctified the seventh day because it was the best day - best for human welfare and Divine glory; and it seems to have been at Sinai that he first distinctly made this sanctification. Israel knew already that God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made (Genesis 2:2); now it is known - at least it is known in part - why this resting was not till the seventh day, and also not later. May it not be that the expression "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made," (Genesis 2:3) was inserted by Moses after the transactions at Sinai, as a suitable addition to the statement that God rested from his work? If this verse was not inserted in the Genesis record until after the instructions from Sinai, then we have some sort of explanation why no clear, indubitable sign of the Sabbath is found in patriarchal times. II. THE MODE OF KEEPING THIS COMMANDMENT. Let us distinctly bear in mind the object to be attained. The seventh day was to be sanctified, and in order that it might be properly sanctified, a scrupulous rest from ordinary work was necessary. The rest was but the means to the sanctification; and the sanctification is the thing to be kept prominently in view. The mere resting from work on the seventh day did an Israelite no good, unless he remembered what the rest implied. The commandment began, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," not "Remember to do no work therein." Certainly it was only too easy to forget the requirement of rest; but it was easier still to forget the requirement of holiness. A man might rest without hallowing, and so it had to be enjoined on him to shape his rest that hallowing might be secured by it. Certain of the animals required for holy purposes by God, were to be such as had not borne the yoke. The animal could not be given to God and at the same time used for self. And in like manner the Sabbath could not both be given to God and used for self. Therefore the Israelite is charged to do no work and let no work be done, even by the humblest of his slaves. He himself must get no temporal benefit from this day. God has so arranged, in his loving providence and holy requirements, that six days' work shall supply seven days' need. This lesson the manna distinctly teaches if it teaches anything at all. And now that the Jewish Sabbath has gone, the Christian has to ask himself how far the mode of Sabbath-keeping in Israel furnishes any guide for him in his use of the Lord's day. He is a miserable Christian who begins to plead that there is no distinct and express commandment in the New Testament for the keeping of a sacred day of rest. To say that the Sabbath is gone with the outward ordinances of Judaism is only making an excuse for self-indulgence. True, the sacrifices of the law are done away with, but only that imperfections may give place to perfections. In the very doing away, a solemn claim is made that the Christian should present his body as a living sacrifice; and one cannot be a living sacrifice without feeling that all one's time is for doing God's will. When in the inscrutable arrangements of Providence, we find that one day in seven has actually come to be so largely a day of cessation from toil, surely the part of Christian wisdom is to make the very best of the opportunity. There is, and there always will be, room for much improvement as to the mode of keeping the day of rest; but in proportion as we become filled with the spirit of Christ and the desire for perfection, in that proportion we shall be delivered from the inclination to make Sunday a day for self, and led forward in resolution, diligence and love, to make it a day for God. The more we can make our time holy time, the more we shall make ourselves holy persons. If in God's mercy we find Sunday a day of larger opportunities, let it be according to our individual opportunity, a day of larger achievements. Each one of us should say, "I am bound to discover how God would have me use this day." My neighbour Christian may feel constrained to use it in a way that, if I were to imitate him, might not promote my own spiritual advantage, or the glory of God. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, only let him take care that he has a persuasion and acts conscientiously and lovingly up to it. III. THE PECULIAR EMPHASIS LAID ON THIS COMMANDMENT. "Remember." Not of course that this commandment is more important than the rest. He who breaks one breaks all, for each is a member of the whole as of a living unity. But there must have been a special reason in the mind of God for calling attention to this commandment. We are told to remember what we are likely to forget. Also, certain things we are exhorted to remember, because if we only remember them we shall come in due course to other things which cannot be so constantly in the mind, and which indeed the mind may not yet be able properly to grasp. He who remembers the right way will assuredly come to the right end, even though he may not be constantly thinking of it. We may be sure that keeping the Sabbath day really holy, had a very salutary effect towards keeping all the rest of the commandments. It gave time for reflection on all those affairs of daily life in which there are so many opportunities and temptations to set at nought the righteous claims both of God and of our fellow-men. And so the Christian may ever say to himself, "Soul, remember the day of rest which God has so graciously secured to thee." God, though he has condescendingly done so much to come near to needy men with his supplies of grace, gets soon hidden by the cloud and dust of this world's business. It is only too easy to forget the spirit of these commandments, and be unfair, unkind, malicious and revengeful toward our fellow-men in the jostlings and rivalries of life. Remember then. Let us but attend to this and the rest of God's remembers, and we may be sure they will do a great deal to neutralise that forgetting which is inevitably incident to the infirmities of fallen human nature. - Y.
God spake all these words. I. Those Ten Commandments were to the Jews THE VERY UTTERANCE OF THE ETERNAL, and they hold in their grand imagination that the souls of all Jews even yet unborn were summoned to Sinai in their numbers numberless to hear that code; so that, in the East, to this day, if a Jew would indignantly deny the imputation of a wrong, he exclaims, "My soul too has been on Sinai." And not to Jews only but to all mankind there is this proof that the Ten Words were indeed the oracles of God, that, if they be written upon the heart, they are an "It is written" sufficient for our moral guidance — they are a great non licet strong enough to quell the fiercest passions. For the laws of the natural universe may mislead us. One tells us that they are just and beneficent; another that they are deadly and remorseless: but of these moral Laws we know that they are the will of God. No man has seen His face at any time. He seems far away in His infinite heaven; clouds and darkness are round about Him. Yes; but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat. And this was the very idea which the Jews wished to symbolize in the building of their Tabernacle. They hung it with purple curtains; they overlaid it with solid gold; they filled its outer court with sacrifices, its inner chambers with incense; — but when the High Priest passed from the Holy into the Holy of Holies — when on the great Day of Atonement he stood with the censer in his hands, and the ardent Urim on his breast, before what did he stand? Not before Visible Epiphany; not before sculptured image. There was total darkness in the shrine; no sunlight streamed, no lamp shed its silver radiance; through the awful silence no whisper thrilled; but, through the dim gleam of the glowing thurible and the smoke of the wreathing incense, he saw only a golden Ark over which bent the golden figures of adoring Cherubim — and within that Ark, as its only treasure, lay two rough hewn tables of venerable stone, on which were carved the Ten Commandments of the fiery Law. Those stony Tables, that Ark, that Mercy-seat, those adoring Cherubim seen dimly through the darkness, were to him a visible symbol of all creation, up to its most celestial hierarchies, contemplating, with awful reverence, and on the basis of man's spiritual existence, the moral Law of God.II. AND IS THAT LAW ABROGATED NOW, OR SHORN OF ITS SIGNIFICANCE? Nay, it remains for the Gentile no less than for the Jew — for the nineteenth century after Christ no less than for the fifteenth before Him — the immutable expression of God's will. God, as the Italian proverb says, does not pay on Saturdays. He is very patient, and men may long deny His existence or blaspheme His name, but more than in the mighty strong wind which rent the mountains, and more than in fire, and more than in earthquake, is God in that still small voice which is sounding yet. Oh, it is not in Exodus alone, or in Deuteronomy alone, but in all nature that we hear His voice. In scene after scene of history, in discovery after discovery of science, in experience after experience of life, have we heard these words rolling in thunder across the centuries the eternal distinction of right and wrong. Confidently I appeal to you, and ask, Have you not, at some time in your lives, heard the voice of God utter to you distinctly these Commandments of the moral Law? Is there one here who has ever disobeyed that voice and prospered? If there be one here who feels, at this moment, in the depths of his soul, a peace which the world can neither give nor take away, is it not solely because by the aid of God's Holy Spirit he has striven to obey it? Yes, its infinite importance is that it is as old not as Sinai, but as humanity, and represents the will of God to all His children in the great family of man; so that if in this life we be passing from mystery to mystery, it is our surest proof that we are passing also from God to God. What matters it that we know not either whence we came or what we are, if "He hath shown thee, oh, man! what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" III. And thus it is, lastly, THAT IF WE BE FAITHFUL THE LAW MAY LEAD US TO THE GOSPEL. For his must indeed be a shallow soul who thinks it an easy thing to keep the Commandments. When we observe that the summary of the first Table is that life is worship, and of the second that life is service; when we notice that the first Table forbids sin against God, first in thought, then in word, then in deed; while the second, proceeding in a reverse order, forbids sins against our neighbour first in deed, then in word, and then in thought; so that, unlike every other code that the world has ever known, the Commandments begin and end with the utter prohibition of evil thoughts, which of us is not conscious that we have utterly broken God's Law in this, that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts? And when we go from Moses to Jesus, from Sinai to Galilee, will Christ abolish the Law? will He teach us that we may keep both our sin and our Saviour, and that there is no distinction between a state of sin and a state of grace? There are no dim presences, no thundering clouds, no scorching wilderness, no rolling darkness around the trembling hill, but the sweet human voice of one seated in the dawn on the lilied grass that slopes down to the silver lake — but does that voice abrogate the Law? Nay, more stringently than to them of old time come the ten commandments now. Murder is extended to a furious thought; adultery to a lascivious look; and at first it might seem as if our last hope were extinguished, as if now our alienation from God be permanent, since admitted into a holier sanctuary we are but guilty of a deadlier sin. And when this has been indeed brought home to us, and we see the unfathomable gulf which yawns before a God of infinite holiness and a heart of desperate corruption, then indeed — and above all in the meeting of calamity with crime — then cometh the midnight. But after that midnight to the faithful soul there shall be light. With the personal conviction that the Law worketh wrath, come also the personal experience that Christ hath delivered us from its curse. In Him comes the sole antidote to guilt, the sole solution to the enigma of despair. True, He deepened the obligation of the Law, but for our sake He also fulfilled it. And thus by love, and hope, and gratitude, and help, He gives us a new impulse, a new inspiration, and this is Christianity; and this Christianity has redeemed, has ennobled, has regenerated the world. The "thou must" of Sinai becomes the "I ought," "I will," I can." "I can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me." And then for us the Law has done its work. It has revealed to us the will of God, it has revealed to us the apostacy of man, it has driven us to know and to embrace the deliverance of Christ. (Archdeacon Farrar.) I. The Ten Commandments rest on the principle THAT GOD CLAIMS AUTHORITY OVER THE MORAL LIFE OF MAN. II. There can be no doubt that GOD INTENDED THAT THESE COMMANDMENTS SHOULD BE KEPT. They are not merely to bring us to a sense of our guilt, as some seem to imagine. III. These commandments DEAL CHIEFLY WITH ACTIONS, not with mere thought or emotion. IV. Before God gave these commandments to the Jewish people, HE WROUGHT A MAGNIFICENT SERIES OF MIRACLES TO EFFECT THEIR EMANCIPATION FROM MISERABLE SLAVERY and to punish their oppressors. He first made them free, and then gave them the law. (R. W. Dale, D. D.) 2. Its origin: What is it that makes this separation but its divinity? Said a lawyer of eminence, who was led to renounce his infidelity by the study of the Decalogue: "I have been looking into the nature of that law: I have been trying to see whether I can add anything to it, or take anything from it, so as to make it better. Sir, I cannot; it is perfect." And then, having shown this to be so, he concluded: "I have been thinking where did Moses get that law? I have read history. The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolaters: so were the Greeks and Romans: and the wisest and best Greeks and Romans never gave a code of morals like this. Where did he get it? He could not have soared so far above his age as to have devised it himself. It came down from heaven. I am convinced of the truth of the religion of the Bible." 3. Its scope: Were we to keep this law, we should need no other codes and edicts: — no courts and prisons. It would fill the sky with sunshine and the earth with righteousness. 4. Its simplicity: It is so easily interpreted. 5. But the attempt to keep the law in its spirit will lead to the revelation of self, and disclose both a disinclination and an inability; and, when this is the case, the law becomes a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. (L. O. Thompson.) The emphatic and repeated "Thou shalt not" from God teaches —I. II. III. IV. 1. The guilt of sin. 2. The care of God. (U. R. Thomas.) 1. The Bible thus commits itself unequivocally to the highest origin for these laws.(1) Their Divine origin bespeaks their holy and righteous nature, and their absolute authority.(2) Their Divine origin bespeaks the deep interest we should take in their study, as well as in obeying them. 2. Divine as they are in their origin, they were transmitted first by the ministry of angels to Moses, and by Moses to us. (Psalm 78:17; Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2; Deuteronomy 5:5; Deuteronomy 10:1-4.) II. THE NATURE OF THESE COMMANDMENTS. Lessons: 1. The awe-inspiring circumstances of the giving of the law suggest the solemnity of our relations to God. 2. Positive institutions of religion are a necessity. 3. They must be of God, or they are worse than worthless. 4. Those which bear the evidence of their Divine origin are alone worthy of obedience. 5. The only worthy obedience is that which is hearty and complete. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.) II. Although the Decalogue is in form prohibitive, yet IN SPIRIT IT IS AFFIRMATIVE. A negative pole implies a positive. The Ten Words are divinely covenantal, rather than divinely statutory. Law is never as imperial as love. III. The Ten Words or Commandments are in their character GERMINAL AND SUGGESTIVE, RATHER THAN UNFOLDED AND EXHAUSTIVE. They are the rudimental principles of morality, the germs of ethics, the seminary, or seedplot, of religion. IV. But although the Ten Commandments are rudimental in their form, they are also ELEMENTAL IN THEIR MEANING, AND THEREFORE UNIVERSAL AND IMMORTAL IN THEIR APPLICATION. Just because they are germs, they are capable of all growth, or unfolding along the lines suggested in the embryo. In brief, the Ten Commandments are the axioms of morals, the summary of ethics, the itinerary of mankind, the framework of society, the vertebral column of humanity. (G. D. Boardman.) I. In the first place, EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE ATTENDING ITS PROMULGATION WAS ADJUSTED SO AS TO LEND TO IT A SOLEMN AND AWFUL EMPHASIS. II. THE SANCTION OF THE DECALOGUE WAS FEAR. In the infancy of the individual, when as yet the immature, conscience lacks the power to enforce its convictions of duty upon the untutored passions, the first step in moral training consists in impressing upon the child's mind a wholesome dread for the constituted authorities of the home. Love is a preferable impulse to law-keeping, no doubt; but love cannot be wholly depended on till the habit of obedience has been formed and principle has come to the aid of affection. III. It belongs to the same juvenile or primary character of this code, as designed for an infant people, THAT ITS REQUIREMENTS ARE CONCRETE, AND EXPRESSED IN A NEGATIVE OR PROHIBITORY FORM. When you have to deal with children, you do not enunciate principles but precepts. You do not bid a child revere all that is venerable in the social order; but you say: "Honour thy father and mother." You do not tell a rude populace that hatred drives God out of the soul, but you say simply: "Do not kill!" Everything must be, at such a stage of moral education, concrete, portable, and unmistakable. For the same reason, it will usually take the shape of a prohibition rather than of a command: a "Do not rather than a Do." IV. While these remarks must be borne in mind if we would understand the archaic mould in which this code is cast, there is at the same time AN ADMIRABLE BREADTH AND MASSIVENESS ABOUT ITS CONTENTS. In Ten Words it succeeds in sweeping the whole field of duty. V. I have assumed above — what is indeed apparent to every careful reader — THAT THE DECALOGUE WAS DESIGNED PRIMARILY TO BE THE CODE OF A COMMONWEALTH. In the ancient world, and perhaps in the infancy of all societies, the idea of the community takes precedence over the idea of the individual. The family, the clan, the tribe, the nation: these are the ruling conceptions to which the interests of the private individual are subordinated. Then, each man exists as one of a larger body — heir of its past and parent of its future. VI. It is when one views the Decalogue under this aspect, that one can best see how it came to include two parts, A SACRED AND A CIVIL. In a theocracy there can be no such sharp distinction as we make between Church and State. Indeed, such a distinction would have been unintelligible to any ancient people. So far from comprehending the modern ideal of "a free Church in a free State," every people of antiquity took for granted that the Church and the State were one. Every public function was discharged, every expedition undertaken, every victory gained, under the immediate counsel and patronage of the Deity. All this was just as strongly felt by the devotees of Bel or Nebo, of Osiris, Chemosh or Baal, of Athene or Jove, as by the Hebrew worshippers of Jehovah. So that, again, when it pleased God to throw into the form of a theocracy His peculiar relationship to Israel as a vehicle for teaching to the world a world-wide revelation of grace, He was simply accommodating His gracious ways to the thoughts of men and the fashions of the age that then was. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.) 1. Man is a being possessed of a religious capacity. 2. Man is a moral agent. 3. It is possible for the reason the understanding, and the moral sense of man to be brought to such a state, that he can have a right to have an opinion both upon morals and religion. II. THE LAW ITSELF (vers. 3-17). There are two parts of this law — that relating to — 1. Religion. Here are four things — (1) (2) (3) (4) 2. Morals. Here is — (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) III. A few observations tending to show THAT THIS LAW, AS WE HAVE IT HERE, IS SUITED TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MAN, AND OF UNIVERSAL ADAPTATION. It is suited to humanity — 1. In that it meets the essential capacities and elements of human nature. 2. In its accidents; that is, not only in its principles, but also in the mode in which these principles are to be carried out. 3. In spite of some of the accidental and peculiar topics which are here and there introduced into it. 4. If we consider what the world would be were this law universally obeyed; and what if it were universally disobeyed. IV. The preceding point being made out, then I think THE PRESUMPTIONS ARE IN FAVOUR OF THIS LAW HAVING BEEN GIVEN BY GOD. 1. The history of man and the tendencies of human nature show that, if the original state of man had been barbarism, he never would have risen out of it by his own efforts, and never would have discovered such principles as are here put forth. 2. In the most refined ages of ancient times, no moral system equal or even approaching in rationality, purity, and simplicity to this was ever taught either by philosopher, statesman, or priest. 3. Even in our own times our philosophers, they who have rejected revelation and have given us moral systems, have taught principles subversive of these — Bolingbroke, Blount, Hume. 4. This law unquestionably was given about the time it was said to be. We find that it must have been given by Moses. From whom did he obtain it? 5. We now have the fact — "God spake all these words." V. PRACTICAL REMARKS. 1. Reflect on the internal evidence of the superhuman character of the Bible. 2. Notice that infidelity is always associated with impurity and blasphemy. 3. Meditate deeply how you stand in relation to the Law. 4. Accept, in addition to the law of judgment, the gospel of mercy. (T. Binney.) (Joseph Cook.) ( Luthers Table Talk.) (J. Hamilton, D. D.) 2. There is great need of the "I ought" power being developed in our nature so that it controls our lives; a need at least as great in this age and in this country as it was in that early age and in the wilderness of Sinai. To be swayed not by impulse, nor by intense desire, nor by aroused wilfulness, but by a sense of obligation to God, insures a manhood which is a success in itself. What better start in life can the young have than a firm determination to obey God? Can there be a better guide in life, in the perplexities of society, of business or of politics, than this same principle of obedience to God? 3. While this law coming from God binds the conscience, it at the same time secures true liberty of conscience. Nothing can bind the conscience beyond or contrary to this law. It is the comprehensive and only law of the conscience. 4. This law coming from God repels many of the assaults of infidelity upon the Bible. Infidelity finds it impossible to account for the existence of this law in the Bible. Besides, infidelity is forced to honour the moral law in making it its standard of criticism. Much of its fault-finding of lives and measures is an unintended tribute to the law of God. 5. The fact that this law comes from God, carries with it another lesson and one of the utmost importance to us. His authority runs through all the divisions of the law.(1) Both tables must be fully observed, or the whole law is broken. We cannot be devoted to God, correct in matters of faith and zealous in His worship, while we neglect charity of feeling, word and act toward our brother. Neither can we truly love our neighbour while we neglect God, for we cannot keep any part of the law without supreme reverence for Him who commands. Neither can we truly love our neighbour with recognizing that we are both and equally creatures of God.(2) There is a tendency also to separate the commandments, and to claim virtue for keeping some while we make light of breaking others. Now, the violation of one precept is not an actual violation of another, but it is the breaking of the whole law in that it sets aside the authority of God. If he keeps other commandments, it must be from other considerations. By breaking one commandment he shows he has the spirit of breaking them all, for he does not submit to the authority of God. (F. S. Schenck.) (F. S. Schenck.) 1. What is the difference between the moral law and the gospel?(1) The law requires that we worship God as our Creator; the gospel requires that we worship God in and through Christ. God in Christ is propitious; out of Christ we may see God's power, justice, holiness, in Christ we see His mercy displayed.(2) The moral law requires obedience, but gives no strength, as Pharaoh required brick, but gave no straw, but the gospel gives strength. 2. Of what use, then, is the moral law to us? A glass to show us our sins, and drive us to Christ. 3. Is the moral law still in force to believers? In some sense it is abolished to believers.(1) In respect of justification; they are not justified by their obedience to the moral law. Believers are to make great use of the moral law, but they must trust only to Christ's righteousness for justification; as Noah's dove made use of her wings to fly, but trusted to the ark for safety.(2) The moral law is abolished to believers, in respect of the malediction of it; they are freed from the curse and damnatory power of it (Galatians 3:13). 4. How was Christ made a curse for us? As our pledge and surety. Though the moral law be not their saviour, yet it is their guide; though it be not a covenant of life, yet it is a rule of living; every Christian is bound to conform to the moral law, and write, as exactly as he can, after this copy: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid." Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under the commanding power. II. RULES FOR THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THE DECALOGUE. 1. The commands and prohibitions of the moral law reach the heart. 2. In the commandments there is a synecdoche, more is intended than is spoken. Where any duty is commanded, there the contrary sin is forbidden, etc. 3. Where any sin is forbidden in the commandment, there the occasion of it is also forbidden. 4. There one relation is named in the commandment, there another relation is included. 5. Where greater sins are forbidden, there lesser sins are also forbidden. 6. The law of God is copulative. The first and second tables are knit together, — piety to God, and equity to our neighbour; these two tables which God hath joined together must not be put asunder. 7. God's law forbids not only the acting of sin in our own persons, but being accessory to, or having any hand in the sins of others. 8. The last rule about the commandments is this, that though we cannot, by our own strength, fulfil all these commandments, yet doing what we are able, the Lord hath provided encouragement for us. There is a threefold encouragement.(1) That though we have not ability to obey any one command, yet God hath, in the new covenant, promised to work that in us which He requires: "I will cause you to walk in My statutes." The iron hath no power to move, but when the loadstone draws it, it can move; "Thou also hast wrought all our works in us."(2) Though we cannot exactly fulfil all the moral law, yet God will, for Christ's sake, mitigate the rigour of the law, and accept of something less than He requires.(3) Wherein our personal obedience comes short, God will be pleased to accept us in our surety: "He hath made us accepted in the beloved." ( T. Watson.) 1. The first title, of His name — "Jehovah." 2. Secondly, the title of His jurisdiction — "thy God." 3. Thirdly, the title of that notable act He did last — "which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," etc. (Bishop Andrewes.) 1. It is the Lord, particularly Jesus Christ, who gave this Law in the name of the Trinity. This is plain from the Scripture (Acts 7:38; Hebrews 12:24-26). 2. The speech itself, wherein we have a description of the true God, bearing three reasons for the keeping His commands. (1) (2) (3) 1. The Lawgiver: "God spake." There are two things requisite in a lawgiver.(1) Wisdom. Laws are founded upon reason; and he must be wise that makes laws. God, in this respect, is most fit to be a lawgiver: "He is wise in heart"; He hath a monopoly of wisdom: "the only wise God."(2) Authority. God hath the supreme power in His hand; and He who gives men their lives hath most right to give them their laws. 2. The Law itself: "all these words"; that is, all the words of the moral Law, which is usually styled the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. It is called the moral Law, because it is the rule of life and manners. St. compares the Scripture to a garden, the moral Law is a chief flower in it; the Scripture is a banquet, the moral Law the chief dish in it.(1) The moral Law is perfect: "The Law of the Lord is perfect." It is an exact model and platform of religion; it is the standard of truth, the judge of controversies, the polestar to direct us to heaven.(2) The moral Law is unalterable; it remains still in force.(3) The moral Law is very illustrious and full of glory. See Exodus 19:10, 12; Exodus 31:18; Deuteronomy 32:1.Use 1. Here we may take notice of God's goodness who hath not left us without a Law: therefore the Lord doth often set it down as a demonstration of His love in giving His Commandments. See Psalm 147:20; Nehemiah 9:13; Romans 7:14. The Law of God is a hedge to keep us within the bounds of sobriety and piety.Use 2. If God spake all these words, viz., of the moral Law, then this presseth upon us several duties:(1) If God spake all these words, then we must hear all these words. The words which God speaks are too precious to be lost.(2) If God spake all these words, then we must attend to them with reverence.(3) If God spake all these words of the moral Law, then we must remember them. Those words are weighty which concern salvation.(4) If God spake all these words, then we must believe them. Shall we not give credit to the God of heaven?(5) If God spake all these words, then love the Commandments: "Oh, how love I Thy Law! it is my meditation all the day."(6) If God spake all these words, then teach your children the Law of God: "These words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children." He who is godly, is both a diamond and a loadstone; a diamond for the sparkling of his grace, and a loadstone for his attractive virtue in drawing others to the love of God's precepts; a good man doth more good to his neighbours than to himself.(7) If God spake all these words, then the moral Law must be obeyed. II. THE PREFACE ITSELF. 1. "I am the Lord thy God." Here we have a description of God —(1) By His essential greatness: "I am the Lord" — Jehovah. Let us fear Him (Deuteronomy 28:58).(2) By His relative goodness: "Thy God." How? Through Jesus Christ — Emmanuel.(3) How may we come to know this covenant union, that God is our God?(a) By having His grace planted in us. Kings' children are known by their costly jewels: it is not having common gifts which shows we belong to God, many have the gifts of God without God, but it is grace gives us a true genuine title to God. In particular, faith is the grace of union; by this we may spell out our interest in God.(b) We may know God is our God, by having the earnest of His Spirit in our hearts. God often gives the purse to the wicked, but the Spirit only to such as He intends to make His heirs. Have we had the consecration of the Spirit?(c) We may know God is our God, if He hath given us the hearts of children. Have we obediential hearts? do we subscribe to God's commands, when His commands cross our will? A true saint is like the flower of the sun: it opens and shuts with the sun, he opens to God and shuts to sin. If we have the hearts of children, then God is our Father.(d) We may know God is ours, and we have an interest in Him, by our standing up for His interest.(e) We may know God is ours, and we have an interest in Him, by His having an interest in us: "My beloved is Mine, and I am His." Use 1. Above all things, let us get this great charter Confirmed, that God is our God. Deity is not comfortable without propriety. Use Use 2. To all such as can make out this covenant union, it exhorts to several things.(1) If God be our God, let us improve our interest in Him, cast all our burdens upon Him, the burden of our fears, wants, sins.(2) If God be our God, let us learn to be contented, though we have the less of other things. Contentment is a rare jewel; it is the cure of care. If we have God to be our God, well may we be contented.(a) God is a sufficient good. Not only full as a vessel, but as a spring. The heart is a triangle, which only the Trinity can fill.(b) God is a sanctifying good. He sanctifies all our comforts, and turns them into blessings. He sanctifies all our crosses; they shall polish and refine our grace. The more the diamond is cut it sparkles the more. God's stretching the strings of His viol, is to make the music the better.(c) God is a choice good. All things under the sun are but the blessings of the footstool; but to have God Himself to be ours is the blessing of the throne.(d) God is the chief good. In the chief good there must be, first, delectability. "At God's righthand are pleasures." Secondly, in the chief good there must be transcendency, it must have a surpassing excellency. Thus God is infinitely better than all other things; it is below the Deity to compare other things with It. Who would go to weigh a feather with a mountain of gold? Thirdly, in the chief good there must be not only fulness, but variety; where variety is wanting we are apt to nauseate; to feed only on honey would breed loathing; but in God is all variety of fulness.(3) If we can clear up this covenant union that God is our God, let this cheer and revive us in all conditions. To be content with God is not enough, but to be cheerful. What greater cordial can you have than union with Deity?(4) If God be our God, then let us break forth into doxology and praise (Psalm 118:28).(5) Let us carry ourselves as those who have God to be their God. Live holily. 2. The second part of the preface: "which have brought," etc. God mentions this deliverance, because of (1) (2) 3. The third part of the preface: "out of the house of bondage."(1) God's children may sometimes be under sore afflictions.(a) For probation, or trial. Affliction is the touchstone of sincerity.(b) For purgation; to purge our corruption. "God's fire is in Zion." This is not to consume, but to refine; what if we have more affliction, if by this means we have less sin.(c) For augmentation; to increase the graces of the Spirit. Grace thrives most in the iron furnace; sharp frosts nourish the corn, so do sharp afflictions grace: grace in the saints is often as fire hid in the embers, affliction is the bellows to blow it up into a flame.(d) For preparation: to fit and prepare us for glory.(2) God will in His due time bring His people out of their afflicted state. The tree which in the winter seems dead, in the spring revives: after darkness cometh sunshine. Affliction may leap on us as the viper did on Paul, but at last this viper shall be shaken off. ( T. Watson.) II. GOD WAS SEEKING THE COVENANT, NOT MAN. It is God who acts, man who accepts; God who gives, man who receives; and thus the hope of man has its strong resting-place, not on the strivings of his own weak will, not on the searchings of his own too easily bewildered and blinded intellect, but on the eternal purpose and love of God. God cannot dispense with man's heart, will, and intellect; He led that people there that He might engage them in His service. Refuse Him that service, and the covenant is worthless to you, nay, is a witness against you to condemnation; yield them to Him, and rest in the assurance that your salvation depends not on your own weak work but on the strong arm of God. III. You will find two grand features in that which was transacted there on the Mount of God: GOD REVEALING HIMSELF — GOD DECLARING HIS LAW. This was God's covenant; the people had but to say in heart and with voice "Amen." 1. Nature, circumstance, the currents of life, master us, till we know the Divine Name. We know ourselves in knowing Him, and find in ourselves the broken features of His likeness. The first step towards the establishment of the covenant was the revelation of the Divine name. 2. It was a merciful name which the Lord made known: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I am the God of thy fathers." How tender, how blessed the assurance! 3. The Lord's name is holy. "The Lord thy God is a holy Lord." A sensual-hearted man will fashion gods like unto himself. A wise and earnest-hearted man will "give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness." (J. B. Brown, B. A.) (R. W. Dale, D. D.) (E. C. Wines, D. D.) 1. The first is that God deals with all Israel as one man. He expects them to be one, of one mind and one heart, before Him. There must be no antagonisms among God's people. He has taken us out of the contentious world, not that we should be only another contentious world, but that we should show our distracted earth the harmony of heaven. He wishes to reconcile all things unto Himself. Sin divides men, grace unites them. 2. The other thought regarding the use of the second person singular here is this: God treats man individually. Man enters heaven or hell, not in companies or battalions, but in naked individuality. It was thyself personally that wert delivered from that dark Egypt of condemnation, was it not? And so you can say: "Who loved me and gave Himself for me." (H. Crosby, D. D.) 1210 God, human descriptions 1443 revelation, OT 5377 law, Ten Commandments 4921 day The Decalogue: ii. --Man and Man May the Third Other Gods! The Mediator --The Interpreter Weighed in the Balances Traditionalism, Its Origin, Character, and Literature - the Mishnah and Talmud - the Gospel of Christ - the Dawn of a New Day. Covenanting Sanctioned by the Divine Example. Beam on us Brightly, Blessed Day, For, Concerning False Witness, which is Set Down in the Ten Commands of The... On the Other Hand, those who Say that we must Never Lie... What Then, if a Homicide Seek Refuge with a Christian... Thus Has the Question Been on Both Sides Considered and Treated... The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close. The Preface to the Commandments The Right Understanding of the Law The First Commandment The Second Commandment The Third Commandment The Fourth Commandment The Fifth Commandment The Sixth Commandment The Seventh Commandment The Eighth Commandment |
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