The GOSPEL TRUTH

LECTURES ON THE

MORAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD.

 By

 NATHANIEL W. TAYLOR, D. D.,

1859

VOLUME II

 

SECTION III:

THE MORAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD AS REVEALED IN THE SCRIPTURES

 

LECTURE IX:

THE NATURE OF GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT AS REVEALED.

 

Section 2: the law a rule of action and not of judgment -- Error on this point. -- Law as a rule of action never called law in the Scriptures. -- All men are under it, however. -- All men, in fact, condemned by it, but not judged by it as yet. -- Objections considered. -- Position confirmed by a view of the facts of the Scriptures. -- Section 3: The law, in requiring obedience, prohibits disobedience, and vice versa. -- Distinction made by theologians, untenable from the nature of law. -- Impossible to be applied to a subject of law. -- Introduced to justify another; viz., that between the active and passive obedience of Christ. -- Source In the use of negative terms. -- Denied in the Scriptures.

HAVING, in the preceding section, considered the law of God as immutable in its authority, its claim, its sanctions, I now propose to consider it --

Sect. 2. -- As a rule of action, and not a rule of judgment.

 

My proposition may be more fully stated thus: That the word law, when applied in the manner now under consideration, though used in the Scriptures to denote God's rule of action, requiring of men the whole duty, is never in this application used to denote the rule of judgment.

 

Error in respect to this part of the subject, has, I apprehend, been a source of other errors, and on this account requires correction. In many, not to say in most of those languages into which the Scriptures have been translated, as well as in that in which the New Testament was written, the word law may be said to denote a rule of judgment as well as an authoritative rule of action. This may be said to be the common and proper meaning of the word with all nations except the Hebrews. Hence it is not to be wondered at, that one peculiarity in the Hebrew use of the word should be overlooked by at least many of the translators and expounders of the sacred writings. Indeed, it is difficult, if not impossible, in some cases to avoid conceiving and speaking of the law of God's moral government over men, without conceiving it as unmodified by an economy of grace. In this use the word denotes -- and for aught I Bee, is and must be used to denote for certain necessary purposes universal, authoritative rule of action and of judgment to its subjects; thus requiring of them all that which as moral beings they ought to do, as the only condition of acceptance and favor on the part of the lawgiver. This I shall find it convenient to speak of as law in the classic sense of the word, or in other forms of language which shall distinguish it from law as including an economy of grace. The reality of such a law, in this full and precise meaning, must be admitted. Its comprehensive nature, what it is not and what it is, I have attempted largely to unfold in preceding lectures. Nor can we even form any just or adequate conception of an economy of grace, without forming this conception of law under such a system of moral government as that which, without an economy of grace, would and must exist over the moral creation of God.

 

This law of God's moral government, as both a rule of action and of judgment, is the law of benevolent action -- that law which the Saviour calls (not law, but) "the first and great commandment of the law." "The second," as he tells us, "is like unto it." These for certain purposes may be distinguished from each other as he has distinguished them. They may also be understood as one; the former as including in all ordinary cases the latter, together with such particular precepts for the regulation of subordinate acts and doings as in the variables circumstances of men become right and wrong, though, as before explained, never morally right and wrong. Under this law, God, as we have seen, placed our first parents in Paradise, requiring obedience to the first and great commandment, in instituting the holy rest and worship of the Sabbath, and obedience to the second in their social relations; while the positive prohibition, which they violated, bespoke his supreme and rightful sovereignty, and was clothed, as were the others, with all the majesty of law as a rule of action and a rule of judgment, sustained by eternal sanctions.

 

But here the question arises, Is this rule of action and of judgment -- this law of God's moral government -- in this full meaning, ever called law, or spoken of as an actually existing law of God, in the Scriptures? I admit and maintain that enough is said of it in the Scriptures to unfold its nature and import, and to render proper the application to it of the word law, in this most absolute or fullest import. (Vide Gen. ii. 16; iii. 11; Rom. v. 14; 1 Tim. ii. 14.) The formal enactment in Gen. ii. 16, and the sentence, "unto condemnation," after its transgression, though not a sentence dooming our first parents and their posterity to bear the full penalty threatened, are decisive that our first parents were placed under this rule as a law in the most absolute sense of the word. The reason that it is never expressly called law as an existing reality, is not that it ceased to be an authoritative rule of action to men; nor that men by transgression did not deserve its full penalty; nor that without redemption through the promised seed they must not incur such a doom. But I would ask, whether the reason of this fact may not be this: that this rule of action and of judgment was no longer what it had been to Adam before his apostasy, nor what it would be to his descendants were they to live and act under a merely legal system, but that as a rule of judgment, in all its fearfulness, it was superseded by that of the Gospel? (Rom. ii. 16; John, iii. 15; Heb. xii. 18; John, v. 22, 27; 2 Thess. i. 8; 1 Tim. i. 11.) Was it not of high practical importance to divest the minds of sinful men of the thought, that they were in the absolute sense under this law as a rule of judgment, and to convince them that "there is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared?" Would this have been easily accomplished, had this law been held up to human contemplation as a rule of judgment? Has it not ever been difficult to possess the human mind of the idea that a rule of action is not necessarily also a rule of judgment?

 

Whatever opinion we may form upon these points, it seems quite undeniable that the word law, since the fall of man and the promise of the Redeemer, cannot be used in divine revelation to denote the law of God's moral government as an actually existing rule of judgment to this sinful world. The reason is, that this law is not nor can it be a rule of judgment under an economy of grace.

 

On this point let me not be misunderstood. I am not saying that the whole world are not, and have not always been, under the law of God's moral government as a rule of action. As such a rule -- as a requirement of what ought to be done -- it is a rule of constants universal, unchangeable, and eternal obligation upon every subject of God's moral dominion. Nor is this all that can with truth nor all that need be said of it. It is such a rule that all men, having transgressed it, are already under its just condemnation; so far under its condemnation, that if tried by it and judged by it and by nothing else, they would and must be actually condemned, and sentenced to bear its full penalty. Such a result must follow such a trial that the authority of the law might be sustained. But there has been no such trial of any human being, nor any necessity for it. The authority of this law, which is its whole influence, has been, as we have seen, fully preserved and established by the great propitiation of the Son of God. (Rom. iii. 31.)

 

While then it is conceded that all men are thus under the law of God's moral government; under it as a rule of action with unimpaired obligation; under it as imparting a knowledge of sin and just condemnation; under it as a rule of judgment so far that they must be doomed to bear its full penalty, unless deliverance comes from some other source than the law itself;it is still maintained that they are not under it as a rule of judgment, according to which on the great day of account their final allotment is to be fixed. If this were so then none can be justified or saved; for he who is judged and sentenced according to this law, and who has transgressed it as all men have, must bear its penalty. Nor will it be pretended, at least by any Protestant, that this law is a rule of judgment to believers -- to them who obey the Gospel. For then how can they be justified? Is it then a rule of judgment to unbelievers -- to them who do not obey the Gospel? But where do the Scriptures teach that unbelievers are to be judged and condemned on the last day, by the law of God's moral government? How does this comport with the Saviour's declaration, "He that believeth not is condemned already" [not because he has disobeyed the law], "because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God?" Besides, is any thing more plainly taught in the Scriptures than that all men, Jew and Gentile, shall be judged on the final day according to the Gospel? (Rom. ii. 16.) Nor does this imply that the unbelieving are not under condemnation for the sin and guilt of transgressing the law of God's moral government, so far as they can be without the final and decisive act of the judge; nor that they will not as unbelievers be actuallY doomed to bear the penalty of this law, when tried and sentenced by the Gospel. Surely the Gospel exempts no unbelieving transgressor of this law from the execution of its penalty. All men come to the judgment-seat in the common character of transgressor, of this law, condemned by it as law, self-condemned, not to be convicted of their transgression by trial, but knowing that they are worthy of the death which is, the legal penalty. Every mouth is stopped with an overwhelming sense of guilt, and the way fully prepared without trial, or judgment, or sentence, for the execution of the legal penalty. For aught that appears from the Scriptures, God (were there no other fact to be decided except that men are transgressors of this law) might execute its penalty without a judgment-day, and still sufficiently manifest his justice. Or if not, if there would be a necessity that all should be tried by the violated law as a rule of judgment, then all must be condemned to bear its penalty. To say otherwise, or to say all that can with truth be said in the present case, viz., that thus tried by the law, all must be doomed to bear its penalty, unless as tried by the Gospel also, they shall be exempted from this penalty, is to say that this law is not the rule of judgment by which their final allotment is to be determined.

 

Indeed, how can this law be the rule of judgment to any? In respect to all men, with the common character of transgressors of this law and the common condition of just exposure to its penalty, the sentence of the law is suspended by a gracious economy, or rather has been so set aside, that the connection between transgression and punishment may be dissolved by the subject's own act, and that not a human being need be fixed in his final allotment by this law as a rule of judgment. Another probation than that under law as a rule of judgment has been instituted for all, and another trial than that according to law awaits all under a provision of grace, which nothing can annul. The judge cannot condemn and so doom a transgressor of this law to bear its penalty, according to this law as a rule of judgment, without contravening his own ordinance of grace. The final question is then, not what saith the violated law to all transgressors as a rule of judgment. It has already said one and the same thing concerning all. It has given to all the knowledge of sin and of merited condemnation, and so stopped every mouth. Its decision in respect to men is so far final and needs no repetition. But does the Gospel assume in its provisions and proffers of grace, that this law has thus actually condemned any? What then is its redemption (2 Peter, ii. 1) provided for all men? Besides, if this law has actually condemned any as sinners, it has actually condemned all; and what then is that Gospel which with its provisions of grace is to be preached to every creature?

 

Is it here said that none will be condemned at last, except those who have transgressed this law? True; but how does this prove that any will be judged by this law, and condemned because they have transgressed it, when all through grace may escape such a trial and its doom and when not one can or will be thus condemned, nor condemned at all, except he disbelieves the Gospel, or at least the proffered grace of God to both Jew and Gentile? Surely the fact of transgressing law decides nothing in respect to any, either for justification or sanctification, and therefore decides nothing concerning the future allotment of men as transgressors of law. On the contrary, the final decision of the Saviour of the world has fixed the terms of life and death once for all: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." What can be plainer than that the final, the determining question in respect to each transgressor of this law -- a question on the decision of which the eternal issue wholly depends -- is, has he believed the Gospel or has he not, has he obeyed the Gospel or has he not? If he has, the non-execution of the legal penalty being conditioned on his believing is arrested -- averted; and he being tried and judged is also justified according to the Gospel -- that is, according to the principles of a gracious economy. If he has not, the execution of the legal penalty being conditioned on his unbelief, is not arrested or averted, and he being tried and judged is condemned according to the Gospel. And now what is the determining cause or reason of the justification of the one I Plainly his faith in the Gospel! What is the determining cause or reason of the condemnation of the other? Plainly his disbelief of the Gospel! Had the believer not believed, he had been condemned. Had the unbeliever believed, he had been justified.

 

Is it said that no transgressor of law can be doomed to bear its penalty unless he be tried, judged, and condemned according to law? But the Gospel proceeds on the opposite assumption -- that the transgressor of law must bear the legal penalty, unless he be delivered from it when tried and judged according to the Gospel. Besides, the law itself demands no such trial or process as that now supposed for the specified purpose. It demands no execution of its penalty, to uphold its authority, which is the only conceivable reason for demanding it. The atonement of the Son of God upholds its authority in absolute perfection, and thus wholly removes the necessity for this legal process by removing every reason for it. The end or object of a trial is, not to determine who can and who cannot be justified consistently with the authority, and with all the principles of law, for all can be; but to determine who can, and who cannot be justified consistently with other interests of benevolence -- interests with which the justification of the sinner becomes consistent by his faith or personal holiness. On this condition the Gospel proclaims a complete amnesty to all men in respect to legal penalty; and the question is, whether being as every one is a transgressor of the law, when judged as he must be according to the Gospel, he shall be condemned by the Gospel? If so, the law takes its course, and the transgressor has to bear the deserved penalty of the law with the superadded curse of the Gospel. Nor is there any other way, or mode in which he can be sentenced to bear the penalty of the law; for if we suppose him to be judged by the law and convicted of being a transgressor of law, still he could not be doomed to bear its penalty without being also tried and judged by the Gospel, and thus being convicted of having rejected the Gospel by unbelief, and in this way only incurring the penalty of the law.

 

While all men are then under the law of God's moral government as a perfect rule of moral action, and while none can escape its just penalty except by faith in the Gospel, they are not under it as a rule of judgment by which their future allotment is to be determined. If these things are so, it follows that the word law can never be used in the Scriptures to denote the law of God's moral government as both a rule of action and of judgment.

 

Again, it may, be said, as it often has been, that when the subject of God's law transgresses that law, he falls at once under its just condemnation, or that he is at once condemned by the law. Such forms of language are often used by theologians. But is not such language very equivocal -- is it not often used in one meaning and then in another meaning by the same writer, without his being aware of the fact -- and hence often used in a meaning in which in its proper meaning it is not true? If then it mean that the transgressor of law is justly condemned by the law, so far as he can be without the act of the judge condemning him to bear the penalty of the law; or that he is exposed, so far as any principle of law is concerned, to a just or merited condemnation by the judge; or that judged and sentenced according to law, he must be condemned to bear its penalty, the truth of this I have already conceded. But if it mean that the transgressor of law is, according to law, necessarily and hopelessly condemned to bear its penalty, so that through an adequate atonement there can be no authorized hope of escaping the penalty, or so that the proffer of pardon may not instantly follow the act of transgression -- this I deny, as contrary to the revealed fact in the case of our first parents, and of all their surviving descendants. According to one of these meanings of the language, if true there can be no economy of grace, while the truth of the other is the only possible ground of such an economy. The difference in these meanings of language is then of fundamental importance. That use of it in which one meaning in the mind of a writer is confounded with the other, or that in which the two meanings specified are not precisely distinguished, is only to begin and end in confusion of thought respecting one of the most material truths on the subject. And yet how few of one large class of commentators on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, especially on the 5th chapter, have not either confounded the two meanings of this form of language, or rather used it to mean the act of God condemning men actually to bear the penalty of his law! If this be so, of what avail is redemption by the Son of God?

 

Let us now look at the various dispensations of God toward the human race at different periods. From the apostasy of man and the promise of a Redeemer, we find in all the Scriptures no formal express promulgation of the law of God's moral government as a rule of judgment to this sinful world. During the whole patriarchal dispensation, that is, from Adam to Moses (Rom. v. 14), we find Revelation silent in respect to this law, even as a rule of action, and of course as a rule of judgment. We find sin abounding as the transgression of this law, and its prevalence recognized in the severity of divine judgments, or rather in the execution of its penalty begun in the destruction of the world by a deluge, and afterward of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone (Jude, ver.7). And yet how impressively in both cases is the great truth of Gospel grace unfolded! Righteous Noah and his family are safe in the ark; righteous Lot is delivered in the overthrow of the cities of the plains, and had there been ten righteous there, i.e., righteous by faith, these cities had not been destroyed. Here then is a revelation of the doctrine of justification by faith -- of the relation of the "obedience of faith" in averting the wrath and securing the favor of God. We find sin also -- sin as the transgression of law -- not less truly recognized by all the generation of the righteous, as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, &c., especially in their "offerings and burnt-offerings for sins." We find various divine commands and directions for the regulation of human conduct, but no full, formal, promulgation of the law of God's moral government. Still, we find sin and the knowledge of sin as meriting condemnation, ever distinctly recognized. But we find so far as the language of Revelation is concerned, not the law of God's moral government presented as the rule of judgment, but instead and prominently, the placability and the mercy of God to the guilty. We find this law clearly implied as a rule of action, and duty for men as moral beings, who had transgressed it -- a law according to which they might be justly judged and justly condemned; but we find even for such beings, not a rule of judgment in this law, but a rule of judgment provided by grace -- provided in "the law of faith," and the question of man's acceptance or condemnation to be, not whether he has transgressed the law of God's moral government, but whether he has obeyed the law of faith. In a word, we find clearly implied the perfect law of God's moral government in all its authority and influence as a rule of action, and we also find an economy of grace. The latter implies sin as the transgression of the former, but wholly precludes it as a rule of judgment.

 

Accordingly, if we now advert to the most signal event under this dispensation -- the calling of Abraham, and especially to the covenant (Gal. iii. 8) which God made with this father of the faithful -- we find no promulgation of the law of God's moral government, but the economy of grace more fully disclosed in the import of its conditions, in the superiority of its typical priesthood, and in the riches of its grace: in the import of its condition, for the patriarch's faith is counted for righteousness (Gen. xv. 6); in the superiority of its typical priesthood, for the name of the priest is "king of righteousness;" in the riches of its grace, for its promise is, "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee." I cannot but here remark, how divinely fitted was this method of God's revealing himself to men, to lead them to a compliance with the conditions of his gracious covenant. Instead of the formal promulgation of law with its sanctions of reward and penalty, and thus destroying hope through conscious guilt, or fostering self-righteousness through the perversion of human pride, that law was known at most as a rule of action written on the conscience, and through the execution of its penalty by terrible judgments on men in their sins, who by faith might have averted this issue. God too, was ever making abundant and decisive manifestations of his tender mercy to men but imperfectly good men who, though justly deserving condemnation by law, became righteous by repentance and faith. How could the wicked expect to escape the judgment of God? If they did, how must they brave the peculiar terrors of the merciful dispensation of God by despising the riches of his goodness, and after their hardness and impenitent heart treasure up wrath against the day of wrath!

 

We now pass to another signal change in God's dispensation -- a change wrought not by abrogating the Abrahamic covenant or abating aught from its provisions or promises of grace, but by introducing another covenant founded on far inferior promises. The descendants of Abraham with the rest of the world are now wholly given to idolatry. They have been long in Egypt, and are thoroughly Egyptianized. The designs and efforts of God's mercy and grace toward them are apparently baffled, but they are not abandoned. He delivers them from the bondage into which he had carried them for their sins, and by his outstretched arm conducts them through the Red Sea and the wilderness to Mount Sinai. Here he makes with them another covenant (a _______ institution), and under it as a peculiar system, separates this people from all other nations in the land of Canaan, and perpetuates their existence as a nation with various revolutions and changes, until it had served the high purpose of introducing the reign of their Messiah over them and over the world.

 

This system, as we have seen, was a theocracy -- a system of national government, of which God was the national king and tutelary deity, adopted with the comprehensive design of recovering this people from polytheism, and of representing the higher system revealed to Abraham, which it could not disannul -- the system of God's moral government over men as moral beings under an economy of grace. Here I have occasion only to call to your remembrance two important things. The one is, that God in establishing this theocracy and assuming the relation of the national king of Israel, did, like every other national king, as became him, require a spirit of loyalty on the part of his subjects -- i. e., he clearly revealed the perfect law of his moral government as the rule of action, though not as a rule of judgment. The other is, that as a representative system it taught that God, with the authority of the law of his moral government unimpaired, was still administering that government under a gracious economy, so that with nothing abated of this law as a rule of duty, there was yet another rule of judgment for men revealed in the covenant made with Abraham and his seed forever, even "the law of faith."

 

Thus we see, that in all the dispensations of God toward men, the law of his perfect moral government has since the apostasy been so modified by an economy of grace, that while its force of obligation is not weakened, it has not lost one iota of its authority or influence as a rule of action, while its penalty will be executed on every unbeliever when judged by the Gospel; still, not this law, but the Gospel, will be the rule of judgment to this sinful world on the last day. In accordance with these things, we find, that while the only rule, which is both a rule of action and of judgment to men, is in the Scriptures called law -- "the law of faith" -- the only possible rule of judgment, and therefore of justifying and condemning sinful men under an economy of grace, the word law is never applied in the Scriptures to the law of God's moral government over men as moral beings, to denote an existing rule of action and of judgment.

 

Sect. 3. -- The proposition next to be maintained is, that the law of God in requiring obedience prohibits disobedience, and in prohibiting disobedience, requires obedience. The importance of presenting this as an essential principle of law does not arise from the unobvious truth of the principle, nor from any want of its admission in practical life, so much as from the assumption and use of the opposite principle in theology. Who but theologians have ever thought that a subject of law could be obedient to law without being not disobedient, or disobedient to law without being not obedient? Many theologians since the Reformation, modifying the view of Anselm, which in literal language represents sin as a debt, have maintained that the transgressor of law incurs two debts -- the debitum poenoe and the debitum negligentioe. Their theory is, that the transgressor of law not only transgresses but fails to obey the law; that by his transgression he incurs its penalty, and by his failure to obey forfeits its reward. Hence the advocates of this theory have been led to the distinction between what they call the active obedience of Christ -- his obedience to the law, and his passive obedience -- his voluntary submission to sufferings and death. Hence again, they maintain that the debitum poenoe incurred by transgressing law, is canceled by the passive obedience of Christ, and the debitum negligentioe incurred by the want of obedience, is canceled by his active obedience.

 

This view of the nature of law I claim to be wholly groundless and forbidden. The known nature of the subject decisively shuts off this interpretation. The question respects the meaning of the word law, de usu loquendi. There is not any word better understood by mankind the world over, than this word in its present application. Every one knows that law is such a rule of action, that its subject acting under it either obeys or disobeys it. As a line cannot be conceived which is not either straight or crooked, so a subject of law acting in this relation, cannot be conceived who is not either obedient or disobedient. He cannot be conceived to want obedience without being conceived to be disobedient, nor to want disobedience without being conceived to be obedient. The want of obedience without disobedience, and the want of disobedience without obedience, may be truly predicated of a book, a table, or any thing else which is not a subject of law. But neither the want of obedience without disobedience, nor the want of disobedience without obedience, can, with a shade of truth, be predicated of a subject of law acting in this relation. A man may be either wise or foolish, but he cannot be both. So a subject of law may be either obedient or disobedient, but he cannot be both. If therefore he is not obedient, he is disobedient, and if he is not disobedient he is obedient.

 

Further, what would be the relation of a subject of law, who, under its ceaseless claim for his obedience, can be viewed as without obedience and yet not disobedient; or as without disobedience and yet not obedient? Should it here be said that neither of these two relations of the subject of law is supposable in re or in reality, then I ask, Why is it supposed? If there is nothing in the nature of law nor in the relation of its subject, to hinder his standing in one of the supposed relations without the other, why may he not be supposed in reality so to stand? If the so-called passive obedience of Christ can, according to the nature and principles of law place its subject in the relation of one who is not disobedient, without placing him in the relation of one who is obedient, or, as some would say, in the relation of one who is pardoned but not justified, who shall say that transgressors of law are not often placed in this relation to law? And what shall be said of the condition of such transgressors of law? The law cannot demand their punishment, for they are pardoned: it cannot acquiesce in their acceptance and reward, for they are not justified. If they are summoned to the judgment-seat in this condition, what shall be their allotment? Does the law of God, in one of its essential principles, recognize a purgatory?

 

Again: should the subject of law from the beginning, perfectly obey the law, his obedience would secure the twofold effect of a title to reward and exemption from penalty. Should the subject disobey the law, his disobedience would secure the twofold effect of the loss of reward and of exposure to penalty. But now, if the disobedient subject can according to law, be exempted from penalty without being secured in the reward, why may not the obedient subject be secured in the reward without being secured in the exemption from penalty? If it be said that security in the reward of an obedient subject of law, necessarily in the nature of the case involves security in exemption from penalty, I answer, so does exemption from penalty on the part of a disobedient subject of law necessarily, in the nature of the case, involve security in his reward. If then something more than that which is necessary to exempt the disobedient subject from the penalty is necessary to his securing the reward, then something more than that which is necessary to secure the obedient subject in his reward is necessary to secure his exemption from penalty. We cannot indeed, suppose that a stone should be either an obedient or disobedient subject of the law of God's moral government, nor of course, that as either, it should be rewarded or punished. But man is a subject of this law. As such he is either an obedient or disobedient subject, and must sustain all the relations of one or the other. That therefore, which secures to him the reward of this law, must exempt him from its penalty; and that which exempts him from its penalty, must secure to him its reward.

 

Again: according to the theory now opposed, there are in the justification of the sinner two causes supposed, each resulting in its own distinct effect, while either cause must produce both effects. Thus, according to this theory, the passive obedience of Christ results in or is the cause of the justified sinner's exemption from punishment. Here then is one cause, and its own and exclusive effect. Again: the active obedience of Christ results in or is the cause of the justified sinner's acceptance and reward as its own exclusive effect. But according to the essential nature of law, nothing can exempt the transgressor from the penalty of law but his obedience to law, which also secures his reward. The active obedience of Christ then, in gratuitous justification supplying the want of obedience to law or paying the debitum negligentioe, must produce the same effect which the perfect obedience of the sinner would have produced had it been rendered, and must therefore wholly supersede the necessity of Christ's passive obedience. So, according to law, the exemption of the sinner from the penalty of law is secured by the absence or want of disobedience, which also would have secured his reward. The passive obedience of Christ then, in gratuitous justification, answering the end of the absence or want of disobedience, or paying the debitum poenoe, must secure the reward, and must therefore wholly supersede the necessity of Christ's active obedience. Thus, instead of a different, distinct single effect peculiar to each cause, each cause produces both effects, or a twofold effect which is the same in both cases. The entire requisite effect being necessarily produced by either cause, the necessity of the other cause is entirely superseded. If we suppose either, not the shadow of a reason so far as the principles of law are concerned, can be given for supposing the other. The inference then from the nature and principles of law is undeniable, that if the subject of law is not obedient to law he is disobedient, and if he is not disobedient he is obedient. Thus all men, in their practical conceptions of the subject, conceive of the relations to law in every subject of law. None of the principles of human intercourse are better or more assuredly understood than those which result from law. The entire influence of law in human society, and all that is comprised in the administration of justice or of government among men, must wholly cease, if men did not regard a legal requirement as a prohibition of its opposite, and a legal prohibition as a requirement of its opposite, on the part of the subject of law. Such being the universal conception of men, such and such only is the universal import of the word law, as used in the word of God in its present application. To say otherwise, is to say that the word is not used in the Scriptures de usu loquendi, which is to say that the word has no meaning, and that so far as this important word is concerned, the Scriptures are not a revelation.

 

It may confirm the truth, briefly to refer to the probable source of the error on the subject under consideration. This seems to be the use of negative forms of language in certain cases in which they answer all the purposes of speech, as well, to say the least, as the use of positive forms. Language often derives peculiar force from expressing more than it says. When our Saviour said to the Jews, "I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you," instead of implying even the possible absence of the opposite principle, his language in import was a direct and impressive charge of the existence of that principle. Because that it can be said of a stone that it is not either foolish or wise, can it be said of a man that he is not wise, without saying in import he is foolish; or of a subject of law, that he is not obedient without saying he is disobedient, or that he is not disobedient without saying that he is obedient?

 

But I appeal to the language of Christ, which is still more explicit: "No man," saith he, "can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." How could the truth be more plainly or convincingly taught respecting man, than that if he hates or does not love one of the two great objects of moral affection, he does love the other? And again, he saith, "He that is not for me is against me." Who then shall say, that in man's relation to God's law there is any middle ground, which he can occupy between obedience and disobedience; or that not being for God is not necessarily identical with being against him? -- that the want of obedience to law in the subject of law is not disobedience to law?

 

But we have instruction on this topic, which, it would seem, must terminate all debate. The case of the unprofitable servant (Matt. xxv. 30) is one not of disobedience as distinguished from obedience, but of the want of obedience. For this, he is not merely deprived of a reward, but is doomed to outer darkness, in weeping and gnashing of teeth. How can it then be said that punishment comes for disobedience and not for the want of obedience?

 

Thus the principle of law, that in requiring obedience law prohibits disobedience, and in prohibiting disobedience it requires obedience, is not a merely speculative and harmless principle, but one which common sense determines to be involved in the essential nature of law, and which our Lord deemed of sufficient practical moment formally to inculcate. Why then has this principle of law been denied to such an extent by theologians? Is it not plainly invented for the purpose of carrying a point, in their sectarian scheme of theology respecting the influence of what they call the active and the passive obedience of Christ in our justification I Whether they can maintain their views of the subject on other grounds than the principle of law on which they claim to rest it, is not now the question. Whether they can or cannot, these views can derive no support from this or any other principle of law. What would be the relation of a subject of law with its claim on him for ceaseless obedience if he can be viewed as without obedience and yet not disobedient, or as without disobedience and yet not obedient?

 

I have dwelt the longer on this principle of law, because the error in respect to it has been made, as it seems to me, the most plausible basis of a far more serious error respecting the active and passive obedience of Christ in our justification -- an error which excludes the great sacrifice of the Son of God from its Scriptural and august relation to law, as exclusively sustaining its authority in our justification.

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