CHAPTER VI.
The Levitical Statutes belong not to the Civil but to the Ecclesiasical Law—Unity of the Church—The Law not Repealed—Jewish Code.
The Hebrews were both a Church and a Nation. Jehovah sustained to them a twofold relation. He was the nation's king, and the church's covenant God. In legislating for this peculiar people, He acted in correspondence with this twofold relation. As their king, he gave laws to the nation; and as their covenant God, He gave laws to His Church.
Now, the question in reference to the law under consideration is, which character did Jehovah assume, and in which aspect did He regard the Hebrews when it was published? Did He enact it as their king, or as their covenant God? Was it designed to promote the peace and order of the commonwealth, or to preserve the purity of the Church; and thus, by sanctifying His people, prepare them both for their duties on earth and for their enjoyments in heaven?
Look at the law. What is its nature? We have seen, that, whether it be regarded as prescribing degrees of marriage, or as forbidding "single acts of an incestuous character," it is a moral law, demanding a chaste and holy conduct. The Puritan, in his first chapter, assumes, without offering any proof in support of his assumption, that "the statutes in question belong to the civil or judicial law of the Hebrew Commonwealth;" and then, on the supposition of their referring to marriage, (which we hope in a subsequent place to prove to be a fact,) he reasons and endeavours to evince that they do not pertain to us. In this he has failed. It has, we think, been shown that the criterion he applies to them, considered as a civil law, instead of proving what he aims at, proves the contrary, that they do, on his own admissions, pertain to us, and are permanently binding.
Marriage is regarded by many as a mere civil contract. From its nature it does, indeed, claim the supervision of municipal authority, to protect the rights, and to enforce the duties, growing out of this peculiar relation. But it is much more than a civil, contract. It lies at the very foundation of society: it is the parent of the state. It received its existence from the Creator; it is his institution, and designed by Him for the propagation, preservation, and happiness of our race. He originally instituted marriage to be between one man and one woman, on purpose, the prophet tells us, "that He might seek a godly seed." (Mal. 2:15.) It was not the mere temporal advantage of our race He had in view. He looked beyond mere earthly benefits; He regarded our holiness and meetness for a heavenly state of enjoyment. And will He not protect this institution against abuse? Surely He will. The seventh commandment in the Decalogue is one defence, and these Levitical statutes we believe to be another. Such they evidently are, even on the supposition that they refer to "single acts of an incestuous character;" for this view of their design brings them, as observed before, within the purview of the seventh commandment.
In truth, they constitute a law given to the Church, to preserve the purity of all her members. They were made, by the express words of the enactment, binding not only on native members, but on all foreigners who might become adopted members of the Church. See Lev. 18:26.
Our brethren who range these statutes under the civil code, are misled by confounding the eighteenth with the twentieth chapter of Leviticus, and by not distinguishing between the law itself and its penalties. The eighteenth chapter is entirely distinct from the seventeenth, which goes before it, and the nineteenth and the twentieth, that follow it: for each of these chapters begins with these words, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying," to show that each chapter contains a distinct communication to Moses to be delivered to the children of Israel. The eighteenth contains nothing of a ceremonial nature. All is moral, not excepting the 19th verse. See chap. 20:18.
The statutes appear, in the eighteenth chapter, as the ecclesiastical law, enforced by an appropriate spiritual penalty; and, in the twentieth chapter, some of the statutes are referred to, and enforced by the penalty of death to be inflicted by the civil magistrate. This penalty belongs to the civil code; but the law itself belongs to the ecclesiastical code.
The Puritan mistakes the nature of the threatening in Lev. 18:29; he takes it to be capital punishment—(p. 20, fifth par.) Gesenius confirms him in his opinion. Both are, in our judgment, in error. It is the same penalty that enforces compliance with the rite of circumcision, appointed as a seal of the covenant made with the father of the faithful. "My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." (Gen. 17:13, 14.) This did not mean capital punishment, inflicted by the magistrate's hand, but exclusion from the Church, and deprivation of the blessings of the covenant. The text, Exod. 31:14, speaks of two distinct kinds of punishment. The latter does not, as the Puritan supposes, define the former.
Besides, let it be remembered, the punishment does not always determine the nature of the law. A judicial sentence, to be executed by the civil magistrate, is often annexed to a law that is natural and moral. Idolatry, the breach of the Sabbath, adultery, were all made capital offences; the offender was to be punished with death by the magistrate. If, therefore, any one will insist that some of these Levitical statutes belonged to the civil code, because offences against them were punishable with death, he must, to be consistent, carry out his argument and prove, for the same reason, that the first, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the seventh precept, in the Decalogue, belonged to the Jewish civil or judicial code; for the violation of these was made punishable with death by the civil magistrate. See Deut. 13:6–11, 17:2–7. Lev. 24:16. Exod. 35:2. Lev. 20:9, 10.
This Levitical law has not been repealed. It was given to the Hebrew Church, and it is now the law of the Christian Church.
The Church of God is one society in every age. It has existed in different periods of time, and under different dispensations. Still, however, it is one and the same society, which Jehovah has chosen out of the world, and separated from the rest of mankind, to the praise of the glory of his rich and sovereign grace. The Jewish Church and the Christian Church were, in many particulars, as parts of the same whole, different from each other: but they were, in all essential points, one and the same society; having the same glorious Head, governed by the same laws, favored with the same gospel, animated by the same Holy Spirit, cheered by the same blessed hope, and destined to the same heavenly happiness and eternal glory.
The Christian Church flourishes under the same gracious covenant by which the Jewish Church was formed. In that covenant, Abraham was constituted the father of the faithful; and circumcision, the seal of that covenant, was appointed to assure him that he was justified by "the righteousness of faith," and that believers, whether his natural descendants, or his adopted seed, would be justified by the same glorious righteousness. Rom. 4:9–17. Hence believers are "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3:29. The unity of the Church Paul illustrates, by comparing it to a tree, of which the Jews were the natural branches, but broken off on account of their unbelief; and into which Gentile believers, taken from a wild olive tree, were grafted. When the Jews shall be converted and believe in Christ, they will, as "natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree." Rom. 11:17–24. They will become members of the same church, adorned with greater light and enriched with greater privileges, from which, for the sin of unbelief, they have been expelled.
Now, this one Church of God is governed by all the laws that were ever given to it, excepting those which have been abolished by the Supreme authority that enacted them. It will not answer to assert, This and that law have been repealed; or, by a general remark, to sweep away a whole code of laws. It must be shown, from Scripture testimony, what laws the great Head of the Church has abolished.
We admit the ceremonial law of Moses to have been annulled; because prophetic intimation had been given that its authority would cease, and because the inspired writer of the epistle to the Hebrews has asserted and proved the fact. We admit, also, that what belonged purely to the Jewish civil or judicial code, does not bind Christians, unless it have been adopted as part of the municipal code of the country or state in which they live. But these statutes of which we speak are binding on all Christians, whether adopted or not as the municipal law of the land in which they live; because they were given to the Church, and have not been repealed.
The Puritan thinks differently. Let us hear him. Page 5, second paragraph, he speaks thus: "As this is an important point, let us be well understood. As the Jewish code, as a code, expired by its own limitations, at the coming of Christ, none of its precepts have any force, derived from the circumstance that they stand in that code. The force which any of its precepts has, comes from the inherent justice and adaptedness seen to reside in those precepts."
Let us examine this passage. Jeremy Taylor, whom the Puritan brings forward as advocating his cause, but without sufficient reason, would condemn such language. He, speaking of the marriage of a man with his mother, in his Ductor Dubitantium, (p. 223,) says, after showing it to be contrary to nature, "But all this was not sufficient to make it to become a natural law, without the authority of God intervening. This made it to be excellently reasonable to be established into a law; and, therefore, God did so, and declared it, and did not trust man's reason alone with the conduct of it; but then it became an eternal law, when God made it so."
What was the Jewish code? What did it comprehend? Only the ceremonial law? or only the civil law? or only the moral law? An answer to these questions is, we think, given by our brother, when he says, (p. 4,) "And here we shall assume no ultra ground respecting our relations to the civil law of the Hebrew commonwealth. The books of Moses contain, it is well known, a moral law, summed up in the ten commandments, and a ceremonial law, which regulated the ceremonies and types of the Hebrew church, and a civil or judicial law, which preserved the peace of the commonwealth." Now, let it be remembered that all these laws, distributed by the Puritan into three classes, Jehovah, our Supreme Lawgiver, gave, by his servant Moses, to his ancient people, denominated, at one time, Hebrews, and at another, Jews. All were written by Moses in his five books. They constituted the Jewish code; not the moral law alone, nor the ceremonial law alone, nor the civil or judicial law alone; but all combined together constituted that code, of which each was a constituent part.
Has this Jewish code, as a code, as a whole, "expired, by its own limitations, at the coming of Christ"? Where are those limitations marked or recorded? Nowhere. Or can it be, with propriety, said, as it is said by the Puritan, that "none of its precepts have any force derived from the circumstance that they stand in that code?" The very fact of their standing in that code, written under the inspiration and by the authority of the Most High, imparted to them a binding force over the conscience. To feel their force, it was not necessary for a Jew to inquire in regard to "the inherent justice and adaptedness seen to reside in those precepts." To an intelligent and pious Jew, it was sufficient to find a precept in the code which God had given to His Church by Moses, to convince him it was obligatory, and ought to be obeyed. He would, indeed, perceive a difference in the precepts of this Divine code, and know and feel some to be more important than others; and that, when they came in conflict, or, in other words, when both could not be observed at the same time, it was his duty to observe the former.
This whole code was binding on the Jewish Church till the coming of Christ; and from no part of it was the Christian Church released, till the Head of the Church was pleased to repeal a part, and publish his will accordingly. So felt the first disciples of our Lord, both among the Jews and among the Gentiles. Even the apostles imagined themselves bound by the entire law of Moses, till they were taught, by the Spirit, that God had released his people from a burden formerly imposed on them. See Acts x. xi. xv. But where are we taught that the Levitical statutes under consideration have been repealed? Are Christians allowed to commit the acts of lewdness which they prohibit? Does not God require us to abstain from them, as He did formerly require the Jews to flee from them?
But to all this the Puritan will perhaps reply, that, by "the Jewish code," he meant the municipal code, and that this has been repealed. Allow this to be his meaning, and what was peculiar to the municipal code not binding on Christians, the repeal of this Levitical law will not follow as a legitimate consequence. He must first prove this law to be a purely municipal law. This he has not even attempted. He assumes it; and, consequently, his whole argument rests on a petitio principii. It is what he charges on others, in the paragraph immediately preceding the one containing the quotation, on which our animadversions have been made, a mere begging of the question in debate.
Besides, we have, we think, proved this Levitical law to be, not municipal but ecclesiastical, and permanently binding on the Church, in every age; and that, even allowing it to be municipal, he has failed, in the application of his criteria, borrowed from Turrettin, to show the contrary.