The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give no higher to an unenlightened people. “But to say that the scope and design were imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in which this course of education issues.” And this we find in the life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law, the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (Num. 19:16), equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God's holiness and his repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated “till he come”(1 Cor. 11:26).
The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial, temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in external precepts respecting woman's hair and dress and speech, but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I call Man's conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God's verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what's fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian's Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men's eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.” See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel, Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195.
Paul's injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:35; 1 Tim. 2:11,12) is to be interpreted by the larger law of gospel equality and privilege (Col. 3:11). Modesty and subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the beginning. “In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were recognized as leaders of God's people, and Anna was a notable prophetess [pg 547]in the temple courts at the time of the coming of Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all generations. A prophecy of Joel 2:28 was that the daughters of the Lord's people should prophesy, under the guidance of the Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had ‘four virgin daughters, who prophesied’ (Acts 21:9), and Paul cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they prayed or prophesied in public (1 Cor. 11:5), but had no words against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching power (Acts 18:26). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (Phil. 4:3). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and in the missionary field.” The command “And he that heareth let him say, Come” (Rev. 22:17) is addressed to women also. See Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry; per contra, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.
III. Relation of the Law to the Grace of God.
In human government, while law is an expression of the will of the governing power, and so of the nature lying behind the will, it is by no means an exhaustive expression of that will and nature, since it consists only of general ordinances, and leaves room for particular acts of command through the executive, as well as for “the institution of equity, the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of pardon.”
Amos, Science of Law, 29-46, shows how “the institution of equity, the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of pardon” all involve expressions of will above and beyond what is contained in mere statute. Century Dictionary, on Equity: “English law had once to do only with property in goods, houses and lands. A man who had none of these might have an interest in a salary, a patent, a contract, a copyright, a security, but a creditor could not at common law levy upon these. When the creditor applied to the crown for redress, a chancellor or keeper of the king's conscience was appointed, who determined what and how the debtor should pay. Often the debtor was required to put his intangible property into the hands of a receiver and could regain possession of it only when the claim against it was satisfied. These chancellors' courts were called courts of equity, and redressed wrongs which the common law did not provide for. In later times law and equity are administered for the most part by the same courts. The same court sits at one time as a court of law, and at another time as a court of equity.” “Summa lex, summa injuria,” is sometimes true.
Applying now to the divine law this illustration drawn from human law, we remark:
(a) The law of God is a general expression of God's will, applicable to all moral beings. It therefore does not include the possibility of special injunctions to individuals, and special acts of wisdom and power in creation and providence. The very specialty of these latter expressions of will prevents us from classing them under the category of law.
Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: “The soul of man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God; so the ways and dealings of God with spirits are not included in nature, that is, in the laws of heaven and earth, but are reserved to the law of his secret will and grace.”