The burden of the following pages, I am thankful to find, is well calculated to meet and counteract the looseness and indefiniteness of the prevailing teaching of the present day.
And this, I may also say, is the burden of the book of Deuteronomy. The Jewish lawgiver presses with great earnestness the Word of Jehovah on the heart of Israel. It is not a book of ceremonials, but the reminding of the people of their obligation to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments of the Lord.
This is the first moral duty of man in every age—implicit obedience and submission to the revealed will of God. Moses speaks to the children of Israel as a father, and appeals to them in the most tender and loving way. "Hearken, O Israel," he says, "unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you ... ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." And again, he says, "Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."
The welfare of the people individually and nationally depended on their faithfully observing these oft-repeated laws. To neglect them was to bring upon themselves the displeasure and chastening of the God of Israel.
But more need not be said here on these subjects. The reader will find in the following pages the most ample unfolding and practical application of these divine exhortations and warnings. But the writer has not confined himself to what Deuteronomy teaches, but has enlarged on what it suggests. In this way we have brought before us the grand cardinal truths of Christianity: a wide circle of truth is embraced, and much that applies to the individual Christian, the family, the household, and the Church of God will be found in the accompanying book.
It now goes forth with the earnest desire that the Lord may be graciously pleased to use it for the glory of His own name, the help of His people, and the eternal blessing of many precious souls.
A. M.
London, November, 1880.