4. The great conflict of those early ages between God and Satan was fought on the point of idolatry—the real question being whether God or the devil should have the worship of men; whether the supremacy and the moral right to rule the world are with God or with Satan. This being the great conflict of the ages, it should not surprise us that God should let Israel’s land of promise be in a sort the battle-ground, and should bring into play the physical force of arms and let his covenant people come into the fight hand to hand against the hosts of his foes. This arrangement gave scope for his own hand in various providential agencies—thunder, hail-storm, the day prolonged miraculously; panics often smiting the hearts of his enemies, and victories that witnessed visibly to Jehovah’s present hand. In an age when men were waiting for God to manifest himself visibly and tangibly; when their spiritual perceptions were but dim, and when of necessity the first step in the process of revealing God to men demanded an appeal to the senses, it was certainly no mistake in wisdom for God to suffer this great fight to take on visible form and stand out palpably before human eyes. In the result God made it unmistakably manifest that his soul abhorred such unnatural and horrid crimes as those of the men of Canaan, and also that he had both the power and the will to inflict on them the extremest and most fearful judgments.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CIVIL INSTITUTES OF MOSES; OR THE HEBREW CODE OF CIVIL LAW.
IN scripture phrase, the code is most often called “The statutes and the judgments”—the “commandments and precepts” which the Lord gave by Moses (Deut. 6: 1 and Ex. 21: 1).
I approach this subject with a feeling of regret that the necessary limits of this volume forbid any attempt to make my presentation of this topic exhaustive. The utmost I can do within the limits prescribed is to give an outline rather than a full development of this code. I shall aim to make this outline full enough to show the steps and stages of progress in the science of legislation which are obvious in these “statutes and judgments.”
I must first call attention to certain points of a general nature, most of which will need only a brief statement.
1. This code of laws was given to the Hebrews by God himself, through the hand of Moses. For the sake of brevity and to distinguish it from other codes we may speak of it as the code of Moses and may speak of Moses as the Hebrew lawgiver; yet let it be said once for all that we recognize no authority—no authorship other than that of God himself.
2. This code was built upon the moral law of Sinai—the ten commandments. It simply expands and applies the general principles expressed or implied in that summary.
3. It was framed with the purpose of reaching the highest moral standard practicable in the circumstances of the people—the highest which it was possible to enforce. This doctrine assumes that any special statute which is so far above the moral status of the people as to be practically inoperative and void may be for this very reason an evil rather than a good inasmuch as it may break down rather than build up the law-abidingspirit of the people. Consequently the best statute for any given people may be the best that can be in the main enforced—the best which they can be brought up to respect and obey. Hence it may happen that some of the statutes in the best practicable system will be only second best—i. e. not theoretically perfect, but only the best practically for the circumstances. We may illustrate this by the law of divorce, as to which Jesus himself remarks that Moses “because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Mat. 19: 8). The provisions for an easy divorce were a concession to a sadly low morality among the people—the best under the circumstances—the best that could be made operative with that people, but by no means theoretically perfect.——The reader will take note that we had no occasion to apply this principle to the moral law of the ten commandments, nor indeed to the underlying principles of this code of “statutes and judgments,” but only to some of its practical applications of these principles.
4. It is an inference from our last-named point that this code must needs take the people as they were; must have regard to existing usages, to the common law under which they had been living, and perhaps must be compelled to tolerate some undesirable usages until better principles could be inculcated and a higher moral tone of public sentiment could be established. Illustrations of this principle appear in the prevalent system of servitude, and in polygamy.