I,'/ iH!-v[ORi \ h KMw i' - r^. ^4 LEY S-. 2.5" b5. Stem f ^e £i6rari2 of (ptofeBBOt nriffiam J^enrj (Bteen (fequeaf 5eb 6)? ^iw to f ^ feifirati^ of (tJmceton t^ogicdf ^eminarj BV 230 .S73 1896 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 1815-1881. The Lord's prayer and the ten commandments THE LORD'S Prayer AND THE Ten Commandments BY Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D. Dean of Westminster e^ PfflLADKLPHIA HENRY ALTEMUS COPYRIGHTED 1896 BY HENRY ALTEMUS Hbnry Altemus, Manufacturer philadelphia THE LORD'S PRAYER. NO one doubts that the Lord's Prayer entered into all the Liturgical observ- ances of the Early Church. No one questions its fundamental value. I. First, let us observe the importance of having such a form at all as the Lord's Prayer left to us by the Founder of our faith. It was said once by a Scottish statesman, " Give to any one you like the making of a nation's laws — give me the making of their ballads and songs, and that will tell us the mind of the nation." So it might be said, "Give to any one you like the making of a Church's creed — or a Church's decrees or rubrics — give me the making of its prayers, and that will tell us the mind of the Church or religious community." We have in this Prayer the one public universal prayer of Christendom. It contains the purest wishes, the highest hopes, the tenderest aspirations which our Master put into the mouth of His followers. It is the rule of our worship, the guide of our 4 ■ THE LORD' S PRAYER. inmost thoughts. This prayer on the whole has been accepted by all the Churches of the world. In the English Liturgy it is repeated in every single service — too often for purposes of edification. The reason evidently is be- cause it was thought that no service could be complete without it. This is the excuse for what otherwise would seem to be a vain repetition. Again, it is used so frequently in the Roman Catholic Church that its two first words have almost passed into a name for a prayer generally — Pater Nosier, — which is the Latin of " Our Father." It has been trans- lated into almost all languages. It is used, at least in modern times, in all the Presbyterian churches of Scotland, and in most of the English Nonconformist churches. However great may be the scruples which any commun- ity may entertain against set forms, there is hardly any which will refuse to use this prayer. The Society of Friends is probably the only exception. Whatever may be the case with other formularies or catechisms, this at least is not a distinctive formulary ; it is common to the whole of Christendom — nay, as we shall see, it is common to the whole of man- kind. Luther calls it " the Prayer of Prayers." Baxter says, **The Lord's Prayer, with the ITS OUTWARD SHAPE. 5 Creed and Ten Commandments, the older I grew, furnished me with a most plentiful and acceptable matter for all my meditations." Archbishop Leighton, the only man who was almost successful in joining together the Churches of England and Scotland, was, we are told, especially partial to the Lord's Prayer, and said of it, " Oh, the spirit of this prayer would make rare Christians." Bos- suet, the most celebrated of French divines, and Channing, the most celebrated of Ameri- can divines, both repeated it on their death- beds. Channing said, ** This is the perfection of the Christian religion." Boussuet said, ** Let us road and re-read incessantly the Lord's Prayer. It is the true prayer of Christ- ians, and the most perfect, for it contains all." On the day of his execution it was repeated by Count Egmont, leader of the insurrection in the Netherlands. On the day of his mortal illness it summed up the devotions of the Emperor Nicholas of Russia. Even those who knew nothing about it have acknowledged its excellence. A French countess read this prayer to her unbelieving husband in a dan- gerous illness. " Say that again," he said, " it is a beautiful prayer. Who made it .? " 2. Again, in the Early Church it was the 6 THE LORD S PR A YER. only set form of Liturgy ; it was, so to speak, the whole Liturgy ; it was the only set form of prayer then used in the celebration of the Holy Communion. Whatever other prayers were used were offered up according to the capacity and choice of the minister. But there was one prayer fixed and universal, and that was the Lord's Prayer. The Clementine Liturgy alone omits it. From that unique position it has been gradually pushed aside by more modern prayers. But the recollec- tion of its ancient pre-eminent dignity is still retained in the older liturgies by its following immediately after the consecration prayer; and in the modern English Liturgy, although it has been yet further removed, yet its high importance in the service is indicated by its being used twice — once at the commence- ment and immediately after the administra- tion. Whenever we so hear it read we are reminded of its original grandeur as the root of all liturgical eucharistic services every- where. It is an indication partly of the im- mense change which has taken place in all liturgies ; it shows how far even the most ancient that exist have departed from their original form. But it reminds us also what is the substance of the whole Communion ITS OUTWARD SHAPE. 7 service; what is the spirit by which and in which alone the blessings of that service can be received. 3. And now let us look at its outward shape. What do we learn from this.? We may infer from the occurrence of any form at all in the teaching of Christ that set forms of prayer are not in themselves wrong. He, when He was asked by His disciples, "Teach us to pray," did not say, as He might have done, *' Never use any form of words — wait till the Spirit moves you — take no thought how you shall speak, for it shall be given you in the same hour what you should speak — *out of the abundance of your heart your mouth shall speak.' " There are times when He did so speak. But at any rate on two occasions He is reported to have given a fixed form of words. But as He gave a fixed form, so neither did He bind His disciples to every word of it always and exclusively. He did not say, " In these words pray ye," but on one occasion, "After this manner pray ye." And as if to bring out still more distinctly that even in this most sacred of all prayers, it is the spirit and not the letter that is of any avail, there are two separate forms of it given in the Gospels according to St. Matthew and 8 THE L ORD S PR A YER. St. Luke, which, though the same in sub- stance, differ much in detail. " Give us this day our daily bread," it is in St. Matthew; ''Give us day by day our daily bread," it is in St. Luke. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," it is in St. Matthew ; ** Forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us," it is in St. Luke. And yet, besides, it may be observed that there is a still further variation in the Lord's Prayer as we read it in the English Liturgy from the form in which we read it in in the Authorized Version of the Bible — "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," is a petition that is the same in sense but different in w^ords from what it is either in St. Matthew or St. Luke. And again, what we call the doxology at the end, " For thine is the king- dom, and the power, and the glory," is not found at all in St. Luke, nor in the oldest manuscripts of St. Matthew, and is never used at all in the oldest Churches of Europe. The Roman Catholic Church absolutely re- jects it. The Greek reads it, but not as part of the Lord's Prayer. Pope, the Roman Catholic poet, imagined that it was written by Luther. All these variations show the ITS ORTGIN. 9 difference between the spirit and the sub- stance, between the form and the letter. The Lord's Prayer is often repeated merely by rote, and has often been used superstitiously as a charm. These slight variations are the best proofs that this formal repetition is not the use for which it was intended. In order to pray as Jesus Christ taught us to pray, we must pray with the understanding as well as with the spirit — with the spirit and heart as well as with the lips. Prayer in its inferior form becomes merely mechanical ; but in its most perfect form it requires the exercise of the reason and understanding. This distinc- tion is the salt which saves all prayers and all religions whatever from corruption. 4. There is yet a further lesson to be learned from the general form and substance of the Lord's Prayer. Whence did it come.? What, so to speak, was the quarry out of which it was hewn .? It might have been en- tirely fresh and new. It might have been brought out for the first time by " Him who spake as never man spake." And in a cer- tain sense this was so. As a whole it is en- tirely new. It is, taking it from first to last, what it is truly called, "The Lord's Prayer" —the Prayer of our Lord, and of no one else. lo THE L ORD' S PR A YER. But if we take each clause and word by itself it has often been observed by scholars that they are in part taken from the writings of the Jewish Rabbis. It was an exaggeration of Wetstein when he said, "Tota hasc oratio ex formulis Hebrseorum concinnata est." But certainly in the first two petitions there are strong resemblances. ** Every scribe," said our Lord, " bringeth forth out of his treasury things new and old." And that is exactly what He did Himself in this famous prayer. Something like at least to those familiar peti- tions exists in some hole or corner of Jewish liturgies. It was reserved for the Divine Master to draw them forth from darkness into light, and speak out on the housetop what was formerly whispered in the scholar's closet — to strins^ to2fether in one continuous garland the pearls of great price that had been scattered here and there, disjointed and divided. We learn from this the value of selection, discrimination of study, in the choice of our materials of knowledge, whether divine or human, and especially of our devo- tion. We are not to think that a saying, or truth, or prayer is less divine because it is found outside the Bible. We are not to think that anything good in itself is less good be- ITS COXTENTS. il cause it comes from a rabbinical or heathen source, 5. Observe its brevity. It is indeed a com- ment upon the saying, " God is in heaven, and thou upon earth ; therefore let thy words be few," No doubt very often we pray in forms much longer than this ; but the shortness of the Lord's Prayer is compatible with its being the most excellent of all prayers, and with compressing our devotion into the briefest compass. In fact the occasion on which it is introduced lays the chief stress on its shortness. It was first taught in express con- trast to the long repetitions of the heathen religions, " They think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things yc have need of before ye ask Him, After this manner therefore pray ye," Every one, however difficult he may find it to make long prayers, however pressing his business may be, morning, noon, and night, may have time for this very short prayer. How long does it take } One min- ute. How many sentences does it contain ? Seven. The youngest as well as the oldest — the busiest as well as the idlest — the most sceptical as well as the most devout — can at 12 THE L ORD' S PR A YER. least in the day once or twice, if not in the early morning or the late evening, use this short prayer. There is nothing in it to offend. They who scruple or who throw aside the Prayer Book, or the Directory, or the Catechism, or the Creed, at least may say the Lord's Prayer. They cannot be the worse for it. They may be the better. 6. And now let us look upon the substance of the sentences as they follow one another. We have said that a nation's religious life may be judged by its chief prayers. For ex- ample, the Mohammedan religion may fairly claim to be represented by the one prayer that every Mussulman offers to God morning and evening. It is in the first chapter of the Koran, and it is this : — " Praise be to God, Master of the Universe, The Merciful, the Compassionate, Lord of the day of Judgment, To Thee we give our worship, From Thee we have our help. Guide us in the right way, In the way of those whom Thou hast loaded with Thy blessing, Not in the way of those who have encountered Thy wrath, or who have gone astray.'* Let us not despise that prayer — so humble, so simple, so true. Let us rather be thankful that from so many devout hearts throughout ITS CONTENTS. 13 the Eastern world there ascends so pure an offering to the Most High God. Yet surely we may say in no proud or Pharisaic spirit that, compared even with this exalted prayer of the Arabian Prophet, there is a richness, a ful- ness, a height of hope, a depth of humility, a breadth of meaning in the prayer of the Lord Jesus which we find nowhere else, which stamps it with a divinity all its own. " Our P^ather which art iN Heaven." Our Father, not my Father. He is the God not of one man, or one church, or one nation, or one race only — but of all who can raise their thoughts towards Him. Father. That is the most human, most personal, most loving thought which we can frame in speaking of the Supreme Being. And yet He is in Heaven. That is the most remote, the most spiritual, the most impersonal thought which we can frame concerning Him. Heaven is a word which expresses the ideal, the unseen world, and there infinitely raised above us all is the Father whom we adore. ** Hallowed be Thy name." That is the hope that all levity, that all profanencss may be banished from the worship of God ; not only that our worship may be simple, solemn, and reverent, but that our thoughts concerning Him may 14 THE L ORD S PR A YER. be consecrated and set apart from all the low, debasing, superstitious, selfish ends to which His name has so often been turned. " O Liberty," it was once said, "how many are the crimes that have been committed in thy name !" " O Religion," so we may also say when we repeat this clause of the Lord's Prayer, "how many are the crimes that have been committed in thy name ! " May that holy name be hallowed by the acts and words of those who profess it! "Thy kingdom COME." This is the highest hope of humanity : that the rule of supreme truth, and mercy, and justice, and beauty, may penetrate every province of thought, and action, and law, and art. It has been said there are some places on earth where we have to think what is the one single prayer which we should utter if we were sure of its being fulfilled. This would be } " Thy kingdom come." " Thy will be DONE." That is the expression of our entire resignation to whatever shall year by year, and day by day befall us. Resignation which shall calm our passions, and control our mur- murs, and curtail our griefs, and kindle our cheerfulness. It is, as Bishop Butler has said, the whole of religion. Islam derives its name from it. "In earth as it is in ITS CONTENTS. 1$ Heaven." These are words which Hft our souls up from the world in which we struggle with manifold imperfections to the ideal heavenly world, where all is perfect. Party strife — crooked ends — ignominious flatteries — are they necessary.'* Let us hope that a time may come when they will be unnecessary. "Give us this day our daily bread." Here we turn from heaven back to earth, and ask for our needful food, our enjoyment, our sustenance from day to day. It is the one petition for our earthly wants. We know not what a day may bring forth. Give us only, give us at least what we need, of sus- tenance both for body and soul. "Enough is enough " — ask not for more. " Enough for our faith, enough for our maintenance when the sun dawns and before the sun sets. "Forgive us our trespasses as we for- give THEM THAT TRESPASS AGAINST US." Who is there that has not need to forgive some one — who is there that has not the need of something to be forgiven } The founder of Georgia said to the founder of Methodism, "I never forgive any one." John Wesley answered, "Sir, I trust you never sin." "Lead US NOT into temptation." The temptations which beset us ! How much of sin comes i6 THE L ORD' S PR A YER, from the outward incidents and companion- ships round us ! How much of innocence from that good Providence which wards off the corrupting, defiling, debasing influences that fill the earth ! Save us, we may well ask, from the circumstances of our age, our country, our church, our profession, our character; save us from those circumstances which draw forth our natural infirmities— save us from these, break their force. And this is best accomplished by the last petition, " Deliver us FROM EVIL ;" that is, deliver us from the evil, whatsoever it is, that lurks even in the best of good things. From the idleness that grows out of youth and fulness of bread — from the party spirit that grows out of our political enthusiasm or our nobler ambition — from the fanatical narrowness which goes hand in hand with our religious earnestness — from the harshness which clings to our love of truth — from the indifference which results from our wide toleration — from the indecision which intrudes itself into our careful dis- crimination — from the folly of the good, and from the selfishness of the wise. Good Lord deliver us. " For thine is the kingdom, AND the power, and THE GLORY, FOR EVER AND EVER, AMEN." So Christendom has ITS CONTENTS. 17 added its ratification to the words of Christ. It is the thankfulness which we all feel for the majesty and thought and beauty which our heavenly Father has shown to us in the paths of nature or in the greatness of man. We have thus briefly traversed these peti- tions. When our Lord's disciples came and asked for a form of prayer, not as John's dis- ciples had received from their master, they thought, no doubt, that He would give them something peculiar to themselves — some- thing that no one else could use. They little knew what the peculiarity, the singularity of their Master's Prayer would be — that it was one that might be used by every church, by every sect, by every nation, by every member of the human family. It is possible that some may be inclined to complain of this extreme comprehensiveness and indefiniteness, and to say there is something here which falls short of the promise in St. John's Gospel. " If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it." But the answer is that here, as before, this prayer is a striking example of the great- ness of the spirit above the letter. In the letter it does not begin or end in the actual name of Jesus Christ. That familiar termin- ation which to our ears has become almost 18 THE LORD'S PR A J ER. the necessary ending to every prayer, and which is used in every church, whether Uni- tarian or Trinitarian, is not here. We do not close our Lord's Prayer with the words "through Jesus Christ our Lord." We do not invoke the holy name of Jesus either at the beginning or end. But not the less is it in the fullest sense a prayer in the name of Christ. In the name of Christ, that is (taking these words in their Biblical sense), **in the spirit of Christ," "according to the nature and the will of Christ," copying from the lips of Christ, adopted as his one formulary of faith at His express commandment. In this true meaning of the words the Lord's Prayer is more the Prayer of our Lord, is more entirely filled with the name and spirit of Christ, than if the name of the Lord Jesus Christ were repeated a hundred times over. In Pope's Universal Prayer there is much which is condemned by religious persons, and we do not undertake to defend the taste or the sentiment of it in every part. But as- suredly that which is its chief characteristic, its universality, is exactly in spirit that which belongs to the prayer of Christ. It is ex- pressed in those well-known words : — ITS CONTENTS. 19 " Father of all ! in every age, In every clime ador'd, By saint, by savage, or by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." It is this very characteristic of the prayer which makes it to be in His name. It is this very universaHty which overflows with Him- self, and which makes the prayer of the phil- osopher to be a paraphrase of His Prayer. He is in every syllable of this sacred formula, as He is not equally in any other formula. He is in the whole of it, and in all its parts. Of these, the most sacred of all the words that He has given us, it is true what He said of all His words — they are not mere words, they are spirit and they are life. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. THE Ten Commandments were always in the Christian Church united with the Lord's Prayer and the Creed (whether longer or shorter) as a Christian Institution. In earlier Catholic times they were used as a frame- work of moral precepts ; in Protestant times they were written conspicuously in the churches. In either case there are important principles involved in the prominence thus given to them which demand consideration. In order to do this we must trace the facts to their Jewish origin. I. Let us first examine what were the Ten Commandments in their outward form and appearance when they were last seen by mor- tal eyes as the ark was placed in Solomon's Temple. I. They were written on two tables or blocks of stone or rock. The mountains of Sinai are of red and white granite. On two blocks of this granite rock — the most lasting and almost the oldest kind of rock that is to (23) 24 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. be found in the world, as if to remind us that these Laws were to be the beginning and the end of all things — were the Ten Command- ments, the Ten Words, written. They were written, not as we now write them, only on one side of each of the two tables, but on both sides, so as to give the idea of absolute completeness and solidity. Each block of stone was covered behind and before with the sacred letters. Again, they were not arranged as we now arrange them. In the Fourth, for example, the reason for keeping holy the seventh day is, in Exodus, because "God rested on the seventh day from the work of creation ;" in Deuteronomy it is to remind them that " they were once strangers in the land of Egypt." Probably, therefore, these reasons were not actually written on the stone, but were given afterwards, at two dif- ferent times, by way of explanation ; so that the first four Commandments, as they were written on the tables, were shorter than they are now. Here, as everywhere in the Bible, there may be many reasons for doing what is right. It is the doing of the thing, and not the particular occasion or reason, which makes it right. Another slight difference was that the Commandments probably were divided THEIR ARRANGEMENT. 25 into two equal portions, so that the Fifth Commandment, instead of being, as it is with us, at the top of the second table, was at the bottom of the first. The duty of honoring our parents is so like the duty of honoring God, that it was put amongst the same class of duties. The duty to both, as in the Roman word ''pietas," was comprised under the same category, and so it is here understood by Josephus, Philo, and apparently by St. Paul. These differences between the original and the present arrangement should be noted, be- cause it is interestnig to have before us as nearly as we can the exact likeness of those old Commandments, and because it is useful to remember how even these most sacred and ancient wortls have undergone some change in their outward form since they were first given, and yet still are equally true and equally venerable. Religion does not consist in counting the syllables of the Bible, but in doing what it tells us. 2. When the Christian Church sprang out of the Jewish Church, it did not part with those venerable relics of the earlier time, but they were still used to teach Christian chil- dren their duty, as Jewish children had been taught before. But there were different ar- aS THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. rangements introduced in different parts of the world. The Talmudic and the modern Jewish tradition, taking the Ten Command- ments strictly as Ten Words or Sentences (Decalogue), makes the First to be the open- ing announcement : '' I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," and the Second is made up of what in our arrangement would be the First and Second combined. The Samaritan division, preserved in the roll on Mount Gerizim, puts the First and Second together, as the First, and then adds at the end an Eleventh, according to our arrangement, not found in the Hebrew Pentateuch, which will be noticed as we pro- ceed. When the Christians adopted the Com- mandments there were two main differences of arrangement. There was the division of Augustine and Bede. This follows the Jev/- ish and Samaritan arrangement of combining in one the First and Second Commandments of our arrangement. But inasmuch as it has no Eleventh Commandment, like the Samar- itan, nor any ''First Word," like the Jewish, it makes out the number ten by dividing the last Commandment into two, following here the arrangement of the clauses in the Hebrew THEIR ARRANGEMENT. 27 of Deuteronomy, and in the LXX. both of Deuteronomy and Exodus, so as to make the Ninth Commandment — "Thoushalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," and the Tenth, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house," etc. This is followed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. The division followed by Origcn and Jerome is the same as that followed in England and Scotland. It is common to all the Eastern Churches, and all the Reformed Protestant Churches. Here, again, the various arrange- ments give us a useful lesson, as showing us how the different parts of our doctrine and duty may not be quite put together in the same way, and yet be still the same. And also it may remind us how the very same ar- rangements, even in outward things, may be made by persons of the most opposite way of thinking; it is a warning not to judge any one by the mere outward sign or badge that they wear. No one could be more unlike to the Roman Catholic Church than the Re- former Luther, and yet the same peculiar arrangement of the Ten Commandments was used by him and by them. No one could be more unlike to the Eastern Church than John Knox, or Calvin, or Cranmer, and yet their 28 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. arrangement of the Ten Commandments is the same. 11. What are we to learn from the place which the Ten Commandments occupied in the old dispensation } We learn what is the true foundation of all religion. The Ten Commandments are simple rules ; most of them can be understood by a child. But still they are the very heart and essence of the old Jewish religion. They oc- cupy a very small part of the Books of Moses. The Ten Commandments, and not the pre- cepts about sacrifices and passovers and boundaries and priests, are the words which are said to have been delivered in thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai. These, and not any ceremonial ordinances, were laid up in the Most Holy Place, as the most precious heritage of the nation. '^ There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb." Do your duty. This is what they tell us. Do your duty to God and your duty to man. Whatever we may believe or feel or think, the main thing is that we are to do what is right, not to do what is wrong. Therefore it is that in the Church of England and in the Re- formed Churches of the Continent they are THEIR IMPORTANCE. 29 Still read in the most sacred parts of the ser- vice, as if to show us that, go as far as we can in Christian light and knowledge, make as much as we will of Christian doctrine or of Christian worship, still we must never lose hold of the ancient everlasting lines of duty. III. But it may be said. Were not those Ten Commandments given to the Jews of old.^ Do they not refer to the land of I^^gypt and the land of Palestine ? Vv e love and serve God, and love and serve our brethren, not because it is written in the Ten Com- mandments, but because it is written on the tables of our hearts by the Divine Spirit, on our spirits and consciences. But herein lies the very meaning of their having become a Christian Institution. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ took two or three of these Commandments, and explained them Himself to the people. He took the Sixth Commandment, and showed that for us it is not enough to remember, "Thou shalt not kill," but that the Command- ment went much deeper, and forbade all angry thoughts and words. This was intended to apply to all the other Commandments. It is not in their letter, but in their spirit that they concern us; and this, no doubt, is what is 30 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. meant by the prayer which in the Church of England follows after each of them, and at the end of all of them, " Incline our hearts to keep this Commandment," " Write all these Commandments in our JieartSy we be- seech Thee." 1. Let us take them one by one in this way. The First Commandment is no longer ours in the letter, for it begins by saying, " I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt." He did not bring us out of the land of Egypt, and so completely has this ceased to apply to us that in the Command- ments as publicly read, the Church of Eng- land has boldly struck out these words alto- gether from the First Commandment. But the spirit of the Commandment still remains ; for we all need to be reminded that there is but one Supreme Mind, whose praise and blame are, above all, worth having, seeking or deserving. 2. The Second Commandment is no longer ours in the letter, for the sculptures and paintings which we see at every turn are what the Second Commandment in its letter forbade, and what the Jews, therefore, never made. Every statue, every picture, not only in every church, but in every street or room, is a THEIR CONTENTS. 31 breach of the letter of the Second Command- ment. No Jew would have ventured under the Mosaic dispensation to have them. When Solomon made the golden lions and oxen in the Temple, it was regarded by his country- men as unlawful. The Mahometan world still observes the Second Commandment literally. The ungainly figures of the lions in the court of the Alhambra, contrasted with the exquisite carving of arabesques and texts on the walls, is an exception that amply proves the rule. The Christian world has entirely set it aside. But in spirit it is still important. It teaches us that we must not make God after our likeness, or after any likeness short of absolute moral perfection. Any fancies, any doctrines, any practices which lead us to think that God is capricious or unjust or untruthful, or that He cares for any outward thing compared with holiness, mercy, and goodness — that is the breach of the Second Commandment in spirit. It was said truly of an attempt to introduce cere- monial forms of the Christian religion, **It is so many ways of breaking the Second Com- mandment." Every attempt to purify and exalt our ideas of God is the keeping of the Second Commandment in spirit, even al 32 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, though we live amidst pictures and statues and sculptures of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. 3. The Third Commandment. Here the original meaning of the Commandment is more elevated and more spiritual than that which is commonly given to it. Many see in it only a prohibition of profane swearing or false swearing. It means this — but it means much more. It means that we are not to appeal to God's name for any unworthy pur- pose. It is a protest against all those sins which have claimed the sanction of God or of religion. The words are literally, "Thou shalt not bring the Holy Name to anything that is vain," that is, to anything that is un- holy, hollow, empty. The plea and pretext of God's name will not avail as an excuse for cruelty or hypocrisy or untruthfulness or un- dutifulness. The Eternal will not hold him guiltless who taketh His name in vain — that is, who brings it to an unjust or unrighteous cause. All the wicked persecutions carried on, all the wicked wars waged, all the pious frauds perpetrated in the name of the Holy God, are breaches of the Third Command- ment, both in its letter and in its spirit. 4. The Fourth Commandment. Here, as THEIR CONTENTS. 33 in the Second Commandment, there is a wide divergence between the letter and the spirit. In its letter it is obeyed by no Christian society whatever, except the Abyssinian Church in Africa, and the small sect of the Seventh-Day Baptists in England. They still keep a day of rest on the Saturday, the sev- enth day of the week. But in every other country the seventh day is observed only by the Jews, and not by the Christians. And again only by the Jews, and not by Christians anywhere, are the Mosaic laws kept which forbade the lighting of a single fire, which forbade the walking beyond a single mile, which forbade the employment of a single animal, which visited as a capital offence the slightest employment on the seventh day. And again, the reasons given in the two ver- sions of the Fourth Commandment are passed away. We cannot be called, as in Deuter- onomy, to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt, for many of us were never in Egypt at all. We cannot be called, as in Exodus, to remember that the earth was made in six days, for we most of us know that it took, not six days, but millions of ages, to bring the earth from its void and formless state to its present condition. The letter of 3 34 THE TEN COMMANDMENT S. the Fourth Commandment has long ceased. The very name of "the Lord's Day" and of "the first day of the week" is a protest against it. The very name of Sabbath is condemned by St. Paul. The Catechism of the Church of England speaks of the duty of serving God all the days of our life, and not of serving Him on one day alone. But the principle which lay at the bottom of the Fourth Com- mandment has not passed away. Just as the prohibition of statues in the Second Com- mandment is now best carried out by the avoidance of superstitious, unworthy, degrad- ing ideas of the nature of God, so the prin- ciple of the observance of the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment is aimed against worldly, hard, exacting ideas of the work of man. The principle of the Fourth Command- ment enjoins the sacred duty of rest — for there is an element of rest in the Divine Nature itself. It enjoins also the sacred duty of kindness to our servants and to the inferior animals ; " for remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt." How this rest is to be carried out, within what limits it is to be confined, what amount of innocent recrea- tion is to be allowed, how far the Continental nations have erred on the one side or the THEIR CONTENTS. 35 Scottish nation on the other side, in their mode of observance, whether the observance of the English Sunday is exactly what it ought to be, or in what respects it might be improved — these are questions which this is not the place to discuss. It is enough to say that amidst all the variations in the mode of observing the Sunday, it is still possible, and it is still our duty, to bear in mind the prin- ciple of the ancient Law. " I was i?i the Spirit on the Lord's Day :" that is what we should all strive to attain — to be raised at least for one day in the week above the grinding toil of our daily work — above the debasing influ- ence of frivolous amusements — above the jangling of business and controversy — raised into the high and holy atmosphere breathed by pure and peaceful lives, bright and beau- tiful thoughts, elevating and invigorating worship. Although the day has been changed from the seventh day to the first day every- where — nay, even had it been further changed, as Calvin intended, from Sunday to Thursday — even had it yet been further changed, as Tyndale, the foremost of the English Re- formers, proposed, from the seventh day to the tenth day — yet still there would survive the solemn obligation founded, not on the Law 36 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. of Moses, but on the Law of God in Nature, the obKgation of rest and of worship as long as human nature remains what it is, as long as the things which are temporal are seen, and the things which ar^ eternal are unseen. 5. The Fifth Commandment. Here, again, the letter has ceased to have any meaning for us. "That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." We have no claim on the inheritance of the land of Canaan. No amount of filial reverence will secure for us the possession of the goodly heights of Lebanon, or the forests of Gilead, or the rushing waters of Jordan. But the ordinance of affection and honor to parents has not diminished, but grov/n, with the years which have passed since the command was first issued. The love of son to mother, the honor of children to parents, is far stronger now than in the days of Moses. It is often discussed in these days whether this or that principle of religion is natural or supernatural. How often is this distinction entirely without meaning ! The Fifth Com- mandment — sacred to the dearest, deepest, purest, noblest aspirations of the heart — is natural, because it is supernatural, is super- natural because it is natural. It is truly re- THEIR CONTENTS. 37 garded as the symbol, as the sanction, of the whole framework of civil and religious society. Our obedience to law, our love of country, is not a bond of mere expediency or accident. It is not a worldly, unspiritual ordinance, to be rejected because it crosses some religious fancies or interferes with some theological allegory. It is binding on the Christian con- science, because it is part of the natural re- ligion of the human race and of the best in- stincts of Christendom. 6. The Sixth Commandment. The crime of murder is what it chiefly condemns, and no sentimental feelings of modern times have ever been able to bring the murderer down from that bad pre-eminence as the worst and most apalling of human offenders. It is the consummation of selfishness. It is the dis- regard of the most precious of God's earthly gifts — the gift of life. But the scope of the Commandment extends much further. In the Christian sense he is a breaker of the Sixth Commandment who promotes quarrels and jealousies in families, who indulges in fierce, contemptuous words, who fans the passions of class against class, of church against church, of nation against nation. In the horrors of war it is not the innocent soldier 38 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. killing his adversary in battle, but the parti- sans on whatever side, the ambitious in what- ever nation, the reckless journalists and de- claimers of whatever opinions, by which angry passions are fostered, that are the true re- sponsible authors of the horrors which follow in the train of armies and in the fields of carnage. In the violence of civil and intes- tine discord, it is not only human life that is at stake, but that which makes human life precious. "As well kill a good man as a good book," was the saying of Milton, and so we may add, in thinking of those who care neither to preserve nor to improve the in- heritance which God has given us, " As well kill a good man as a good institution." 7. The Seventh Commandment. Of this it is enough to say that here also we know well in our consciences that it is not only the shameless villain who invades the sanctity of another's home and happiness that falls under the condemnation of that dreadful word which the Seventh Commandment uses. It is the reader and writer of filthy books : it is the young man or the young woman who allows his or her purity and dignity to be soiled and stained by loose talk and loose company. If the sacredness of the marriage bond be THEIR CONTENTS. 39 the glory of our English homes, no eccentrici- ties of genius, no exceptional misfortunes — however much we may excuse or pity those who have gone astray — can justify us in making light of that which, disregarded in one case, is endangered in all, which, if lost in a few cases, is the ruin of hundreds. It is not the loss of Christianity, but of civilization ; not the advance to freedom, but the relapse into barbarism. 8. The Eighth Commandment. " Thou shalt not steal." That lowest, meanest crime of the thief and the robber is not all that the Eighth Commandment condemns. It is the taking of money which is not our due, and which we are forbidden to receive; it is the squandering of money which is not our own, on the race-course or at the gambling table; it is the taking advantage of a flaw or an accident in a will which gives us property which was not intended for us, and to which others have a better claim than we. He is the true observer of the Eighth Command- ment not only who keeps his hands from pick- ing and stealing, but he who renders just restitution, he who, like the great Indian soldier, Outram, the Bayard of modern times, would not claim any advantage from a war 40 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. which he had victoriously conducted, because he thought the war itself was wrong ; he who is scrupulously honest, even to the last far- thing of his accounts, with master or servant, with employer or employed ; he who respects the rights of others, not only of the rich against the poor, not only of the poor against the rich, but of all classes against each other. These, and these only, are the Christian keepers of the Eighth Commandment. 9. The Ninth Commandment. "Thou shalt not bear false witness." False witness, de- liberate perjury, is the crown and consum- mation of the liar's progress. But what a world of iniquity is covered by that one word, Lie. Careless, damaging statements, thrown hither and thither in conversation ; reckless exaggeration and romancing, only to make stories more pungent ; hasty records of char- acter, left to be published after we are dead ; heedless disregard of the supreme duty and value of truth in all things, — these are what we should bear in mind when v/e are told that we are not to bear false witness against our neigh- bor. A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, and asked how she could cure it. He said, "■ Go to the nearest THEIR CONTENTS. 41 market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way as you return, and come back to me." She was much surprised, and when she saw her adviser again, he said, "Now go back, and bring me back all the feathers you have scattered." ''But that is impossible," she said ; " I cast away the feathers carelessly ; the wind carried them away. How can I recover them?" "That," he said, " is exactly like your words of slan- der. They have been carried about in every direction ; you cannot recall them. Go, and slander no more." 10. The Tenth Commandment. The form of the Commandment speaks only of the possessions of a rude and pastoral people, — the wife of a neighboring chief, the male and female slaves, the Syrian ox, the Egyptian ass. But the principle strikes at the very highest heights of civilization and at the very innermost secrets of the heart. Greed, self- ishness, ambition, egotism, self-importance, money-getting, rash speculation, desire of the poor to pull down the rich, desire of the rich to exact more than their due from the poor, eagerness to destroy the most useful and sacred institutions in order to gratify a social revenge, or to gain a lost place, or to make a 42 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. figure in the world, — these are amongst the wide-reaching evils which are included in that ancient but most expressive word " covetous- ness." "I had not known sin," says the Apostle Paul, **but for the law which says, Thoii shall not covets So we may all say. No one can know the exceeding sinfulness of sin who does not know the guilt of selfishess; no one can know the exceeding beauty of holiness who has not seen or felt the glory of unselfishness. IV. These are the Ten Commandments — the summary of the morality of Judaism, the basis of the morality of Christian Churches. We have heard it said of such and such an one with open, genuine countenance, that he looked as if he had the Ten Commandments written on his face. It was remarked by an honest, pious Roman Catholic of the last generation, on whom a devout but feeble en- thusiast was pressing the use of this and that small practice of devotion, "My devotions are much better than those. They are the devotions of the Ten Commandments of God." In the Reformed American Church and in the Reformed Churches of France, and in- tended by the last Reformers of the English THE TWO ORE A T COMMANDMENTS. 43 Liturgy in 1689, though they failed to carry the point, after the Ten Commandments are read in church comes this memorable addi- tion, which we ought all to supply in memory, even although it is not publicly used : " Hear also what our Lord Jesus Christ saith." This is what is taken as the ground of the explana- tion of the Commandments in all Christian Catechisms of our duty to God. Everything in what we call the first table is an enlarge- ment of that one simple command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Everything in the second table of our duty to our neigh- bor is an enlargement of the command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The two together are the whole of religion. Each of itself calls our attention to what is the first and chief duty of each of the two tables. God, the Supreme Goodness, and the Supreme Truth, is to be served with no half service ; it must be a service that goes through our whole lives. We must place Him above ever)^thing else. He is all in all to us. Truth, justice, purity are in Him made the supreme object of our devotion and affection. " Let no man," says Lord Bacon, " out of weak conceit of authority or ill- applied moderation, think or imagine that a 44 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. man can search too far or be too well sup- plied in the Book of God's Word or the Book of God's Works." Man is to be served also with a love like that which we give to ourselves. Selfishness is here made the root of all evil ; unselfishness the root of all good- ness. Toleration of every difference of race or creed is summed up in the expression "thy neighbor." It was a saying of Abraham Lincoln, "When any church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for membership the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both Law and Gospel in those two great Commandments, that church will I join with all my heart and with all my soul." There may be an exaggeration in the expres- sion, but the thing intended is true. If any church existed which in reality and in spirit put forth those two Commandments as the sum and substance of its belief, as that to which all else tended, and for the sake of which all was done, it would indeed take the first place amongst the churches of the world, because it would be the Church that most fully had expressed the mind and inten- tion of the Founder of Christendom. V. There was an addition which the Eng- THE ELEVENTH COM^TANDMENT. 45 lish divines of the time of William III wished to make to the recital of the Ten Command- ments in church. It was baffled by the ob- stinate prejudice of the inferior clergy. But its intention was singularly fine. It was that, on the three great festivals, instead of the Ten Commandments of Mount Sinai, should be read the Eight Beatitudes of the Mountain of Galilee, in order to remind us that beyond and above the Law of Duty, there is the happiness of that inward spirit which is at once the spring and the result of all duty — the happiness, the blessedness which belongs to the humble, the sincere, the unselfish, the eager aspirant after goodness, the generous, the pure, the courageous. That happiness is the highest end and aim of all religion. VI. There is one addition yet to be made, which has never been suggested by authority. We sometimes hear in conversation of an Eleventh Commandment invented by the world, in cynical contempt of the old com- mandments or in pursuit of some selfish or wicked end. Of such an Eleventh Command- ment, whether in jest or earnest, we need not here speak. It is enough to be reminded of it, and pass it by. But there is also what may be called the Eleventh Commandment 46 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. of churches and sects. In the oldest and most venerable of all ecclesiastical divisions — the ancient Samaritan community, who have for centuries, without increase or dimi- nution, gathered round Mount Gerizim as the only place where men ought to worship — there is, as noticed above, to be read upon the aged parchment-scroll of the Pentateuch this commandment, added to the other Ten, " Thou shalt build an altar on Mount Geri- zim, and there only shalt thou worship." Faithfully have they followed that command ; excommunicating, and excommunicated by all other religious societies, they cling to that Eleventh Commandment as equal, if not su- perior, to all the rest. This is the true like- ness of what all churches and sects, unless purified by a higher spirit, are tempted to add. "Thou shalt do something for this par- ticular community, which none else may share. Thou shalt do this over and above, and more than thy plain duties to God and man. Thou shalt build thine altar on Mount Gerizim, for here alone our fathers have said that God is to be worshipped. Thou shalt maintain the exclusive sacredness of this or that place, this or that word, this or that doc- trine, this or that party, this or that institu- THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 47 tion, this or that mode of doing good. Thou shalt worship God thus and thus only." This is the Eleventh Commandment according to sects and parties and partisans. For this we are often told to contend more than for all the other Ten together. For an Eleventh Commandment like to this, half the energies of Christendom have been spent, and spent in vain. For some command like this men have fought and struggled and shed their own blood and the blood of others, as though it were a command engraven on the tables of the everlasting law ; and yet again and again and again, it has been found in after ages that such a command was an addition as ven- erable, perhaps, and as full of interest, but as superfluous, as misleading, as disproportion- ate, as that Eleventh Samaritan command- ment, — " Thou shalt build an altar on Mount Gerizim, and there only shalt thou worship." But there is a divine Eleventh Command- ment, — "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; As I have loved you, that ye also should love one another." It is contained in the parting discourse of St. John's Gospel, and it is introduced there as a surprise to the Apostles. ** What .^ Are 48 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. not the Ten Commandments enough ? Must we always be pressing forward to something new? What is this that He saith, *A new commandment ? ' We cannot tell what He saith." Nevertheless it corresponds to a gen- uine want of the human heart. Beyond the Ten Commandments there is yet a craving for something even beyond duty, even beyond reverence. There is a need which can only be satisfied by a new, by an Eleventh Commandment, which shall be at once old and new — which shall open a new field of thought and exertion for each generation of men ; which shall give a fresh, undying impulse to its older sisters — the youngest child (so to speak) of the patri- archal family. The true new commandment which Jesus Christ gave was, in its very form and fashion, peculiarly characteristic of the Christian Religion. The novelty of the commandment lay in two points. First, it was new, because of the paramount, predominant place which it gave to the force of the human affections, the en- thusiasm for the good of others, which was — instead of ceremonial, or mere obedience, or correctness of belief — henceforth to become the appointed channel of religious fervor. THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 49 And, secondly, it was new, because it was founded on the appearance of a new charac- ter, a new manifestation of the character of Man, a new manifestation of the character of God. Even if the Four Gospels had been lost, we should see, from the urgency with which the Apostles press this new grace of Love or Charity upon us, that some diviner vision of excellence had crossed their minds. The very word which they used to express it was new, for the thing was new, the example was new, and the consequences therefore were new also. It may be said that the solid blocks or tables on which the Ten Commandments were written were of the granite rock of Sinai, as if to teach us that all the great laws of duty to God and duty to man were like that oldest primeval foundation of the world — more solid, more enduring than all the other strata ; cut- ting across all the secondary and artificial distinctions of mankind ; heaving itself up, now here, now there ; throwing up here the fantastic crag, the towering peak, there the long range which unites or divides the races of mankind. That is the universal, everlast- ing character of Duty. But as that granite rock itself has been fused and wrought to- 50 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. gether by a central fire, without which it could not have existed at all, so also the Christian law of Duty, in order to perform fully its work in the world, must have been warmed at the heart and fed at the source by a central fire of its own — and tKat central fire is Love — the gracious, kindly, generous, admiring, ten- der movements of the human affections ; and that central fire itself is kept alive by the con- sciousness that there has been in the world a Love beyond all human love, a devouring fire of Divine enthusiasm on behalf of our race, v/hich is the Love of Christ. It is not con- trary to the Ten Commandments. It is not outside of them, it is v/ithin them ; it is at their core; it is wrapped up in them, as the particles of the central heat of the globe were encased within the granite tables in the Ark of the Temple. " What was it that made him undertake the support of the Abolition of the Slave-trade } " was asked of an eminent statesman respecting the conduct of another. ** It was his love of the human race." This was what the Apostle Paul meant by saying, " Love is the fulfilling of the Law." This is what St. Peter meant by saying, "Above all things, have fervent," enthusi- astic " Love." This is what St. John meant THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 51 when, in his extreme old age, he was carried into the market-place of Ephesus, and, ac- cording to the ancient tradition, repeated over and over again to his disciples the words which he had heard from his Master, "Little children, love one another." They were vexed by hearing this commandment, this Eleventh Commandment, repeated so often. They asked for something more pre- cise, more definite, more dogmatic ; but the aged Apostle, we are told, had but one answer: "This is the sum and substance of the Gospel ; if you do this, I have nothing else to teach you." He did not mean that ceremonies, doctrines, ordinances were of no importance ; but that they were altogether of secondary importance. He meant that they were on the outside of religion, whereas this commandment belonged to its innermost sub- stance; that, if this commandment were car- ried out, all that was good in all the rest would follow ; that, if this commandment were neglected, all that was good in all the rest would fade away, and all that was evil and one-sided and exaggerated would prevail and pervert even the good. He meant and his Master meant that, as the ages rolled on, other truths may be folded up and laid aside ; 52 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. but that this would always need to be enforced and developed. Love one another in spite of differences, in spite of faults, in spite of the excesses of one or the defects of another. Love one another, and make the best of one another, as He loved us, who, for the sake of saving what was good in the human soul, forgot, forgave, put out of sight what was bad — who saw and loved what was good even in the publican Zaccheus, even in the penitent Magdalen, even in the expiring malefactor, even in the heretical Samaritan, even in the Pharisee Nicodemus, even in the heathen soldier, even in the outcast Canaanite. Make the most of what there is good in insti- tutions, in opinions, in communities, in indi- viduals. It is very easy to do the reverse, to make the worst of what there is of evil, ab- surd, and erroneous. By so doing we shall have no difficulty in making estrangements more wide, and hatreds and strifes more abundant, and errors more extreme. It is very easy to fix our attention only on the weak points of those around us, to magnify them, to irritate them, to aggravate them and by so doing we can make the burden of life unendurable, and can destroy our own and others' happiness and usefulness wherever we THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT 53 go. But this is not the new love wherewith we are to love one another. That love is universal, because in its spirit we overcome evil simply by doing good. We drive out error simply by telling the truth. We strive to look on both sides of the shield of truth. We strive to speak the truth in love, that is, without exaggeration or misrepresentation; concealing nothing, compromising nothing, but with the effort to understand each other, to discover the truth which lies at the bottom of the error; with the determination cordially to love whatever is lovable even in those in whom we cordially detest whatever is detest- able. And, in proportion as we endeavor to do this, there may be a hope that men will see that there are, after all, some true disci- ples of Christ left in the world, "because they have love one to another." 7ll lll?(1l millt& ,.?,^?^'"a7 Libraries 1 1012 01235 71 50 DATE DUE GAYLORD #3523PI Printed in USA ■y. ■y\<^'^ H':