•I

\ \

Mu V2.5-

"ONE LAWGIVER."

SERMON

«j, PREACHED If

%\t Jfiot Cmrppttflircl Cjwujr, Wmhx% Pass.,

ON FAST DAY, 1854.

BY REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

JOURNAL OFFICE, WOBURN
1854.

"ONE LAWGIVER."

A

SERMON,

PREACHED IN

W$ jf bt Cmrgngafaal <%rtjj, IHoIranr, Pass.,

ON FAST DAY, 18 5 4.

BY REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS.

PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST.

JOURNAL OFFICE, WOBURN
1854.

SERMON.

JAMES 4: 12.
" THERE IS ONE LAWGIVER."
The sublimest subject of contemplation for the mind of man is,
unquestionably, the Being who made him. But the character of
God is an immense field. He who attempts to traverse one side
of it, leaves others unseen. Nay, it is infinite, — it is boundless.
Man can never have exhausted it. That part of it, however,
which comes within the range of his vision, has varied aspects.
To no one of them can he turn and say, " This is all." They
mistake, therefore, very greatly, who look at some single trait as
though this were the whole of Deity.
God is the Father of our race. It is not possible to magnify,
beyond its actual value and preciousness, this beautiful and tender
relationship. But the Paternity of Jehovah is not all of Him. Some of his
most exalted features are seen in another direction. There is
another, an opposite side of that sphere, by which his harmonious,
perfect character may be represented. The text introduces him
in one of the most magnificent of those other relations. There he
stands forth in his most majestic attitude, — the solitary, unaided,
unopposed Legislator of the Universe. " There is one Lawgiver."
That one — is God.
The position of law in that system of things of which we make a
part, is most remarkable, most illustrious. Everywhere we find it.
Nothing exists without it. It appertains to all kinds of objects.
The substance and the shadow are alike governed by it. Things
material and immaterial, — the ephemeral and the immortal, — the
visible and the invisible, — all, are under its sway. It lives
through all life. It survives all decay. That very decay, it
directs. It triumphs over all death. That death itself is but a
vassal of it ; for death, as much as life, is subject to some law.

So that not only all objects, but all movements and all changes
in those objects, fall within the province of its activity. In extent,
then, it is literally and unequivocally universal.
The power of law is not less than its ubiquity. Wherever it
reaches it is effective. It arranges all things. It moulds all
things. It is imperial ; acknowledged or denied, — beloved or
hated, — received or resisted, — it makes its own way and accom
plishes its own results.
Law is as useful too, as it is either extensive or strong. With
out it, there would be nothing but chaos. Out of it springs order,
harmony, adaptation. It touches " the rude and indigested
masses " of matter, and they start into symmetrical forms. It
looks on banks of nebulae, — the " star-dust " of the skies, and
forthwith planets emerge ; constellations are grouped ; space
becomes populous with worlds. Under the dominion of law, those
worlds fall into their appropriate position in the grand processions
of the heavens ; and through thousands of years they move on, —
no one jostling his fellow, — round the sun of their system, " for
ever singing as they shine," and making, in their course, the
matchless " music of the spheres."
Some known and permanent laws of their nature give to man
his control over all the substances which he handles, or uses, or
sees, or. lives among. Law makes and modifies the communities in
which he resides ; gives him all his knowledge of the past ; all his
control of his own faculties ; all his confidence in jiature, in custom,
in man. Law belongs not to any outward manifestations alone.
Its highest life throbs in the unseen. It pertains to spiritual
existence. We now come to that which is the central subject of the present
discourse. It is the particular topic presented by the text, viz. :
What is the Origin of all Law ? Whence does it come ? What
eminence is lofty enough, so that from it may flow down the cur
rent which shall turn all the forces of creation ? Where did things
receive their bias, and the rule of their condition ? Who laid
down the grooves in which their wheels should run ? Who gave to
them their laws ? Our Scripture replies, " There is one Law
giver." Gfod is the original source of all law.
I. Gfod is the source of Law in the World of Matter. Nothing ,
— from the smallest atom floating in the air, up to the largest sys
tem of worlds which occupy the immensity of space, is an excep-

tion. God gives law to all things. He created all. His forming
fingers gave to every object its properties, its position, its uses, its
object. He conferred on each its present and actual constitution,
rather than any other. He had, in respect to each existence
which he produced, the whole range of possibilities from which to
choose. He did choose the identical form which he gave it, and
chose that in preference to all others. Not only did he create one
particular object, but he formed all other objects also. He there
fore arranged their mutual connection ; the amount and mode of
influence which they should exert upon each other ; the points
where they should come in contact, .and all their relations.
For example, when he made one particle of sand, he took into
view not only that one particle, but all others with which it should
be associated, and all the connections it should sustain with every
other particle of matter in the universe.
When he elaborated any one of the worlds, it was not that world
alone, which he was fashioning ; but that world in the place it was
to occupy, — in the attraction it was to feel, or to exercise, — in the
force with which it was to be drawn towards the centre, or impelled
away from it, — in the velocity with which it was to pass and repass
every other sun, or star, or comet, or meteor, traveling along
the aerial highway. He had to arrange all this, not for any
present moment simply, but in prospect of all coming ages, and all
future changes.
Even more : He was called on to foresee, 'and to provide for,
all the bearing which every grain and atom in one of these worlds
should have upon every particle of dust, and every germ of
growth, and every breath of air in every other, even the most
distant and invisible, corner of the universe.
These things we are sure God would do only by assigning to
each some place which they all should keep, some state which they
all should observe. And these assignments of his are their law.
The laws of his appointment, once in force, abide. For he upholds
and directs all things incessantly, as certainly as he originally
created them.
He is, then, the author of all those wonderful, various, and
beautiful phenomena which are styled the " Laws of Nature," and
which are sometimes falsely spoken of as something outside of and
beyond the will of God. He made nature herself. She is but one
among the innumerable army of. his ministers. She but stands
1*

ready, in all the array of her consummate troops, to do his bidding.
Her winds blow, her lightnings flash, her volcanoes heave, her
billows toss, her breakers dash, her tempests howl, her avalanches
rush, her sunlight smiles, her zephyrs breathe — only at his
command. It i3 He who has ordained the laws of Matter Inanimate. The
regulation of all motion ; the remarkable mechanical forces whose
acquaintance we have made, and in connection with which so much
of the life of men is passed; the powers of machinery in the
innumerable variations of its adaptation to human convenience,
and in the mysteries which it is continually unfolding to human
ingenuity, are of God's ordaining. In the water and the heat He
deposited, when he formed their constituent parts, the germ of the
steam which is now altering the face of the earth, and the forms of
society, and the channels of wealth, and the career of kingdoms.
All those common things on which artisans work, and which
work for them, God is in the midst of! Their most trifling prop
erties he has ordained ! Amidst the fiery furnaces of art, among
the flying iron fingers of the loom, in the sparks of the anvil, men
are conversing with the laws of God. In their most ordinary
manual toil they are dealing with his thoughts and plans. The laws
of the elements are of his devising. Air, Earth, Fire, and Flood
—all proclaim " He is our Legislator." He gave to the light the
rules by which it moves with a celerity incomprehensible, and by
which every optical instrument is constructed.
For the wonders of sound, He alone has marked out a course.
Every note of every musical instrument starts upon its melodious
way in a direction which he has imparted. The harp, the flute,
and the organ, are but his servants. And the volumes of song
which pour from the many-voiced choir, fall into harmony, obedient
to him. Science is but the evolution of laws which the Creator
has imposed. Every spark of electricity ; the wonders of astron
omy ; every record of geology ; every bloom of botany, do but
proclaim the laws which their Maker, and ours, has imposed.
Animate Creation brings us illustrations no less numerous and
significant than those to which we have already alluded. There
the laws of production and reproduction ; the different constitu
tions of the various classes of the animal tribes^ the rules which
determine health and disease ; the surprisingly curious develop
ments of instinct — these, and a multitude more of the wonders of

life, which people air, and earth, and the sea, present to us a
book whose pages and paragraphs — whose every sentence, and
line, and syllable, tells of the laws by which God is governing this
part of his handiwork.
Thus the whole material universe is eloquent of his presence,
and vocal with his praise. It may indeed be styled the " Temple
of Nature," but that signifies the Temple of God. It is a temple
within whose walls the anthem of nature is heard. But the burden
of that anthem is, Glory to the God whose throne is established
above these material heavens, and whose perfect laws, extending
everywhere, control all the operations of his hands.
II. But the Almighty is not a lawgiver to the world of matter
only. He presides equally over the realm of Mind. Here,t oo,
there is " One Lawgiver," and but one. The constitution ofthe
Intellect, its structure, its activity, its faculties, he has bestowed,
and over these, too, he reigns. The methods by which knowledge
dawns upon the mind ; the means by which the human will acts
upon the mute clod with which it is allied ; th-e capabilities of
Reason, and Imagination, and Taste and Memory are, all of
them, under the government of the laws wliich he who brought
them into being has devised.
He has arranged the methods by which the affections shall be
movedj and the direction in which they ought to turn he has
announced. From God have emanated all the laws of Free- Will.
There is an appointed and appropriate mode in which this must
^"act. That is God's law to it in this mode of construction. He
has, besides, given to it, in another sense a law. He is not only a
Natural, but is also a Moral, Lawgiver. He has revealed a rule
of conduct. As a natural lawgiver, he has made man so that he
must choose for himself. As a moral lawgiver he has informed
him what he ought to choose.
In that moral law we see recorded our duty to our Creator.
One section of it summons us to Faith ; another, to Love ; another,
to Penitence. Reverence, and Humility, and Worship, and Obe
dience towards the Lawgiver, are among his requisitions.
Respecting man's feelings towards his fellow-men, also, and his
treatment of them, he finds no obscure intimations afforded by the
Divine Code. The regulation of his conduct towards himself, is
recorded in the same volume. From God have proceeded, more
over, as a moral governor, the laws of Conscience. He has

8
appointed the arrangements by which it is made certain that
Remorse and Retribution will pursue the steps of transgression. It
belongs to his unalterable ordainings that "the way of trans
gressors is hard," and that " the wages of sin is death." He has
so constructed man, and so arranged the universe in which he
resides, that these things must be.
III. It remains to add that He who is now the one Lawgiver,
will continue so — forever ! The planets may pale and pass away.
The sun may dim his " ineffectual fires." The moon may cease
to reflect any illumination. The waters of the ocean may pause in
their restless heavings, and be still ; or the ocean's bed may be
dried up. A thousand changes may transpire, — but it will all
inevitably be in accordance with some plan which God has formed.
It will be in harmony with the laws of the infinite Legislator
respecting them. These things he has made. He made them to
abide while they remain. He made them to expire whenever they
shall cease. This is his universe. He has formed it as he pleased.
There is no place in it where he is not, — the one ever-present
Master-Spirit. Nor will there ever come a period in which his
law-giving will end. That is a part of the prerogative of his
Infinitude. That belongs to his nature. While man and time
endure, to man and time will he be giving law. And should both
be found no more, still it would continue true that " there is One
Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy."
One Legislator of the Universe ! Such a subject is fruitful in
reflections. We can glance at only a few of them ; some of which
are general in their character, and of some the times on which
we have fallen are hardly less suggestive than the theme.
1. We are reminded that He who can give laws to all things,
can execute his oion Penalties. Law without a penalty, ceases to
be law. It were idle then to imagine, that the Laws of God have
no penalties. He who violates God's law, in natural things,
suffers. All Creation is under his control. He can use it as his
instrument of vengeance. He not only can, but we are assured
he will, execute every penalty which he has threatened ! He does,
in our sight, punish the violator of physical laws. The man who
tampers with disease, — the man who walks into the fire, or breathes
the water, — the man who plays with the lightnings, suffers the
penalty ! He who disregards the law of gravitation, and stands
beneath a falling tree, bears in his body the forfeit of his disobe-

dience ! And so he who contemns the moral laws of his Creator
will be made a monument of the truthful severity of his king ! He
will be compelled to learn, as he writhes beneath the deserved
punishment of his sin that, " there is one lawgiver who is able to
save and to destroy."
2. Our subject may remind us What is the element of Perma
nent Power in all human statutes. Earthly laws will have force
just so far as they are in harmony with the Divine. They will be
nugatory just in proportion as they are in discord with that ! You
may put upon the statute book of your state an ordinance which
shall have been passed with all the formalities of a cumbrous legis
lation. For a time the combinations of a little brief authority ;
the pride or the hopes of a petty partizanship ; or some-other evi
dence ofthe frailty of human wisdom, may serve to keep it there.
But be sure, if it is an ordinance radically unjust, it cannot stand !
It lacks the only inherent quality which can secure it life. It is
in palpable opposition to the decrees of heaven ! It runs upon the
" thick bosses " of his buckler, who is the " one lawgiver " over
nations as over individuals ! In that shock it must be overwhelmed !
The attributes of the eternal are at war with it. It has to con
tend not only against the sense of justice implanted in human
hearts, but against the will of the Most High ! That contest it
cannot long maintain ! Before the glance of his eye it will soon be
withered. It has incorporated in it the seeds of its own dissolu
tion. Earthly constitutions may lend to it a precarious life ;
seeming necessity may perhaps galvanize its expiring energies into
a convulsive show of activity, but no constitutions can dignify it
with permanency; no circumstances can insure it an honorable
old age. ' If they persist in binding it to themselves, their own
progress shall be hopelessly impeded ; and if they will not give it
up, its blight shall fall upon them, and both shall go down to an.
early and shameful grave. ' Human legislation cannot sanctify
injustice. Human authority cannot controvert God's precepts.
No forms of temporal power can change the relations of right and
wrong. And if Parliaments or Senates enact iniquity, no bills
passed through any number of " readings," or -engrossed by the
votes of any majority of dignitaries, can hope for either a perma
nent or a peaceful life.
Human laws must stand, if they would have power over intelli
gent communities, and especially over Christian men, on the broad,

10
everlasting foundations on which the divine laws are built ; then
they appeal to the conscience of a country. Then they can be
urged by all the authority of human government as an appointment
of heaven, fulfilling its appropriate duties. Then, if they are needed,
if they are demanded, they may be enacted and left to their fate.
Clamor will not harm them. Investigation will only assure them
support. Then prayer can be on their side. Good men can rally
to their aid. God, himself, can defend them.
3. Our subject hints to us What hind of Legislators it would
be wise in a self-governing people to select for themselves. Let
those who make our earthly laws be in character, the nearest
possible to him who is the source of all law. Let them be the
most Godlike of men. Let their tempers, their dispositions, their
desires, their'purposes, their aims, have some consistency with his,
who, in their capacity as legislators, ought to be their model.
The law-makers ; of a free country, like ours, ought to be the
wisest and the best men in it. " Ought to be ? " Yes, and they
might be, if those who choose them would all perform the duty
they owe to God, to themselves, to their country, and to the world,
aright. Every man who holds in his hand the power of a vote,
becomes thereby freighted with a religious, as well as a political,
responsibility, the responsibility of choosing for his rulers men who
shall not disobey God ; the responsibility of influencing the legis
lation of his land, so as to secure the benediction of God.
When God would exhibit in its deepest dye the ' degradation and
sad condition of his ancient people, he reminds .them that their
princes are rebellious, — " Every one loveth gifts, and followeth
after rewards." When he would paint the most vivid picture of
their coming calamities, he throws upon the canvass this single,
direful, touch of his pencil. " I will give children to be their princes,
and babes shall rule over them." When he would depict the utter
spoliation of the most magnificent of the ancient capitals, he does
it most effectually in the three suggestive words, " her princes —
drunk ! "
Should the time ever come when these things shall be descrip
tive of the character of any large part of the rulers or the legisla
tors of a Republican land, should they who occupy the capital
places of a country love chiefly the gifts, and follow first the
rewards of office, should childish folly usurp the high places of
the land, should the palace of a country's legislation tolerate a

11
subterranean dram shop between the pillars on which its arches
rest, should drunken legislators stagger at midnight on the floor
of Congressional halls, and finish over the flowing bowl the
iniquity which they glory in enacting, — should these things ever
be, and the country not blush and repent, and disown the authors
of such outrage — then indeed, " Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah
is fallen ! "
Should the time ever come when^ those appointed to make the
laws for thirty millions of people, and to lay the foundations of an
empire thousands of miles in length, by thousands of miles in
breadth, and stretching almost from the snows of the Polo to the
Equatorial line, shall have no control over their own passions ;
should they indulge in the scandal of malignant broils on the very
spot consecra'ted to their sublitoe duties, and girt all about by the
insignia of their distinction ; should they dare to desecrate the
station to which they have aspired, and to defy the express man
dates of God, — then, then, 0 my country ! it is time to cry to
heaven to save thee from thy professed friends ! Can such things
be in a land where a moral people makes choice of its own rulers ?
Nay, let those and only those be appointed to call men to obey
their laws who, themselves are careful to obey the " One Law
giver " in heaven.
4. Another suggestion, in close alliance with that to which refer
ence has just been made, and one that concerns the people as well
as the rulers, is that : The only sure foundation of National, as
of Individual Prosperity is Obedience to Gfod.
Intelligent piety pervading the hearts of a whole state, is better
than walls of granite around her cities, better than weapons of
steel, better than waving banners and mustering squadrons for her
defence. Let there be a prevalent regard for the will of the
Divine Ruler; let there be a wide-spread reverence for his
authority ; let there be a general inquiry into his wishes respect
ing measures of public policy ; let pride give place to a humble
acknowledgment of the dependence upon him which actually
exists ; let luxury succumb to a public spirit of beneficence ; let
Jehovah and his law be enthroned in the hearts of a people, as he
is and ever must be over them in his rights and in his power, —
such a Commonwealth shall surely be safe, prosperous, and happy ;
for it is resting on the divine protection.
But if there be any institution, nourished by a State, which is in

12
opposition to the will of the Infinite Lawgiver ; if there be an insti
tution which sanctions oppression, or lust, or cruelty ; an institu
tion which is careless of outrages on the natural affections, which
shuts the Bible and forbids that it be taught ; an institution which
wantonly traffics for unjust gain in the image of the Maker ; which
degrades a man into a thing, an immortal, for whom Christ died,
into a mere beast of burden ; if there be any institution whose
. safety is consistent only with the ignorance, and the vassalage,
and the wrongs- of more than half the inhabitants of the soil which
it curses, — such an institution must be a cancer consuming the
vitals of the state to which it fastens, because it must ever be a
mark for the arrows of that Almighty Lawgiver whose statutes it
contravenes ! And if such an institution, when it begins to be
hemmed in by the gathering fires of a public sentiment which
would consume it, shall be permitted to overleap the barriers
which confine it, and shall be invited to take possession of new and
uncontaminated territories, to innoculate them with its malignant
pestilence, the nation which allows it must expect to reap the
bitter harvest.
Finally, Our subject enforces the duty of each one of us to
receive the Law of Gfod as the guide of his personal life.
The character of our country must be the character of its
individual inhabitants. Let our people be, each for himself, obe
dient unto God ; then shall our nation be. That effort will be
most permanent, most effectual, most valuable, to give our land
good laws and to make it regardful of them, which does most to
secure in the individual lives of all its inhabitants, true Christian
principle. Our Sabbath days; our glorious gospel; our open
Bible, are what must make our country prosperous. He is the
truest patriot, who, in his constant life — who, in his inmost heart —
who, in his penitent, regenerate, and believing soul makes pro
found and practical confession that there is " One Lawgiver who
is able to save and to destroy."

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08867 8694