MR. brown' S SECOND REPLY. 73 



The ceremonial and civil code. Moral laws not in dispute. 



Presuming W. B. T. will admit tliis as a fair analysis of his 

 argument, let us now try the strength of his proofs. 1. Does 

 the phrase ^^Law of Moses/' necessarily include the Deca- 

 logue? Is it not often used in Seripture distinctively, i. e. 

 with special reference to the ceremonial and civil code which 

 was given after the Decalogue; and was distinguished from it 

 by three most significant circumstances — neither being uttered 

 by the voice of God, nor engraved on the two tables of stone, 

 nor laid up under the Meroy Seat in the sacred Ark of the 

 Covenant ? I think this distinction will appear in the very 

 first use of the phrase: Deut. xxxi. 9 — 13. (See also 1 Kings 

 ii. 3; Acts xxi. 20 — 25; Heh. x. 28.) Now if this dlstinctive 

 use be found in any case, surely it must be admitted in this 

 chapter under discussion. For who wished to enforce this 

 law? The Judaizing teachers — the sticklers for circumcision 

 {verses Ist, 5th, and24th), men whom Peter describes as tempt- 

 ing God to put upon the Gentiles " a yoke, which neither we 

 nor our fathers were able to bear." Now this ''yoke" can 

 only include ivhat was dlstinctive of Judaism. It cannot in- 

 clude that Law of God, which He has promised to "put into 

 the hearts" of his people, " the royal law of liberty," that law 

 of which Paul says, '' I delight in the Law of God after the 

 inward man." The first proof of W. B. T. then is fallacious. 



But 2. " Two provisions of the moral law/' he says, '' are 

 specified — those against idolatry and fornication. And is not 

 this fact decisive V Not at all. For they are not specified 

 as parts of the law in dispute ; but only as " things necessary" 

 in the peculiar condition of Gentile Christians to be specialhj 

 observed. Even W. B. T. is compelled to admit this ; not 

 perceiving that it ruins his argument. '' The obvious reason 

 why these two points of the moral law were at all referred 

 to," he says, " was, that they were the only ones likely to be 

 transgressed by those just emancipated from the Roman Pagan- 

 ism. Otherwise, they would no more have been noticed than 

 rohhery or murderJ' (p. 31.) I thank my friend for this 

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