DR. DALE ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.*

WE are glad to see that such a work as this has reached a fourth edition. It consists of sermons preached to the author's congregation, and apparently printed just as delivered. Such discourses on such a subject admit, perhaps, of no originality, and not much profundity ; nevertheless, they are thoughtful

and healthful, and not only worth preaching, but worth print- ing. The most prominent thought in these discourses is that the dispensation of the Law was a preparation for the dis- pensation of the Gospel. This is universally recognised by Christians; but Dr. Dale also insists on another truth, that the Gospel is older than the Law, and is the basis of the Law,—a truth which, perhaps, Christendom has scarcely grasped yet,

although it is the key-note of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. God's first word to Israel WAS not, "Do this, and thou shalt

live ;" but, " I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Not till God had thus shown his mercy to his people did he begin to demand their obedience to his Law. As St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Galatians, "the law was added because of trans- gressions ;" that is to say, a regilue of law must be passed through by a race of beings who, like mankind, need not only to be perfected by development, but redeemed from sin. Were our race sinless, Law would not be needed, and Grace would be one with Nature.

But since Law is needed and has been given, it is a reality. On this subject Dr. Dale has the following remarks, which are impressive from their very commonplaceness :—

" There can be no doubt that God intended that these Command- ments should be kept. This may seem to be a very unnecessary observation, but it is my conviction that there are many religious people who have quite a different theory from this abont the in- tention of divine laws. They suppose that the Commandments of God are principally intended to bring ns to a sense of our guilt, and to suggest to na the sins for which we have to ask God's forgiveness. The thought of actually obeying them, and obeying them perfectly, scarcely ever occurs to them." (p. 12.) The Ten Commandment I. By R. W. Dale, LL.D. Fourth Edition. London 1 Hodder and Stoughton. We do not knc v whether this error is widely held, but it certainly does exit.t. It appears to be an inference from the truth that, when tried by an absolute standard, all men. are sinners, exaggerated into the falsehood that all are sinners alike. But Scripture and experience tell of the possibility of remaining " upright,"—of maintaining, not, indeed, an unbroken, but an habitual observance of the Commandments of God. " If any man love me," said Christ, "he will keep my words."

Cr. Dale further insists that the Commandments rest on the self-revelation of God. " I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt ; thou shalt have no other gods before Me." There is no dogma of monotheism here ; the question is left open whether the Egyptian deities had any reality ; but Jehovah makes himself known as the God of Israel :—

" It never occurred to them to suppose that they had to think out a God for themselves, any more than it occurred to them that they had to think on! a King of Egypt They knew Jehovah as the God who had held back the waves like a wall while they fled across the sea to escape the vengeance of their enemies." (p. 81.)

And further on, he says of the more perfect revelation :-

" Christ revealed God under the name of the Father. He said in his last prayer, I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gayest me out of the world,' —meaning that he bad made known onto men the kinship between man and God, and the new form which the divine authority assumes, now that God has revealed himself as being more to us than our Creator and Ruler The name of God stands for himself and that which he has revealed of himself, not for our thoughts about him." (p. 65.)

This distinction is important. We are very :much of Cole- ridge's opinion, that "there is no religion except that which is revealed." We do uot, however, mean to restrict revelation to the written record of revelation in the Scriptures ; on the con- trary, we believe that God is always revealing himself,—iu nature, in providence, and in the secret recesses of the human spirit.

On the purpose of the Commandments, Dr. Dale has the following remark :—

" The Ten Commandments were not intended to constitute a com- plete code of morals. There are many sins which they do not condemn, and there are many virtues which they do not enforce. The symmetrical completeness of human systems of ethics is not to be found either in the Old Testament or the New." (p. 207.) But if on the one hand they are not a complete code of duty, on the other hand they are much more. Dr. Dale goes so far as to say : —" The particular precept, in every case, is intended not so much to enforce a specific duty or to prevent a specific act of sin, as to train the conscience and heart of the people to recognise and honour the principle on which the duty rests or which the sin violates." (p. 209.) The leading idea of Christ's Sermon on the Mount is this extension of the moral law from actions to thoughts and character. In quoting Christ's words, —" Ye have heard that it bath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill ; and, whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment ;' but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judg- ment,"—Dr. Dale has added to his original sermon the following note (p. 155) :- " The Revisers of the New Testament have omitted the words, ' without cense ;' the omission adds to the force of our Lord's warn- ing. If a man kills another he is in danger of the judgment,' and is put on his defence, to show whether the act was murder or justifiable homicide. If he is ' angry with his brother' he is also put upon his defence, to show whether there was sufficient provocation, and whether the anger were kept within limits."

We may remark that the word gpozo::, which, in the Revised as well as in the Authorised Version, is translated, "in danger of," means, rather, " liable to ;" not in danger of punishment, but liable to prosecution.

The principle here laid down by Christ was, however, recog- nised by Moses. Dr. Dale says of the Tenth Commandment

It is not these external acts which this Commandment forbids, but the covetousness itself, even when it is checked by conscience or by fear. We are forbidden not merely to attempt to get for our- selves by illegitimate means what belongs to our neighbour, but even to desire that it should be ours It may be said that this is a hard saying, and that it is one of the impossible precepts of which there are so many in the Old Testament and the New. But it is only another form of the great commandment, Then shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' " (pp. 239-240.)

On the attainableness of this ideal of perfect unselfishness, which to so many Christians appears so totally unattainable

that they make no attempt and scarcely breathe a prayer for its attainment, Dr. Dale says :— "Do you say again that this is an impossible precept ? I reply, that for those whom we love we gladly surrender our own comfort and ease. Their happiness and prosperity are dearer to us than our own. What father covets his son's wealth ? What mother covets her daughter's beauty ? A generous-hearted brother rejoices in his brother's success and fame, and would not, if he could, strip him of a single honour in order to increase his own importance and greatness." (p. 240.) And he says of the attainment of this ideal of unselfishness by St. Paul :— " The Apostle was passionately longing to be redeemed from him- self, and in Christ this redemption was possible. He was created anew in Christ Jesus ; died with Christ, and with Christ rose again. The law of self-sacrifice was now written upon his heart ; and he ful- filled it as few men had ever fulfilled it before, as few men have ever fulfilled it since...... He checked his desire to die and to be at rest in the presence of Christ from suffering and labour, because his Con- tinuance in life was necessary to the Churches which he had founded. He was ready to wish himself 'accursed from Christ' for the sake of his kinsmen according to the flesh." (p. 243.)

For these discourses St. Paul's sayings might have been chosen as mottoes,—" The Law is spiritual ;" "Love is the fulfilling of the Law."

There is also much that is interesting and valuable in Dr. Dale's treatment of the special questions which arise out of his subject. He appears to be but little of a historical critic. This, at least, we infer from his stating, as an unquestionable truth, that the writer of Exodus was also the writer of Denteronomy,—a belief which appears to us to be, if possible, even less tenable than the belief that St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. But his good-sense enables him to state with perfect and conclusive accuracy the relation between the Sabbath of Judaism and the Lord's Day of Christendom. The Sabbath, as he points out, was founded on a definite command ;—the Lord's Day is a usage that grew up in the Church, as it were, spontaneously. The Sabbath was primarily a day of rest, and worship was secondary ; the Lord's Day is primarily a day of worship, and rest is secondary. The Sabbath was protected by the punishment of death for its violation, and, as Dr. Dale

remarks,— "There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday." (p. 101). "The purpose of the Sabbath was to com- memorate the manifestation of God's power in the creation of all things, and of his goodness in redeeming the Jews from their misery in Egypt. The Christian Sunday commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead." (p. 100). "St. Paul did not tell the Corinthian Christians to do no common work on the Sunday ; the commandment which he gave them was one which most of us have forgotten,—' Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God bath prospered him,' that he may have money to devote to purposes of charity and religion. This is the only precept about Sabbath observance in the New Testament." (p. 106). "It is a direct inversion of the whole theory and idea of the day to ask,—What common things may I do upon it, and yet be

blameless The great question we have to ask in relation to any possible infraction of its religions sanctions, is not,—Shall I, by doing this, break a law ? but,—Shall I, by doing this, miss a blessing ?" (pp. 109-111.)

In the sermon on the Sixth Commandment, Dr. Dale quotes the law which in the code of Moses authorised the capital punishment of the owner of an ox that gored a man to death, if it was shown that he had warning of the beast's dangerous- ness :-

" If Moses had to regulate our legislation in reference to railway accidents, be would put it altogether on a new basis. If half a dozen people were killed and a score seriously injured through the mail running into a goods train, and Moses found that the engine-driver who missed the signal had been on his engine twelve or fourteen hours, or that the pointsman who turned the mail into the goods siding had been kept at his post for perhaps a still longer period, I cannot help thinking that managers and directors would stand a chance of having a mach sharper punishment than they commonly receive now. And he wonld certainly have approved the sentence under which a few months ago a large farmer, greatly to his own astonishment and that of his friends, was put in prison for sending diseased meat to market ; only I think that the old Jewish legislator would have inflicted a still heavier punishment,-74 few years' penal service instead of a few months' imprisonment." (pp. 192, 143.)