The Gospel of the Pentateuch Part 12

But if you obey G.o.d's law honestly, with a single eye and a whole heart, you will find in it a blessing, and peace, and strength, and everlasting life.

SERMON XV. DEUTERONOMY

(Third Sunday after Easter.)

Deut. iv. 39, 40. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is G.o.d in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. Thou shall keep therefore his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee, for ever.

Learned men have argued much of late as to who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. After having read a good deal on the subject, I can only say that I see no reason why we should not believe the ancient account which the Jews give, that it was written, or at least spoken by Moses.

No doubt there are difficulties in the book. If there had not been, there would never have been any dispute about the matter; but the plain, broad, common-sense case is this:

The book of Deuteronomy is made up of several great orations or sermons, delivered, says the work itself, by Moses, to the whole people of the Jews, before they left the wilderness and entered into the land of Canaan; wherefore it is called Deuteronomy, or the second law. In it some small matters of the law are altered, as was to be expected, when the Jews were going to change their place and their whole way of life. But the whole teaching and meaning of the book is exactly that of Exodus and Leviticus. Moreover, it is, if possible, the grandest and deepest book of the Old Testament. Its depth and wisdom are unequalled. I hold it to be the sum and substance of all political philosophy and morality of the true life of a nation. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, grand as they are, are, as it were, its children; growths out of the root which Deuteronomy reveals.

Now if Moses did not write it, who did?

As for the style of it being different from that of Exodus and Leviticus, the simple answer is, Why not? They are books of history and of laws. This is a book of sermons or orations, spoken first, and not written, which, of course, would be in a different style.

Besides, why should not Moses have spoken differently at the end of forty years' such experience as never man had before or since?

Every one who thinks, writes, or speaks in public, knows how his style alters, as fresh knowledge and experience come to him. Are you to suppose that Moses gained nothing by HIS experience?

As for a few texts in it being like Isaiah or Jeremiah, they are likely enough to be so; for if (as I believe) Deuteronomy was written long before those books, what more likely than that Isaiah and Jeremiah should have studied it, and taken some of its words to themselves when they were preaching to the Jews just what Deuteronomy preaches?

As for any one else having written it in Moses' name, hundreds of years after his death, I cannot believe it. If there had been in Israel a prophet great and wise enough to write Deuteronomy, we must have heard more about him, for he must have been famous at the time when he did live; while, if he were great enough to write Deuteronomy, he would have surely written in his own name, as Isaiah and all the other prophets wrote, instead of writing under a feigned name, and putting words into Moses' mouth which he did not speak, and laws he did not give. Good men are not in the habit of telling lies: much less prophets of G.o.d. Men do not begin to play cowardly tricks of that kind till after they have lost faith in the LIVING G.o.d, and got to believe that G.o.d was with their forefathers, but is not with them. A Jew of the time of the Apocrypha, or of the time of our Lord, might have done such a thing, because he had lost faith in the living G.o.d; but then his work would have been of a very different kind from this n.o.ble and heart-stirring book. For the pith and marrow, the essence and life of Deuteronomy is, that it is full of faith in the living G.o.d; and for that very reason I am going to speak to you to-day.

For the rest, whether Moses wrote the book down, and put it together in the shape in which we now have it, we shall never be able to tell. The several orations may have been put together into one book. Alterations may have crept in by the carelessness of copiers; sentences may have been added to it by later prophets--as, of course, the grand account of Moses' death, which probably was at first the beginning of the book of Joshua. And beyond that we need know nothing--even if we need know that.

There the book is; and people, if they be wise, will, instead of trying to pick it to pieces, read and study it in fear and trembling, that the curses p.r.o.nounced in it may NOT come, and the blessings p.r.o.nounced in it may come upon this English land.

Now these Jews were to wors.h.i.+p and obey Jehovah, the one true G.o.d, and him only. And why?

Why, indeed? You MUST understand why, or you will never understand this book of Deuteronomy or any part of the Old Testament, and if you do not, then you will understand very little, if anything, of the New.

You must understand that this was not to be a mere matter of RELIGION with the old Jews, this trusting and obeying the true G.o.d.

Indeed, the word religion, so far as I know, is never mentioned once in the Old Testament at all. By religion we now mean some plan of believing and obeying G.o.d, which will save our souls after we die.

But Moses said nothing to the Jews about that. He never even anywhere told them that they would live again after this life. We do not know the reason of that. But we may suppose that he knew best. And as we believe that G.o.d sent him, we must believe that G.o.d knew best also; and that he thought it good for these Jews not to be told too much about the next life; perhaps for fear that they should forget that G.o.d was the living G.o.d; the G.o.d of now, as well as of hereafter; the G.o.d of this life, as well as of the life to come. My friends, I sometimes think we need putting in mind of that in these days as much as those old Jews did.

However that may be, what Moses promised these Jews, if they trusted in the living G.o.d, was that they should be a great nation, they and their children after them; that they should drive out the Canaanites before them; that they should conquer their enemies, and that a thousand should flee before one of them; that they should be blessed in their crops, their orchards, their gardens; that they should have none of the evil diseases of Egypt; that there should be none barren among them, or among their cattle. In a word, that they should be thoroughly and always a strong, happy, prosperous people.

This is what G.o.d promised them by Moses, and nothing else; and therefore this is what we must think about, and see whether it has anything to do with us, when we read the book of Deuteronomy, and nothing else.

On the other hand, G.o.d warned them by the mouth of Moses that if they forgot the Lord G.o.d, and went and wors.h.i.+pped the things round them, men or beasts, or sun and moon and stars, then poverty, misery, and ruin of every kind would surely fall upon them.

And that this last was no empty threat is proved by the plain facts of their sacred history. For they DID forget G.o.d, and wors.h.i.+pped Baalim, the sun, moon, and stars; and ruin of every kind DID come upon them, till they were carried away captive to Babylon. And this we must think of when we read the book of Deuteronomy, and nothing else. If they wished to prosper, they were to know and consider in their hearts that Jehovah was G.o.d, and there was none else. Yes-- this was the continual thought which a true Jew was to have. The thought of a G.o.d who was HIS G.o.d; the G.o.d of his fathers before him, and the G.o.d of his children after him; the G.o.d of the whole nation of the Jews, throughout all their generations.

But not their G.o.d only. No. The G.o.d of the Gentiles also, of all the nations upon the earth. He was to believe that his G.o.d alone, of all the G.o.ds of the nations, was the true and only G.o.d, who had made all nations, and appointed them their times and the bounds of their habitations.

We cannot understand now, in these happier days, all that that meant; all the strength and comfort, all the G.o.dly fear, the feeling of solemn responsibility which that thought ought to have given, and did give to the Jews--that they were the people of Jehovah, the one true G.o.d.

For you must remember that all the nations round them then, and all the great heathen nations afterwards, were, as far as we know, the people of some G.o.d or other. Religion and politics were with them one and the same thing. They had some G.o.d, or G.o.ds, whom they looked to as the head or king of their nation, who had a special favour to them, and would bless and prosper them according as they showed him special reverence, and after that G.o.d the whole nation was often named.

The Ammonites' G.o.d was Ammon, the hidden G.o.d, the lord of their sheep and cattle. The Zidonians had Ashtoreth, the moon. The Phoenicians wors.h.i.+pped Moloch, the fire. Many of the Canaanites wors.h.i.+pped Baal, the lord, or Baalim, the lords--the sun, moon, and stars. The Philistines afterwards (for we read nothing of Philistines in Moses' time) wors.h.i.+pped Dagon, the fish-G.o.d, and so forth. The Egyptians had G.o.ds without number--G.o.ds invented out of beasts, and birds, and the fruits of the earth, and the season, and the weather, and the sun and moon and stars. Each cla.s.s and trade, from the highest to the lowest, and each city and town throughout the land seems to have had its special G.o.d, who was wors.h.i.+pped there, and expected to take care of that particular cla.s.s of men or that particular place.

What a thought it must have been for the Jews--all these people have their G.o.ds, but they are all wrong. We have the RIGHT G.o.d; the only true G.o.d. They are the people of this G.o.d, or of that; we are the people of the one true G.o.d. They look to many G.o.ds; we look to the one G.o.d, who made all things, and beside whom there is none else.

They look to one G.o.d to bless them in one thing, and another in another; one to send them suns.h.i.+ne, one to send them fruitful seasons, one to prosper their crops, another their flocks and herds, and so forth. We look to one G.o.d to do all these things for us, because he is Lord of all at once, and has made all.

Therefore we need not fear the G.o.ds of the heathen, or cry to any of them, even in our utmost distress; for we belong to him who is before all G.o.ds, the G.o.d of G.o.ds, of whom it is written, 'Wors.h.i.+p him, all ye G.o.ds;' and 'It is the Lord who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that therein is. Him only shalt thou wors.h.i.+p, and him only shalt thou serve.' If we obey him, and keep his commandments; if we trust in him, utterly, through good fortune and through bad--then we must prosper in peace and war, we and our children after us; because our prosperity is grounded on the real truth, and that of the heathen on a lie; and all that the heathen expect their false G.o.ds to do for them, one here and another there, all that, the one real G.o.d will do for us, himself alone.

Do you not see what a power and courage that thought must have given to the Jews? Do you not see how wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d, and loving G.o.d, and serving G.o.d, must have been a very different, a much deeper, and a truly holier matter to them than the miserable selfish thing which is miscalled religion by too many people now-a-days, by which a man hopes to creep out of this world into heaven all by himself, without any real care or love for his fellow-creatures, or those he leaves behind him?

No. An old Jew's faith in G.o.d, and obedience to G.o.d, was part of his family life, part of his politics, part of his patriotism. If he obeyed G.o.d, and clave earnestly to G.o.d, then a blessing would come on him in the field and in the house, on his crops and on his cattle, going out and coming in; and on his children and his children's children to a thousand generations. He would be helping, if he obeyed and trusted G.o.d, to advance his country's prosperity; to insure her success in war and peace, to raise the name and fame of the Jewish people among all the nations round, that all might say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and an understanding people.'

Thus the duty he owed to G.o.d was not merely a duty which he owed his own conscience or his own soul; it was a duty which he owed to his family, to his kindred, to his country. It was not merely an opinion that there was one G.o.d and not two; it was a belief that the one and only true G.o.d was protecting him, teaching him, inspiring him and all his nation. That the true G.o.d would teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight. That the true G.o.d would cause their folds to be full of sheep. That their valleys should stand rich with corn, that they should laugh and sing. That the true G.o.d would enable them to sit every man under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and eat the labour of his hands, he and his children after him to perpetual generations.

This was the message and teaching which G.o.d gave these Jews. It is very different from what many people now-a-days would have given them, if they had had the ordering of the matter, and the making of those slaves into a free nation. But perhaps there is one proof that G.o.d DID give it them, and that the Bible speaks truth, when it says that not man, but G.o.d gave them their law.

No doubt man would have done it differently. But G.o.d's ways are not as man's ways, nor G.o.d's thoughts as man's thoughts.

And G.o.d's ways have proved themselves to be the right ways. His purpose has come to pa.s.s. This little nation of the Jews, inhabiting a country not as large as Wales, without sea-port towns and commerce, without colonies or conquests--and at last, for its own sins, conquered itself, and scattered abroad over the whole civilized world--has taught the whole civilized world, has converted the whole civilized world, has influenced all the good and all the wise unto this day so enormously, that the world has actually gone beyond them, and become Christian by fully understanding their teaching and their Bible, while they have remained mere Jews by not fully understanding it. Truly, if that is not a proof that G.o.d revealed something to the Jews which they never found out for themselves, which was too great for them to understand, which was G.o.d's boundless message and not any narrow message of man's invention--if that does not prove it, I say--I know not what proof men would have.

But now I have told you that G.o.d bade these Jews to look for blessings in THIS life, and blessings on their whole nation, and on their children after them, if they obeyed and served him. Does G.o.d NOT bid us to look for any such blessings? The Jews were to be blessed in THIS world. Are we only to be blessed in the next?

To that the Seventh Article of our Church gives a plain and positive answer. For it says that those are not to be heard who pretend that the old Fathers, i.e. Moses and the Prophets, looked only for transitory promises--i.e. for promises which would pa.s.s away. No.

They looked for eternal promises which could not pa.s.s away, because they were according to the eternal laws of G.o.d, which stand good both for this world and for all worlds for this life and for the life everlasting.

Yes, my friends, settle in your hearts that the book of Deuteronomy is meant for you, and for all the nations upon earth, as much as for the old Jews. That its promises and warnings are to you and to your children as surely as they were to the old Jews. Ay, that they are meant for every nation that is, or ever was, or ever will be upon earth. If you would prosper on the earth, fear G.o.d and keep his commandments; and know and consider it in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ he is G.o.d in heaven above and on the earth beneath: there is none else. He it is who gives grace and honour. He it is who delivers us out of the hands of our enemies. He it is who blesses the fruit of the womb, and the fruit of the flock, and the fruit of the garden and the field. He is the living G.o.d, in whom this world, as well as the world to come, lives and moves and has its being; and only by obeying his laws can man prosper, he and his children after him, upon this earth of G.o.d.

SERMON XVI. NATIONAL WEALTH

(Fifth Sunday after Easter.)

Deut. viii. 11-18. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy G.o.d, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy G.o.d, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end: and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shall remember the Lord thy G.o.d: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

I told you before that the book of Deuteronomy was the foundation of all sound politics--as one would expect it to be, if its author were Moses, the greatest lawgiver whom the world ever saw. But here, in this lesson, is a proof of the truth of what I said. For here, in the text, is Moses' answer to the first great question in politics, What makes a nation prosperous?

To that wise men have always answered, as Moses answered, 'Good government; government according to the laws of G.o.d.' That alone makes a nation prosperous.

But the mult.i.tude--who are not wise men, nor likely to be for some time to come--give a different answer. They say, 'What makes a nation prosperous is its wealth. If Britain be only RICH, then she must be safe and right.'

To which Moses, being a wise lawgiver, and having, moreover, in him the Spirit of the Lord who knoweth what is in man, makes a reasonable, liberal, humane answer.

Moses does not deny that wealth is a good thing. He does not bid them not try to be rich. He takes for granted that they will grow rich; that the national fruit of their good government will be that they will increase in cattle and in crops and in money, and in all which makes an agricultural people rich.