now is justified, "_Even as Abraham believed God, and it was
imputed to him for righteousness._" So says one who knew both law and
gospel well. "_Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid!
Yea, we establish the law!_" The Epistles to the Romans and to the
Hebrews are just demonstrations of this truth, that the law was the
blossom, the gospel the fruit.

But it is alleged that the religion of the Old Testament could not but
be defective, as it wanted the doctrines of immortality and the
resurrection; of which, it is alleged, the Old Testament saints were
ignorant.

It were easy to prove, from their own words and conduct, that Job,
Abraham, David, and Daniel, were not ignorant of these great
doctrines.[162] But the manner in which our Lord proves the truth of
the resurrection, by a reference to it as undeniably taught in the Old
Testament, must ever silence this objection. "_But as touching the
resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto
you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living._"[163]

3. But it is objected the Hebrew Jehovah tolerated and approved
polygamy, slavery, and divorce; and, in general, a low code of morals
among the Hebrews.

But we demand to know what standard of morals our objectors adopt? That
of the ancient oriental world in which Israel lived? Then the laws of
Jehovah were very far in advance of that age. The slave had his blessed
Sabbath rest secured to him; which is more than modern civilization can
secure for her railway slaves; his master was forbidden to treat him
cruelly; and the maid-servant's honor was protected by the best means
then known; while the Sacred Writings held up for example the primitive
example of marriage, interposed the formality of a legal document before
divorce, and elevated the family far above the degraded state of the
heathen around them.

But the objector falls back on the morals of Christendom, the
civilization of the nineteenth century, and judges the laws of Moses by
that standard. Very well. This is simply to say that our ideas have been
raised to the standard of Christianity; and then the objection is that
the laws of Moses are not so spiritual and elevated as the precepts of
Christ. Our Lord himself asserts the same thing. He says Moses tolerated
divorce because of the hardness of the people's hearts; but from the
beginning it was n