eir own ideas of
propriety, and so far in advance of those of all the people around them,
that they were continually falling back from it, and rebelling against
it, and subjecting themselves to the discipline which God had threatened
for disobedience. Thus they were kept ever looking upward to a higher
model. Their transgressions must be confessed as sins, and atoned for by
bloody sacrifices, declaring the transgressor worthy of death. Their
consciences were educated to the idea of holiness, an idea utterly
wanting among the heathen; and the law became a powerful motive power,
urging them to higher and holier lives, and preparing them to receive
the higher and holier example and precepts of Christ.

The imperfection, then, of the law of Moses, so far from being an
evidence of the human origin of the Bible, is a mark of the infinite
wisdom of the great Lawgiver in adapting his legislation to the
condition of his people; and while tolerating for the time then present
an imperfect state of society, just as at this time he tolerates a
Christendom far below the gospel standard, yet implanting in the minds
of his people principles of righteousness and love which were certain
eventually to raise them to the high level of the kingdom of God. This,
then, is simply an instance of the general law of divine development.

4. Again, however, it is contended, "that the morality of the Old
Testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring, indeed, the observance of
charity to the covenant people, but allowing Israel to hate all others
as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, _Thou shalt love thy
neighbor and hate thine enemy._"[164]

But let it be noticed, that this is no text of Scripture, nor does our
Lord so quote it. He does not say it is so written, but, _ye have heard
it said by them of old time_. The first part is God's truth; the second
is the devil's addition to it, which Christ clears away and denounces.
It were easy to quote multitudes of passages from the Old Testament,
commanding Israel to show kindness to the stranger, and a whole host of
promises, that in them all the families of the earth should be blessed;
any one of which would sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the
morality of the Old Testament was geographical, and its charity merely
national. But the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of
world-wide benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of Christ
himself, was uttered by him as the sum a