The Baptist Catechism

    A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism (1883), Alexander Whyte

    Question 40

    the moral law. Mos, a Latin word signifying manners or conduct, hence morals, morality. Philosophers sometimes call the conscience the moral sense, because it concerns itself with matters of conduct and character.

    The etymological sense of law is “that which lies,” or is in due and proper order. The word varies in its meaning according to the subject treated of. When we speak about natural objects, such as the constitution of the world, and the life of man and beast in it, we use the word law of a divinely established order and uniformity in the sequence of events. Thus we speak of the law of gravitation, the laws of mechanics, chemistry, health, and such like. Again we use the same word for the enactments and regulations which hold society together in families and states. We speak of the law of the family, and the law of the land. But the moral law is that which the Creator and Lawgiver and Judge of all men hath laid on every man’s conscience, and according to which all men are commanded to live, and according to which all shall at last be judged. “That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a law. . . . All things therefore do work after a sort according to law: all other things according to a law, whereof some superior, unto whom they are subject, is author; only the works and operations of God have Him both for their worker, and for the law whereby they are wrought. The being of God is a kind of law to His working; for the perfection which God is, giveth perfection to that He doeth. . . . Therefore of law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures of what sort soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy” (Hooker). (See Dean Church’s Clarendon Press edition of Hooker’s First Book. Let all students especially possess and master this classical piece of work.)

    But the special line of thought more immediately before us is well carried out in the corresponding part of the Larger Catechism, where we are taught that the moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding every one to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he oweth to God and man; promising life upon the fulfilling, and threatening death upon the breach of it.

    Note.—In our day the scientific conception of law has so possessed and intoxicated many of us, that the still truer and nobler conception of God has all but passed out of mind. The conception of a Creator and Preserver has become absorbed and lost in that stately order and most regular and harmonious law of nature which He has instituted, and which He constantly sustains. The operation is so majestic, that it has cast the Operator into a passing shadow. The instrument is so intricate and complex, that it has for the moment almost hidden the Hand that holds it. But surely science is not to continue to dispense with the great First Cause and Author of all. For that noblest and most fruitful of conceptions gives dignity and depth, elasticity and spirituality to the otherwise hard and sterile idea of natural law. To the truest philosophy Law is that divine order and harmony that reigns over, penetrates, and sustains all things, human and divine; and to discover which is the wisest pursuit and noblest crown of human wisdom, as to submit, to confess, and ally ourselves to it is the sum of our duty and the source and guarantee of our blessedness.

    Uses

    1. For the use of the moral law to all men, and for its particular use to the unregenerate, and its special use to regenerate men, be careful to consult Answers 95, 96, and 97 in Larger Catechism.
    2. What is the first inference from hence? That God will proceed with men by different rules in the day of judgment, according to the different laws they have lived under in this world (Rom. ii. 12).
    3. What is the second inference? That those who have sinned against the clearest light and best helps will, if they die impenitent, be judged to the greatest misery (Matt. ii. 23; Heb. ii. 3).
    4. What is the third inference? That as we are to prize the moral law highly as a rule of life (Ps. cxix. 105), so we are to bless God for the gospel dispensation, by which only we can attain to justification and salvation (Flavel).

    Questions

    1. Give illustrations of the laws of nature, the ceremonial law, the moral law.
    2. Explain the Pauline phrases:—The Gentiles which have not the law, are a law unto themselves; the law entered that the offence might abound; without the law sin was dead; I was alive without the law once; as touching the law a Pharisee; the law was a schoolmaster.