Christian law

“ The law and faith in Jesus Christ—that means love towards our fellow men; it means equality; it means fraternity; it means revolt against the idolatries, in whose name the greatest malefactors are and believe themselves absolved of their crimes by the purchase of indulgences! Only through faith and the practice of the Evangelical law will our sins be remitted. ”

“ Causes outside of Christianity in the hands of wicked men are responsible for every drop of blood that has been shed in the name of our holy religion. Christianity has nothing to fear in our country as long as our law-makers remember that their whole duty consists, not in making or unmaking rights or religion, but in making laws protecting all in the enjoyment of their rights. The principles of religious liberty set forth in the Bible are the following: First, the word of God is the only source of authority in religious matters. ”

“ I believe that the law does reveal itself; and in forms which, rightly studied, may at once teach us Christian charity, and give us faith and comfort, as we see that God, however severe, is still just. ”

“ The strongest is not strong enough to be always master, unless he transform his strength into right and obedience to duty."
THE LAW Reign of Law.—The philosopher, the natural scientist and the Christian theologian all believe that we live in a universe governed by law. Certain natural scientists may believe that the law is impersonal in its origin, but the Christian theologian believes that the origin of law, and the carrying it out, is "the expression of the will of a personal God." ”

“ These laws of Christ for the government of his church, are fully contained in the holy Scriptures; for so much as is in nature, is there also more plainly expressed than nature hath expressed it. All is not Christ's law that is any way expressed in Scripture; but all Christ's laws are expressed in the Scriptures; not written by himself, but by his Spirit in his apostles, whom he appointed and sent to teach all nations to observe whatever he commanded them, Matt. ”

“ All state obligations are against the conscience of a Christian—the oath of allegiance, taxes, law proceedings, and military service. ”

“ For what is impossible for you by all the works of the law, which are many and yet useless, you shall fulfil in an easy and summary way through faith, because God the Father has made everything to depend on faith, so that whosoever has it has all things, and he who has it not has nothing. ”

“ Which he spake, because indeed there was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth. ”

“ I will write my laws on their hearts;—hence the prayer, Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws on our hearts we beseech thee? The first law wrote on the heart is the moral law; this is sent home to shew us our sin and danger, to point out our state, and make us feel our guilt. By the law is the knowledge of sin; I had not known it but for the law; under this tuition we are, till Jesus proclaims liberty from its curse and bondage, then we are at liberty to serve him as sons and not as slaves, in imputed righteousness, in the spirit of holiness and in filial fear. ”

“ And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations) , he cannot even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize the duty of what is called allegiance. ”

“ All that are cleaving to this law, as a covenant of works, are enemies to the Lord Jesus Christ; and, all that die under it, must be judged by it. Now, because I hold forth the grand doctrines of the gospel, and enforce a knowledge of this law, by the teachings of the Spirit of God, that Sinners may be brought to see their need of a Mediator, and a Surety righteousness ”

“ But what about the answer of the Lord to the rich young man? What about the commandment to be perfect? Does not the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without the deeds of the Law, abolish the holy and good Law of God? ”

“ Those who set up such claims, however they may disavow it, really hold that Christ’s kingdom is of this world, since they place it in rivalry to the secular authority. “If thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.” ”

“ Can man of himself, unaided by Christ, keep the law?
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.” John 15:5. See also Rom. 7:14-19.
8. What provision has been made so that we may keep God's law?
“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” ”

“ We are under obligations to establish the Zion of our God upon the earth, and establish and maintain its laws, so that the law of the priesthood of the Son of God may govern and control the people.
Go into the world, among the inhabitants of the nations of Christendom, whether Infidels, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, or people of any other religious sect, and tell them plainly that the law of God is going to be the law of the land, and they would be terrified, they would fear and tremble. ”

“ To use the law is to gain our own; to misuse or ignore the law is to deprive ourselves of our own, and bring disorder, want and pain into life instead. The law never binds nor holds down; the power of all law moves eternally towards the heights, that supreme greatness that is waiting for man ”

“ Therefore we thought we ought, with sound counsel and very right reason, to lay down this law, that we should in no way refuse to any man any legal right who has given up his mind either to the observance of Christianity or to that worship which he personally feels best suited to himself; to the end that the Supreme Divinity, whose worship we freely follow, may continue in all things to grant us his accustomed favor and good-will. ”

“ The customs of God's people and the institutions of our ancestors are to be considered as laws. And those who throw contempt on the customs of the Church ought to be punished as those who disobey the law of God. ”

“ It would dissatisfy both, and consequently convert neither....If a solemn act of legislation shall in one point define the law of God, or point out to the citizen one religious duty, it may with equal propriety define every part of revelation, and enforce every religious obligation, even to the forms and ceremonies of worship, the endowments of the church and support of the clergy."
"The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that man's relation to his God is above human legislation, and his right of conscience inalienable. ”

“ But spiritual jurisdiction is the expression of Christ's sovereignty on earth, and in the order just described it is linked with His Person as strictly as the worship exercised by means of His Priesthood, and the spiritual character which every one of His children bears. Surely no kingdom has ever been so contained in its king, no family in its father, no worship in its object, as the Christian kingdom, family, and worship, which together is the Church. ”

“ It would seem that the Old Law contains others besides the moral, judicial, and ceremonial precepts. Because the judicial precepts belong to the act of justice, which is between man and man; while the ceremonial precepts belong to the act of religion, whereby God is worshipped. ”

“ Whatsoever in matters of religion hath the divine approbation of the Spirit of Christ in the Scriptures, that is of divine right, and by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ. God's approving or allowing of any thing, plainly implies that it is according to his will and pleasure, and so is equivalent to a divine institution or appointment; for what is a divine institution or law but the publishing of the divine will of the legislator, touching things to be acted or omitted? and God cannot approve any thing that is against his will. ”

“ And this is precisely the Catholic doctrine of salvation. Though it be a final question between the individual soul and Jesus Christ, the law of Christ comes between them, as the law of Moses came between God and his people, and that law being made for the whole world, for the universal society of human beings, rests in the hands of the government duly constituted and appointed from that society by Jesus Christ himself, who no longer abides among us visibly, and is only known to us by faith. ”

“ And it is this very class of men who have thus abjured the precepts of Jesus Christ, who have trampled upon the divine doctrines of liberty and love, that now so clamorously summon us to an obedience to law. ”

“ Against certain theological positions, perhaps of great weight, and theological evidence, comes, not only the doctrine of theological opponents, but the objection that they are bad law. The interpretation which, it may be, we have assumed all our lives, and which we know to be that of Fathers and divines, is suddenly pronounced not to be legal. ”

“ But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish Church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.
II. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. ”

“ The purpose of our side is that the rules of antichrist shall not seduce or separate the people from Christ, but that the law of Christ shall honestly rule in connection with the customs of the people so far as they are approved by God's law. ”

“ We can only say that the more we study Scripture, and the more we ponder the law question in the light of the New Testament, the more amazed we are at the manner in which some persist in contending for the opinion that Christians are under the law, whether for life, for righteousness, for holiness, or for any object whatsoever. ”

“ In Christendom, while the doctrine of salvation through mechanical obedience was retained, the authority of a Church was substituted for that of a Code of Law. The growth of the idea of Humanity, as opposed to that of mere nationality, made this necessary. ”

“ Hereupon ensueth that no power on earth can forbid or punish any action which we are bound unto by the law of God, which is the true pattern of all justice. So that the laws against recusants, against receiving of Priests, against confession, against Mass, or other rites of Catholic religion, are to be esteemed as no laws by such as steadfastly believe these to be necessary observances of the true religion. ”

“ For as the wise are wise by their wisdom, and those observant of law are so by the law; so also those who belong to Christ the King are kings, and those that are Christ’s Christians. Then, in continuation, he adds clearly, “What is right will turn out to be lawful, law being in its nature right reason, and not found in writings or elsewhere.” ”

“ Regularly a precept is limited in time and expires with the death or removal from office of him who gave it.
3. Laws are divine or human. Divine law is either natural or positive. The natural law is promulgated in the rational nature of man, and is a participation in human reason of the eternal law of God, which bids us observe right order, and forbids its disturbance. Positive divine law is made known by revelation.
Human law is ecclesiastical when made by the authority of the Church; municipal or civil when it is the ordinance of the civil ruler. ”

“ But it is remarkable that almost all the cases where it does become a duty to resist the law, are those in which religion is concerned,—those, in short, in which the civil legislature has gone out of its own province; as when a man is required to profess or renounce, to preach or abstain from preaching, a certain religion ”

“ Objections against free grace that it will multiply sin or discredit the law are taken up and answered. Thorough union with Christ on the part of the believer annihilates sin and the law has no more any power. The believer justified by his faith in Christ is dead to the law while quickened to a new and holy life by the Spirit. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that a people so asserting and acknowledging their obligations to Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ were proclaiming a deep religious conviction and faith and an intention to adopt a Constitution consistent with that conviction and faith and with Christian beliefs. ”

“ Note.—In the ceremonial law there was “a shadow of good things to come,” a type of the mediatorial work of Christ, our great High Priest. The moral law makes known sin, places the sinner under condemnation, and forces him to Christ for pardon and cleansing. The ceremonial law was abolished by the work of Christ, but the moral law was established by both His life and death. 19. What testimony did Christ bear concerning His relation to the law and the prophets?
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Matt. ”

“ The difficulty between states and the Catholic Church lies in the fact that the states consider legality synonymous with right, and that what is legal therefore must commend itself to the Christian conscience. ”