THE law of Sinai thundered out the imperative commands: "Thou shalt not," and "Thou shalt." "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," on the one hand, and "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might," on the other. Here are the negative and the affirmative of the divine law clearly set forth. They seem to human sense to be harsh, imperious and ungracious; yet they are the farthest from these. They are not less words of love and mercy than are the sweet pleadings of Jesus as we find them in the Beatitudes and elsewhere throughout the Gospels.
The Decalogue and the Beatitudes seem to be two laws; in reality they are only one. The old law of Love is expressed in the "thou shalts," or the "thou shalt nots" of Moses. The new, in the "comes" of the Master. "Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Had the old law, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," been obeyed, the new law of "Come" would have been unnecessary, for obedience to the old would have resulted in "coming," and hence both conditions of the law would have been fulfilled. There is, however, on human lines, a wide difference between the "thou shalts" and the "comes" of Scripture. It is worthy of especial note that the "comes" far outnumber the "thou shalts." In other words, the law of patient supplication is much more fully emphasized in Scripture, than the law of command, in the peremptory sense.
