comprehended in the society thereupon erected, were all those, whether of Israel or the Gentiles, together with their households, who made credible profession of accepting the covenant, and were thereupon sealed with its baptismal seal. To this point we shall presently return.
3. The radical principle of organization was that of parental headship and family unity. The family is the divine original of all human society, as the parental office is of all human authority. Upon this basis was founded the Abrahamic covenant, and upon it was erected the system of government for Israel. It was administered by the fathers of families, of houses, and of tribes; the first-born son succeeding to his father as head of his house, under the designation of elder. This system was recognized in the first commission of Moses from God, and the elders, or heads of houses, were united with him in his mission to Pharaoh. (Ex. iii, 16, 18; iv, 29.) To them was committed the ordering of the passover on the night of the exodus. (Ib. xii, 21.) At Sinai, before the giving of the covenant, the system was perfected in its details, at the suggestion of Jethro, with the sanction of God. (Ex. xviii, 12-24.) Immediately upon the sealing of the covenant seventy of the elders, who had been previously assembled by the command of God, went up, as already stated, with Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, into the mount, and there celebrated on Israel’s behalf the feast of the covenant. “They saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink.” – Ex. xxiv, 1, 9-11. Afterward, when the covenant was renewed in the plains of Moab, the relation of the elders thereto, in their official capacity, was expressly stated. “Ye stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God, your captains of your tribes, your elders and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives.” – Deut. xxix, 10.
Such were the essential features of the constitution of the church, as ordained at Sinai. To her, thus organized, were given ordinances of testimony, concerning which a few points only are here necessary. Since she was appointed simply to maintain, in her position in the midst of the nations, the lamp of gospel truth ever shining, until the set time should come for sending it forth through the world, the ordinances of testimony which were intrusted to her were adapted expressly to this office. They were: (1.) The oracles of God, his written word, from time to time imparted through Moses and other holy men, who spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. (Rom. iii, 2; 2 Pet. i, 21.) (2.) The holy convocations of the Sabbath days. (Lev. xxiii, 3; 1 Kings iv, 23; Acts xv, 21.) (3.) The priesthood and ritual service. (4.) The sanctuary worship and festivals. (5.) Public professions of faith, occasional and stated. (Deut. xxvi.) (6.) Poetic recitations and psalmody. (Ex. xv, 1-21; Deut. xxxi, xxxii; the book of Psalms.)
It was with a special view to the witnessing office of the church of Israel that the ritual system was constructed. The covenant and the ritual were testimonies to the better covenant and the heavenly realities which belong to it. It is with this view that the word “testimony” is so much used in designating them. Thus the Ten Commandments, the fundamental law of the covenant, were frequently designated “the testimony.” (Ex. xxv, 21.) The tables on which they were written were, in like manner, “the tables of the testimony.” They were kept in “the ark of the testimony,” which was in “the tabernacle of the testimony.” In the same way the whole system of ordinances and laws given to Israel is designated “the testimonies of God.” Of them, and the office of the church concerning them, the Psalmist says: “He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them: even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children; that they might set their hope in God, and not forget his works, but keep his commandments.” – Psalm lxxviii, 5-7.
Respecting the ritual system, there are two propositions which are believed to be demonstrable, but are here presented without argument. The first is, that these rites were not dark forms, veiling rather than disclosing a new revelation; but were inscriptions in luminous characters, setting forth the doctrines of a faith well understood by the patriarchs and fathers from the beginning, and from them transmitted and known to Israel. Second. The ritual forms in which the gospel was clothed in the Levitical system were far more suitable for the purposes of popular instruction and world-wide dissemination than would have been any conceivable exposition of it in writing. The art of writing was in its infancy. A written gospel would have been, even to Israel, a sealed book; how much more to all other people! The history and laws were put in writing and kept at the sanctuary for the direction of the priests and magistrates in the performance of their duties, the administration of justice, and the instruction of Israel. But the gospel, for the people, was clothed in forms which required no interpreter, which meant the same in every language under heaven, and which were calculated, by their appeals to the imagination through the eye and the senses, to stamp themselves indelibly upon the memory and the affections. Thus were they eminently adapted to arrest the attention and impress the minds of strangers, and of the young, for whom especially they were designed. (Ex. xii, 26; xiii, 14; Deut. vi, 20; Josh. iv, 6, 21; 1 Kings viii, 41, 42.)
The fact is of an importance which entitles it to distinct and emphatic mention, that the Aaronic priesthood and the ritual law were no part of the constitution of the church, as it was established by the covenant. They were not in existence when the covenant was made, but were ordinances afterward given to the church, as already existent and organized. They were bestowed as means of fulfilling her witnessing office, means adapted to the times and circumstances of Israel, but subject to be modified, as they were in the temple system, or to be wholly suspended or set aside, without impairing the constitution of the church or the completeness and efficiency of its organization. Not only thus did the covenant precede the ritual law and the priesthood, but when, forty years afterward, the covenant was renewed, and the parties to it were enumerated in detail, the priests were altogether ignored. (Deut. xxix, 10-12.) They were in no wise essential to it.
Section XI. —The Terms of Membership in the Church of Israel
With some slight circumstantial differences, having reference to the difference in the office of the church under the two dispensations, the conditions of membership were essentially the same as propounded at Sinai and as prescribed under the gospel. While the spiritual blessings of the covenant were from the beginning conditioned upon true faith and loving obedience, the privilege of membership in the visible church was at Sinai bestowed upon those, with their households, who made credible profession of these graces, and upon them only. On “the day of the assembly,” all the people professed to take God for their God, and to devote themselves to him as his believing and obedient people. And as on the days of Pentecost, so on this occasion, the profession was accepted, and their admission was sealed with baptism; although doubtless, in both cases, there were false professors included with the true. With certain exceptions, ordained for special reasons (Deut. xxiii, 1-8), the conditions of membership were the same for the Gentile world as for Israel. The law was explicit and most emphatic on this point. “One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you, an ordinance forever in your generations: as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.” – Num. xv, 14-16, and 29; and see ix, 14; xix, 10; Ex. xii, 43-49; Deut. xxxi, 12; Josh. viii, 33, etc.
For eliminating unworthy members, the means provided in the Sinai ordinances were as abundant as those now enjoyed by the church, and would seem to have been as well adapted to the effectual securing of the end proposed. They come under three heads. (1.) Certain offenses were visited with the penalty of death or of utter separation from the communion of Israel. (Ex. xxxi, 14; Num. ix, 13, etc.) (2.) The expenses incident to a faithful performance of the duties required of members of the church of Israel were large and continual. Firstfruits, firstlings, and tithes, trespass offerings, sin offerings, freewill offerings, and other oblations, made up an aggregate which can not have fallen short of one-fifth of all the income of Israel, and probably went far beyond that amount. The law provided none but moral means for enforcing these requirements; and numerous facts in the history of Israel show that by many they were entirely neglected. (Neh. xiii, 10-13; Mal. iii, 8-10.) Those who thus withheld what belonged to the Lord were self-excluded from the fellowship
