THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

FOB EARLY CIVILISATION.

(By S.)

The Ten Commandments were given at a time when men in general had lost the knowledge of God, and when the various tribes and nations had created for themselves all sorts of gods, worshipping them, in many cases in the form even of beasts. Four of the commandments bear on our duty to God, tho other six on our duty to our fellow men. Being but a brief summary of duty, they are not exhaustive or very comprehensive. Nothing is said, for example, about patience or fortitude, and no mention is made of wisdom. They were clearly intended, in the first instance, for a people in the earlier stages of civilisation. For the same reason they are, for the most part, prohibitive, rather than positive. It is a curious fact that the majority of preachers avoid discoursing on this part of the Bible. Matthew Arnold used to say that among the many sermons to which at "one time or another he had listened he had never heard one on the Ten Commandments, and I remember a man once remarking that in a textual index to some two or three sermons delivered by one of the great preachers of last generation, he had not been able to discover a single sermon that dealt with one of them. It is difficult to understand this avoidance of one of the most important and most fruitful fields of Scripture, and, perhaps, if they were asked for the reason preachers might find themselves at a loss for a reply. Some people have the notion that the commandments are not binding on Christians. In a sense that is true, for they are broadened out in the New Testament in the light of the Christian dispensation. But how many of us can truthfully say that we have no need to be told not to covet what belongs to our neighbours, and how many of our young men and women never need to be reminded of their duty to honour their father and mother? Take again the very first commandment, "Thou shalt have (that is 'put') no other gods before Me," a precept that involves some adequate knowledge of God. Is it the foundation, not only of true- religion, but also of what always follows—lofty morality? Do we never need to be reminded of it? We understand why the Hebrews needed the commandment. They had been influenced and corrupted by the idolatrous practices of their Egyptian masters, and as we read the story of their chequered career, we see how these practices, in spite of the commandment, told on them for generations. We pity the poor creatures to whom sticks and stones are symbols of their deity. But what about ourselves ? Are we sure that we are quite free from idolatry? A man's true worship, as someone has said, is not that which he performs in the public temple. It is that which he offers in the little private chapel of his own heart, where nobody goes but himself. Do any. of us, in this little private chapel, forget the name of our God, and spread forth our hands to a strange god? Or are any of us giving to God but a divided allegiance, like the Roman Emperor, who kept in his Pantheon a statue of Plato side by side with a statue of Jesus?