Mosaism

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) Attachment to the system or doctrines of Moses; that which is peculiar to the Mosaic system or doctrines.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

a term of late used to designate the system of religion instituted by Jehovah through the agency of Moses, and maintained by the subsequent theocracy of the Old Testament. This, so far as its history is concerned, has been treated under the heads JUDAISM and Moses and as formulated in the sacred code, it has been analyzed and summed up under LAW OF MOSES. It remains to consider it as regards its essential purpose, its interior spirit, and its practical operation. With this view we shall here briefly discuss it.

I. As A Sequel To The Patriarchal Dispensation . — We pass over the divine economy of Eden as a brief and ideal scheme, adapted only to a state of moral perfection no longer existing, and proved to be inadequate to resist even outward temptation to wrong. We likewise dismiss the antediluvian probation as having equally demonstrated the incompetency of human nature to retain traditional piety, or even to preserve a tolerable degree of virtue. The race born of the germ rescued from the deluge must be trained under closer restrictions and by a more palpable embodiment of divine authority. This was measurably secured by the successive heads of the Shemitic family, each in his turn acting as a representative of heaven in his twofold function of priest and medium of revelation. In the Abrahamic Church it was more fully realized by a formal recognition of the several patriarchs as special plenipotentiaries of God to his chosen people. Many important defects, however, still existed under that arrangement for religious discipline, which Mosaism' was intended to supply.

1. A Written Constitution was required to prevent uncertainty, discrepancy, and oblivion of the principles of moral truth and practice. This was furnished by the Pentateuch, with its historical introduction and statutory detail.

2. A Prescribed Form Of Worship was needed to obviate the casual and irregular methods hitherto prevalent, and ever prone to recur, and especially in order to preclude all human contrivances and corrupt observances. This was effected by the Levitical cultus, with its hereditary caste, imposing apparatus, and solemn festivals.

3. A Territorial Patrimony was essential to give "a local habitation and a name" to the favorites of heaven, and to preserve their lineage from contamination and disintegration, as well as from the dissipation of migratory habits. This was attained by the permanent title in the Promised Land, where their Hebrew forefathers had been merely nomadic tenants. This, too, was calculated to develop the refining influences of home, neighborhood, and clan, with all their literary, social, and domestic amenities.

4. A Living Ministry was continuously provided in the person of the Prophets, to keep alive the idea of theocratic sovereignty, to fan the flame of national devotion, and to guard against the varying dangers and degeneracies to which any polity, however well devised and balanced, must be exposed in the lapse of centuries.

These are the main provisions of Mosaism as distinguished from the dispensation that immediately preceded it, and to these all the particulars of miracle and vision, and angelic and political machinery, were subordinate. While it possessed these advantages, it yet exhibited the following marked deficiencies as compared with the more perfect era that was to follow.

II. Mosaism An Introduction To Christianity . — The apostle Paul, who was pre-eminently qualified to judge of this relation, in a single term emphatically characterizes it as that of a Paedagogue (Παιδαγωγός , not "schoolmaster" or tutor, but the servant who took the children to school), to lead us to Christ ( Galatians 3:24). This was, indeed, the legitimate function of Mosaism, as the same apostle makes clear in numerous other passages (see especially  Romans 10:4;  Hebrews 10:9). The first and most necessary inference from this fact, of course, is the comparative imperfection of the earlier as compared with the later dispensation. But before we proceed to detail the defects which called for this supersedure, we invite attention to another inference not. so frequently noted, but equally significant. It is this, that as Judaism contained the germ of Christianity, it was essentially identical with it in at least the rudimentary principles. Indeed, true religion everywhere and in all ages is substantially the same, however it may differ in its manifestation and development. It consists in earnest devotion to God, and is more or less pure according to the direction and intensity which circumstances give to the sincere worshipper. All else is accessory or subordinate. Hence the Psalms have retained under Christianity their place as a manual of religious experience which they held under Judaism; and the Christian Church has adopted all the deeper and more central elements of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount is an admirable commentary on this point, showing how the Gospel is but an extension and refinement of the Law; and on more than one other occasion he summarized the latter as but a crystallization around the core of love ( Matthew 19:19;  Matthew 22:37), an exposition which his apostles universally followed ( Romans 13:9;  Galatians 5:14;  James 2:8;  1 John 4:21).

A writer in the Christian Review for January 1874, in noticing Paul's view of Mosaism as compared with Christianity, reduces the characteristics of the former to the following points:

" 1. Governmental authority expressed in statute.

2. The authority so expressed a rule of life.

3. Penalty following infraction.

4. Its entire force is from without. It seeks to accomplish nothing by establishing a principle within.

5. It is utterly inflexible, and knows no mercy.

6. Its righteousness is perfect obedience to the things which are written."

The writer "does not claim for this analysis that it is exhaustive, or that the points are so well put as they might have been." It would be easy, we think, to criticise them. But we give them with the general remark, that while they are in the main correct, they relate to Mosaism simply as a scheme of law. This is doubtless the most important aspect of that dispensation; but it has other traits, especially in its practical workings, and as modified or supplemented by the prophetical teachings (comp.  1 Samuel 15:22;  Proverbs 21:3;  Isaiah 58:3-6;  Hosea 6:6, etc.). To some of these we may recur; but under this head we propose to take a view of certain marked features in which it resembled while yet it differed from Christianity. This will particularly illustrate the mission of Jesus as a prophet like Moses ( Deuteronomy 18:18).

1. Doctrinally . — We need not here recapitulate the tenets of Mosaism in detail; it will be sufficient to note the salient points of its belief, especially those in which Christianity is most conspicuously an advance upon it.

(1.) The Trinity . — This is perhaps the greatest doctrinal stumbling-block in the way of the reception of the Gospel among the Jews from the earliest times ( John 8:58-59;  John 10:33;  Matthew 26:65) to the present day. Yet not a few hints, at least, of the plurality of persons in the Godhead are afforded in the Old Testament. Not to dwell upon the doubtful sense of the, pluralform of Elohim [see Gou], or the conferences in the divine consessus implied in the frequent use of the plural we by the Deity ( Genesis 1:26;  Genesis 3:22;  Genesis 11:7, etc.), we may fairly cite in evidence of our position the plain allusions not seldom made to the divinely eternal and omnific Spirit ( Genesis 1:2;  Genesis 6:3, etc.), and to the still more palpable theophanies of the Logos, common under the older dispensation, as the angel Jehovah ( Genesis 18:17 sq.;  Genesis 19:16;  Genesis 22:15-16;  Genesis 32:24 sq.;  Joshua 5:15;  Judges 13:15 sq.;  Daniel 3:25, etc.). We have not space to develop at length this important distinction between the Jewish and the Christian creeds, but the above facts will suggest its fundamental and undeviating import.

(2.) Mediation . — This under the Mosaic system was effected only by the intervention of a human priesthood, with a vast array of ceremonial apparatus and parade. Under the Christian economy, on the other hand, the human soul is taught to come directly to God for pardon of its sins. Yet here likewise there is a close analogy in the person of the Redeemer, who is at once Victim and Intercessor. The practical influence, however, of the recourse by the Jewish penitent to the Levitical arrangements, with the necessity of a prescribed sacrifice, at a special place in a particular manner, and above all by the instrumentality of a public functionary, must have been immense in keeping out of the popular mind the immediate responsibility of each human being to its offended Maker and God. In this respect Romish and Greek Catholicism has gone back to "the weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism, and the exaltation of prelatical and priestly authority invariably tends in the same direction. The apostle Paul everywhere enters his most vigorous and emphatic protest against these assumptions as a corruption of the whole evangelical scheme. The Epistle to the Hebrews, especially, is a prolonged argument on this topic.

(3.) Immortality . — The survival of the soul after the dissolution of the body is not expressly taught in the Old Testament, but it is continually implied, and not obscurely intimated in the references to the spirits of the departed (e.g. "gathered unto his fathers," i.e., in the world of shades), and in the anticipation of meeting in the other world (e.g.  2 Samuel 12:23;  Ecclesiastes 12:7). Jesus proved this point to the confusion of the Jewish sceptics of his day ( Matthew 22:32). But the doctrine of the resurrection of the body likewise is so allied to, that of the immortality of the soul, that the later Jews appear to have inferred it from the few hints dropped to that effect in their Scriptures (especially, perhaps, from  Job 19:25-27;  Psalms 16:10;  Isaiah 26:19;  Daniel 12:2), for the Pharisees and Talmudists entertained it as a settled portion of the orthodox faith. Yet it was so far reserved for Christ to establish and illustrate this glorious truth by his own revival from the grave, and his explicit declarations (e.g.  John 11:25), that he may justly be said to have "brought life and immortality to light."

2. Socially And Politically . — Here , too, a few points, must suffice by way of characterization.

(1.) Marriage . — In no particular, perhaps, is modern civilization more distinguished from the cultured nations of antiquity, as well as from modern Paganism and Mohammedanism, than in the delicate regard for woman which it has enforced. But this is chiefly due to the moral influence of Christianity, and is directly traceable to the restoration by our Saviour of marriage to its pristine monogamic condition ( Matthew 19:3-12). Here likewise the Gospel appears as much superior to the Mosaic law as the latter does to heathenism. The last tolerated almost indiscriminate licentiousness, and the mythologies of Greece and Rome added the example of a profligate religion with indescribable orgies. But Mosaism, although it restrained, still did not abolish concubinage, and thus left the female sex measurably enthralled by traditionary degradation. To its credit, however, it must be said that it never (except in the limited and late example of the Essenes) ran into the morbid prurience of celibacy, which has entailed severe evils upon corrupt forms of Christianity.

(2.) Exclusiveness. — The Jew was hereditarily a bigot. Territorially, ecclesiastically, and commercially his position by the Mosaic economy was an isolated one and that reserve and suspicion of foreigners which was originally a safeguard against idolatry, became at length a turbulent, odious, and anti-humanitarian trait of national character. The Hebrew word for the outside nations ( גּוֹי ) acquired a sense of proscription, and "Gentile" was regarded by the Israelite as nearly synonymous with "dog." Christianity, on the contrary, "broke down this middle wall of partition," and taught that all men are brethren, alike made by the common Father, and equally redeemed by the one Saviour. Zerubbabel encouraged sectarianism ( Ezra 4:3); Jesus rebuked it ( Luke 9:55). With the Hebrews circumcision was a test of caste, and is hence contrasted with the essence of Christianity ( Galatians 5:2). So liberal is the genuine spirit of the latter, that no greater reproach or inconsistency, perhaps, in modern times is found among its professors than a similar refusal of fraternity on the ground of some ceremonial or ordinational peculiarity.

(3.) Patriotism . — This partook largely of the above clannish feeling engendered by Mosaism. Rome was not more jealous of the rights of citizenship than was Judaism. "Thou shalt love thy fellow [Jew], and hate thy enemy [the Gentile]," was the interpretation put by the Israelites in general upon the Mosaic code. True, this was a perversion of its spirit, which repeatedly enjoins the largest charity towards aliens ( Exodus 23:9;  Leviticus 19:33;  Deuteronomy 10:18. etc.), but it was the natural result of the Hebrews' history and training. Hence the Jewish passion for independence, and hence, too, the ambition that nurtured a literal interpretation of the glowing pictures in the Old-Testament prophecies concerning the ultimate aggrandizement of the nation. Christianity, on the other hand, renounced at the outset all pretensions to political power ( John 18:36), and enjoined an absolute humility and submission little calculated to awaken patriotic ardor. Indeed, the early Christians were compelled to regard themselves as "pilgrims and strangers" on earth, and they transferred to the Church and to heaven their former attachment to countrymen and fatherland. At the same time their philanthropy became both more intense and more cosmopolitan; and this depth as well as expansion of patriotism in the truest sense has ever since, with the most earnest Christians, refused to be limited to the accidents of birthplace. The essential brotherhood of all mankind is a principle with which Christianity is slowly leavening the world, and the millennial glory will be but the universal realization of the idea.

3. Spiritually . — The analogy between Mosaism and Christianity, as we have sketched it, has, it will be perceived, been gradually opening into contrast. This is most apparent in this the highest range of significance of either economy. It is here that the earlier structure intended to serve but as the scaffolding for the final edifice is seen to be but an obstruction that needed to be removed when the grand temple was finished. We name, as before, but a few leading particulars.

(1.) Regeneration. — The absolute necessity of this change of the moral affections, when propounded by our Lord to Nicodemus, as a prime condition at the very entrance of the Christian career, struck the Jewish ruler as a novelty, if not absurdity. Yet, as the Great Teacher's retort of equal surprise at his hearer's ignorance implies, there are intimations, neither few nor indistinct, of such a change in Old Testament characters ( 1 Samuel 10:6;  Psalms 51:10, etc.). Even the sense of divine adoption, attendant upon the new birth, is plainly indicated, though under a different name ( Genesis 5:24; comp.  Hebrews 11:5). Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the mass of saints under the Jewish economy knew little about the spiritual experience which is the privilege of every child of God since the fuller dispensation of the Holy Spirit ( Matthew 11:11). The improvement in the religious state and conduct of the apostles after the memorable Pentecost is of itself an evidence and exemplification of this. The highest possible difference in the attitude and sentiments of believers towards God before this event is expressed by our Lord in one word as an advance from service to friendship ( John 15:15; comp.  James 2:23); thenceforth it was a transition to Sonship ( John 1:12), with all the perquisites of the immediate pledge ( Galatians 4:6), and the future reversion ( Romans 8:16-17). It is to be feared that too many professing Christians of the present day rest in the condition of legalism ( Romans 8:15), without rising to the privilege of spiritual liberty ( Galatians 4:7). A religion of forms, however sincere and consistent, without the regenerating power, is but a relapse to Mosaism ( Galatians 5:1)

(2.) Worship . — In nothing, perhaps, was the revolution from the Mosaic law to that of Christianity more striking than in the abandonment of the pompous ritual of the former for the simple devotion of the latter. True, the services of the Synagogue had prepared the way for those of the Church, and indeed formed their model. But so strong a hold upon the imagination and the heart of the Jews had the Temple and its pageantry made, that even after the adoption of the Christian faith most of the Hebrew converts of the apostolic age continued to maintain the Mosaic observances in addition to those of their new relation. The great axiom propounded by our Lord at Jacob's well that God's nature requires a spiritual worship ( John 4:24), struck the key-note of a fundamental reform in the very basis act of all religion. Alas that this truth should ever have been again overlaid by the mummeries of form! The bane of true worship is formalism. Not alone amid the gorgeousness of Catholicism, or of semi-Romish ritualism, does this insidious influence display itself; the baleful tendency lurks likewise in the sanctimonious tones of Puritanism and the cant of Pietism, and even under the demure garb of Quakerism. An effort is constantly required to keep from reverting to the deadness of the letter ( Romans 7:6).

(3.) Holiness . — This , the crowning purpose of both the Mosaic and the Christian schemes, was very differently expressed and effected by them respectively. In the former it meant simply an external and formal dedication ( קדשׁ ) of a person or animal, or a valuable article, objectively considered, to Jehovah, as a token of its separation and interdiction thenceforth from secular uses. In the latter it signified an internal and actual consecration ( Ἃγιος )of the human spirit, subjectively regarded, to the glory of God, but yet to be employed in all the legitimate words and works of useful life. There was thus a cardinal, if not radical distinction in the nature and manifestation of sanctity as sought and attained by the Jew and the Christian. No mere form of words, like a magical spell, no Opus Operatum, can avail to free the. heart from the sense and love of sin ( Hebrews 10:1). Indeed, the Mosaic law provided no sacrifice as an atonement for spiritual offences, such as pride, anger, selfishness, lust, etc.; but only for outward infractions of certain ceremonial prescriptions. It is a fact not commonly understood, that wilful and presumptuous sins have no remedy or means of expiation under the Levitical code. Heart sins, and even outbreaking crimes — violations, for instance, of any of the Ten Commandments — were purposely excluded from the category of compoundable misdemeanors. Hence, after David had committed adultery he did not offer a sacrifice to ease his conscience of the guilt ( Psalms 51:16-17). There was no way in such cases for relief but by an extra- Mosaic recourse to the general mercy of God, directly dispensed to the penitent — in short, by an anticipation of the Gospel scheme of gratuitous pardon for the sake of Another ( Psalms 51:1-3). In like manner Mosaism of itself made no provision for the effectual reformation of the sinner by the removal, or even the control, of his depraved nature and wicked tendencies. This was too sacred a precinct for even the unsandalled foot of the great lawgiver to venture upon.

It was silently reserved as the province of the Holy Spirit, whose function as the Sanctifier was even then prophetically recognised ( Psalms 51:11). Yet with all this borrowed light added to the boasted vantage of the only written revelation hitherto vouchsafed to man ( Romans 2:17-24;  Romans 3:1-2), Pharisaism and Rabbinism, the final twin offspring of Mosaism, were such a mockery of righteousness, though claiming superlative saintship, as alone could stir the gentle spirit of the Redeemer to indignant protest ( Matthew 15:3-14) and bitter invective (Matthew 23). The tender-hearted Revelator, too, found no language to describe the central seat of, its worship but as "the city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt" ( Revelation 11:8), and branded its expatriated sanctuary as "the synagogue of Satan" ( Revelation 2:9;  Revelation 3:9). No man knew better by sad experience the hollowness of its pretensions than the apostle who had been "a Hebrew of the Hebrews;" for amid the glare which its Sinaitic flashes threw upon his natural conscience he cried out in an agony of despair, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" and he ever afterwards characterized it as "a yoke of bondage," and applied to it not only severe refutation, but likewise caustic irony (e.g. "the concision,"  Philippians 3:2). Once more we are compelled to repeat the lament that a nominal Christianity should have reproduced the same spurious sainthood and the same blind truckling to an assumed oral law. The 19th century of our Lord has witnessed the insane blasphemy of a pseudo-infallibility as a culmination of abominations that have emanated from the "mother of harlots." Drunk with the blood of the saints, she is the melancholy and shocking successor of the adulterous apostasy (Matthew 17:39) which was not content till it had entailed upon itself ( Matthew 27:25) the guilt of the murder of-its greatest Benefactor. Such is the outcome of all "Holiness" not grounded in a radical renewal of the moral nature by the Spirit of Christ which first breathed the conscious soul into man.

III. In Contrast With Heathenism . — In this aspect, which is the really just point of view, Mosaism shines with its true lustre. We name under this head likewise a few only of the most prominent particulars.

1. Monotheism. — The whole Judaic system was a standing protest against polytheism, as the most stringent of its precepts were against the idolatry constantly associated with the heathen multiplication of divinities. It may safely be averred that the doctrine of the unity of God was original with the Abrahamic, and specially the Jewish race. Mohammedanism, the only form of false faith that holds it, borrowed it directly from the Jews. We have not space to develop the multiform influences growing out of this cardinal tenet of all true religion; some of them are specified below, and for others we refer to POLYTHEISM (See Polytheism) . (See Monotheism).

2. Scrupulousness . — The vast moral superiority of Mosaism over heathenism is seen most conspicuously, perhaps, in the stern sense of right which it cultivated. The Greeks and Romans, with all their philosophical acumen, can hardly be said to have possessed or been actuated by a Conscience, as we understand the term. There was a frivolity, a deep- seated scepticism, which led them to look upon sin as a venial affair, and to hold in contempt that tenderness of moral sensibility upon which conscientiousness depends. Among Oriental nations, with all their veneration for various deities, the case was, if possible, still worse; for the perception of right and wrong was so blunted by the grossness of their religions as to preclude any consistent probity or even virtue. The picture which Paul draws ( Romans 1:21 sq.) of the degraded immorality of the heathen world in its ripest day reveals a reeking rottenness revolting to common decency; but shocking as are the disclosures, his pen blushed to tell even half the abominations.

The licentiousness, debauchery, drunkenness, violence, cruelty, and treachery of the age were absolutely beyond description in any page fit for the public eye. The word utterly Abandoned is the only one that at all approaches the depth of depravity into which the whole Gentile world was sunk. The Jews, it is true, were not universally pure. Many sad rebukes by our Savior, as earlier many severe castigations from the prophets, attest the prevalence of but too much corruption in every age. Yet a high sense of loyalty to God, of personal accountability to him, of public and private honor, of obligation to truthfulness and integrity generally prevailed as a distinguishing trait of the Hebrew nation. Above all they prized and clung to their creed and institutions with a tenacious conviction that nerved them to brave all obloquy and opposition. Few if any heathen thought enough of their religion to die for it, or cared enough for its sanctions to forego any considerable gratification in order to meet its prohibitions. The Jew, on the contrary, gloried in martyrdom for his faith, and submitted to the most onerous privations in the observance of its requirements. The very stiffness of its unaesthetic simplicity, the coldness and sternness of its behests, the multiplicity and minuteness of its enactments, and the rigidity of its penalties, schooled its votaries into a Puritanic conscientiousness, which, indeed, often degenerated into morbid punctilio and puling casuistry, but in more robust and generous spirits has never been excelled in moral heroism, at least in the line of fortitude ( Hebrews 11:33-38). Even amid the convulsive throes of their expiring commonwealth, sublime examples of daring and devotion, actuated by a mistaken but intense zeal for their imperilled polity, are recorded by Josephus. This Esprit Du Corps, if we may so style it, for which the adherents of Mosaism have ever been proverbial, differs from the mere bravery of heathendom in being sustained by a Religious fervor based upon the most earnest conviction that it was heaven's cause for which they were contending. The paradox of a misguided but superlatively dominant conscience ( Romans 10:2) was exhibited in the case of Saul of Tarsus, who thought he was doing God service ( Acts 26:9) while he was perpetrating acts for which, when enlightened by the halo from the skies, which taught him that Love is the highest duty (1 Corinthians 13), he ceased not to his dying day to feel the keenest remorse ( 1 Corinthians 15:9;  1 Timothy 1:15).

3. Freedom From Superstition . — As a result of this single eye to the glory of a supreme God, Mosaism was calculated to deliver its followers from those chimerical fears and goblin doubts which continually haunt the votaries of polytheism and daimonism. The Jew was not distracted by uncertainty at which of many often contradictory shrines he should pay his homage, nor any uncertainty as to whether his God was able or willing to heed and answer his petition. No ghostly horrors veiled his cultus. nor mystic rites overshadowed his introduction into the divine presence. There were no subordinate imps or questionable demi-gods that might thwart the higher designs, nor any petty envy in the bosom of a jealous deity. True, there was Satan and his host of fallen angels against him; but he believed that these were mere creature powers, tethered ( Job 1:12;  Job 2:6) by the Almighty with whom he was in covenant, and therefore harmless while he maintained that allegiance. There was no peopling by his imagination of every brook and dale and hill and wood with naiads and nymphs and fauns and satyrs of superhuman power and antihuman whim. There were for him no lucky and unlucky days, no capricious auguries and enigmatic oracles, no conjuring spells and omens of fortune. There was no blind Fate, but everything was in the hand of an all-wise, beneficent Creator, Upholder, and Ruler. This gave a nobility, a magnanimity, an expansiveness to his views of life and destiny, which raised him out of the puerile calculations and belittling aspirations, the undefined guesses and terrors that took up so large a share of the heathen's time and attention. True, he had his festal and his fasting seasons, his routine of sacrifice and ceremony but these were all fixed and conclusive, and were grounded on some clear historical or prophetical principle, so that they enlisted his intelligent interest. It was the hair-splitting technicalities of the rabbins that introduced bewilderment of mind and morals into the later Judaism. The driveling trash of the Talmud is an excrescence upon Mosaism. Such fables and endless distinctions were a fashion worthier of heathenism ( Titus 3:9).

4. Sublime Views Of The Future World . — We have already touched upon this theme, but for another purpose; its importance and pertinence here call for a special notice. To a thoughtful mind, the destiny of the soul beyond the grave is a most momentous consideration. Hence pagan philosophy has exercised its most earnest efforts to solve the problem, but in vain. The pall that covers the bier was to them an impenetrable veil. Socrates and his most spiritual disciples, Plato, and Cicero, could only conjecture the fate of the human spirit. True, all religions hold to a future retribution, and this implies a survival of the soul after death. Yet this view was so beclouded with mythological poetry and metaphysical speculation, that the passage into eternity was truly "a leap in the dark" even to the most cultivated heathen. The light of revelation alone could pierce the gloom that shrouded the spirit as it passed away from consciousness and observation. The bare fact of immortality might indeed be guessed — or rather, perhaps, the surmise was a trace of the pristine truth of Eden. But the circumstances of that state, especially the possibility and conditions of happiness in the future world, were even a more absorbing question; for continued existence without this assurance would hardly be deemed a real boon. On this point it is evident that the Jew never had any doubt; and hence he was ready to meet death cheerfully and even gladly.

We repeat that martyrs could not have been possible without the faith which the Bible — whether of the Old or the New Testament-inspired. Mosaism, so far as we know, furnished the first written revelation of God's will to man, and the first authentic clew to man's origin, moral relations, and final destiny. This gave the believer in the Mosaic code, with its concomitants and sequents, an immense advantage over Gentile theosophists and religionists of however high a grade. He could not only walk more securely in the path well- pleasing to heaven, but he knew assuredly that it would, if persevered in, at length conduct him thither in everlasting bliss. Even the dawning beams of that celestial illumination enabled Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Job, and doubtless many other ante-Mosaic, but not extra-Hebraic saints to tread with firm and elastic step that sacred road, and Christianity is but the noontide blaze of the same effulgence, from the one great Sun of Righteousness which shone with a clear and steady, but plot yet full lustre, on the horizon of Mosaism ( Psalms 84:11).