The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part III, Chapter VII. Scripture Types of the Third Glorious Mystery: The Law Given on the Holy Mount; The Sacrifice Consumed with Fire from Heaven
1. The law given to Moses on the holy mountain.
It was beyond doubt brought to pass by the special providence of God, by whose will the Mosaic covenant is in so many respects the shadow and figure of the new law which was to succeed to it, that the law of the Ten Commandments was solemnly proclaimed in the midst of the fires and thunderings of Mount Sinai, on the fiftieth day after the offering of the Paschal Lamb, and the sudden departure out of Egypt. The people were delivered out of the hands of the destroying angel and of the Egyptians by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, and through the terror caused by the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians; and on the fiftieth day after this delivery, they who had been slaves and bondsmen in Egypt, receive the law of God from His own mouth, speaking in the midst of the thunders and fires with which the mountain burned, and are raised to the dignity of being a priestly kingdom and a holy people. In the New Covenant, the faithful were delivered out of their bondage by the blood of Jesus, the true Paschal Lamb, and by the destruction of the power of the devil; and exactly fifty days afterwards the Spirit of God descends upon them, giving them that Spirit of adoption as sons of God, “whereby,” as the Apostle says, “we all cry, Abba, Father,” and raising them to the dignity of free citizens of the celestial city, “for where the Spirit of God is, there,” says St Paul, “is liberty.” We have, however, not selected the passage of the history in the old covenant which accurately coincides, in point of time, with the Pentecost of the new law, solely for the sake of bringing more to light the essential contrast between the two covenants, embodied in the law written by the finger of God on the tables of stone which were given to Moses in the Holy Mount and the law written by the Spirit of God in the fleshy tablets of the heart on the day of the Christian Pentecost.
A well-known poet says—“When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free,
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
Then, half a patriot half a coward grown, I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.”
— Goldsmith’s “Traveller.”
The false idea of liberty with which the old serpent never ceases to labour to deceive mankind is, that it consists in teaching each member of a society to consider himself independent of law. Liberty thus understood, according to the old serpent’s doctrine, leads to the necessary and infallible consequence, as the lines above quoted suggest, of the extremes of tyranny on the one hand and of slavery on the other. If, for instance, as a member of society, I adopt the old serpent’s doctrine as my rule, and place my freedom in being above law, I am above respecting the rights of my neighbour, which it is the duty of the law both to determine and to protect; and if he also entertains the same ideas with respect to his liberty, he is equally above paying any respect to my rights, and thus I and my neighbour are sure to quarrel with each other; each one in the just defence of his own right which the other deems himself at liberty to disregard. And it thus becomes easy to see how the old serpent, whose aim it is to destroy all society, succeeds in gaining his end wherever he is able in the heart of any society to establish his doctrine, that freedom consists in independence of law.
In opposition to the doctrine of the old serpent, St Augustine says, that a secure condition of civil society can only be made out of the “eternal living truths.” “For a society is not a mere aggregate of any kind of living beings, but a multitude of rational creatures bound together by the social bond of one law” (Quaest. Evang. lib. ii 46). It is self-evident that the laws which are to determine the respective rights of the members of the society must first themselves be just, which they cannot be except they are founded on eternal truths, and thus proceed from God, for unjust laws cannot constitute a society of rational creatures.
The Lawgiver, who is perfectly wise and perfectly just, and whose laws apportion equally the rights of each member of the society, can be none other than God Himself, and obedience to the laws of God can proceed only from two motives—from fear of the punishments annexed to breaking them, and from the assent of the understanding to their justice, together with the conformity of the will to their requirements. The first of these motives is the fear of the penal consequences of injustice, and the second is the inward love of justice.
The first of these motives is the basis of the covenant that was promulgated on Mount Sinai, and “that engendereth,” as St Paul says, “unto bondage.” The second is that of the new covenant, “which answereth,” says St Paul, “to the Jerusalem that is above, the mother of us all.”
“For all the people,” says the scripture, “saw the lightnings and the mountain covered with smoke, and heard the words and the sound of the trumpet, and terror-stricken and overcome with fear, they stood at a distance, saying to Moses, Speak thou to us and we will hear, and let not the Lord speak to us, lest perhaps we die. And Moses said to the people, Fear not, for God is come to prove you, that His fear might be in you, and that you should not sin” (Exod. xx. 18).
The law of liberty of the new covenant was proclaimed, not from Mount Sinai, but from Calvary, and written not on tables of stone, but by the Spirit of God on the fleshy tablets of the heart (2 Cor. iii. 3). This expression St Paul more fully explains in the Epistle to the Hebrews. “But now,” he writes, speaking of Christ, “He hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also He is a Mediator of a better Testament, which is established on better promises. For if that former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second.” For finding fault with them, he saith, “Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will perfect unto the house of Israel and the house of Juda a New Testament. Not according to the Testament which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in My Testament, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the Testament which I will make to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their mind, and in their heart will I write them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me from the least to the greatest of them: because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more” (Jer. xxxi. 31). “Now in saying a new, He hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end” (Heb. viii. 6–13).
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” says the Apostle (2 Cor. iii. 17). By the grace of the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit of God, the law of Christ is written in the hearts of the faithful, and their obedience to it is no longer from fear, as in the former covenant: “That His fear might be in you that you should not sin.” But from love of the law for its own sake, which love the Holy Ghost works in the heart; for “charity,” says St Paul, “is the fulfilment of the law.”
It is worth the remark also, as an evidence of multiplicity in the minute points of correspondence in which the covenant of Sinai serves, as St Paul says, “to the example and shadow of the heavenly things,” that the delivery to 2. The type of the sacrifice consumed by the fii To keep the laws of God in the midst of a fallen world, which is subject to every form of scandal, sin, and disorder, is plainly a very different thing from keeping the laws of God in a society where all is perfect order. The blessed spirits, who are confirmed in their election, conform themselves to the Divine order of their society with perfect gladness and joy of heart. This cannot be the case in the society of men, because the citizens of the city of God are mixed up with the citizens of the earthly city, as the clay was with the iron in the feet of the statue which Nabuchodonosor saw in his vision, and the order of the city of God Moses of the tables of the law, written on stone with the finger of God, took place on the fiftieth day after the date of Moses being called up for the first time into the mountain to speak with God respecting the covenant which He was about to make with the people. On receiving the first intelligence of the law that was to be proclaimed, the people were required to spend three days in sanctifying themselves, and in cleansing their garments; and on the third day, the glory of the Lord covered the mountain, and the law was proclaimed in solemn form. The mount continued covered with the glory of the Lord for six other days, and on the seventh day, or the tenth from the first proclamation of the covenant about to be made, Moses was called to ascend the mountain to confer with God. Here he continued forty days and forty nights, and at their expiration, that is, on the fiftieth day from the first proclamation to the people to prepare for the law, the law was written on the tables of stone with the finger of God. The parallel scarcely needs to be pointed out. The first notice to the fallen world to prepare for the new Christian law to be proclaimed to it is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; and the new Christian law is written, as the Apostle says, on the fleshy tablets of the heart, on the day of Pentecost, fifty days afterwards.
! that fell from heaven at the prayer of Elias. is in perpetual clash and warfare with that of the city of confusion. The citizens of the city of God, in addition to the difficulties which the weakness of their flesh imposes upon the willingness of their spirit, are continually met with obstacles to keeping the laws of God, created by the contrary laws and maxims of the earthly city with which they are unavoidably mixed up. From whence it comes to pass, that they have frequently not only to keep the law of God, but to fly in the face, so to speak, and to despise, the contrary laws or customs of the city of confusion. A Catholic, for example, to have recourse to an instance taken from everyday life, finds himself at an entertainment where many strangers are present, and where he is hospitably pressed to partake of the refreshments that are provided, but the day is a fast-day according to the Church. Here it is plain that his obedience to the precept of the Church must inevitably have the effect of making him both singular and an object of remark, and perhaps derision, to the company in which he finds himself, and his observance of the precept, which, were he at home amongst a society where its binding force was acknowledged, might have been comparatively easy, now becomes a kind of profession of faith before the eyes of unbelievers, that is proportionably trying and difficult. As long, then, as the city of God, signed and sealed by the gifts of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, is in the midst of the Babel of the present world, obedience to the laws of the city of God will always demand an offering up of the heart and the mind in sacrifice to God, that they may become wholly His, and consecrated to Him to the perfect keeping of His law in the face of every obstacle that the contrary mind and spirit of the city of confusion may interpose in the way of perfect obedience. Thus St Paul says, “For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God; for you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba Father. For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God” (Rom. viii. 14). “As it is written,” he continues, “for Thy sake we are put to death all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter” (Ps. xliii. 22).
Again St Paul writes to the Philippians, thus, “If I should be offered up as a victim in addition to the sacrifice and the obedience of your faith, I should rejoice and wish joy to you all; and do you in like manner rejoice and wish me joy” (Phil. ii. 17). Here the victim of sacrifice, who has offered himself up to God for the perfect keeping of His laws, expresses his joy, which nothing can diminish or repress, at the prospect of the speedy consummation of his own sacrifice, while he expressly calls the faith of those to whom he is writing a “sacrifice” as well as an “obedience.” For the law of God written in the heart of man by the finger of God the Holy Ghost, makes him a victim that willingly offers himself to keep the law that has been written in his heart, come what may: “The Lord is become my light; I will not fear what man can do unto me.” “Many waters,” says the bride in the Canticles, “cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Cant. viii. 7). “Who then,” exclaims St Paul, “shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? But in all these we overcome, because of Him that loved us” (Rom. viii. 35). This character of victim consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit which was poured out upon the Church at Pentecost, through the intercession of Jesus our High Priest, finds its type and parallel in the fire which God sent down from heaven at the prayer of Elias, to consume the sacrifice which he had prepared on the altar of God. “And Elias said: Fill four buckets with water, and pour it upon the burnt-offering: and when it was now time to offer the holocaust, Elias the prophet came near and said: O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, show this day that Thou art the God of Israel, and I am Thy servant, and that according to Thy commandment I have done all these things. Hear me, O Lord! hear me, O Lord! that this people may learn that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: The Lord He is God, the Lord He is God.”
Elias hereupon took the prophets of Baal and killed them all at the brook Cison. So also when the company of the day of Pentecost was consumed by the fire of Divine charity which fell down from heaven, idols from that day began to be swept away from the face of the earth.