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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
it upon tables of stone, and guarding it by definite directions in the
judgments and statutes given to Moses.
Moses wrote these judgments and statutes from the mouth of God
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while he was with him in the mount. If the people of God had obeyed
the principles of the ten commandments, there would have been no
need of the specific directions given to Moses, which he wrote in a
book, relative to their duty to God and to one another. The definite
directions which the Lord gave to Moses in regard to the duty of his
people to one another, and to the stranger, are the principles of the ten
commandments simplified, and given in a definite manner that they
need not err.
The Lord said of the children of Israel, “Because they had not
executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted
my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols, wherefore I
gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby
they should not live.” Because of continual disobedience, the Lord
annexed penalties to the transgression of his law, which were not good
for the transgressor, or whereby he should not live in his rebellion.
By transgressing the law which God had given in such majesty,
and amid glory which was unapproachable, the people showed open
contempt of the great Lawgiver, and death was the penalty. “Moreover
also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that
they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. But the house
of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they walked not in my
statues [statutes], and they despised my judgments, which if a man
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do, he shall even live in them. And my sabbaths they greatly polluted.
Then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to
consume them.”
The statutes and judgments given of God were good for the obe-
dient. “They should live in them.” But they were not good for the
transgressor, for in the civil law given to Moses punishment was to be
inflicted on the transgressor, that others should be restrained by fear.
Moses charged the children of Israel to obey God. He said unto
them, “Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the
judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and
go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth
you.”