the commandments of the
Old Dispensation to the level of those of the New; and thus
misunderstanding the nature and relation of both.

The Christian faith is in a sense the development of Judaeism, though
it is infinitely more. The commandments of Moses, in so far as they
have their roots in the constitution of man, have not been superseded,
but taken up and spiritualised by the Ethic of the Gospel.

2. PROPHECY

The dominant factor of Old Testament Ethics lay in the influence
exerted by the prophets. They, and not the priests, are the great
moralists of Israel. The prophets were speakers for God, the
interpreters of His will. They were the moral guides of the people,
the champions of integrity in political life, not less than witnesses
for individual purity.[13]

We may sum up the ethical significance of the Hebrew prophets in three
features.

(1) They were preachers of _personal righteousness_. In {47} times of
falsehood and hypocrisy they were witnesses for integrity and truth,
upholding the personal virtues of justice, sincerity, and mercy against
the idolatry and formalism of the priesthood. 'What doth the Lord
require of thee,' said Micah, 'but to do justly, to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God.'[14] In the same strain Isaiah exclaimed,
'Bring no more vain oblations, but wash you and make you clean.'[15]
And so also Habakkuk has affirmed in words which became the keynote of
Paul's theology and the watchword of the Reformation--'The just shall
live by faith.'[16]

(2) They were the advocates of the _rights of man_, of equity and
justice between man and man. They denounce the tyranny of kings, and
the luxury of the nobles. They protest against the oppression of the
poor and befriend the toilers of the cities. They proclaim the worth
of man as man. They reveal Jehovah as the God of the common people,
and seek to mitigate the burdens which lie upon the enslaved and
down-trodden.

(3) They were the apostles of _Hope_. Not only did they seek to lift
their fellow-men above their present calamities, but they proclaimed a
message of peace and triumph which was to be evolved out of trouble. A
great promise gradually loomed on the horizon, and hope began to centre
in an anointed Deliverer. The Hebrew prophets were not probably
conscious of the full significance of their own predictions. Like all
true poets, they uttered greater things than they knew. The prophet
who most clearly outlin