f the
moral law, of God, of sin and its forgiveness, would be narrow and
external. The moral law would be embedded in the national code. God
would be revealed in the history of the nation. Sin would consist either
in faults of ignorance and inadvertence or in national apostasy from the
theocratic King. In these three respects the new covenant excels,--in
respect, that is, of the moral law, knowledge of God, and forgiveness of
sin, which yet may be justly regarded as the three sides of the
revelation given under the former covenant.

1. The moral law will either forget its own holiness, righteousness, and
goodness, and degenerate into national rules of conduct, or else, by the
innate force of its spirituality, create in men a consciousness of sin
and a strong desire for reconciliation with God. Men will resist, and,
when resistance is vain, will chafe against its terrible strength. "The
Law came in beside, that the trespass might abound."[153] But it often
happens that guilt of conscience is the alarum that awakens moral
self-consciousness out of sleep, never to fall asleep again when
holiness has found entrance into the soul. Beyond this the old covenant
advanced not a step. The promise of the new covenant is to put the Law
into the mind, not in an ark of shittim wood, and to write it in the
heart, not on tables of stone. The Law was given on Sinai as an external
commandment; it is put into the mind as a knowledge of moral truth. It
was written on the two tables in the weakness of the letter; on the
heart it is written as a principle and a power of obedience. The power
of God to command becomes the strength of man to obey. In this way the
new covenant realises what the former covenant demanded. The new
covenant is the old covenant transformed, made spiritual. God is become
the God of His people; and this was the promise of the former covenant.
They are no more children, as they were when God took them by the hand
and led them out of the land of Egypt. Instead of the external guidance,
they have the unction within, and know all things. Renewed in the spirit
of their mind, they put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and the holiness of truth.

2. So also of knowing God. The moral attributes of the Most High are
revealed under the former covenant, and the God of the Old Testament is
the God of the New. Abraham knows Him as the everlasting God. Elisha
understands that there is no darkness or shadow