Herman Witsius on the Torah

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

From page 65 of The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man:

The Law is Torah, the doctrine of right and wrong. What it teaches to be evil, that it forbids; what is good, it commands. And therefore it is deservedly called the law of nature; not only because nature can make it known; but also because it is the rule of nature itself.

 

[timmopussycat]

From page 65 of The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man:

The Law is Torah, the doctrine of right and wrong. What it teaches to be evil, that it forbids; what is good, it commands. And therefore it is deservedly called the law of nature; not only because nature can make it known; but also because it is the rule of nature itself.

For Witsius, the term "Law" here was the decalogue or the "moral law" as defined in WCF 19:1-3. For he echoes the WCF’s threefold distinction among

"…several kinds of laws given [Israel] of which there are three principally mentioned by divines. The moral or the decalogue, the ceremonial, and the political or forensic .… The law of the decalogue was given [Israel]; which as to its substance is one and the same with the law of nature, and binds men as such …" (Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, vol. 2. (Escondido, CA: Den Dalk Christian Foundation, 1990), p. 162.)

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

So what you are saying is that the "Torah" according to Witsius here is just the words of the Ten Commandments?

 

[Prufrock]

Ben, Witsius here is talking about the law of the covenant of works (or the "law of nature," as he calls it, which was given to Adam). To do this, he follows the standard scholastic method of defining the nature of this law -- it is tvrh, or "teaching." He does not have the "book of Torah" in mind at all here. He is merely defining what the Hebrew word for law means -- "teaching concerning right and work," whence also the book, and the 10 commandments (and any other teaching concerning man's duty) came to be known as Torah.

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

That is what I thought Paul. timmo's post seemed to say something different.

 

[Prufrock]

Perhaps -- but I see nothing disagreeable to Witsius' theology in Mr. Cunningham's post. Wistius in this very same chapter has equated the law of nature with the moral law with the Decalogue. The following quotes from Book IV, chapter IV might elucidate Wistius' thought a bit:

XXVIII - Seeing the decalogue contains the sum of the law of nature, and, as to its substance, is one and the same therewith, so far it is of perpetual and universal obligation.

XXX - "The Gentiles, who had heard nothing of the giving of the law in the wilderness, were not bound to the observance of that law, as it was published to the Israelites, but only as inscribed on their own consciences;" for which he cites Rom. 2:12 as confirmation. He then claims that if, however, the nations had any knowledge of the giving of the law in its Mosaic form to Israel, they then had an obligation to its observance. What belongs inherently to the moral law (or law of nature), however, is not all that is contained in Torah. The phrase only as inscribed on their own consciences is paramount for understanding what Witsius is saying.

For the confirmation of which, it is important to note that in IV.iv.II, Witsius explicitly separates the judicial or political laws from the moral (or law of nature) as something given especially to Israel, which means the other nations were not bound to them by nature, but only in as much as they were economically brought to the teachings of Israel.