The Sweetness of the Law
In commenting briefly on Psalm 19, C. S. Lewis observes the description of God’s Law as “sweeter than honey” and “more precious than gold,” the kind of descriptions that occur again and again throughout the Psalter.
Lewis writes,
Lewis writes,
In so far as this idea of the Law’s beauty, sweetness, or pireciousness, arose from the contrast of the surrounding Paganisms, we may soon find occasion to recover it. Christians increasingly live on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions and their tides come further up the beach every time. None of these new ways is yet so filthy or cruel as some Semitic Paganism. But many of them ignore all individual rights and are already cruel enough. Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept, some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and “sweet reasonableness” fo the Christian ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted. But of course, if we do, we shall then be exposed to the danger of priggery. We might come to “thank God that we are not as other men”. This introduces the greatest difficulty which the Psalms have raised in my mind.
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