SIR:—After your repeated and unsuccessful attempts to stigmatize, put
down, demolish, and forever abolish the TEN WORDS, the law and
commandments of the living God, the only foundation for the bible, you
come forth in the A. H. of Nov. 9th, and say “We are not under the law (of
Moses,) but under (the law of) grace, the _New Testament_, and now all we
want to know is, does the NEW TESTAMENT _either by precept or example_
require us _to keep_ ANY day as a SABBATH?... We do not want your
inferences, but plain, direct NEW TESTAMENT testimony; nothing else will
do in a case of this character and importance.” Your term, law of Moses,
according to _all_ your teachings on this subject, includes the law of
commandments. We have given it to you in our work on the Sabbath, and
again in the Way Marks, pp. 76-78. Why do you still continue to demand
proof, until you have found out some new method to explain those texts
away. It is evident that your object on this point is to confuse the minds
of your readers and not give them the clear word of God. What would Christ
and his apostles have done for proof from the old testament, if your new
restricted rule had been laid before them? and you had told them seven
months previous, (April 28th,) that the law of commandments, when they
were abolished, were incorporated into the new testament, or _law of
Christ_. And now we are under the _law of grace_. It appears to me that
Jesus would have replied as he did on one occasion, “Get thee behind me
Satan.” Is the law of Christ and the law of grace, synonymous terms? or
are you so privileged now in the high station which you have assumed, that
you can change the name of _your_ NEW LAW once in seven months, and make
Christ and grace the same. It is impossible for any man to depart from the
clear word and abide in the truth. Call the commandments of God what you
will, and incorporate them where you will, you are bound, as I have told
you before, to show the precept, (i. e. how they read,) and then if you
refer us to the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, and the Revelation of
John, you will only point us directly to the ten commandments of God,
which as clearly proves that they are not, nor ever have been abolished,
any more than the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel; and just so
sure as Jesus has spoken the truth, that eternal life is obtained by the
keeping of them, and that James wrote by inspiration, we are to be judged
by them; and not by what you have misnamed them, the _law of grace_. How
can the commandments of God be abolished, and yet the keeping of them give
us an entrance into the city. Rev. xxii: 14. And yet if they are
abolished, as you assert, who can ever know when they fail in one precept
or when they keep the whole? Your attempt to incorporate God’s law,
after—as you say—it has been abolished, and now enforce it without a
precept, because it is all incorporated in the new testament, is a
thousand times more inconsistent than a temporal millenium. “Grace is the
gift of God.” Then, according to your logic, this is the law that we are
now under. How shall we enumerate all the gifts of God, and incorporate
them into the new testament? One thing I know, you will never mend the law
of God: It is as immutable as the sun in the heavens! and it would be far
easier work for you and all of like faith to blot out that luminary than
to prove that one jot or tittle of the ten commandments had failed by
being changed or abolished. I intend to prove this from the new testament
as I pass on, and if you and your adherents will still misrepresent the
plain teaching and lead others to do so, then the words of Jesus will
surely condemn you, and you “will be in no esteem in the reign of heaven.”
First Pillar For No Sabbath.
There are four Pillars in the temple of your no-Sabbath, no-commandment
system, which we are always referred to as positive proof that you are
right. Now if I can prove from the new testament that they and all others
that you may present, are only your “_inferences_,” (and you say you don’t
want any,) what will you do? Further—these pillars of yours, be it
_forever remembered and never forgotten_, are fixed at the day of the
crucifixion of our Lord. Say, if you like, it was in A.D. 33. This is the
point where you have to bring your scripture to prove any thing of the
kind, i. e., if you go one week on either side of the death of our blessed
Lord, your arguments or pillars, all fall to the ground. Now, by this
plain rule, we will try the first two no-Sabbath texts: First—1 Rom. xiv:
“One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day
_alike_; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that
regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.” Read the whole chapter;
Paul’s whole argument here is against their feasts, and this of course
included their feast days, which some esteemed and others did not.
“Destroy not him with thy _meat_ for whom Christ died,” says Paul, 15th
verse. Compare this with the first, third, and last four verses, where he
closes with “He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not
of faith,” 23d verse, and then tell me if you can, what other day or days
is here brought to view than feast days, as in Lev. xxiii chapter, which
Hosea said were to cease. This same chapter, 3d and 38th verses,
positively designates and separates the Sabbath of the Lord God from all
these feast Sabbaths, or days; also Num. xxviii: 9. Now as God’s Sabbath
was not a feast Sabbath, it was impossible to connect it with these. And
that is not all—it is not even alluded to here—only guessed at from among
the feast days. Once set such a rule as this at work and there is not a
law in christendom that would restrain men. For all will have one day for
a holy, or holiday in the week. Now give them, by your bible rule, their
choice, and I don’t believe that Satan himself would bring them to order.
Oh, but we have a law that the first-day shall be regarded as the Sabbath.
Well, that is what you now contend for, and so does almost all
christendom, and still it is an unrighteous and an unscriptural law,
because the first day is not, nor never was, the Sabbath. You have no
right by this rule to fix on any day, and yet every body would be right if
every day was kept. But, you may say, it means we shall have no day for
the Sabbath. It does not read so. It says, “let every man be persuaded in
his own mind,” and if that were the case, what kind of order would there
be in God’s house. I ask if there be a rational being on earth that for a
moment would believe that God ever intended to give the whole human family
such a choice as this, after he had required them to keep the Sabbath day.
No, he is a God of order, and he sanctified and set apart the seventh day
for man and beast. Does not the beast require rest now as much as he did
1900 years ago? Who is to advocate for them, if man does not? The great
mass of professed christians are insisting on the first day for one of
these days, and it is not at all likely that they would ever refer to this
test for this purpose were it not to destroy the idea of a seventh-day
Sabbath. See work on the Sabbath, pp. 11-12. This subject is continued
from the xiiith chapter, where the apostle had been enforcing the
commandments, and one is equally binding as the other, except the fourth,
which is more insisted upon than the rest. This letter is dated Corinthus,
A.D. 60.
Second Pillar For No Sabbath.
Col. ii: 14-17.—“Blotting out the hand writing of ordinances that was
against us; which was contrary to us, taking it out of the way; nailing it
to his cross.” Now Paul says it was the hand-writing of ordinances that
was blotted out. You say it was the Sabbath, because he further says, “Let
no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy
day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of
things to come,” &c. Now I say that the Sabbath of the Lord God is not
included in this text. 1st. Because it never did belong to the
hand-writing of ordinances. 2d. It never is called an ordinance in the
scriptures; it is a commandment. 3d. God’s Sabbath never was taken out of
our way because it was against us. Jesus says it was made for us, (for
man.) Then pray tell me, if you can, why Jesus has taken away from us the
very thing, (the Sabbath) he had said was made for us? You see this is
impossible; but he did take away at the very hour that he yielded up his
life, the ceremonial worship of sacrifice and oblation, because _his_
blood was now shed once for all for the whole world, therefore the
shedding of bullocks blood, here at this hour, ceased forever; see also
Heb. x: 1-10, particularly the 9th verse. The angel Gabriel’s testimony is
directly to this point; Dan. ix: 27. Therefore the mode of worshipping
God, in the law of Moses, ceased forever. But all of this no more affected
God’s code of laws, the ten commandments, than the shining of the sun
would upon the inhabitants of Massachusetts after he had gone down below
the western horizon. The “hand-writing of ordinances” is what Moses wrote
with his hand in a book and put it into the ark with the tables of stone:
which tables were not the hand-writing of either God, or man, but written
by the finger of God. Deut. xxxi: 25-26. Neither can it ever be proved
that God’s law on these tables of stone, was a shadow—it is a substance.
Paul says the things that were nailed to the cross here, were shadows; see
17th verse. Now if the Lord’s Sabbath, the fourth commandment, was taken
out here, and forever erased from the tables of stone—_where is the
evidence?_ Further, if it was a shadow, as you say, would not all the
other nine commandments be shadows too? See if you can make the first and
second ones, shadows; if you can, the worship of idols is just as valid as
the worship of God; and so of the third—where would be the penalty of
taking God’s name in vain, or to steal, or murder, or commit adultery? You
see the idea itself is ridiculous. I know you say the spirit of them is as
binding as ever. I ask how are we to know what the spirit of any thing is,
without the precept (the letter) to guide us? It is impossible for any
human being to know that it is wrong to worship idols and bow down to them
unless it read so in the scriptures. If the apostle has taught it so, he
has quoted from the decalogue. Thus you see the commandments can no more
be abolished than salvation. In the 20-22d verses, Paul further explains,
and says, “Why are ye subject to ordinances which are to perish?” Why
perish? because “they are after the doctrines and commandments of men.”
“Touch not, taste not, handle not.” Now, if these are not the ordinance of
the ceremonial law, the hand-writing of Moses, they are nothing; see also
Eph. ii: 15, and Heb. vii: 16. The holy day, new moon and Sabbath days
were their holy convocation, which, with the new moon and Sabbaths is the
same that is connected with their feasts, as in Rom. xiv, and as
distinctly separate, as I have shown in Lev. xxiii: 3, 38, and Num.
xxviii: 9. Now I say God’s law containing the Sabbath is not even
mentioned here. Their Sabbath days, and not God’s Sabbath days is here
abolished; as Hosea said they should be, ii: 11. It would be far more
reasonable to assert that Paul had abolished all the ordinances in 20-22
verses. But who undertakes to say that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are
abolished here. Nobody. Why? Because neither of them are the hand-writing
of ordinances, but they are equally as much so, and as certainly made for
us as the Sabbath is. Jesus says it was made for man. You say it was made
for the Jews only. Shall the scriptures decide this, “MAN that is born of
a woman is of few days and full of trouble.” “MAN dieth and wasteth away;
yea, MAN giveth up the ghost and where is he—So MAN lieth down and riseth
not till the heavens be no more.”—Job. “And as it is appointed unto MAN
once to die, but after this the judgment.”—Paul. Now just as certain as
the Jews and Gentiles are the “man” alluded to here, just in the same
sense and no other, is he alluded to by Jesus in Mark ii: 27—“The Sabbath
was made for MAN,”—Jew and Gentile, for every living human being.
Therefore it is impossible, yea it is a contradiction of terms to say that
the Sabbath of the Lord God, which was made for man, just as much as the
day of judgment is to judge him, was taken out of his way, because it was
_contrary_ to him, and against him, or that the Sabbath is an ordinance or
a shadow, but all the seven Jewish convocation Sabbaths that were nailed
to the cross, were shadows, as in Heb. x: 1-10. The woman was also made
for man, in the same sense. See how your rule will work here. This letter
is from Rome, A. D. 64.
Third Pillar For No-Sabbath, No-Commandments.
Gal. ii.-vi. chapters. Here we are told that the whole law and
commandments are abolished. I say the man was never yet born that can
prove it. You say “_we want none of your inferences_.” Neither do we want
yours, unless you can back them up by scripture testimony. Paul begins
with the Gospel; in his second chapter he brings up the law of
circumcision, and goes on to show that it is abolished. Just look at the
7th and 8th verses, where he begins his argument, and then 11-14th. His
controversy with Peter respecting this point and eating, meets; then the
16th, 18th and 21st verses show again most clearly that he is contrasting
the Gospel of Christ with this law of meats and circumcision. He now
passes through the 3d chapter, (so much relied on for the abolition of all
_law_,) without intimating any other law whatever. In the 4th chapter, 4th
verse, he says, God sent forth his son, made, or born under the law. What
law? Answer—the law of Moses. There is not an intimation of the law of
commandments here; neither is there an intimation in God’s law, relating
to Jesus, but there is in Moses’. In the 10th verse he begins again, and
says “yea, observe days and months and times and years.” These are the
same feast days that I have been treating of in the two first Pillars,
viz. Rom. xiv. and Col. ii., for when he comes to the 21st verse, he says
again, “tell me ye that desire to be under the _law_, do ye not hear the
law.” What is it? Why, Abraham had two sons, one by his bond maid, Hagar,
the other by Sarah, his wife. These two women represent the two covenants.
Hagar represents mount Sinai, where God gave the first covenant. Hagar
also answers to the present Jerusalem, now in bondage; Sarah represents
the second covenant, (which gives entrance into the) _New_ Jerusalem. See
9.
In the fifth chapter he begins again with circumcision, 2d and 3d verses.
In the 4th verse he says, “Whosoever of you are justified by the _law_ are
fallen from grace.” This is the law of circumcision; see 6th and 11th
verses: “If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution.”
Now see the contrast at the close of his argument. Here is the law of God;
see 14th verse: “For _all_ the law is fulfilled in one word, even this,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This was his very expression to
the Romans, four years previous; see xiii: 9. Here he has cited them to
the second table of stone in God’s law, in respect to their neighbor,
which is alone, the clear meaning; and we are saved by “keeping the
commandments of God and faith of Jesus.”—Rev. xii: 12; xxii: 14. Paul did
not stop to explain about these two covenants, but merely alluded to them
to show the two entirely different modes of worship under the two
dispensations. His letter to the Hebrews six years afterwards, explains,
“Now the first covenant had _ceremonies_ of _divine_ service and a worldly
sanctuary,” ix: 1. Now the covenant ITSELF was in the ark; see 4th verse.
Now these rites and ceremonies which stood in meats and drinks, &c. were
carnal ordinances, a figure for the time then present, until the
reformation, or coming of the new covenant. Not a syllable about the
fourth commandment in 4th verse being a figure, or ordinance or ceremony,
or being done away. Why? Because in the preceding chapter, 6-10th verses,
he shows is the new or second covenant, which was to succeed the first,
and Jesus was to be the mediator of it. Now the first covenant was the ten
commandments, with ceremonies, &c. The second covenant is (_my laws_) the
same ten commandments, (not as before, on tables of stone,) but in our
minds and on our hearts; 10th verse. Connected with this is the testimony
of Jesus Christ—proof, Rev. xii: 17; xix: 10, and xiv: 12. This is the
New, or Gospel Covenant, which Jesus Christ came to confirm. Then all that
was nailed to the cross was the ceremonial law, the Jewish mode of
worshipping God. The first covenant the law of God, is here transcribed
from the tables of stone and placed on our hearts; see Rom. ii: 15: Heb.
viii: 10. This entirely changes the mode of worship, and shows us “without
faith it is impossible to please God.” If the law of God is not the same
in both covenants, with Jew and Gentile, tell me if you can the chapter
and verse for the second, or new law of God. It is the very same that
Jesus had given in Matt. xxii: 39; the last six commandments. Here he
closes this chapter by contrasting the works of the flesh with the fruits
of the spirit, and then in the 6th chapter, 12th, 13th and 15th verses, he
alludes again to circumcision, and says, in 15th verse, “For in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision,” &c.,
showing conclusively that the great burthen of his argument from first to
last, was to abolish circumcision and vindicate God’s law, instead, as you
and your adherents will have it, abolish the commandments in the law. I
say then in the 5th chapter, 14th verse, he has positively taught us that
the law of God was untouched in his argument. Suppose we take his letter
to the Romans, to explain how he sustains this law. “If there be any other
commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.” xiii: 9. “Therefore love is the fulfilling
of the law.” In the first place he is here showing us our duty to our
neighbor, (not to God), 8-10 verses—for he has quoted only five of the
commandments from the second table of stone. Will you say that because he
omitted the fifth one, it is abolished; see his letter to the Ephesians,
four years after this: “Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the
first commandment, with promise,” vi: 2. Now Paul has here quoted from the
tables of stone, and this is proof positive that these six are not
abolished. But because he has not quoted the first four, will you say
_they_ are abolished? If you say they are, then you make void the
Saviour’s words in Matt. xxii: 37, 38; and also Paul’s in the 7th chapter,
12th verse, where he says “the law is holy and the commandments holy, just
and good.” Again, because Jesus, in Matt. v: 19, 21, 27, 33, only quoted
the 3d, 6th and 7th commandments, are the other seven abolished? If so,
how strange that he should add three more, respecting love to our
neighbor, in chapter xix: 18, 19, viz. the 5th, 8th and 9th. And in the
15th chapter quote only one. Further, because he never mentioned the
fourth commandment separately, you would have us believe there is none—he
abolished it. Then, by the same rule he abolished the first, second, and
tenth, for he has not mentioned them. In this case Paul has taught heresy,
for he has mentioned the tenth commandment twice in Romans. Paul nowhere
speaks of the first four commandments, but he quotes the other six. James
only quotes two, the sixth and seventh, for his _perfect royal law of
liberty_, by which man is to be judged; but that we might not
misunderstand that he meant what he said, that it was a _perfect law_,
including the whole ten, he declares that “if we fail with respect to one
precept, we become guilty of all.” Here you, and all of like faith, must
see the fallacy of your reasoning, which is, that because the fourth
commandment has not been distinctly expressed, then there is no Sabbath. I
say, by your rule, it is just as clear that Jesus and Paul never taught us
that we should not worship images, and bow down to idols, for they have
never quoted us the precept. But they both have taught us the whole law
and commandments; see Matt. xxii: 36-40; Luke x: 25-28; Rom. vii: 12; 1st
Cor. vii: 19. The reason, no doubt, why Jesus never quoted the 1st, 2d, 3d
and 4th commandments separately was because he never had occasion to use
them for an argument with his hearers. Now this certainly explains Paul’s
meaning in Gal. v: 14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in
this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That is—this is the law
respecting our duty to one another, as Jesus has taught us in Matt. xxii.
This, then, is the _law_ from the decalogue. Paul says this law is
fulfilled by keeping it, while that which was added to the law (or
covenant) is abolished; see Heb. ix. Then here the law of God is
established, and not, as you say, abolished. This letter is dated at Rome,
A.D. 58.
Fourth And Last Pillar For No-Sabbath, No-Commandments.
2d Cor. iii. Here a host of second advent believers join in with you, and
labor to prove that Paul has certainly and positively abolished the
commandments of God. Yes, one of your old correspondents, G. Needham, of
Albany, has publicly declared to the world that God told him so. Now if I
prove him to have uttered a positive falsehood, I suppose he will still be
considered in good standing, as a second advent lecturer and coadjutor in
carrying forward this work of heresy. If God ever told him any thing about
this text, he did not contradict Paul, who spake by the Holy Ghost. The
principal verses to sustain this heresy, are 7, 8, 11, 13, 14th, “But if
the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious,
so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of
Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away,
how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?... For if
that which is done away is glorious, much more that which remaineth is
glorious.... And as Moses which put a veil over his face, that the
children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is
abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the
same veil, untaken away in the reading of the old testament, which veil is
done away in Christ.” Now every bible student must admit that Paul was
contrasting the ministration of the Jewish nation with that of his own,
the Gospel ministration, (11th v.) under the two dispensations. If Moses’
ministry was glorious, then is the Gospel much more so. Now that which was
to be done away was not the _decalogue itself_, the ten commandments, but
the ministration of it, which was emblematically illustrated by the glory
of Moses’ countenance, which was only for the time being. This clause
refers expressly to the glory of his countenance, and not to the glory of
the law on the tables of stone. So also the clause, “that which is
abolished,” does not refer to the decalogue, but to the ministration of
Moses, including what he writes to the Heb. ix: 9-11, and x: 1-10; see
particularly 9th verse: “He taketh away the first that he may establish
the second.” How? Answer—“I will put my law (the same law of the ten
commandments) in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” viii:
10, 5-9. Again, “we are not without law to God, but under the law to
Christ.” This certainly is the same law and so is the following, “Do we
make void the law through faith? God forbid ye, we _establish_ the law.”
It is impossible for this to be the law of ceremonies in Moses’
ministration, for that was nailed to the cross, certainly twenty-five
years before. Here then it is plain, as in Heb. ix: 4, that the tables of
stone, on which was the whole law of God, remained unmoved, to be written
on our hearts. No other law of God can be found for this purpose. The 14th
verse says, “which veil was done away in Christ.” Again, if the
commandments were done away here, how could those “who teach them be of
great esteem in the reign of heaven;” and how could they teach them
without knowing the words from the decalogue? “The law of grace and the
law of Christ” would darken counsel without knowledge. If the tables of
stone were done away here, where are the commandments referred to so many
times in the new testament for us to keep, and how useless for Christ to
come at the first advent and write them in our hearts, if they were not to
be kept. Now this epistle is dated at Phillippi, A.D. 60; twenty-seven
years after the crucifixion.
The date of the other three Pillars, as stated, are, 1st, Rom. xiv: 5, 6,
Corinthus, A.D. 60. 2d, Col. ii: 14-17, Rome, A.D. 64. 3d, Gal. ii-vi.,
Rome, A.D. 58. Now remember what I stated before, that if the commandments
or Sabbath ever were abolished, the proof is contained in these four
principal texts or Pillars, and it was all done at the crucifixion or
death of Jesus; see Col. ii: 11, “nailing it to the cross,” (in A.D. 33).
Now Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was dated at the same place one
year before his second letter, A.D. 59. Here he says, chapter vii: 19,
“circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the _keeping_
of the _commandments_ of God.” Again, we will now go to the chapter to
which you exultingly point your readers, for the abolition of this same
law and commandments, viz. Rom. vii: 6, “But now we are delivered from the
law,” &c. What law? Answer—the very same that you have had to make your
four Pillars of, viz. the law of Moses, the Jewish ritual. “What shall we
say then, is the law sin?” [You say it is.] Paul says, “God forbid,” and
he quotes the tenth commandment to prove it; 7th verse, and then in the
12th directs us to the whole law of God, thus—“WHEREFORE THE LAW IS HOLY,
AND THE COMMANDMENTS HOLY, JUST AND GOOD.” Now, I say, here is testimony
that all the opposers of God’s law cannot impeach, and it utterly
demolishes and overthrows every idea that has been presented for the last
fifteen hundred years against the whole ten commandments and law of God.
It _nails_ the _point down twenty-seven years_ after the Jewish rites and
ceremonials in the law of Moses were nailed to the cross, as you and all
of your faith say it was, and fully and clearly sustains all the
scriptural arguments herein presented, as in Rom. iii: 31; xiii: 8-10,
same year, and Gal. v: 14, two years before, and Eph. vi: 2, six years
after. You may object to these dates. If they could be altered and carried
back twenty years, it would not help your case, for _without any date_, a
child might know that Paul was not even converted to Christianity until
years after the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross.
You may contradict Paul if you will, and call out all your _professed_
second advent adherents and brethren, (whom you say will not see much of
any difference on this subject after they have examined the _new
testament_,) and they will not in the least strengthen your arguments
unless G. Needham should come _out_ again and publicly declare that God
also told him that Paul’s testimony respecting his law and commandments,
was not to be credited. And this he can as readily establish as he can his
first blasphemous assertion. You might still go on and contradict James’
_perfect, royal law of liberty_, whose testimony is to the same point and
in the same year, and tell John the beloved disciple also, whose testimony
is thirty years beyond James’, that he ought to have called his _old_
commandment, which he received from the FATHER, “which ye have heard from
the _beginning_,” (1st John ii: 7, and 2d epistle, 4-6 verses.) “_The law
of grace._” because that would eventually be the right name that you
should give them in 1847, after you had been designated _one_ of the two
great reformers in the world, to give light on the second coming of
Christ, and so make him and James, who had heard their Lord declare that
he had kept his Father’s commandments; and Luke and Matthew testifying to
his declaration that “the law and the prophets hung upon them,” and that
the teaching and keeping of them would ensure “_great esteem_,” and
“_eternal life in the reign of heaven_,” he would most likely have cited
you to the epistle again, and said, read your _sentence_: “He that saith I
know him and keepeth not his commandment is a LIAR _and the_ TRUTH _is
not_ IN HIM.”
I should not be at all surprised if you called all this _inferential_,
irrelevant _New Testament_ testimony, because your grand object is to
destroy the seventh-day Sabbath. If the Sabbath is not to be found in the
commandments of God, then where is it to be found?
If those to whom I dedicate this work believe that I have proved beyond
controversy that the commandments are valid and still to be kept, as the
Revelation also teaches, xii: 17; xiv: 12; xxii: 14; then they are a
_perfect law_, and cannot fail in one point without risking our salvation.
Then the seventh-day Sabbath is included or the testimony of Jesus and his
Apostle would be false. Again, there is but one Sabbath that was ever
required to be kept, in the bible, and that is
_THE_ SABBATH.
Jesus kept _the_ Sabbath, and when he was giving them the signs of his
coming and the end of the world, he pointed them at least thirty-five
years after his death, to the very same Sabbath. On the 29th of June last,
you replied to J. Gifford’s inquiries on this point, and perverted the
word, and called THE, _their Sabbath_. You also say, “The day before the
resurrection was the Jewish Sabbath, which Christ _kept_ in the tomb. When
that Sabbath ended, the law of types ended, and of course the _typical_
Sabbath ceased—a new dispensation commenced on the first day, which should
be observed in commemoration of the death of Christ, until he come.” Now
look at your _zig-zag_ course. First, that the whole law with the
decalogue was nailed to the cross. But here, to get rid of this brother’s
argument, about the Sabbath being kept the day before the resurrection,
and after the crucifixion, you stretch out the Sabbath in the fourth
commandment about twenty-seven hours, (as long as you wanted it,) and then
put it back with the other nine that died the day before. Here too, you
say, “ended the law types, and of course the typical Sabbath,” and then
about twelve hours after a new dispensation commenced. Your argument looks
like this—the Jewish dispensation ended at the preaching of Christ. Oh no,
it was at his death—where the law of Moses, with the commandments of God,
were _all_ nailed to the cross. But stop again—the Sabbath did not end,
nor the types, until twenty-seven hours after; and finally—come to think
of it—the dispensation did not end until about twelve hours after that,
when Christ arose. Surely J. Turner, with all his mesmeric influence,
could not do much better. How much better to follow Paul in Col. ii: 14,
“blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances (the ceremonial law) and
nailing it to the cross” on Friday, the 14th day of the first month,
“FINISHED” at 3 o’clock, P. M.—John xix: 30; Mark xv: 33, 37. Again, you
say “the Jews were so tenacious about the strict observance of _their_
Sabbath, that they would have prevented the disciples fleeing on that day,
had they made an attempt to do so; hence for their own salvation, Christ
taught his disciples to pray that their flight might not be on that day,
not because it would be wrong to _save their lives_ on that day, which the
Sabbatarian view seems to teach.” In the first place Christ never
intimated a word about _their_ Sabbath; it was THE Sabbath, the same that
he had kept. Your sophistical argument about their flight, &c. &c. touches
not the main point. Christ did here recognize THE Sabbath of the Lord
thirty-five years beyond the time which you say it was abolished. At that
time, if it never did before, as you have it, it belonged as much to the
Gentile as the Jew, unless you make another attempt to stretch out the
Jewish dispensation thirty-five years to cover it. His disciples certainly
kept the Sabbath, the day after his death, and you cannot prove by the
scriptures that the disciples ever held a meeting but once of an evening
on the first day. Therefore you must be very much pushed for a Sabbath, to
continually call that day one, as you do, at the same time reiterating,
“_we want none of your inferences!_” Luke also recognizes THE Sabbath
twenty years beyond the resurrection, and shows that Paul kept it, and the
Gentiles also.—Acts xiii: 42, 44. You attempt to destroy all this proof
too, because you say this was the Jews’ day for worship, and Paul could
get a better hearing. Don’t you see that the Gentiles invited him to
preach to them—they kept the same day, 44th verse. See xvi: 13; here they
are by the river’s side. Paul’s manner was to reason with them on the
Sabbath; see xvii: 2, and xviii: 4, 11. So was it the custom of the
Saviour; Mark vi: 2, and Luke iv: 16, 31. Now if all this is not _New
Testament_ evidence enough for _honest_ believers, in the absence of any
other testimony for an abolition, or change of the Sabbath, then it is
because men would rather pervert the word of God than keep it.
God’s Code of Laws in the New Testament.
“Why do ye transgress the commandments of God.”—Matthew xv: 3.
“What is written in the law, how readest thou?”—Luke x: 26.
“Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments.”—John xv: 10.
“Yea, we establish the law.”—Rom. iii: 31.
“The law is holy and the commandment is holy.”—Rom. vii: 12.
“Not subject to the law of God.”—Rom. viii: 7, also xiii: 8-10.
“But the commandments of God.”—1st Cor. vii: 19; 1st Tim. i: 8.
“For whoever shall keep the whole law,” &c.—James ii: 10.
Moses’ Code of Laws, by Jesus and His Apostles.
“That is written in _their_ law, they hated,” &c.—John xv: 25.
“Justified by the law of Moses.”—Acts xiii: 39.
“It is written in _your_ law, I said, ye are gods?”—John x: 34.
“Have ye not read in the book of Moses.”—Mark xii: 26.
“Judged according to _our_ law.”—Acts xxiv: 6.
“Out of the law of Moses.”—xxvii: 23, and xxi: 20, 22, 24, 28.
“And _your_ law.”—Acts xviii: 15. Paul.
This and much more could be given to show the clear distinction that Jesus
and his Apostles and the Jews always kept up between the law of God and
the law of Moses. This is why so much confusion pervades our minds, when
we read Paul to the Cor., Rom., Gal., and Col. If we carefully read his
letter to the Hebrews, his Jewish brethren, we shall see a clearer
distinction. In the 7th chapter, and first part of the 8th, he describes
the priesthood; the change to Christ in his sanctuary in the heavens, and
then the second covenant, the law of God written on our hearts. 9th
chapter explains the first covenant, with its appendages, and the change.
10th chapter shows that these appendages never could make us perfect. 9th
verse speaks of the change; 16th verse of the law of God again, and the
28th of the law of Moses. These four chapters will give more light
respecting the two codes of laws; how one is abolished, except the types,
and the other established, than all that ever I read from the pens of
these no-commandment professors. May God help us to see the clear light.