Part 4

That must have been rather a stirring exhortation that you gave the man who called to see you, a short time since; that the Lord was coming in about three weeks. Did you cite him to the Bible Advocate of Dec. 9, and tell him to read the caption that your old friend Timothy Cole had published for you; that the _time for the Lord’s coming was revealed_, and that you felt so impressed with the truth of the above that you could not hold your peace any longer, &c. Well, possibly he did feel the force of the truth, that the Lord would soon come, but it soon vanished from him when you read the note for twenty dollars, in his favor, which he now presented, and which you told him was not negotiable, and that there was no law by which he could collect it. Did you not feel rather singular, for a professed ambassador of Christ, to be told by this man “how strange it appeared to him that _you_ should go and put such a note on to an old woman.” [This is an old lady, partially deranged, who having a little money, finally consented to loan it to him on a note for interest.] It seems you had consulted a lawyer, to know whether it could be collected in her life time for her.

Are you aware of the heinousness of these things? Did you ever read the life of the pious Dr. Dod of England, who was hung for _forgery_; people no doubt liked his preaching. I know a professed minister, who, not many years since, was elected pastor of a church, with but two or three dissenting votes, in a place situated in North latitude 41° 33’, and longitude 70° 53’ W., who was told by one of his members, in a church meeting, that he had committed the high crime of _forgery_, which he did not attempt to deny. The member for daring to utter this and connected things, was suspended from their communion until he should make ample satisfaction. The minister was retained, and a great revival, by his exertions, immediately followed, and numbers were added to _their_ church. So, you see, ministers are not to be known by their great preaching and revivals. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” So, I trust, the second advent believers will know you hereafter. They will also know that God never employed a righteous man to stigmatize and attempt to make void his Sabbath and commandments. That is, and ever has been, the work of “the Devil and his angels.” “Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he reveals his secrets unto his servants, the prophets.” Amos. But “he that turneth away his ear from hearing the _law_, even his prayer shall be abomination.” All men are liable to err and make mistakes, but when persevered in, under disguise, they are to be rebuked.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ADVENT HARBINGER.”

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.