Chapter 3

Two kinds of work are specified or inferred in the law of Moses. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” &c. The way this is done, “man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until evening.” This of course includes from the first day to the seventh. Then Sunday is the first working day of the six. This is distinguished _servile_ work, because in Lev. xxiii. chap. and xxviii. and xxix. ch. of Numbers, the Lord’s Sabbath and the Jewish Sabbaths of holy convocations are all brought to view, so that from the 14th day of the first month to the 22d, is the feast of unleavened bread with offerings, and fifty days from the wafe sheaf or resurrection is another. See Lev. xxiii: 16-18, and then from the first day of the 7th month until the 23d of the same, viz. 1st, 10th, 15th and 23d. The eight last days is a continual feast. Now the Sabbath of the Lord God must inevitably be included in this last eight day feast of Tabernacles; once every year, and very frequently on the first and tenth day Sabbaths, and so from the passover feast to the end of unleavened bread, always must include the weekly Sabbath every year; sometimes on a feast day, which John calls “an high day.” Now the order of these Jewish Sabbaths and feasts. God says of them “_every thing upon his day, besides_ the Sabbaths of the Lord,” &c. All the work was to be performed in these feasts, come on what day they did, besides the offerings on the Sabbath of the Lord. Lev. xxiii: 37, 38. Well, what was the work for every weekly Sabbath? See Num. xxviii: 9, and on Sabbath two lambs, besides the daily, which was two more; see 3d v. So we see here were always four lambs, with the meats, &c. offered every seventh day, and sometimes thirty bullocks, rams and lambs; and in all of the Jewish Sabbaths except that on the tenth of the seventh month, it is expressly said “ye shall do no _servile work_ therein.” Now all this was work and labor, but it was ceremonial worship and obedience to God, hence it was not _servile_ work. It is explained in Exo. xii: 16, “No manner of work shall be done save that which every _soul_ must eat. That only may be done.” What will you do with all these commands, Barnabas. Did they not have to go out of their places after God gave them the law from mount Sinai? Did they not assemble for worship? Did they not prepare them food to eat, think ye, after the manna ceased? and did not the Saviour say of his disciples, when reproached for eating corn on the Sabbath day by the Pharisees, that they were guiltless? Was it wrong to take it without leave? See Deut. xxiii: 24, 22. Was not the work of circumcision always going on every weekly Sabbath? Now Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, shows us under the Gospel, where he transposes these ten commandments from the tables of stone, and gives them in our minds and writes them on our hearts; shows us that this work or labor on the Sabbath, were henceforth acts of necessity and mercy, instead of _servile work_ because our mode of worshipping God was entirely changed. Hence Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” John v: 17. See what kind of work, xvii: 4. “Done the will of God, finished his work,” after supper. See also iv: 34, and v: 36. See his good works, x: 25, 32. This then was the work that Jesus and his Father were doing, and for these he is called a notorious Sabbath breaker. Well he is now doing a marvellous work. Hab. i: 5, yet ye will not believe. “It is time for the Lord to work for men have made void thy law.” Psl. cxix.

It does not follow that men shall be put to death now for violating the Sabbath, any more than for violating the first, fifth, seventh, or all the commandments—for the penalty of death follows the violation of every one of the commandments.

1st commandment: “Thou shalt have no other Gods.” See Deut. xiii: 6-10 and Exo. xxii: 20.

2d. “Thou shalt not make any image.” Deut. xiii: 12, 16.

3d. “Thou shalt not profane my name.” Lev. xxiv: 16, 22, 23.

4th. “Remember the Sabbath day.” Num. xv: 32, 33, 36.

5th. “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Lev. xx: 9.

6th. “Thou shalt not kill.” Lev. xxiv: 21 and 17.

7th. “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Lev. xx: 10.

8th. “Thou shalt not steal.” Joshua vii: 20, 21 and 25.

9th. “Thou shalt not witness falsely.” Deut. xix: 16, 17, 19, 21.

10th. “Thou shalt not covet.” Jos. vii: 20, 25.

All of the commandments together. Num. xv: 30, 31; see also Deut. xxviii: 15-67.

If these were all to be enforced now, there would be but a small remnant of the ten hundred millions now living, left upon the earth. If it is proper to enforce the fourth, it is the whole. How clear that all of these death penalties were annulled with the Jewish dispensation.

When Jesus begins to promulgate his Gospel, the stoning system is all broken up; see his admirable sermon on the mount. Matt v: 38-48. “Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,” &c. &c. Here we see that all the followers of Jesus are to be peace men, or non-resistants, an entire change in administering the law. Says Barnabas, this is just what I have been trying to make you believe, that the law, _all_ of the _law_ that the Jews were subject to in their dispensation was abolished under the Gospel, for we are here under the new testament law, (grace). Not quite so fast: Jesus forseeing such kind of teaching as this, placed the commandments of God, (on which hung all the law and the prophets,) on an immovable and fixed foundation and carried the teaching and keeping of them clear into the reign of heaven; and any honest man who is seeking for the truth though he be ever so ignorant in other things, will admit, when he reads the 17-19, 21, 27 and 33d verses in this chapter, the force of this truth. What an idea that Jesus should promise such invaluable blessings to his followers after they become immortal only to mislead and tantalize them. This is the tendency of your no commandment no law system. Why Jesus tells you that the teachings of the bible have no other foundations to stand upon. Well the multitude would not believe him then as you and others will not now. See what confusion and shame they suffered and bore in withering silence from his simple direction about enforcing the old law for the violation of the seventh commandment. Here _she_ is master, “Now Moses in the law, (not God’s code of laws,) commanded that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou?” “Let him that is without sin, cast the first stone at her.” The consequence was that the woman was left without an accuser. Thus for once the whole multitude were convinced that the stoning system for violating the commandments was abolished. See John vii: 3-11. Again, you ask, “What type or part of the law was fulfilled by Christ keeping the seventh day, or in our keeping it?” Answer—“Love is the fulfilling of the law.” “If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love, even as I keep my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” John xv: 10. “This is _my commandment_ that ye love one another as I have loved you.” 12 verse. Again, Jesus says in Matt. xxii: 37-40, where he includes all of the commandments that love to God and love to our neighbor, is the whole law and the prophets, i. e. that this is the substance of the whole ten commandments. The great one on the first table, the second on the second table of stone. Paul tells the Hebrews that the _law_ having a shadow of good things to come cannot make the comers thereunto perfect. This is the _law_ of Moses. The ten commandments, the _law_ which God audibly gave from his own mouth, is the one that Jesus here refers to, and the only one that he kept abiding in his Father’s love. Isaiah says, “He will magnify the law and make it honorable.” You know he dishonored the law of Moses by abolishing sacrifices and offerings altogether, and nailing it to his cross. It appears to me that any child, anxious for the truth, would see this distinction. But no, you seem determined on abolishing the whole. You see that Jesus’ commandment, John xiii: 34; xv: 12, is the very essence of his Father’s and is given exclusively for the church; but his Father’s was, and is for the whole human family, and the fourth contains the Sabbath. Now do you see what Jesus means when he says he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill, and don’t you understand him to, that this law will stand after the heavens and the earth are passed away. Here then is how and where he fulfilled the law, or as you ask to know, a part of the _law_, for in keeping the commandments he certainly kept the Sabbath; see Mark vi: 2, and Luke iv: 16, 31. This, then, is the way we fulfill the law, by keeping the very same seventh-day Sabbath. There is but two codes of laws brought to view here, viz. God’s and Moses’. Don’t you see here he has fulfilled the first and abolished the last. You take this rule with you to your favorite texts, viz. Col. ii: 14-17; 2d Cor. iii, and Gal. ii. and v., where you say the commandments, the law of God, and the Sabbath, are abolished; and you will find the same distinction. God never gave Paul, nor you, nor any one else, any more liberty to preach that _his law_ was abolished in this, or any other way, than he did to preach that there was no salvation for man. Don’t you preach that man should obey the law of God, and when man obeys as Jesus did, don’t he fulfill the _law_? Can you tell how man can fulfill it without obeying the _whole_ law? You say that will bring us into circumcision. How can that be, when he has, as I have just stated, abolished all the ceremonial part of the law of Abraham and Moses. Again, you say, the only reason given in the bible why the Sabbath was ever kept was, that the Israelites might remember that God brought them out of Egypt. Deut. v: 15. Your objection to the answer that was given by C. Stowe, and reiterating the question, as you have the above answered one, and challenging all who desire to be under the law to prove the contrary, in B. A. Dec. 2d, only goes for proof of your ignorance, or wilfull misunderstanding of God’s commandment. If the fourth commandment in Exo. xx: 11, as she quoted and you dissent from it, is not the reason given why we should keep the Sabbath on the seventh day, as directed in the ninth and tenth verses, then it would be impossible to understand the simple word of the Lord. Because God has used the words “command _thee_” to keep the Sabbath, in Deut. v: 15, every other word or form of speech where God requires the keeping of the Sabbath, is made void by you. What is the signification of commands? Is it not to appoint, enjoin, and require by authority? Does it not mean the same as to say “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”—“_Thou shalt not_ labor or do any work on the Sabbath day.” Exo. xx: 8-10. Once more, God says, “Ye shall keep the Sabbath.” Again, “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath—for a perpetual covenant. _For_ in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” xxxi: 14, 16, 17. You see the word command is also used in the 16th verse, for the fifth commandment, and because it is omitted in Exo. xx: 12, according to your rule it is not valid. But it is not so—God speaks as positively and understandingly when he says “_ye shall_,” as when he says “I command you.” Again, you say—“If Christ did not virtually annul the fourth commandment when he began his public ministry, _then the Jews were_ RIGHT IN KILLING HIM AS A NOTORIOUS SABBATH BREAKER. He travelled about and did much work on the Sabbath.”

In your second article you offer as proof Luke iv: 18-20. There certainly is no proof of the law’s being annulled here. You then quote xvi: 16. “The law and the prophets were until John,” &c. This in your whole argument for annulling the fourth commandment. Read the next verse, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail.” Now don’t a law fail when it passes away? Yes. How then can this law fail till heaven and earth passes? This was virtually showing how impossible it would be for one tittle of the law of God to fail. Here Jesus reverts to the seventh commandment, 18th verse, and shows that the law of the decalogue was what he meant. But he does not say that any law was annulled here. If you say that any part of the law of Moses was abolished here, you upset all the foundation that infidelity raises to overthrow the whole law of God. I wonder that all the second advent editors are not out against you, for if this be true they have no more foundation for their no-law and no-commandments of God system to stand upon than many who are hung on the gallows for venturing to practice after such teaching, by violating the eighth and sixth commandment. I am aware that their Judge Advocate, Joseph Marsh of Rochester, N. Y. has filed in his plea, (see Advent Harbinger, Nov. 9th,) that _we_ are under the law of grace, the new testament, and not the law of Moses, which he asserts embraced the ten commandments. Why does not the law of grace save thieves and murderers and liars from the gallows here, and eternal death hereafter. (Rev. xxi: 8.) Answer—because there is no _precept_ by which it can be done out of the law of commandments, which was made for _all men_, Jew and Gentile. How would murderers and robbers understand their sentence, viz. You are to be hung until you are dead for violating the law of the new testament, and may the Lord have mercy on you for violating his law of grace. Stop, says the American, you are bound to show me the precept. I ask where it is to be found if the commandments are abolished? Oh, sir, but you have violated the spirit of them. Well, but do tell me, sir, how I have violated the spirit of a law that you say was abolished and forever done away more than eighteen hundred years ago. I am ignorant, I never professed religion, I do not understand the meaning of grace in the new testament—I pray you, sir, don’t hang an innocent man.

I have already shown what they tell us that their foundation is for the abolition of God’s law; it is in Gal. ii.; Cor. iii, and Col. ii: 14-17. The very day that our Lord was nailed to the cross—(every writer that I remember to have read before on this subject begins at the cross, where Paul directs us to look for the abolition of offerings and oblation, Moses’ ceremonial mode of worship)—but you have attempted, without proof, to show that this was done three years before, and that without a shadow of proof that the fourth commandment, or any of them, was done away.

In this second article, you cite us for the same proof to Col. ii: 8-17. How unfortunate for your argument; first that Christ annulled the _law_, and of course the Sabbath, when he began to preach, according to Luke iv: 18-20, and xvi: 16. And then in another place quote Col. ii: 8-17, for the same point of time. How could Christ annul any law twice. First, at his preaching and second at his death, three and a half years apart. Your argument is groundless and futile; therefore the uncalled for blasphemous language of yours, that the Jews were right in killing him (the Son of God) as a notorious Sabbath breaker, will fall on your guilty head. Hear the proof: “They that forsake the law praise the wicked.—He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his _prayer_ shall be _abomination_.” See also James ii: 10. Once more, the law that Jesus says shall not pass away, &c. Luke xvi: 17, is proved to be the same as in ch. x: 25-28. Jesus says, how readest thou? what is written in the law? He answers by quoting the two great commandments in the law, in Matt. xxii: 36-40—the same as given in ch. v: 17-19, the keeping of which _then_ and _thenceforward_ would make them of great esteem in the reign of heaven. Compare also xix: 16-19 with Luke xviii: 18-20. If Jesus’ promise of eternal life by our keeping the law of—or, and commandments fails us here, then all his new testament teaching, the “law of grace,” so termed, will fail with it.

In conclusion, you call us foolish adventists, and wish to know who has bewitched us? Answer—not the strictly keeping the holy Sabbath and other commandments, but by listening to, or following such unrighteous and deceptive teachings as you set forth. No marvel that you would like to preach it in all the sectarian synagogues in the land, if they would hear you. Fallen Babylon is a more suitable place for such teaching than you will ever find any where else. John describes their condition, Rev. xviii: 2. But I pass. There is but one more remark of yours that I deem worthy of a reply, and I should not most probably have reviewed your articles, only for the defence of God’s law and the suffering little flock, my brethren, who are endeavoring to stand where John, in his vision, saw them at this present hour, viz. In their patient waiting time, “keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

You say, “If a tree may be known by its fruits, we have a woeful tree here. First, _shut door_; next, _seventh-day Sabbath_, or the bondage of the law; next, Oh, it would be a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. God grant them repentance which is unto life.” That we believe in the shut door, and seventh-day Sabbath, is true; that we wash one another’s feet, as Jesus taught, and greet one another as Paul has taught, is true of a great portion of those who keep the Sabbath and believe in the past and present truth. If you mean these, that it be a shame to speak of, we answer that we do it openly and avowedly, and teach and practice the same wherever we go, and prove it clearly by the scriptures. If there is any thing secretly practiced by us, it is as much unknown to the church as it is to you. The days of J. Turner and some other leaders of fanaticism in Maine, I trust, have about all subsided, since they have crawled into the Laodocean state of the church. If you know of any thing that we secretly practice in our worship or service of God, that which is a shame to us, we are not unwilling for you to make it as public as you please. We have no faith nor fellowship for any such thing, neither have we any claim on them.

As the editor of the Bible Advocate and yourself are aiming at the one object, viz. the abolition of God’s holy Sabbath, and the treading down God’s truth seeking children; he is approbating and upholding you in your disguise; we are therefore left to conjecture. From some marks which I have seen under your two coverings, I am very strongly inclined to believe that your real name is Jacob Weston of New Ipswich, N. H. If I am wrong, then what I am about to state will not apply to Barnabas. If I am right in the real character, then I shall discharge _another_ duty by exposing an enemy to both God and man, under the cloak of the apostle Barnabas, and beneath that a sheepskin laced round the body of a WOLF, “speaking great words against the most high, thinking to change times and laws.” Your unrighteous thrusts, to put down and destroy God’s honest children, who are endeavoring to live by every word of God, seems to be in perfect keeping with your wayward, backslidden course. It is you, sir, that have been practising things in secret, which are a shame, and a disgrace, and a stigma upon the cause which you profess. Now lay off that apostolic cloak which you have taken to cover your deformed and deceptive arts. The reason why you have assumed this garb to oppose your opponent, C. Stowe, is to _some_ very obvious. You knew that she was acquainted with some of your ungodly proceedings. You had not forgotten the false promises and pretences which you had resorted to, first, to obtain her money, and then to keep her out of it. After repeated calls for it, you at length sent it to her, stating that the reason why you did not answer her letters, was, because you had not the money, and you did not write her, _because it would subject her to pay the postage_, as _you could not_! and then in an insulting manner to dictate a letter, teaching her how she should write to you.

After this squall had blown over and things had become more settled, a mysterious letter is presented to sister Stowe, signed Lydia B. Weston, setting forth your helpless condition—not actually asking for money, because it would not comport with her severe remark about “_dying first_,”—but to draw still more on her sympathy, it states that her husband had fell and lamed, or sprained his ancle, &c. &c. Sister S., although about forty miles from this scene of suffering and distress, requested a friend and neighbor of yours to ascertain what was needed, and she was ready to assist, notwithstanding all the past. Your house was visited and inquiry made for the lame man, but he was away. “Well, you have heard from Washington?” Your wife. L. B. Weston, replied, “she did not know how?” [Another statement is, “have you heard from Washington?” “No.” “Have you not written to Washington?” (or sister Stowe.) “No.”] The messenger was much surprised! “Well, are you in need of any thing?.” “No, we have all that we need at present!” and she then proceeded to enumerate all the comfortable things she had.

From this it is evident that your wife was an entire stranger to this letter and its contents. Who wrote this forged letter? The capitals, it was said by those who examined it, were J. Weston’s, but the hand-writing was rather finer than his. When you have been told of this your reply has been that sister Stowe _lies_ if she says that I wrote that letter! It is all in vain for you to reiterate such assertions. The question is, where is the person in New Ipswich, whose hand-writing will compare with this letter, and who is so interested in your behalf that they will even contradict your wife, who manages your household affairs; and state falsehoods, and then commit the high crime of FORGERY, by affixing her name to their assertions, to obtain for you what you did not need; and among other things, what could they mean by lying so about your lame leg? If you can find this _daring_, loving, and insultingly magnanimous person in your neighborhood, do, for the sake of the community at large, expose him, and let this sister and others whom you have maligned, have their real name. And then if you go to Nelson again, to preach the doctrine of the second advent by a notice in the Bible Advocate of July 30th, or Aug. 5th, “Squire Hale will not refuse you the use of the meeting house, because of said _forgery_.” And possibly they may then sympathise with you more in respect to your poverty in having but one feather bed in your house, &c. &c., when it is well known that you have three, and other things in proportion.