The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign: 1847 editionBates, Joseph
Religion
The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign: 1847 edition
Bates, Joseph
Sabbath; Seventh-Day Adventists -- Doctrines
is written upon our hearts. viii: 10. This is the same ten
commandments; then instead of being taken away or abolished they are
still nearer to us. See also 3d v of 2d Cor: iii. If Paul was laboring
here to show the abolition of the ten commandments in A. D. 60, (look at
the top of your bible for the date) pray tell me if you can what he
meant by writing to the Romans the very same year and telling them that
"the _law was holy, and the commandments holy, just and good_." That he
meant no other than the _Law_ and _Commandments_ in the decalogue, see
xiii: 8, 9. About four years after this he is exhorting the Ephesians to
the keeping the 5th commandment. He says it is the "first commandment
with promise." vi: 2. The same year that he writes the Romans he dates
his 1st Epistle to the Cor. in ch. vii: 19, and says circumcision is
nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, (what _is_, Paul?) but the
_keeping the commandments of God_. Now all this was certainly more than
twenty-five years after the crucifixion. Is not the proof then positive
and forever established that Paul's preaching is right to the point in
establishing the commandments of God instead of abolishing them? If I
have not made it plain here, I would just say once more, that the
Apostle's argument where he refers to the abolition of the law in Rom.,
Cor., Gall., see v: 14, Eph. and Heb. he always means the carnal
commandments and laws of Moses, and not the commandments of God, as he
has shown. See Acts xxi: 20, 21. Here is circumcision, and the customs,
the _law_ of Moses, and not one breath about the Sabbath. But if you
will trace back to the xviii: 4, 11, you will see that instead of
abolishing THE Sabbath, Paul had just come from Corinth, where he had
been preaching for 78 Sabbaths in succession. O Lord help thy people
[20]to see THESE truths and keep thy law! Still, there are many other
texts relating to the law, presented by the opposite view, to show that
the law respecting the Sabbath is abolished. Let us look at some of
them. But it will be necessary in the first place, to make a clear
distinction between what is commonly called the
MORAL AND CEREMONIAL LAW.
Bro. S. S. Snow, in writing on this subject about one year ago, in the
Jubilee Standard, asks "by what authority this distinction is made." He
says, "neither our Lord or his apostles made any such distinction. When
speaking of the law they never used the terms moral or ceremonial, but
always spake of it as a _whole_, calling it _the_ law," and further
says, "we must have a 'thus saith the Lord' to satisfy us." So I say. I
have no doubt but thousands have stopped here; indeed, it has been to me
the most difficult point to settle in this whole question. Now let us
come to it fairly, and we shall see that the old and new testament
writers have ever kept up the distinction, although it may in some parts
seem to be one code of laws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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