p. 28 | THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 25, 1866

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone. Deut. iv, 13.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Though the ten commandments were given to the Jews particularly, yet the things contained in them are such as all mankind from the beginning were bound to observe; and therefore under the Mosaic dispensation they, and the tables on which they were engraved, and the ark in which they were put, were distinguished from the rest of God's ordinances by a peculiar regard, as containing the covenant of the Lord. And though the Mosaic dispensation be now at an end, yet concerning these moral precepts of it, our Saviour declares, that “one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.” To comprehend the full extent of these commandments it will be requisite to observe the following rules. Where any sin is forbidden in them, the opposite duty is implicitly enjoined: and where any duty is enjoined, the opposite sin is implicitly forbidden. Where the highest degree of any evil is prohibited, whatever is faulty in the same kind, though in a lower degree, is by consequence prohibited. And where one instance of virtuous behaviour is commanded, every other, that hath the same nature, and the same reason for it, is understood to be commanded too. What we are expected to abstain from, we are expected to avoid, as far as we can, all temptations to it, and occasions of it; and what we are expected to practice, we are expected to use all fit means that may better enable us to practice it. All that we are bound to do ourselves, we are bound on fitting occasions to exhort and assist others to do when it belongs to them; and all that we are bound not to do, we are to tempt nobody else to do, but keep them back from it as much as we have opportunity. The ten commandments, excepting two that required enlargement, are delivered in a few words: which brief manner of speaking hath great majesty in it. But explaining them according to these rules,—which are natural and rational in themselves, favored by ancient Jewish writers, authorized by our blessed Saviour,—we shall find that there is no part of the moral law but may be fitly ranked under them.—Sear's History of the Bible.