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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · July 23, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 6

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EXTRACTS AND COMMENTS.

By Wm. S. FOOTE

The Independent of May 9, contains an editorial article from which we make the following extract: “Our epitome of theology is short,—consisting simply of the two tables of stone,—love to God, and love to man; but we beg to remind our brethren, that, ‘on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ Since the founder of Christianity thought this simple creed, an amply sufficient statement of Christian doctrine and duty, we have not the hardihood to make any unnecessary additions to this perfect rule of faith and practice.”
Harper’s Magazine of March, 1863, has the following: “A continental bill, issued by the city of New York, Sep. 2, 1775, has on the back a representation of the tables of the decalogue. Over them lies a naked sword; and around them, the significant words, ‘Lex regit arma tuentur,’ or, ‘The law governs, arms defend.’”
Bishop Griswold says: “The Scriptures are in no point more express than this: ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.’ Ps. lxvi, 18. Prayer is a pouring out of the heart; if iniquity be found there, prayer is obstructed; . . . ‘He that turneth away his ear from the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.’ Prov. xxviii, 9. Great reason that God should refuse to hear him, who refuses to hear God. The prevalency of prayer is this, that it is the prayer of a righteous man. Jas. i, 16.”
These witnesses to the perpetuity of the law of God, when making the above assertions, undoubtedly were honest in so doing; but how it could be so when all of them were, and some of them still are, violators of that holy law, is strange indeed; violators of the law which says, “The seventh-day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” the Sabbath “made for man,” Mark ii, 27, “holy of the Lord, honorable.” Isa. lviii, 13. These witnesses (when we compare their theory and practice together) are laboring under a darkness of mind, or do not express their honest sentiments. We think they have never given the subject as thorough an investigation as they are in duty bound to do. Does the law say that the first-day of the week is the “Sabbath of the Lord thy God?”
Wm. S. FOOTE. Pendleton, O.