THE LORD'S SABBATH PROVED BY SUNDAY ARGUMENTS.
By G. W. A.
OUR extracts, last week, from Mr. Kingsbury's work, closed where he was answering the objection, “But the moral law, or ten commandments, has been abrogated.” In refutation of that error he continues to meet the point at issue as follows: “John vii, 19: ‘Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?’ Evidently referring to the sixth commandment, the moral law. See also 23d verse, ‘law of Moses,’ which there means the law of circumcision—a part of the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law is frequently called the law of Moses, while the ten commandments are called the law of God, and we know not that they ever were called the law of Moses, unless when referring to the whole Pentateuch. God wrote the moral, Moses the ceremonial law; hence the propriety of this usage to distinguish them—‘the law of God and the law of Moses.’ The Moral Law is also too high to be reached by mortals. No one can destroy, or alter, or abrogate it. See also verse 49: ‘This people who knoweth not the law are cursed,’ i. e., the unbelieving people that followed Jesus. “Some in Paul's day taught that faith made void the law, that the man who believed in Christ was no longer bound by the law. See Rom. iii, 28. ‘Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.’ To this unscriptural conclusion, Paul, in the 31st verse, replies, ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law,’ i. e., the moral law, that law which is in its very nature indestructible, and adapted to the government of moral, accountable creatures, in all ages of the world. No one of the commands can be taken from the decalogue: and the Sabbath is an essential part of it, one of its immutable, natural, as well as moral laws. “The moral law, then, Paul being witness, stands complete in all its parts; established, if possible, more firmly than ever, by what Christ and his apostles have done. Let no man then conclude that he can by any means avoid the claims of the moral law. He cannot do it. It stands, all of it, unrepealed, and will forever so stand. Rom. iv, 15: ‘For where no law is, there is no transgression.’ If the moral law is done away, then there is no sin. In order, then, to determine what is and what is not sinful, we need the whole law. That touches every case of transgression which can be committed against God or man. “Rom. v, 13: ‘But sin is not imputed when there is no law.’” “Rom. vii, 1: ‘Know ye not, brethren, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?’ Now infidels acknowledge that the ceremonial law was done away by the coming of Christ; and they would not wish to have it understood that this quotation referred to the judicial law of the Jews. That would be too strict for them. Hence we know not how they can avoid the conclusion that the passage speaks of the moral law as a whole; and that no part of it has ever been abrogated, nor ever can be. This law, O man, whether you will or not, hath dominion over you. Again, in the third verse, Paul states the conditions which constitute adultery, i. e., that a woman be married to another man during her husband's lifetime; in which case ‘the law’ calls her an adulteress; that is, of course, the moral law. In the sixth verse, the phrase, ‘delivered from the law,’ means, not from obligation to obey it, but that by faith in Christ, we may be delivered from its condemning power.” “The passage in verse 7, ‘Is the law sin? God forbid,’ together with the whole of the apostle's argument in this chapter, amounts to this: The Christian religion, instead of doing away or contradicting the commandments, establishes, and is in exact accordance with them. The law is as holy, just, and good, and as necessary now, as ever it was before the coming of Christ. No part of it is sin, no part unnecessary, no part unjust. “Verse 22: ‘For I delight in the law of God after51the inward man.’ Such is the feeling of that apostle towards the law of God, who has been quoted to prove its abrogation. He still ‘delights in it.’ This holy man, in loving the law, did not love that which he had been instrumental in abolishing. He could not delight in a nonentity. The Christian Sabbath was a part of the law he delighted in. [The reader must decide, from the Scriptures, whether the term ‘Christian’ Sabbath is a proper expression or not. The Bible says nothing about either Jewish or Christian Sabbath, but simply calls it ‘the Sabbath of the Lord.’ And the writer, Mr. Kingsbury, has directly contradicted this idea in the words before quoted, as follows: ‘The Sabbath is not peculiar to any dispensation, patriarchal, Jewish, or Christian. It is older than either, and belongs to the race.’ A.]” “Rom. viii, 7: ‘Law of God,’ i. e., moral law, not the law of Moses; also xiii, 8, 10: ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law.’ Of course, law here means the ten commandments. “Eph. ii, 15: ‘Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.’ This text the objector also thinks supports his position. But, by a careful examination, it is easy to see the apostle's meaning. He is giving to the Ephesians a short view of what Christ has done for them, in breaking down the wall of partition between them and the Jews; that he has brought them nigh by his blood—is their peace; and of the twain, the two classes, has made one new man, in himself, by abolishing in the flesh the enmity, i. e., doing away these ceremonial laws or ordinances, which had been established to keep them separate, and were in the way of their coming together. Thus, by removing the law of commandments, in ordinances, the enmity between Jew and Gentile should, by-and-by, cease. “James ii, 8, 10, shows that the whole law was yet in force. ‘For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ The sixth and seventh commands are mentioned, which shows that it is the ten commandments of which the apostle speaks. “1 John iii, 4: ‘Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law.’ From this, also, it appears that the law, the moral law, is still in force. “Let it be observed that the original institution of the Sabbath, as related in Ex. xx, is not only a moral precept, but is among the immutable natural laws, and can never be abrogated or repealed by any being on earth, or in Heaven, without a change in the divine government, as appears from Christ's own words, and the declaration of the apostle, as before stated. Let the enemies of that institution know that it stands so high that they cannot reach it, is so broad that they cannot span it, and so deep that they cannot fathom it. It was given distinct and apart from the ceremonial laws, written on stone by the finger of God, and held a most prominent and honorable place in the decalogue. It was laid up in the ark with the other immutable, holy, and just precepts, there forever to remain. Christ did not abrogate it, for one jot or tittle of the law, that is, the moral law, could not fail.” Pages 58 and 59 speak plainly of the distinction between the moral and ceremonial law, and of the immutability and eternal perpetuity of the former. “The moral and ceremonial laws God has always kept separate and apart; and, by so doing, shown to his creatures his intention forever to keep them distinct. He wrote the one, and caused Moses, his servant, to write the other. In their natures they differ. Their objects are different, and their effects different. One could be spared from the world before the days of Moses, and since the days of Christ; the other could never be spared from this world, as may clearly be inferred from God's governing his creatures, before the ten commandments were written, by the principles of that law, which, in all probability, were well known to the ancients, though not yet written. Do not these things establish the doctrine, that all men are now under obligation to keep the fourth commandment? Here is a great rule of moral right, which, though the record of it might be burned up and forgotten by man, can never cease to be binding on moral beings. We consider it, in its nature, indestructible—immutable as the throne of Him from whom it emanates. It stands a holy rule between God and man. Through it we see and know God, while we learn our duty to him, ourselves, and to one another. All the law is holy, perfect, essential, and everlasting in its very nature. We should as soon expect the infidel and the deist to succeed, were they to attempt to pull down the throne of the Almighty, as to expect they would succeed in destroying that law, or even rendering one jot or tittle of it liable ever to fail. Let them beware how they lay their polluted hands on so holy and so important an instrument. Their enterprise is as fruitless as it is wicked and malicious, and may bring down, in this life, merited rebuke. It certainly will, if unrepented of, be punished in the next with everlasting destruction. When we attempt to defend the character of this law, it awakens in us feelings similar to those we have when we undertake to defend the character and existence of God. It seems a work of supererogation, and too holy a matter for sinful man to engage in. The law was from eternity. God has written it, and handed it down to men. He holds it out before their eyes. It is himself in perfection; and rather than suffer it to be blotted out, or any of its principles dispensed with, as it relates to rational, accountable creatures, he would dash this world, which he has made, and which he sustains, to atoms—and none could prevent the awful catastrophe.” “This law cannot be lost or abrogated, either by men on earth, or spirits in Heaven or hell. It is forever settled; it cannot be abrogated or lost. No, not even its author—with deference we speak it—can abrogate it, until he change his own nature and the mode of his government. “But he is immutable. Blessed truth! Let it be repeated by all good men in the ears of the ungodly—HE IS IMMUTABLE.” To all of the foregoing the pious heart of every good Sabbath-keeper will readily respond, Amen. And from the extracts given, the reader of the REVIEW must decide whether the statement of our caption—“The Lord's Sabbath proved by Sunday Arguments”—has been sustained or not. In justice to Mr. Kingsbury, however, perhaps we should say that his thoughts on the Sabbath were first published to the world upwards of thirty years since, at a time when the claims of the seventh-day Sabbath were not urged as at the present time. The design of the book is to persuade men to observe Sunday in a more sacred manner. But in doing it, arguments have been used, which, the reader will readily see, completely upset Sunday, and exalt to the heavens the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. How true it is that “truth crushed to earth shall rise again,” and that God often accomplishes this through means least expected. G. W. A.