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The Closing Messages

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 11, 1870

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 35, No. 3.

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The Closing Messages

By R. F. Cottrell

The Closing Messages.—No. 21.

We have learned that those who are tested out from among the worshippers of the last days, by the last message of the gospel, are distinguished by the fact that they keep the ten commandments of God. This unmistakably implies that the others do not. Who are they that do not? The terrible warning of the message implies exceeding danger; and yet all the great bodies of professed Christians, Roman Catholics, as well as Protestants, hold and teach these commandments as the existing law of God. Only a few stragglers and dissenters take the ground that these commandments have been abolished; and these have been driven to it by necessity; having discernment enough to see that they could not reconcile their theory and justify their practice, unless these commandments have been abolished. Still in practice they do not differ in the least from those who hold them binding. Where, then, is the danger, since almost the whole Christian world hold these commandments, and the few who do not, practice the same in all respects with those who do? May we not expect that the Catholic church will constitute the greater part of these commandment-keepers, since they are the largest denomination, for they profess to keep both the commandments and the faith?
“Aye, they profess to keep them, and yet bow down to images, and pictures, instead of worshiping God only.”
They could explain this to their satisfaction, if not to yours, though it is a violation of the letter of the command.
“They deceive themselves, professing to keep the spirit of the law, while they transgress the letter.”
Deception constitutes the great danger so strongly implied in the third angel’s warning. Rev. 13:14; 19:20. And let me ask, Are the Protestant churches keeping the Sabbath of the fourth commandment?
“Certainly; and in this country they are now moving strongly for a better observance of it.”
But do they observe the day mentioned in the commandment—the day of the weekly cycle on which God rested from the work of creation, and which for this reason he blessed and sanctified for man’s observance?
“The essential thing in the command is, that one day in seven should be kept holy; the day of observance has been changed, yet the spirit of the commandment is kept.”
What? A commandment of God been changed? It is a matter of interest to know who changed it. And since every well-read person must know, what the Protestant Episcopal church admits—that there is “no scriptural direction for the change”—is it not possible that the change has been made in violation of the will of God, and to the subversion of his authority as a lawgiver, and to the establishing of the authority of the great antichrist of the present dispensation, which, ruling over the kings of the earth during the dark ages, was truly represented in prophecy as the head of the beast? The essential thing in the law of God, is the very thing the law demands. And when it can be shown that the spirit of the fourth commandment can be kept, while we knowingly disregard and trample under foot the very day which it enjoins us to keep holy, the Papist can as truly prove that he keeps the spirit of the second commandment, while he does the very thing which it forbids. If any are curious to know how Papists do this, they may learn by reading their catechisms, that it is “an inferior honor” which they give to “relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures,” to that which they give to God. But in the case of the Sabbath, the superior honor is given to another day, while the day the commandment enjoins is not honored at all, but degraded to the rank of a common, unsanctified day.
But I do not purpose to discuss the Sabbath question here. Those who wish to investigate it, will be greatly aided by our works on the subject, especially by the “Sermons on the Sabbath and the Law,” recently published at the office of this paper.
Those who will thoroughly investigate the subject can learn that the Sabbath was instituted for the whole human family at the creation, before sin entered into the world; Mark 2:27; Gen. 2:2, 3; that it was known and observed by Israel before the giving of the law at Sinai; Ex. 16; that it was uttered by the voice of God, and written by his own hand in the midst of the moral law—the only complete code of moral precepts in the Bible; Ex. 20:8–11; that the Sabbath commandment itself points us back to its origin at the creation; that it requires the observance of the very day, in its weekly recurrence, on which God rested from his creative work, and for which reason he blessed and sanctified that particular day; that this seventh day and this only is recognized and honored as the Lord’s holy day throughout the Bible; observed by Christ and apostles as a day of religious instruction; Luke 4:16; Acts 17:2; kept by the disciples according to the commandment, after the ceremonial law, being nailed to the cross, was abolished; Luke 23:56; spoken of in prophecy by Christ as existing at the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70; Matt. 24:20; it was a part of that law of which he said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle should in no wise pass from it;” Matt. 5:18; and, finally, after the passing of the present heavens and earth, it is prophesied of in the world to come, the final and everlasting abode of immortal saints. Isa. 66:22, 23.
No other than the seventh day, now called Saturday, was ever called the Sabbath by any writer, inspired or uninspired, for more than five hundred years after Christ. And it was not until the latter part of the sixteenth century that the theory was invented that the Sabbath law does not require the seventh day, but only one day in seven, or a seventh part of time. This discovery was made by Dr. Nicholas Bound, of Norton, England. “With the aid of this theory, Sunday has, since that time, wrapped itself in the authority of the fourth commandment, and challenged the obedience of the world as the actual Sabbath of the Lord.” But nothing is more false and deceptive than this theory. It is the day of the Lord’s Sabbath or rest that we are required to keep. That day is the day on which he rested from his creative work, and no other. It is this day which he blessed and sanctified, because that on it he had rested. Without the day there is no sabbatic institution. The fact that the Lord rested upon the seventh day made it “the Sabbath of the Lord.” And that he blessed the day on which “he had rested,” and sanctified it, thus separating it from all other days, and reserving it from common labor to a sacred use, constituted the same day the Sabbath which “was made for man.” And one might with equal propriety talk of wearing his coat to meeting, and leaving the cloth of which it was made at home, as to talk of keeping the Lord’s Sabbath upon some other day.
On the other commandments, Protestants are agreed. Here lies the great danger implied in the message. But those who “keep the commandments,” will keep “the Sabbath of the Lord.” R. F. COTTRELL.