Revising the Ten Commandments
To the early Christian church the Scriptural record appealed as the plain, unvarnished history of God's dealings with the human family. Subtly and insidiously Satan has sown through the ages the baneful seed of unbelief and skepticism, and it is reserved to the last generation to see the full fruitage of this terrible harvest. Side by side with the revival of the downtrodden truth of God respecting the claims of the Bible Sabbath, have counter-claims been put forth to meet and parry the plain, positive testimony of the Word of truth. The theory of evolution has done service in casting doubt upon the creation record. In order to evade the claims of the Sabbath truth, many have found pleasure in the wild claims of false science, and the creature rises up and passes judgment upon the works of the Creator. According to the Beaver Valley News, of New Brighton, Pa., Bishop Williams, of the Episcopal district of eastern Michigan, announces himself in favor of revising the ten commandments. The bishop says:— I don't think there is any person nowadays who believes the Lord created heaven and earth in six days, and that is my reason for favoring an abridgment of the fourth commandment. If the American Episcopal Church should take up the matter of abridging the decalogue, I would be in favor of abridging the first, second, third, fourth, and tenth commandments. The others are short enough. When God spoke his law from the blazing peaks of Mount Sinai, and wrote it with his own finger upon tables of stone, the record says, “And he added no more.” The psalmist, speaking of this law, declares that “the law of the Lord is perfect.” Weak, finite, fallible man may seek to juggle with it, may seek to evade its claims and deny its authority, but sometime he must stand before it in judgment. The psalmist says that to the froward man, God will show himself froward. Frowardness does not exist in God or in any of his dealings; but the froward man, judging God by his own standard, thinks he sees frowardness in his works, and believing that he sees this, he judges God by his own judgment and conception. God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Instead of finding fault with his dealings, and seeking to pick flaws in his righteous requirements, let us rather labor to conform our lives to the standard of his Word.