INFIDELS AND LAW-ABOLISHERS by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 1, 1879

INFIDELS AND LAW-ABOLISHERS.

By Roswell F. Cottrell

The repetition of the Sabbath commandment in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy is seized as a strong fact both by infidels and those who would have the moral law abolished. The former class proclaim a contradiction between this and the same commandment in Ex. 20; but the latter, it would seem, can never find the commandment as given by the voice of God at Sinai, and engraved by his finger on the tables of stone, but endeavor to prove from Deut. 5 that the deliverance from Egyptian bondage was the reason for instituting the Sabbath; and hence that the Sabbath did not exist from the creation, and is therefore only obligatory upon the Jews. One who reads a whole Bible can see that the creation of the world in six days, and the rest upon the seventh, is the reason for instituting the Sabbath; and that the gracious deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt was only urged as an additional motive that they should “KEEP the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord” had commanded them before, in Ex. 20. See Deut. 5:12. Now both the infidel and he that would abolish the Sabbath of God, can find a refutation of their position on this text in the following extract from Scott’s reply to Payne:—

“The fourth commandment, as it stands in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, varies from the original law in the twentieth chapter of Exodus; hence it is inferred that the writer of these books received his materials from tradition, or invented them himself. But impostors do not admit such apparent inconsistencies, which may at all times be avoided with very little trouble; so that they are rather proofs of the writer’s conscious integrity. In fact, Moses, when delivering a most impressive and pathetic exhortation, did not confine himself to the words which he had recorded as an historian. The people very well knew the original ground for hallowing the Sabbath, in honor of the Creator; and he thought himself at liberty to remind them of their obligation to Jehovah their Redeemer from Egyptian bondage, and of the humanity due to their bond-servants; for this constitutes another important reason for hallowing the Sabbath. Distinct motives are not necessarily inconsistent. Mr. P., in writing his several pamphlets, might aim both to free mankind from vulgar prejudices, and to obtain celebrity for himself; and he might deem it proper on some occasions to insist on the one motive, and in different circumstances to bring forward the other, without being justly chargeable with inconsistency or self-contradiction.”

R. F. COTTRELL.