Controversy over the Law by Dudley Marvin Canright

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 28.

Controversy over the Law.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Concluded.)

BUT Satan did not give it up here. A few centuries afterward he brought all his forces to bear upon another one,—the second commandment. This one, as every one knows, in the clearest and most positive manner forbids the making of any image or likeness of anything in heaven above, or in the earth, or bowing down to it or worshiping it. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." Ex. 20:4, 5.

Probably no precept in all the decalogue received so much attention among the people of Israel as this one. God's wrath against image-worship in every form was proclaimed from heaven time and again, until it would seem that any one with the slightest regard for the word of God, would not try to do any such thing. Yet, strange as it may seem, nearly the whole Christian church was led by the devil into the very thing which this commandment forbids. Images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, Peter, Paul, and thousands of other saints, were set up in all the churches, on the road-side, in private houses, and used in divine service.

Go into a Catholic church to-day, and you will see numbers of the people bowing down before images. This thing went on for more than a thousand years, until the rise of the Reformation under Luther, and other reformers. Then there was a great battle over this commandment, great contention, and much bloodshed; but many came out and took their stand against image-worship.

Take another commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." It would seem to be impossible that men could be led to violate this commandment as a religious duty; to think that they were doing God service while breaking it; but such is the fact to-day. Go out to Mormondom, and there are people numbering thousands who believe it to be one of the most sacred duties to do the very thing that this commandment says they shall not do,—to live in adultery; one man living with several women. The mormon priests have taught their women that it is the will of God that they should do so. Many of these women not only permit, but assist their husbands to take other wives, in order to raise up children for the kingdom, to enhance their glory in Heaven. We lift up our hands in holy horror at the degradation and weakness of these women in thus violating one of the plain commandments of God. But it is simply an old trick of the devil against the law of God.

Take this commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." How many of God's people have been killed by men who thought that they were doing God service? They read that commandment in their sacred worship, and they would rise from their knees, and grasp their swords, and march out to kill God's own saints; and they verily thought they were pleasing God in doing it. You can all see how the devil has blinded men in reference to the law.

Look at another commandment. The fourth commandment says,—and every one knows this,—"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." And yet the church of Christ has been led by Satan to virtually lay aside this commandment and put another in its stead. So now nearly the whole world are openly violating the Sabbath that the Lord has made, and in its place they observe a day that God has never required to be kept. The Sabbath commandment is just as binding as the commandment against image-worship, or murder, or adultery. They all stand in the same catalogue, and were given at the same time. Satan's work against the commandments has not been confined to the fourth, as we have seen, but he has done something to nearly all the ten. Probably if he were to live long enough, he would in some way attack the remaining commandments. Why cannot people see that in working the seventh day they are violating the fourth commandment, just the same as the papists are breaking the second in worshiping images?

Many persons, when all other arguments against the Sabbath fail, fall back upon this, "How can it be possible that God would permit the open violation of the Sabbath for more than a thousand years? How could he allow the whole church, and the best men upon the earth for so long a time to break one of his commandments, and bless them in it?" Taking this same line of argument, how could God permit image-worship? How was it that for over a thousand years God permitted his church almost universally to engage in the worship of images? And yet he did. And the very same thing has been done with the other commandments as we have shown.

We might expect that the last reformation would be a battle over God's commandments; and this is just what we see going forward at the present time, and may God speed it on. When the smoke and dust of the battle shall have cleared away, it will then appear that the heat of the whole struggle has been over that holy and immutable law of Jehovah. Happy is the man who shall be found on the right side.

D. M. CANRIGHT.