Dialogue at the Gate of Heaven.
By Scripturalist
SHOWING THE BEWILDERMENT OF PROTESTANT SUNDAY-KEEPERS AND ANTI-SABBATARIANS. A few years since, a small tract fell into my hands, entitled, “HOW SIN APPEARS IN HEAVEN.” The author of this tract tells us that in order to know how sin appears there, we must go to that holy place, and carry our sins with us; or, somehow, have them brought and laid before us in that place of infinite holiness and glory. He has taken considerable pains to inform us respecting the road that we must take, to climb through the regions of ethereal space and at last enter the gate of Heaven. He says we must first bring forward some of our grosser crimes, and see how they look there. He particularly names some of these crimes, among which he mentions the transgression of that command which says, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” In reading this sentence, my mind was struck with a very solemn shock, and I was ready to say, Is it the surmise of imagination? or do I actually hear the examination of the author (by the Judge of the universe) on his arrival at the gate of Heaven? Do I not distinctly hear the Judge begin the examination in the following manner? Judge. What do you want here, Mr. Payson? Payson. I want you to open the gate and let me in. P. Yes, sir, I hope so, indeed; I have long been a member of the church, and a preacher of the gospel. J. All that may be, and yet you not be a Christian; did you ever have true repentance of all your sins? J. Well, how have you been living since? have you been living in the same sins that you thought you had repented of? P. I have tried to live as free from sin as I could, but it may be I have missed the point in some things. J. Have you paid any regard to that command that says, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy?” P. Oh! yes; I have been very particular in that; I go to meeting every Sunday, and spend the rest of the day in some religious duties. J. Every Sunday!! what day of the week do you think that is? P. Why, the first, to be sure; the day that Christ rose from the dead. J. Well, what if he did; did that make it the Sabbath? Did you ever read the command that says, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy?” J. Well, what day did that command say was the Sabbath? P. I think the commandment says the seventh day is the Sabbath. J. Why, then, did you not keep the seventh day, as the command directed? P. Why, sir, I was brought up to keep the first day, and it would have been extremely inconvenient for me to keep the seventh day, when all the church where I belong, and almost everybody else, kept the first. J. Did you think it a sufficient excuse for you to disregard my word, because it would subject you to some temporal inconvenience? did you suppose that I could relinquish my law to suit your worldly convenience? P. No, I did not expect you to relinquish your government over men; but I was told, when I was young, that the first day was the Sabbath, and I have always kept it as such. J. Have you been young ever since? have you not had time to read for yourself, and learn from the Bible that no such thing is written in that book? P. Yes, I have read enough to know that no other day is commanded to be kept as the Sabbath but the seventh; but I have been told that the apostles kept the first day, and certainly they would not have done it without some instructions from Christ to that effect. J. Who told you that the apostles kept the first day? P. A great many ministers, and some of the best Christians in the world have said so. J. Well, what if they did say so; did you think their say so was more sacred, and more to be regarded, than my word? How could you be made to believe that the apostles kept the first day, while not a syllable to that effect was to be found in all their writings? If an angel from Heaven had told you so, you had the solemn admonition of St. Paul not to believe it unless it is to be found in the Bible. P. I confess I never could find any warrant for the practice, in the Bible; and I have often wondered how it came about; and have even wished that all the world kept the seventh day, so that I might keep it, too. J. So, then, it seems you would sooner disobey my law, than single yourself out from the rest of the world. Have I not commanded you to come out from among them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean? and that in so doing I would receive you? How, then, could you expect to be received otherwise? P. To tell the plain truth, I thought it was no matter which day I kept, so long as I kept one day in seven as it ought to be kept. J. Do you not see that in this you have acted just as king Saul did when he was commanded to destroy the Amalekites and leave nothing alive? It seems that he thought it was no matter about being so very particular to do just exactly as he was commanded, especially if he sacrificed to the Lord what he did not kill; and can you think that he deviated more from that command than you have from this? And is there any more apparent evil in it? And do you not know how it fared with him? And are you not informed by the apostle that those things were written for our admonition? but how little notice you have taken of it. You ought to have known, by such circumstances, that the law of God could not be bent or twisted. P. But I have heard that time had been lost, so that we could not tell which was the seventh day. J. If that was the case, how did you know which the first day was? That, now, is mere folly. P. Well, I have one thing more to say about it, and that is, I thought that we were not under the law, but under grace; and I think that Paul said so. J. Did you suppose from that that you were absolved from all the obligations of the “royal law?”—(“Law of God”—Syriac.) P. I have always been taught that Paul recognized but one law in his epistles; consequently I supposed that when he said, “Ye are not under the law,” he meant we were absolved from all obligations to it. J. That is true concerning the law which he was speaking of; but who taught you that Paul recognized but one law in his epistles? P. All the ministers I ever heard on subjects of the law took that view of it, and most of the theological works that I have read take the same. J. Well, suppose they did so teach; did you think their teaching was more worthy to be regarded than that of Paul’s? P. I thought it was in harmony with Paul’s teaching. J. How could you think so, when it was impossible for you with such a view to harmonize Paul’s writings? For he emphatically said, in his epistle to the Romans, “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” And again he said, in his epistle to the Galatians, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” Now if Paul recognized but one law in his epistles, did you not see that these two texts could not be harmonized, but that they arrayed Paul against Paul, and made him a teacher of absurdities and contradictions? Was it not? yea, it was, perfectly plain to every candid mind that Paul did teach obligation to the law after “the law of commandments contained in ordinances” was blotted out. And you must know that he said, “By the law is the knowledge of sin;” and, “I delight in the law of God.” And it is perfectly plain that he was speaking of the “ten commandments”—“the law of God,” in Rom. 2:13, saying, “The doers of the law shall be justified;” and in Gal. 5:3, 4, he was speaking of the ordinances of the Jewish church—“the law of commandments contained in ordinances,” having introduced the subject with circumcision. Ah! when men thus plead non-obligation to the law because it is “inconvenient” to keep the “Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” they betray a want of love to God; “for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” And besides, if you thought that Paul had reference to only one law, in his epistles, and that you were absolved from the obligations of even that, because you were under grace, how came you to call on sinners to bring the crime of Sabbath-breaking into Heaven to see how it would look there? Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou hypocrite. Thou knowest that I commanded thee to keep the seventh day; and yet you indulged in disobedience because other folks did so, and because it was more convenient on that account. You ought long ago to have carried this case into Heaven (in thought, at least), and seen how it would look there. In this dark and sinful world, where God is unseen, and almost forgotten, such transgressions appear trivial; but do they appear so to Him who gave this command? do they appear so in Heaven? Be ye assured that no sin can be admitted into his holy place. And if you had read your Bible as you ought, you must have known that the very least deviation from the royal law, is sin; and the least sin, unrepented of, will forever bar the gate of Heaven against you. P. O Lord! what shall I do! I was told, over and over again, that I should not be asked in the day of judgment which day I had kept. I really thought I was going to Heaven, and the very thought of it made me leap with joy when I lay on my death-bed; and my friends which I left behind were comforted with the belief that I had made a happy change. And now here I am in this wretched condition; and what shall I do? J. I advise you to go back and do better, and pray for pardon for what you have done, and tell every one you see that the transgression of the law is sin, and that every one who lives in any known transgression of the law, is a sinner, and cannot be admitted here without repentance; and that repentance includes forsaking, as well as confessing. It is but mere mockery to pretend to confess your transgressions while you intend still to continue in them. Dear reader, however inappropriate or disingenuous these remarks may at first sight appear, I think it will do you no harm to look seriously at the picture, and honestly endeavor to realize how sin appears in Heaven. And should it be the means of stirring up a single sinner to repentance, the author would be amply rewarded.