p. 31 | THE LETTER

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1873

THE LETTER.

“Copy of a letter, written by our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Found 84 miles from Iconium, 65 years after our blessed Saviour’s crucifixion; transmitted from the holy city by a converted Jew, faithfully translated from the original Hebrew copy in the possession of the Lady Cuba’s family, at Mesopotamia. This letter was written by Jesus Christ, and found under a great stone, both round and large, at the foot of the cross, near a village called Mesopotamia—upon that stone was written and engraved:—

“BLESSED IS HE THAT SHALL TURN ME OVER.” All people that saw it prayed to God earnestly, and desired he would make known to them the meaning of this writing, that they might not attempt in vain to turn it over; in the meantime came a little child, and turned it over without help, to the admiration of all the people that stood by; and under this stone was found a letter written by Jesus Christ, which was carried to Iconium and there published, and in it was written the commandments, signed by the angel Gabriel, ninety-eight years after our Saviour’s birth; to which is added King Agbaraus’s letter, and our Saviour’s answer; also his miracles, and a full description of his person in Lentulus’s epistle to the Senate of Rome.

OUR SAVIOUR’S LETTER.

“Whosoever worketh on the Sabbath day shall be cursed. I command you to go to church, and keep the Lord’s day holy, without doing any manner of work. You shall not idly spend your time, in bedecking yourselves with superfluities of costly apparel and vain dresses, for I have ordained it a day of rest. I will have that day kept holy, that your sins may be forgiven you. You shall not break my commandments. Observe and keep them, written with my own hand. Write them in your own hearts; steadfastly observe this. This was written with my own hand, and spoken by my own mouth. You shall not only go to church yourselves, but also your men-servants and your maid-servants, and observe my words, and learn my commandments. You shall finish your labor every Saturday, in the afternoon by six of the clock, at which hour, the preparation of the Sabbath begins. I advise you to fast.. five days in every year, beginning with Good Friday, and to continue the four Fridays immediately following, in remembrance of the five bloody wounds I received for all mankind. You shall diligently and peacefully labor in your respective vocations in which it hath pleased God to call you. You shall love one another with brotherly love, and cause them that are not baptized to come to church and receive the holy sacraments, viz., baptism and the Lord’s supper, and be made members thereof; and in so doing, I will give you long life, and many blessings, and your land shall replenish, and bring forth abundance. I will give you many blessings, and comfort you in great temptations; and surely he that doth the contrary shall be accursed and unprofitable. I will also send hardness of heart upon them, but especially upon hardened and impenitent unbelievers. He that hath not given to the poor shall be unprofitable. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day, for the seventh day I have taken to rest myself. And he that hath a copy of this letter, written with my own hand, and spoken with my own mouth, and keepeth it, without publishing it to others, shall not prosper; but he that publisheth it to others shall be blessed of me; and if their sins be in number as the stars of the sky, and they believe in this, they shall be pardoned; but if they believe not this writing, and my commandments, I will send a plague on them, and consume them, their children, and their cattle.

“And whosoever shall have a copy of this letter, written with my own hand, and keepeth it in their houses, nothing shall hurt them, neither pestilence, lightning, nor thunder shall do them any hurt. And if a woman be with child in labor, and a copy of this letter be about her, and she firmly puts her trust in me she shall be safely delivered. You shall have no news of me but by the Holy Spirit, till the day of Judgment. All prosperity shall be in the house where a copy of this letter shall be found.—Amen.”