Antinomian Self-Violation.
By R. F. Cottrell
It has been truly said that no virgin ever voluntarily became a prostitute, without a sense of violating her own feelings. So we may safely say that no person ever took the broad position that the ten commandments have been abolished, without violating his own reason, and blinding by sophistry his natural sense and conscientious convictions. Such a position is never taken at once; but by a gradual process. Step after step in the downward direction changes the virtuous woman to the unblushing prostitute; and so by degrees the person who once had some reverence for God, comes to the bold position that the code which embodies the eternal principles of his government has been abolished. And it is safe to say that but for the conflicting claims of the two days to the title of the Lord's day, or Sabbath, no Christian would ever have come to the position that the whole code of ten commandments has been done away. In the first place, men find themselves observing the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. But when compelled to give up this position, from the stern fact that the commandment requires the observance of the seventh, and not the first, day of the week, instead of yielding to the plain truth as clearly expressed, they take the position that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was a Jewish institution and has been abolished. But how to get this one commandment out of the very midst of the moral law is the next question, and finding no means of doing it, but by the destruction of the whole code with which it stands connected, the step is taken to declare the whole law, "written and engraven on stone," abolished. A slight step further in this direction would abolish the whole Bible; for when you have taken out of it the only moral code it contains—the sum of every moral principle—there is nothing left worth retaining; the righteous principles of God's government are gone, and in effect, the God of the Bible is abolished. The ten commandments, leaving out the present Sabbath precept, commend themselves to every unperverted mind and conscience, as a rule of right, to regulate our conduct toward God and men. Their righteousness is self-evident; and consequently the presumptive evidence is all in favor of their perpetuity. That mind is certainly perverted that can consent to the abolition of these righteous rules. Enlightened conscience must be violated, whenever the thought of its discontinuance is entertained. No man believes that God has abolished these holy principles. The idea is revolting to every pure and candid mind. How is it then that Christians have come, and are coming, to hold that this law of God has passed away? The only reason that can be given is that the precept enjoining the observance of the seventh day, the day on which God rested from the work of creation, is in the midst of this law; and all attempts to get rid of it having failed and must fail, unless the whole can be set aside. But how came the Sabbath law to occupy this position in the decalogue? God placed it there with his own finger. But it is claimed that it is a ceremonial law, an ordinance of the Jewish church; or by others, of large discriminating powers, that it is partly moral and partly ceremonial. In either case it should be ousted, as being out of place. The primary law of God should be purely moral. God surely had a reason for placing the Sabbath precept in the midst of it. Only one reason can be assigned by any man; and that it is of the same nature and obligation as the other precepts of the same law. Let any one who doubts this assertion give another reason. Every unperverted, unabused mind will acknowledge that there is no reason why God should write the Sabbath in the midst of these moral precepts, but that it is of the same nature of them, and consequently must be of equal obligation and continuance. That man would be pronounced a fool, who would put a decaying stick of timber into a costly and permanent building, one that he knew must be removed in a few years. Will a man charge God with folly? The presumptive evidence is that the Sabbath was placed by the finger of God in the decalogue, because it was of the same nature, obligation, and perpetuity with the rest of the precepts of that confessedly moral and perpetual law. Therefore the conclusion is inevitable that the reason and conscience must be violated, in order to accept of such conclusions. Sin, the transgression of this law of the Most High, hardens the heart, perverts the judgment, and smothers the conscience, by degrees, till one becomes so blinded and seared, that the thoughts and words that would have been shocking to the moral sense at first, are indulged with the utmost complacency. By the violation of ones reason and moral sense, a person soon becomes so callous that the most flagrant crimes and boldest blasphemy seem but a very small thing. And this is the tendency of the doctrine that the ten commandments have been abolished. May the Lord save the reader from abusing the moral sense and reason that God has given, and, in consequence be given over to hardness of heart and a reprobate mind. Those who will honestly try their motives, and yield to the convictions of enlightened conscience, may be saved from such a fate. R. F. COTTRELL.