Baptist Hymn Book by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1878

Baptist Hymn Book.

By James White

We have made the statement in the SIGNS that one of the fair pages of the Baptist hymn book was devoted entirely to the ten commandments, word for word, just as we find them in the twentieth chapter of the book of Exodus, and as Seventh-day Adventists teach and observe them.

This fact has gone abroad, and probably public notice of it had been made in the vicinity of Vacaville previous to the late discussion. And, strange to tell, the Baptists seeing that this had a bearing on the Sabbath question, have torn the leaf on which was printed the holy law of the great God out of many of their hymn books. But this does not remove it from the Bible. Be it known unto the Baptists that, although with sacrilegious hands they remove the law of God from their hymn book, it still remains in the Bible nevertheless, and it is safely deposited in the ark of God in the most holy place of the sanctuary in Heaven. Over that ark is the mercy seat, before that ark stands the Son of God, our great High Priest, pleading for those who have transgressed that law in the ark.

That holy law, given as a rule of life here, will be brought forth in the great day of Judgment as the rule of judgment there. Know this, O ye Baptists, that the law which ye treat so rudely and Heaven-daringly here, will in the day of Judgment appear as a flaming reality to burn to the very depths of the transgressor's soul like a flame of fire.

The reader will be astonished at this short-sighted action put forth by the Baptists at Vacaville, the seat of their college in California.

But blind men, who have become such by shutting their eyes to the law of God, in their confusion will act strangely. Men will use their best arguments. The best argument the Vacaville Baptists had against the ten commandments, and their shortest way to abolish them, was to tear them from their hymn book.

J. W., in SIGNS.