A GOOD ARGUMENT,—WELL— “AS IT WERE.”
By J. H. Waggoner
We mean good for some people, and ought to prove very acceptable to that fast-increasing class of religious teachers who argue that the ten commandments were a yoke of bondage, from the galling burden of which we are made free in Christ! The argument to which we refer we find in an old volume of “Oneida Community” publications; and it is an effort to prove the abolition of marriage. The following quotation will give an idea of the whole:— “The abolishment of the marriage system is involved in Paul’s doctrine of the end of ordinances. . . . Paul expressly limits it to life in the flesh. Rom. 7: 2, 3. The assumption, therefore, that believers are dead to the world by the death of Christ (which authorized the abolishment of Jewish ordinances) legitimately makes an end of marriage. Col. 2: 20.” “Marriage stands on the same basis with the Sabbath. Both may be defended, on the ground of the sanction of the decalogue, and of their necessity and usefulness. Both may be assailed, on the ground of their legality and unprofitableness. Both are ‘shadows of good things to come.’ As one day in seven is to a perpetual Sabbath, so marriage in pairs is to the universal marriage of the church of Christ.” “The law of marriage is the same in kind with the Jewish law concerning meats and drinks and holy days, of which Paul said that they were ‘contrary to us, and were taken out of the way, being nailed to the cross.’ Col. 2: 14.” The reader will be struck with the sameness of this argument with that for the abolition of the Sabbath. The remark that “marriage stands on the same basis with the Sabbath,” is true, even as the Bible is true. Both of them date from the creation of the world and of man. They are Heaven’s twin blessings to man, coming37down to us from the wreck of the fall,—marred, it is true, by the fall, as perverted man perverts all the blessings of Heaven, but still, rich with Heaven’s blessing to the race. Both were made “for man,” and both have the sanction of the decalogue to sustain them. And “both may be assailed”—as this writer says—“on the ground of their legality and unprofitableness.” Yes, both; one as much as the other; neither more nor less, and both of them are “against” some people—“contrary to them,” and they rejoice in the thought of their being “taken out of the way.” See Rom. 8: 7. A certain teacher, standing high in his denomination, who urged the abolition of the Sabbath, when pressed on the parallel between marriage and the Sabbath in their origin and nature, evaded the conclusion by saying he was not concerned whether or not marriage is moral! So they go. If all who argue against the ten commandments would openly avow the conclusion to which their argument tends, Oneida would not be large enough to accommodate their representative men; the mass of believers would swell the “community” to a nation. “But,” says the anti-Sabbath proclaimer, “we do not think the moral principle is abolished in the abolition of the law; it is only the precept that is abolished, and we better carry out the principle by observing something more consistent with the spirit and freedom of the gospel.” Just so; that is precisely what Mr. Noyes and the Oneida communists say. The marriage precept of the decalogue is abolished, and they are conforming to a higher law of sexual relations, more in conformity with the unwritten law of their natures, and with the liberty of the gospel. The argument is the same; the conclusion is the same; and we affirm that the tendency is the same. But we have no hope to arrest them in their downward course. The Saviour said, if they will not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead. When men cease to tremble at the word of God, when they reject the authority of his law, no argument will reach their hearts. But we shall not cease to warn those who have not yet thus learned “the depths of Satan.” A terrible denunciation is uttered against commandment breakers in Rev. 14:9-12. This we must “keep before the people,” till all those who can be persuaded to “fear God and keep his commandments” are separated from a guilty world, and prepared for translation at the coming of their Lord. J. H. Waggoner.