IS IT CONSISTENT? by A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1878

IS IT CONSISTENT?

By A. S. Hutchins

Not long since, while conversing with an active gospel worker, I raised the question, Do you think the ten commandments are binding at present, as given upon Mount Sinai?

He readily replied, “Certainly I do. There is no drawback on the law; it is all binding.”

I then remarked, This is the ground on which I observe the seventh-day Sabbath.

Pausing a moment, he observed, “Well, that is a point I have not thought much upon.” “But,” continued he, “the holy Christian Sabbath is a blessed day to me.”

By this, said I, I conclude you mean the first day of the week.

“Oh! yes,” was the ready reply.

Pressing the matter a little further, I asked, Have you any commandment for keeping the first day, instead of the seventh?

“I have none,” was his reply.

Now we ask, How can a man who fears God, who believes his word, and teaches others to respect the precepts therein contained, each week disregard the Sabbath of the decalogue, substituting for it the first day, and then frankly admit, as did this man, 1. That the ten commandments are now binding as surely as when proclaimed upon Mount Sinai; and, 2. That there is no commandment for the observance of the first day? Is this consistent either with reason or the word of God?

Oh, that men could see the excellency, the immutability, and perpetuity of the law of God; that they could comprehend the goodness and wisdom of the Most High in giving it to man as a rule of obedience, and his justice in pointing to it as the rule by which we shall be judged in the Judgment of the great day! Oh, that men would cease to trifle with the law of the Lord; that we might each feel as did one anciently, “Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed”! A. S. HUTCHINS.