THE COMMANDMENTS by Eliza H. Morton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 7, 1879

THE COMMANDMENTS.

By Eliza H. Morton

The following extract from Dr. Horatius Bonar’s work, entitled “The Land of Promise,” is fraught with deep meaning; it contains a thread of truth, and teaches a lesson often overlooked by careless readers. In describing an interview with a Samaritan priest, he speaks of an ancient scroll, which he was permitted to examine, and says: “I asked him to unroll it at the place which contains the commandments. I looked for the tenth, and in its place I read, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God on mount Gerizim.’ Ingenious devices of men, bent on bringing the word of God into conformity with their own systems and laws! The Latin needs to erase a commandment from the divine statute book; but in order to achieve this without being caught in the act of felony, he splits the tenth into two, while he blots out the second that the number may still stand ten in his breviary. The Samaritan needs to add a commandment; and that he may do so without making eleven, he joins the first and second! He forms a Bible to suit himself, leaving out or inserting as much as may be convenient,—true representative of the ‘foolish people that dwell in Shechem’ whom the son of Sirach refused to count a nation.”

The writer might have added that the same power that divided the tenth commandment, changed the fourth; and men still have “ingenious devices” and still strive to “bring the word of God into conformity with their own systems and laws.” The prophet Isaiah speaks of the Gentiles who revere God’s ancient Sabbath, and promises them a “name better than of sons and daughters,” even an “everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” We conclude from this that those who refuse to “walk in the old paths” will not be counted as a nation when the Lord God gathereth his people.

ELIZA H. MORTON. Allen’s Corner, Me.