LETTERS TO AN ANTINOMIAN.—1.
By John Harvey Kellogg
[NOTE.—Some time since, a tract was put into my hands, bearing the title of "The Law of God." The name of the writer was not given, but I was informed who he was. As a writer and speaker he is quite well known, especially in what are called the Western States. The tract was highly valued by his friends, and was recommended as an "unanswerable argument." As no personal considerations induce me to write, I will not use the name of the author. I write not against any individual, but solely to vindicate the most precious and important truth ever committed to man. J. H. W.] DEAR SIR: A tract entitled "The Law of God," written by yourself, has been placed in my hands, and, for several reasons, I choose to address a review of it to you. My long personal acquaintance with you would lead me to speak in the most kind and respectful manner, and this I shall try to do. But the positions which you take in this tract are, in my opinion, so very far from the truth, and the assertions that you make do so great violence to the revealed word of God, that I shall sometimes be compelled to "use great plainness of speech." Personal considerations should have no weight in such a case as this; for the word of God, and the bearing which our use of it has on our eternal interests, are of infinite importance. From the very first paragraph your tract is open to severe criticism. I feel compelled to say, that, as far as its argument and consistency are concerned, it hardly demands extended notice. But in this respect it is about on a level with the writings of all those who oppose the law of God. I cheerfully accord to you all that your friends claim in regard to your ability. You have shown yourself an able and logical advocate of the truth, when you have taken the side of the truth. Having conceded this in your behalf, we are driven to the conclusion that the inconsistencies shown in this tract are the necessary outgrowth of the erroneous theory that you have espoused. For the sake of the truth, for the sake of those who are liable to be misled by fallacies, we are often compelled to review arguments which are not logical and consistent. You start out with strong expressions of aversion to "traditional history of ancient times," and promise to confine yourself to what has been written, mindful that, "secret things belong to God, but what he hath revealed belong to us and to our children." As I read this I thought it a pity that you had not turned to the passage you pretended to quote; then, probably, you would not have mentioned it as you have, and you might have been instructed in regard to its application. This text is for us, and applicable at the present time, or it is not. If it is not, then your quotation is a mistake, and your remark has no force. If it is, then it is unfortunate that you did not quote the whole text, and give your indulgent readers an idea of the revealed object of the revealed things. I believe that its terms prove that it is of perpetual application, and will quote it in full: "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, THAT WE MAY DO ALL THE WORDS OF THIS LAW." Deut. 29:29. Obedience to law—the law of God—is the great object of all revelation; and therefore he who tries to turn the word of God from its object of bringing people to obedience to the law, is a perverter of the Scriptures of truth, and is misleading souls to their ruin. Whether you have been willing to occupy this position, your own words must show. We would fain think better of you than you have shown yourself in this tract. In the same paragraph you remark that "during twenty-five hundred years there was no written law;" that God revealed his will to men as their necessities required. And you say: "Some of these precepts were afterward written by Moses; but most of them remain without record to the present time." I hardly feel qualified to deny your statement; but I marvel that it did not strike you as a most singular method of conforming to "what has been revealed," to make such positive assertions concerning things which "remain without record to the present time." You assume to know that most of the things given to the people in precept were never recorded; but how do you know it? How did you learn that the revelation of God's will to them was so different from that given to us, seeing, as you affirm, that there was no record made of it? Your particular friends may consider your assertion very satisfactory; but others would be gratified to learn of your means of information concerning things which occurred five thousand years ago, which were never recorded. I think we have means of knowing that the precepts given to them necessary to the formation of moral character were identical with those which the Scriptures give to us. Indeed, your strongest argument tends to this conclusion, as I shall show. You assert that the ten commandments are not "the law," but only a part of the law, and, although you do not directly assert it, it is plain to see that you labor to leave the impression on the minds of your readers that more than the ten commandments were written on the tables of stone. If the reader will turn to Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13, and 10:4, he will certainly come to a different conclusion. And you afterward contradict it; on page 10 you speak of the hundreds of commandments "written exclusively in the book;" and on page 17 you say, "The tables never had anything upon them except the ten commandments." Thank you for this admission, not that it is any addition to the proof of the truth; that is clear; but it spoils much of your argument, and saves labor to the reviewer, in showing that the ten commandments are "the law" in distinction from all others. Then you proceed to affirm that there is no distinction of law; that God would have spoken all that he delivered to Moses, if the people had not fled affrighted from his presence. Is this a part of "what is written"? Here, again I regret that you did not inform us where you got your information. I find no hint of such a thing in the Scriptures. That reason could not exist against his writing them all together, if it prevented his speaking them all together. We must bear in mind that he had written the ten commandments on the tables of stone when he called Moses up into the mount. He said: "Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments which I have written." He did not say that he had written "a part of the law," nor yet "a law," as the Authorized Version has it; but "the law," as it is in the original, and as the Revision renders it. The ten commandments are, pre-eminently, the law, and God himself called them so. None of the civil and ceremonial precepts were "the law," in the sense that the ten precepts are. You affirm that "the law of God originated twenty-five hundred years subsequent to creation." This remark is obscure; it may be taken two ways, (1) That it originated twenty-five hundred years after creation, as to or in its various parts. (2) That it then originated as a whole,—as a written, collected code. It is often asserted that the laws were then for the first time codified or digested. If this is what you mean,121then I have to say, that it does not at all contradict the idea that every one of the separate precepts of the law was binding through all the years previous to that time. But if you mean that no part of it existed or was binding until it was given to Israel from Sinai, then you are involved in a twofold difficulty. (1) You contradict "those things that are revealed" in the book of Genesis and in other parts of the Pentateuch; for we learn thence that every item of the ten commandments is known before the time of Moses. (2) You leave the people, during the "twenty-five hundred years from creation," free to blaspheme, to worship false gods, to murder, to commit adultery, and to steal, without incurring any guilt. Do you take this position? If not, to what does your assertion amount? If the various precepts of the law were binding before it was given to Israel, as a code, then your argument has no point whatever. If they were not binding, then these crimes were not crimes in that age; then Enoch could walk with God, and Noah could be righteous before him, and Abraham could be faithful, and each commit every offense forbidden in the decalogue! It is truly a wonder that any are so blind as to think there is any force in your argument. Its strength is in deception—in its obscurities and misstatements. These are not arguments; but they answer their purpose as substitutes for argument, to satisfy the prejudices and quiet the consciences of those who do not "delight in the law of God." But you assume a fearful responsibility in strengthening the prejudices of the carnally minded, and quieting the fears of those who are, to some degree, "convinced of the law as transgressors." In closing this letter, I would remind you that when Paul said, "by the law is the knowledge of sin," and, "sin is not imputed when there is no law," and, "where no law is, there is no transgression" (Rom. 3:20; 4:14; 5:13), he was arguing concerning "the law" given to the Jews, which he identified as the ten commandments. Rom. 2:17-27. And these declarations, with his entire argument, apply as directly to those who lived in the "twenty-five hundred years from creation," as to us who live in this year of grace. Some of them were obedient and just, and some were "wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." I will next show that the strongest foundation you lay for an argument confirms the conclusion I have drawn from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and overthrows all that you have said concerning the law and people in the "twenty-five hundred years from creation."
J. H. W.