THAT TERRIBLE ENSLAVING LETTER!!
By Editor
LULING, Texas, June 23, 1893. To Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., Editor of the "Evangel and Sabbath Outlook"—
Dear Brother: . . . I have given much study to the Sabbath question, and my mind has long been fixed on the subject. While admiring the candor and ability displayed by you on your side of the question, I am neither in sympathy with your views nor with those who bank on Sunday as the day for Sabbath observance. I am not willing for any man to "judge me in meat or drink or a Sabbath day." The spirit of the law fulfilled in Christ has released me from the bondage of the letter. I try to do good every day. Yours in Christ, T. C. Greenwood. What a mistake God made when he expressed his laws in words! Words somehow reveal man's obligation to obey, and obedience is such a bondage! "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The "spirit" of that is beautiful, but the "letter"—think of the bondage it forces upon the sinner! If he wants rest he has got to come to Christ, he must submit to the hateful "letter." If it were not for the letter, he might drift along in the "spirit," and come to Plato, or Swedenborg, or himself, and find rest. But Christ said, "Come unto me;" evidently Christ was much like his Father. He had not learned how to dispense with the "letter." He was old-fashioned; indeed, we half suspect he was a "Judaizer." Our correspondent from Texas could have given Christ several good points in the matter of the letter. "Thou shalt not kill." That is a "horrid letter" when a man is mad and has his revolver in his hip pocket and his hand on the revolver. Take the "letter" of that command away, and the angry man could say: "The spirit of that law is all right, but the letter tendeth to bondage. I have no use for it until I get the drop on the man who has insulted me." Men never complain of the "letter" of a law until they want to disobey it. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," is certainly an outrageous bondage and an unwarrantable interference when thrust before the flushed face of lawless lust. When the Scripture speaks of the bondage of the letter, it describes the man who wants to sin, but who is held by the law, as a policeman holds a prisoner. The freedom of the spirit comes when love secures glad obedience to the letter. There is no bondage in the letter when the soul is willing to obey. When it is not, the letter grips with the grasp of a giant.—Evangel and Sabbath Outlook.