THE MARK OF THE BEAST AND COMMANDMENTS OF GOD
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRESENT TRUTH, No. 20. THE MARK OF THE BEAST AND COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.
HAVING ascertained what constitutes the beast—that it is the Papacy—the next inquiry is concerning his mark and worship. There are but two classes brought to view in the Third Angel's Message; the righteous and the wicked. Their only distinguishing features, as there brought to view, are the mark of the beast on the one hand, and the commandments of God on the other. It appears from the language that those who have the mark of the beast are not keeping the commandments of God, and vice versa. A full investigation of the mark, therefore, will involve the necessity of a previous examination of the commandments of God, to see wherein they differ from the code of morality at the present time enjoined. No question is raised on the first three and six last commandments of the decalogue, by any sensible or pious people. Their intrinsic holiness, perfection, immutability, and perpetuity, are by all such readily acknowledged. The only point wherein the practice of the christian world confessedly differs from the letter of the precept, is in regard to the fourth commandment, which connects with the worship of God, a weekly Rest-day, devoted to purposes of religious devotion. The commandment tells us that the seventh day of each week, is the day that has been set apart for this service. The church of the present day, by precept as well as practice, says that it is the first day of the week which should be devoted to this use. What is the secret of this great change? Has it been accomplished by divine agents, or is it the work of man? Was it designed to be thus by Providence, or is it one of those schemes of the enemy by which he seeks to drown men in destruction and perdition? These are grave questions; but into these the subject naturally resolves itself; and if the first cannot be sustained, the latter must be admitted. Concerning the Sabbath, there are only three questions which need be asked and answered: 1. When was it instituted? 2. For whom was it designed? 3. How long was it to continue? These three queries cover the whole ground; for if we know in regard to any institution, when it was instituted, for whom it was instituted, and how long it was to continue, we know all that need be known concerning it. We know there was at some time a Sabbath instituted. We find it all through the Bible. The commandment which enjoins it is placed in the very bosom of the decalogue, which is sufficiently signified to be a code of laws separate and distinct from all others, from the fact that it alone was uttered by the voice of God, in the hearing of all the people, and it alone was written with his finger on the tables of stone. By the fourth commandment we are pointed to the creation of the world as the time when the Sabbath was instituted; and as we might expect in this case, so we find the history of that institution among the records of the first week of time. We read that God rested the seventh day, and therefore blessed it and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested. Gen. ii, 2, 3. Let the fact be marked here that nothing was done to the seventh day till after God had rested upon it. Then, because he had rested upon it, he set his blessing upon it, and sanctified it, or set it apart for a holy use. The fourth commandment says God blessed the Sabbath day; then it was the Sabbath day when God blessed it. No other time or place can be found for the institution of the Sabbath, but the creation of the world and the garden of Eden. A word now concerning its design. God by the fourth commandment, enjoins the observance of the Sabbath, the seventh day, and gives as the reason for this institution, the fact that in six days he created the heavens and earth, and rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath then is a memorial of creation. Suppose a law should come into existence enjoining the celebration of our national independence, would it not run somewhat after this manner: Let the fourth day of July of each year be spent in demonstrations of public joy, &c., for on the fourth of July in the year 1776, our forefathers declared themselves a free and independent people; and no one would ever think of calling it anything but a memorial. So of the Passover. When the children of the Israelites should ask them what that service meant, they were to explain it by telling them that the Lord passed over their houses when he smote the Egyptians. This was the reason for the institution; this therefore was its memorial. So with the Sabbath. The reason and the only reason given in the fourth commandment for its institution, is the Lord's resting on the last day of the first week of time. Consequently it was instituted as a memorial of that event, and designed to perpetuate in the earth the memory of the true God, the maker of worlds. We hope that these two facts, namely, that the Sabbath was instituted in Eden, and that it is a memorial of creation, will be fully appreciated by every reader. With these established, a good foundation is laid for all future argument on this subject. If the reader is well grounded here, he will be saved from all those foolish notions by which many have suffered themselves to be deceived concerning the wilderness of Sin and the deliverance from Egypt. And to say that the Sabbath is a type of anything connected with the plan of redemption, since it was instituted in Eden before man fell, and consequently before he needed any redemption, is at least, not to multiply epithets, an extreme absurdity. The second question, For whom was it designed? can now hardly furnish ground for controversy. We take it for granted that the reader is satisfied that the Sabbath was instituted at creation. If not, let him not proceed any further till he has so far examined that point as to become satisfied thereon. Then, since the Sabbath was made in Eden and made for Adam, there is no possibility of avoiding the conclusion that it was designed for all his posterity. For who can tell which one of Adam's children would be exempt from a requirement which was obligatory upon their father, or who of his children's children, or of any of his descendants, however remote, would be exempt from it? Adam as he stood at first was the representative of the human race. A severe proof of this is found in the application which God has made of the penalty attached to his personal transgression; and it might as well be claimed that mankind should be released from death, the penalty of Adam's transgression, as from the obligation of a regularly recurring rest-day, the observance of which was Adam's duty. Pass down to the ushering in of this dispensation! Behold the Great Teacher, the Son of God, the Perfect Pattern! We hear him declaring that "the Sabbath, was made for man." There are here no lines drawn; there are no distinctions given; there is no limitation made; the expression is an exceeding broad one, it covers the race—"the Sabbath was made for man." And here we let it stand, satisfied that from the evidence of the commandment itself, the experience of the first Adam and the testimony of the Second, it is sufficiently evident for whom it was designed. Third, how long was it to continue? Still bear in mind that the Sabbath was an institution of Eden and given to man in his perfect state. Now let us inquire, How long would the Sabbath have continued, if man had never fallen? Think of this. And if we can find no limitation to it in this case, as is assuredly the fact, the only question further that can arise, is, Is there anything in the plan of salvation, which, under these circumstances, can limit the existence or the obligations of the Sabbath? There is nothing. Every one can see that there is not; and we may be assured that man by his fall did not become absolved from any obligations which he was under in his perfect state. Christ and his apostles invariably taught the perpetuity of that law of which the Sabbath is a part; and fifty-nine times does the New Testament recognize the seventh day as the Sabbath in, and consequently as the Sabbath of, this dispensation. Such are a few of the general principles involved in this question. And what is the import of all this? Simply that the seventh day of each week, is the Sabbath of the Lord, and must be kept if we would render obedience to the fourth commandment of the decalogue. We see then the significance of that declaration of the Third Angel, "Here are they that keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus;" and we see what must constitute the distinguishing feature of those who do thus keep them; for all christendom acknowledges the validity of every commandment except the fourth, both by precept and in their public walk. Now what constitutes the distinguishing feature of the other class? Whatever does, is the mark of the beast; for they bear that mark, and that stands in contradistinction to the commandments of God.