The Perfect Law by Raymond F. Cottrell

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · Oct 28, 1852

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 3, No. 13.

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The Perfect Law.

By Raymond F. Cottrell

THE Holy Spirit said, by the prophet David, "The law of the Lord is perfect." Ps. xix, 7. I enquire:

1. Can a law which is perfect, be made better by any alteration?

2. Can a perfect law be altered, without rendering it imperfect?

I can answer these questions but one way, and that is in the negative. Then I must come to one of three conclusions:

1. That Jehovah has no law, at the present day, by which he governs his creatures; or,

2. That he now rules by an imperfect law; or,

3. That the same law which existed in the days of David, demands the obedience of all his subjects now.

My mind settles upon the last conclusion, as the truth; not only because it looks the most reasonable, but because the apostle James, who wrote in the sixtieth year of the Christian era, still has a "perfect law," which he wishes his brethren to look into, continue in, and do. "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." James i, 25.

Can there be two laws differing from each other, and each be a perfect rule to govern our actions? If not, James must refer to the same law of which David spoke; and this view is confirmed by what the Apostle says in the next chapter, viz: "If ye fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well." He then proceeds to quote two commandments from the decalogue as a part of that royal law, which he would have fulfilled according to the "scripture" first named, declaring beforehand, that whosoever shall "offend in one, is guilty of all."

I have not a doubt remaining, that the "perfect law" is the ten commandments of God.

R. F. COTTRELL. Mill Grove, N. Y., Oct. 12th, 1852.