The Perpetual Obligation of God’s Law
By Roswell F. Cottrell
DEAR BRO. WHITE: Truth is simple, and its arguments easily understood. But I confess myself utterly incapable of comprehending how that law, which was engraven on stone, was all abolished, and yet mankind be under a perpetual obligation to obey all its precepts except one. The latest and most improved version of this doctrine, that I have heard, is this: "That form of the law, expressed in ten commands, is abolished." But the apostle James quotes two precepts from that dead (?) form, and gives us a rule applicable to "the whole." He shows us that He that spoke one precept, spoke the others; and that he that breaks any one of them, is a transgressor, that is, a sinner. Chap. ii. Again, we are informed [Rev. xi] that when "the seventh angel sounded," "the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament." In the worldly sanctuary the furniture of which was "the patterns of the things in the heavens," [Heb. ix, 23] the ark contained "the tables of the covenant, the ten commandments." Is the ark in heaven empty? How then is it the ark of the covenant? Who will inform us that it contains but nine "lively oracles," [Acts vii, 38] the other being dead? Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Let us seek to God, that our transgressions of that law may be blotted out, now while the High Priest is presenting his own blood before that ark, for the cleansing of the Sanctuary. If our sins are forgiven, let us "go in peace, and sin no more." ROSWELL F. COTTRELL.
Mill Grove, N. Y., Feb. 25th, 1852.