DEAR BRO. WHITE :—It has pleased the Lord to spare my life, and to give me a portion among the living who can praise his holy name; and I feel thankful for the blessings which I am permitted to enjoy.
The little band in Elmira are strong in the truth, and are striving to grow in grace. May the Lord aid us that we may know the truth, and be sanctified by obeying it.
I do wish that some good brother, that is instructed in the things of the Lord, would locate in this region of country. I believe there are some honest souls about here that would receive the truth if it was presented to them. Here is a large tract of country through which the Second Advent and the truths connected with it, have never been proclaimed. And it seems to me that the people must have an opportunity to hear, whether they will believe or not. And I do pray that the Lord may send some one to these parts that is able to present the present truth in a manner that will glorify his name, and souls be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.
J. C. Bywater, C. F. Sweet have been holding a tent-meeting in this place of late. They were here almost three weeks, and labored hard to make converts. But as to the good they have done remains to be told. My heart was grieved while conversing with one who had been the means, under God, of opening my eyes to see the truth of the near Advent of Jesus Christ; that now denies past experience, and rejects the Sabbath of the Lord our God. While conversing with him on the Sabbath, he stated that it was abolished, and said he thought I could see that it was, by reading the third chapter of Galatians, and urged me to keep one point in my mind, viz: that the added law spoken of in verse nineteen, was the ten commandments, and that they were added to the Abrahamic Covenant, because the people had transgressed it.
Now I cannot say but that any one must come to the conclusion that the commandments are done away if they reason in this manner: but is this a proper course to determine what law is here spoken of, without the aid of the scriptures? How is it possible that the people could transgress the Abrahamic Covenant, when the covenant was between Abraham and God? And Abraham kept the conditions, for God says he did. Gen. xxvi, 5.
As the people could not transgress that covenant, (for as far as they were concerned that covenant was unconditional with them,) then what did they transgress? I answer, the law of God, or the moral principles by which God governs the world. It is admitted that these moral principles were binding upon men before they were given in a statute form from Sinai, so it cannot be these that were added. But we read that the Lord said unto Moses, "So I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. Ex. xix, 9.—And in Chap. xxxii, 1—5 we learn that as Moses was63up in the Mount, and the people got tired of waiting for him to come down out of the Mount, that they gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and required him to make them gods to go before them. And that Aaron did make a golden calf and they (the people) said: "these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." And the people offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
We have the fact stated here, that in less than forty days from the time God gave his law in a statute form, and it would seem before the sound of the voice of the Lord had hardly died away, that the people disobeyed the Lord. From verse seven to the fourteenth we read that the Lord communicated the fact of the people's disobedience to Moses, and commanded him to go down to the people, and threatens to destroy the congregation of the children of Israel, and to make of Moses a great nation. But Moses pleads for the people, and God hears his supplication. From verse fifteen, to the twenty-sixth, we learn that Moses came down from the Mount, saw the people dancing, and the golden calf, and his anger waxed hot, he casts the tables out of his hands and breaks them, goes into the camp and calls all that are on the Lord's side to come to him, and he sets them to slaying the rest. And there fell about three thousand men. In verses thirty to the thirty-third, we read that Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure, I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said: "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, [here let it be remembered, that sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John iii, 4,] and have made them gods of gold, yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
We have now shown that the people did transgress the law of God, and now for the added law. Eze. xx, 10—12. Verse 11. And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. We here learn that God gave the people a law by which they should live, if they obeyed it. The people did not obey this law, and in consequence of their disobedience [verses 13—24] God gave them another law by which they should not live. For we read in verse 25 as follows: "Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." Who is so blind that he cannot see two laws here, and that one is given because the people transgressed the other?—Nehemiah testifies to the same in Chap. ix, 13, 14.—"Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes, and commandments, and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them precepts statutes and laws by the hand of Moses thy servant."
I claim that two laws are brought to view in this scripture. God himself makes known his holy and just law to the people, while the other is made known to the people by the hand of Moses. I now ask, Are not two laws plainly brought to view in this scripture? The law of God was written on tables of stone. This fact none will deny. And God calls it his covenant. Ex. xix, 5; Deut. iv, 12, 13. But the added law was written in a book, [Ex. xxiv, 4, 7,] and was to point the people to Jesus, by its types and shadows, who takes away the sin of the world. The added law also points out the temporal punishment in case of a transgression of the law of God. Ex. xxii, 20; Deut. xiii, 6—10; Lev. xxiv, 15, 16; xx, 10; Ex. xxxi, 14, 15; xxi, 12, 16, 17; xxii, 1; John viii, 3—5.
This law was the ministration of death. It knew no mercy, but now is done away, is abolished.
This law is now abolished or done away, to give place to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Glory to God in the highest. We can go to God and ask the forgiveness of trespasses by a new and living way. O, praise his holy name all ye his saints, for we have an High Priest over the house of God that can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, whom God in mercy hath appointed to make atonement for the transgressions of his holy law. And he is faithful, and will do it, if we confess our transgressions, and forsake them. God bless the remnant, and enable us to depart from all evil, and keep all the commandments.
Though the world, Catholics, Protestants, and nominal Adventists oppose and persecute, let us hold on to the truth, and obey God, for soon Jesus will leave the Sanctuary in heaven. Then the atonement will be made, and all those who have not sought his favor, must take up the lamentation, the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
I have been much edified in reading Bro. J. N. Andrews' Letters to O. R. L. Crozier, and I praise God that he has raised up one that so ably contends for the Sabbath of the Lord our God. May God still give him, and all the dear saints, wisdom and understanding to meet the enemies of truth, and repel them by the sword of the Spirit. Amen.