REPLY.—I had no previous knowledge of Mr. Bosworth, and consequently was not wrestling with flesh and blood, in the notice I took of his article in the Herald. To the charge of unfairness in quoting from him, I plead, Not guilty. I quoted a large share of his article, and that connectedly; and would be glad if every reader of the Review could see the whole of it. I have not seen the tract he speaks of, but I am not at all surprised that he admits that all the ten commandments are binding. What I mean by creeping around a law, is to profess to keep it, and still evade and violate it. In case of a prohibitory liquor law, the man that sells a cracker for six-pence and gives away a drink of liquor, is no less an enemy to the law, than the man that openly violates it. So the man that professes to keep and teach the law of God entire, and yet labors to subvert it, is, in fact, the worst enemy of the law, and consequently, of Him who gave it. The light on the change of the law by the Man of Sin, shines too clearly for the plea of ignorance to avail. The sins of those in past times, who were ignorant, and really thought they were obeying God, while they were keeping the commandment of the beast, will doubtless be blotted out, but now God commands all men everywhere to keep his Sabbath.
God is now sending forth a special warning against the worship of the beast, declaring in the most positive terms, that if "any man" worship him, he shall drink of the unmixed wrath of God. None will escape the wrath, who turn a deaf ear to the warning. It can benefit no man to try to soften this message. The truth is to be spoken in love, but the truth must be spoken. It can do a sinner no good to flatter him that he can be saved in his sins. Sin is the transgression of the law. And to say that we cannot understand the law, is to charge our sins upon the Law-giver. B. professes to have put his "neck to the yoke" of the law of God, as he understands it. The figure is familiar with me, for I have used oxen. But in case I had put the yoke upon one ox, and the other should come up and put his neck to the yoke as he understood it, with his head in the opposite direction to his fellow, I should certainly require him to turn about and put his neck to the yoke as I understood it. This puts me in mind of Tyndale's translation of Phil. ii, 2. It reads something like this: Fulfill ye my joye, that ye all drawe one waye. But professed observers of the law of God draw opposite ways. The fault is not in the law.
I confess I used some homely expressions in my article, but I presume I was understood. Yet I am willing to take them back. The reader is at liberty to substitute evades, eludes, or avoids by artifice, for "creeps around;" and for "dug up," he may read, created, invented, or discovered. But the charge of sneering I repel; I was serious and in earnest in what I said. And I have reason to be serious; for I verily believe that those who are, under the sound of the Third Angel's Message, opposing the Lord's Sabbath, are laboring hard to lose eternal life. I judge no man; the Lord is our Judge. But I have a right, nay, I am in duty bound, to believe that God will fulfill his threatening against those who choose the commandments of the beast in preference to his own.
I do not concede that the true Sabbath was ever lost to the whole human race since the creation of the world. There is no reason to believe it. As wicked as the world now is, and as willingly as they would lose a day, so that Sunday might become the seventh day of the week, they cannot do it. God established the cycle of seven days at the creation, Noah repeatedly observed it, and Laban and Jacob were not ignorant of it. Neither were the Israelites2when they came out of Egypt, which is proved by the sixteenth of Exodus. In remarking upon this chapter, B. says, "I see one day employed by divine direction, in traveling from Elim to the wilderness of Sin." Very well. "Six days following manna falls." Hold, sir! you do not read that there. We are not informed how many days the manna fell before the Sabbath; hence there is no evidence that the said journey was performed on the Sabbath. The day now called Friday is known in heaven's vocabulary only as "the sixth day." It was so numbered and marked at the creation. And that the sixth day here is the sixth day of the week is certain, because the next day was the Sabbath, which is proved by the language of the fourth commandment, to be the very day on which God rested at creation. So the journey to the wilderness of Sin, might have been performed on the first, second, or third day of the week; and the first fall of manna might have been on the second, third, or fourth day. It was the sixth day of the week, and not the sixth on which manna had fallen, that the people gathered a double portion. No direction had been given to the people to gather a double portion on that day; therefore their doing so proves that they had a previous knowledge of the Sabbath. Moses had been informed that this would take place, but had not communicated it to the people. A difficulty now arose. They had made preparation for the Sabbath, and now they recollected that Moses had been wroth with them that laid up manna over night. In this dilemma the rulers came and laid the case before Moses, to ascertain whether they had done right or wrong. He approved of what they had done, as being agreeable to the word of the Lord. To-morrow, said he, is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. How could to-morrow—a day in the future—be the holy Sabbath unto the Lord? God had, at the creation, hallowed, blest and sanctified the day on which he had rested, and it had come in its regular order ever since. If the day had not been rested upon and made holy before, how could it be the Holy Rest before it had arrived?
On the supposition that God gave Israel, at this time, a "special day," how shall we account for the fact, that he reproved those that went out to gather manna on the seventh day, with, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? They had violated it but once; and though Moses had said, To-morrow is the Sabbath, he had not forbidden their gathering food on that day.
"One fact that seems to have been generally overlooked, deserves, at least, a passing notice. God gave the manna to the people, to prove them, whether they would walk in his law or no. Hence, they were left without any direction to provide for the seventh day. But this they proceeded to do voluntarily on the sixth day. Thus their regard for his law was made manifest. But when some of them went out to gather the manna on the seventh day the pointed rebuke of Jehovah was uttered, though they had not by express precept been forbidden so to do. Thus God, by placing them where they could act freely, proved them and let each manifest what was in his heart."
Such was the language of the Review in 1853, and I am not aware that any writer in this paper has contradicted it, by admitting the necessity of a miracle "to enable the children of Israel to keep the true Sabbath-day." It may have been said, in reply to the plea that time had been lost, that God there pointed out the day by miracles. But to admit that the Israelites were ignorant of the true day, is contrary to the whole record. To them God honored his law which they already knew, and showed them its sacredness, by miracles.
But I am again called upon "to answer to the limitation of the Sabbath." I did not speak directly to this point, in my former article, though called upon to do so, or to "cease to fight against God." The children of Israel were required to "observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant;" and the priesthood of Aaron was to be "an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations." Now if the similarity of language used in reference to the Sabbath and the priesthood, proves that the former runs parallel, and only parallel with the latter, we might introduce similar expressions to prove that the everlasting God is limited, or that he is a God of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles also. Gen. xvii, 7. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. B. will not admit that this text limits God to the Jews and the Jewish dispensation. Other passages prove the reverse. True; and other passages prove that the sons of the stranger may not only join themselves to the Lord, but that they may take hold of his covenant, and keep his Sabbath. Isa. lvi.
It is true, then, that "the priesthood having ceased, the Sabbath must have passed away?" The Sabbath must have passed away??? Do you not "expressly disclaim" in your tract, "that any portion of the ten commandments have been abrogated," but rather contend that "all are binding?" If the Sabbath has passed away, is not the fourth commandment abolished? The fourth commandment is binding, but the Sabbath has passed away. "And now we either have another day marked, or, since the death of the Aaronic priesthood, no Sabbath is binding." What confusion! The ten commandments are all binding; but the Sabbath is certainly passed away, consequently we must have another day, or else no Sabbath is binding! That is, if I understand it rightly, although B. knows that all the ten commandments are binding, yet if he cannot find evidence for the first day, but is forced to give it up, rather than keep the Lord's Sabbath, he will change his position, and say there is none.
But listen! He hears the prophet say, This is the day the Lord hath made. That certainly must mean the first day? But I would ask, when did the Lord make the first day of the week? Before he made the seventh. But the prophet uses the perfect tense which conveys an allusion to the present. The day was but just made when Christ became the head of the corner. That is, the day of salvation, or gospel day, is referred to.
Listen again. The Lord says by the same prophet, I will not alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. The ten commandments certainly went out of his lips. I hear another prophet say that the little horn "shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws!" There is something definite about this. And any one can see that it relates directly to the law of God—that unchangeable moral law, which B. professes to contend for "without any abrogation or revision." It would seem that the unrevised fourth commandment has slipped over upon another day, like some great landslide which carries trees and houses standing upon it, and moves so gently that the inhabitants are not aware of any change, but turns completely about in the descent, so that ever after the sun rises in the west. If the law of God stands upon such a sandy foundation, who knows but that the first commandment now requires us to have no other God but the Pope of Rome? The two are not more distinct, than the seventh day upon which God rested, and the first day on which he commenced his work.
"O Fourth Command! what trouble hast thou been,
Source of vexation to the sons of man!
How have they tugged, and toiled, with various plans,
To break thy power, and shirk thy just demands!
Have chafed and fretted to secure their aim,
And render null and void thy obvious claim!
Vast circuits they through logic's fields have run,
And found themselves at last where they began!
Still thy requirements hold, that we must rest
Upon the seventh day, which God has blest,
His fixed decrees he ne'er will disarrange;
For God can never lie, and never change."
Poor human nature, O how fallen! To justify itself in transgression, it can charge the all-wise and unchangeable Jehovah with follies and enormities that a human legislator would be ashamed to be guilty of; mock and insult him with its inventions to evade his plainly revealed law; and yet fondly hope for salvation through him who bore its transgressions of that law in his own body on the tree, while crucifying him afresh, and putting him to open shame! O my soul! art thou a man? and is this old leaven still in thee? Have mercy upon me, O God! Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. For thou desirest truth in the inward parts.